Aurlia Durand

0:00 Now finding a unique style and tone of voice as an illustrator is always a real challenge, particularly when so much incredible work is there for all to see on social media. Yet Aurelia Durand has managed to develop a visual style that is at once recognizable and varied. She grew up in Paris and on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean and has always celebrated inclusion and diversity. Today she builds these values into her illustration practice championing equal representation. I'm delighted to say that Aurelia is our first speaker at Nice Tuesdays online this February. Hello Aurelia could you please turn on your mic so we can say hi. Hello.

0:36 Hi Aurelia. Lovely to see you. How are you? Yeah I'm fine and new you seem good. I'm alright thanks yeah very well. Just wanted to say the best background I think I've ever seen that is super colorful and yeah looks amazing. Yeah right.

0:51 Now I am in my studio in Paris so yeah. I have a wall so whenever I have a call they see my work. The best advert of your work you could do. Excellent. Exactly. Aurelia I'm gonna hand over to you now. So that you can go through your talk but I'll be back in around 10 minutes to ask you some questions and everyone in the audience just remember if you do have any questions for Aurelia pop them in the chat alongside your stream and yeah I'll do my best to get around to it in our time afterwards.

1:28 Over to you Aurelia. Hey everyone so my name is Aurelia Durand I am French and I've been doing all of this artwork you're seeing here. I've been an illustrator for about like four years now so here an introduction of my work. So because we don't have so much time I'm just getting here but my work is various. I do I work with different mediums like digital illustrations, animations, erosopans, I draw, I do augmented reality. I like my work to be yeah I like to use different mediums and tell different stories through other mediums. So here you see me I'm in Africa and so I grew up in a family with different cultural backgrounds. My father is French and my mom is Avarian so this is my inspiration also in my work where I come from and and I want to tell that through my work.

3:03 So I grew up in the 90s and all of my inspiration still today is the lunitons, Disney, I don't know, Cartoon Network, Crash, Sims. So it's colorful, it's pop and it's yeah something I've always seen and that has that had an influence on me. Especially also like pop music, hip hop, R&B, a lot of Afro-Americans were my idols because it was only people, black people I could see that were doing crazy stuff because in France I didn't see that much role models.

3:53 So you see and so I studied the arts and design in France and this is like some artists that have studied their work and that still inspire me today. Yawa Kusama, Olafur Eliasson, David La Chapelle, Damian Hirst, Morakami, Jean Nouvel, all of this it's very various like it's arts, it's architecture, it's drawings, it's sculptures, design, objects, photography but all of this it's a big inspiration for me. I like the various ideas and during my studies I went to Copenhagen, the great Copenhagen and I stayed there after I got my master and I decided just to stay because I love the design but the the most known designers are the most colorful like Vernon Panton. It's colorful, it's during the 70s and the shapes and the design it's an inspiration for me, I really like that.

5:13 So that's also why I went to Copenhagen but then I realized it was great but I think I also like the aesthetic, the minimalism of the Scandinavian design and yeah stayed there for eight years. And it's where my adventure as my artistic journey started because I felt lonely and I wanted to and I felt the winters were long and dark and I needed colors and I needed to reconnect with my culture so I started to draw, I started to draw, I used a little bit of colors but I liked the expressions and the dance, the community, you can see that here it was my first drawings and then.

6:13 I started to use more color and then I wanted to make an exhibition in Copenhagen like a joyful protest with text, with colors and to contrast the colors I used black figures and I wanted to be here to catch the eye of people. And then.

6:32 I also wanted to start to do something else, I wanted to do animations. I used animation as a way to also communicate the joy through the movement and I published all my work on Instagram and it's where things started to, I mean I started to have like from 500 photos to 10,000 photos in about two months and people were talking about me. And I got more and more jobs, something more serious.

7:14 And then it's how things started by posting and by being me and showing my authenticity, my story, people liked it. And it went out of the internet, I traveled, I met people.

