Today we are proud to present the drawings and the art of a new pink snout’s friend Fredster who has appeared previously in a post with his video “Fredster’s Disorder“. We have asked him an interview to know him better and this his the result of our conversation.
THEPINKNSOUT: Hi Fredster we only know that you are a dj, illustrator & graphic designer but could you tell us a bit about yourself, your personality and your background?
FREDSTER: I’m always embarrassed to talk about myself but I’d say I’m a French fag, I create images and I’m addicted to music (Antony and the Johnsons, Current 93, Nina Simone, Kate Bush…). I’m a little introverted and socially shy but working on it!
I grew up in a small town in the North of France, I studied Arts in Belgium and then moved to Paris. I now live in Nantes, a great laid-back city near the West coast, not far from the ocean.
I split my time between my Art director job in a communication agency and my personal art activities.
I used to DJ and organize queer parties but that’s over now and I prefer to focus on my art projects…
TPS: We have named the pink snout as a new global disorder and in the past we have published your “Fredster’s disorder” video and we have started to love your works. How do you resonate with the term queer and with the term disorder?
F: Queer, well it’s family. Most of my friends are queer on some level, and the ones who aren’t are at least queer in spirit. This is the world I love and live in, away from binary gender identification, and I think you can see that in a lot of my work.
Disorder is similar in the way that it’s originally a negative world, but that we make our own and turn it into a positive notion. Balance and order are not very stimulating. Disorder means change. Also, when I started using this word for my queer parties (Mascara Disorder), I was making a direct reference to Joy Division.
TPS: You always seemed to be interested in Illustration and drawings. What attracted you to it and how did you even start working as a illustrator? is this your main activity?
F: I’ve always drawn a lot, since I was a kid. I’ve always felt it was the most natural and easy way to express myself.
Today, I’m not considering myself as an illustrator, because I’m not able to illustrate on demand, and that’s why I prefer to just say that I’m a drawer, or that I create images. Also this is not my job, my job is being a graphic designer, and I do my art on the side (even if I’m devoting a lot of time and passion to it) to express my personal views, concepts, feelings and ideas.
TPS: How do you come up with ideas for a new drawing? Have you models that poses for you or do you take inspiration from photos or other ?
F: I’m constantly browsing images on the internet and I spend a lot of time on Tumblr and many other sites. It’s almost an obsession. Then I have ideas, themes, for series that I want to work on, and so when I see a picture that relates to one of these ideas, whether it’s a specific position or just colors or landscapes, I collect it, and at some point, later, I’ll start drawing and mixing all these images. Sometimes I also use pictures that I took myself at queer parties, pictures of my friends, or when I’m more advanced in a series I can ask people to model for me.
I’m also very inspired by music and the titles for my drawings often come from lyrics.
TPS: Sexuality and homoerotism is making a strong appearance in your works. What made you focus on it? What do you want your viewers to take away from your work?
F: It’s a game of hide-and-seek. I use “homoerotic” images to question masculinity and gender identities. But actually I never found my drawings sexual or even erotic: they might contain sexuality but it’s always something else too, something dark, or tender, or poetic.
If the viewers can see that, then I couldn’t be happier, but if they just think it’s hot, then that’s great too!
TPS: Is there something autobiographical in your illustrations?
F: Some of my series are 100% autobiographical. Fredster’s Disorder, for instance, is about a time when my love life was a mess and about how my perspective on love was shifting.
But of course all my work is autobiographical on some level, and I’m often “hiding” self-portraits, objects from my childhood or other personal references in my drawings.
TPS: What next projects are you working on? Are you planning future videos or animations?
F: I’m not into animation at the moment. Right now I’m focussing on two projects: the first one is colorful, with watercolor and marker drawings, and is about gay male culture haunted by outdated heterosexual masculine stereotypes; the other one is a new project where I’m drawing on net fabric, and it’s about how masculinity is fragile and blurry.
TPS: Thanks Fredster for your kind interview. Give a special regard to the pink snout readers
F: Hey pink snout readers, thank you for reading my clumsy answers, I hope to see you on Tumblr!
https://www.mixcloud.com/fredster_disorder/listens/
https://www.facebook.com/frdstr
[mixcloud https://www.mixcloud.com/fredster_disorder/the-haunted-air/ width=660 height=208 hide_cover=1 hide_tracklist=1]