7:30 And that's by willing to reconnect with my roots, I connected with so many people around the world, more animations. And I worked with so many brands, it's been three years, I've been working with big brands before I was doing jobs here and here. And I was starting to build my portfolio, obviously everything you saw before, it's no jobs, it's just me creating a portfolio, more, more, more like and I had a job beside, I was doing babysitting, I was working in a hotel but I knew I wanted to do that.

8:29 So I had to do produce a lot and share and then bam, everyone wanted to work with me, I did this, Apple, Google, even Banksy bought two arts of mine so it went like crazy, suddenly like it's a huge crazy journey, then.

8:45 I also wanted to develop more create more diversity in the skin colors. And the first big job was to draw, to illustrate a book, at the time I was just starting up, I had some little jobs but then I published, they contacted me and they saw my work, all of the joyful potates you saw and they were like oh we like your work, we have an idea, we want to write a book about this book is anti-racist and we found an author, can you do that? And I was like yeah, I mean if I can do a book I should continue, something bigger will become but you know to write a book next time it took six months and then after it was published and during like five months it was okay and then suddenly June 2020 when it was the Black Lives Matter movement the book became huge, like we saw 200,000 books, people wanted to learn and I mean this book is approachable because there is colors, joy and at the same time you learn about how to be an anti-racist and it's accessible so it's not only for teenagers but for everyone, we have to start from the bottom, what it is, how can we act, how we do you know.

10:36 And that's what the book is. Some interior illustration from the book because so it went, it was a success so we made also a journal where. There is more exercise to take action.

10:59 And then last year another book came out, this book is feminist, it was written by another author, Jamia Wilson, it was very cool to work on this project too about how the variety of feminism and you know if there is not only one but there is many and there is many stories to be heard, listened to from the past, from the present, from in the future.

11:41 So I worked also with Google on showing more diversity so I created a series of wallpapers, wallpapers, wallpapers with Facebook, I created stickers to promote the black joy and the black businesses to support.

12:04 I worked with Facebook, made some animation, I worked with Amazon on bringing more diversity and showing all of the women who work at Amazon, they were actually doing a great job and just to tell their story and they're from all around the world.

12:26 So I had to portray 30 women who live in different places, it was cool.

12:37 I worked with Apple for the International Women's Day.

12:57 I also did some illustrations that were placed in a star, a night star in Paris, on the carpet, on the pillows, on the walls and also a screen, I made an animation.

13:26 I worked with the New York Times, I created 30 dancers for the whole month of October 2020, so every day, dancers were published in the newspaper. I had to do them in black and white so it was also a challenge to create joy without the color, so I used patterns and the expressions of the body, it was very cool to do this.

14:17 I also worked, I made an illustration that was placed in Paris during last year, it was a campaign to promote the life that after the lockdown everything would be great, happy to bring some good vibes because it was a time where everything was closed and the billboards were not even used so the idea was just to spread joy around the city and we were 10 artists selected to do this project.

14:47 I also do some projects for myself, I like to paint, I like to create, do stuff outside of all of the commission work so to stimulate my creativity. In my studio I paint, I do some exhibitions too with our artists in Paris, it's cool to connect with our artists and to meet up and you know the community is very important because being an illustrator is a lonely job.

15:30 So I really enjoy to meet people, to travel and have inspiration from meeting people.

15:36 I also made a wall in Paris and then. I had the idea to animate the characters from the wall with the augmented reality.

15:53 I did some of the projects with Adobe Iroh which is an app where you can create scenes with your computer and iPhone or iPad and you know work in the street or in the room and see you work around.

16:41 This is the application I use to create the scene so I animated each character you see and then. I just drop them inside the software and create the scene, create an ambience and I also asked to make special music for that so every music you've been listening to were composed especially for my art some notes but most of them yes. And that's it.

17:22 Thanks so much Aurelia that was absolutely amazing and such a great insight into your career and how much you've done over the years it's really amazing. We've had some fantastic questions come through from our audience so I'm going to dive straight into those and both Joseph and I think Jessica have asked a similar question which is how do you create your animations? What techniques do you use?

17:56 So I used an Adobe Illustrator and then also Adobe Illustrator to create the frame by frames and then I export them inside After Effects and in After Effects I create like the smoothness, the fruity and I bring some effects. Amazing and Joseph's kind of had a secondary question to that which is did the animations have a direct impact on the recognition you've gained? Do you really sense that you know the animations on top of the illustration work that you were already doing has been the thing. That's gained you increased recognition?

18:34 I think yes because there's not that many illustrators that can animate and people really enjoy it too you know you have the illustrations and then you see something moving you know like I created myself so I bring some deepness to my work you know like something more you know like and also some attitude some you know like you're inside the universe that is moving and that is almost real you know I create a sound I create a movement I think that is special but I think I think the style is also just an illustration I think the illustration also has been the success also of my work I think. Yeah absolutely you definitely had plenty of recognition before the animation work as well and you had that really clear style as well which is fantastic. Thanks for talking us through kind of what programs and software you use I think both on the illustration and the animation side.

19:41 Juliana has asked oh sorry did you have one thing about the illustrator I use Adobe Illustrator with my computer not I don't work with iPad I work with my computer and the graphic tablet you know just showing this is a work home yeah that's how I work. Great that's really good to know a question for me then is kind of how I guess how have you found the transition from illustration to animation because I think it is as you pointed out something that lots of illustrators want to do they want to kind of build that skill set but how easy have you found it how hard have you found it to do that transition I guess from a technical standpoint. In the beginning I was just I was having fun as I said a lot of my work we've seen in the beginning were for me.

20:30 So I was also having fun you know like I enjoyed this moment I wanted just like wow I can do that you know.

20:44 So I am I had fun to animate dancers I think that is the most complicated thing so once I know how to do that then I know how to do everything you know.

20:51 So I you know it's by doing that I practiced and now I can I can draw someone walking I can draw someone just like cutting stuff or I can do more you know but and I never studied animation before you know everything I learned by myself by doing but for fun you know because I didn't think oh it would be serious you know just like having fun the most important and then just trying out and developing a movement developing a style I think because what we see and maybe the difference between me and an animator that learned animation is that I'm it's still craft for me you know it's not perfect but there is a charm you know it's not as small as a 3d animation and people see that you know.

21:46 There is this authenticity into because I get a lot of jokes for animation but why do they pick me I'm not an animator like I mean I am but I'm not specifically I do I cannot do crazy stuff but then it's because of this charm of this thing that is not perfect that people like it exactly yeah.

22:18 I think people can see the kind of the human hand involved in it which is so lovely I guess one thing that we've had a question through from Juliana about is did you ever have an agent or was it only through Instagram that you've received all your commissions so in the beginning I was looking for an agent you know then.

22:33 I was knocking at the door and everybody was like no so I said ah but you don't want then I will I will try myself so I will I will publish and I will I will be my own agent you know I will just talk I will publish things online and go to events talk to people you know do the work that. And then.

22:56 I think the thing is very important that it's cool to have agents but they are also to make money you know.

23:06 And if you're not making money yourself then they don't especially want to go with you maybe they see your talent and then they want to follow you you know but most of the time they they also want to see that you can do it you know that you're worth to spend time to find jobs for you because they want to be sure you're professional and you do the work you know so you have to prove yourself to the agents before absolutely maybe we could just squeeze one last question in I'm sorry we're not going to get through all of them but Stephanie has asked where do you find inspiration for your for your color palette or where did you find inspiration for your color palette so as I showed you in the beginning the 90s you know it's one of the biggest inspiration for me the colors and also the African colors you know like when you look at the textile they use I don't know it's yeah it's it's I cannot explain it's just sometimes just coming to me.

24:24 But I think 90s 80s like bright colors and I try to mix that to the new yeah to now you know like to the modern times great oh really thank you so much I'm afraid I'm sorry we haven't got through everyone's questions but we're gonna have to leave it there. And we're slightly running out of time but thank you so much for joining us this evening yes thank you you