We were lucky to catch up with Matvei Lisitsa recently and have shared our conversation below.
Matvei, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?
Yes, I’m absolutely happy to have a creative profession. I really enjoy working in design and art, creating something new is always so exhilarating. I have had experience with “regular” jobs related to sales and promoting various brands. Personally, for me, a creative profession is definitely what brings me joy. As an artist or designer, you often solve tasks, but not along a well-trodden path, but based on knowledge gained through experience and your creative thinking, which is unique and creative for each artist. Creativity, even if it can turn into routine, is still something new and unusual every time, distinct from past experiences.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My creative journey began in early childhood. I always loved drawing, things that inspired me, people, animals, and with each passing year, I enjoyed challenging myself in my drawings. I remember at around ten years old, I would go to a friend’s house and watch in awe as his sister, who was three or four years older than us, would draw portraits. That’s when I set a goal for myself – to learn how to draw portraits. I searched for photos of my favorite celebrities and would redraw them. At first, it didn’t turn out exactly as I expected, but I didn’t give up. I would pick a new photo, look at the previous drawing, analyze what I needed to work on, like the nose, for example. And it worked. I was just a kid at the time, didn’t know the details of human anatomy, but I tried to explore everything intuitively, and it helped create good drawings. With each drawing, the next portrait got better. I’m sharing this because now I understand how it influenced my approach to creativity and work in adult life, and it might be helpful for people who want to start their creative journey. You don’t always need to study theory, because creativity is analysis, analyzing the world around us through the eyes of artists.
As I got into my teens, I realized that besides creativity, there was nothing else that interested me as much. So, I definitely decided to apply to an art college. I enrolled in the College of Design and Decorative Arts at the Moscow State Academy of Arts and Industry S.G. Stroganov, specializing in Art-Design. The education lasted for four years, where we studied the basics of painting and design. Towards the end of our studies, we were designing projects for exhibition spaces and coming up with ideas to enhance the urban environment.
Even during my studies, when I was 18, my brother and I started a business creating unique gift portraits. At that time, I had to juggle studying with work. Since it was a unique product, I had to handle all stages of portrait production from creation to transferring onto canvas independently. After testing the product, we did trial sales through Instagram, and the portraits started to sell. It was inspiring. The first few months were quite challenging since it was just the two of us, we didn’t have a team. But soon, everything changed. We rented an office, assembled a team. My brother handled the marketing side of the business, and I took on the creative and production aspects, becoming something like a creative director. I designed the website, put together a team of artists, managed the company’s branding, and ensured the quality of the product. I also supervised the quality of photoshoots and video shoots for promotional campaigns and designed promotional materials. It was a great experience, from which I learned a lot, from design to the basics of entrepreneurship. The business is still running successfully and will soon be 10 years old. The total number of followers on our two main Instagram accounts is approaching almost 400,000.
As the business became more autonomous, I didn’t need to be so hands-on. I had more free time. Thanks to this, many experiments began in my life. I worked as a freelance graphic designer, tried my hand at entrepreneurship, and learned a lot. In recent years, I’ve worked as a senior designer in advertising and creative agencies, creating storyboards for TV commercials, banners for billboards, and brand identities for various major brands.
Currently, I’m vigorously developing in concept art. It’s very inspiring. For example, when it comes to concept art for film, you need to know things like camera lenses, the basics of composition specific to cinema, and the fundamentals of storytelling through visual elements. Besides that, you need to be a designer and a very skilled artist. It’s a vast and fascinating field. I’m currently involved in an upcoming American film project as an Art Director. Our team is carefully working on the source material and exploring various options for the final visualization of these characters. It’s a complex but interesting process. Since we’re currently in the era of post-modernism and primarily reinterpreting everything that has been created by humanity over the past centuries, sometimes it seems like everything that can be thought of has already been done. This makes the tasks more challenging and forces you to seek inspiration in the most diverse things, down to the shapes of seashells and leaves. It teaches you to look at everything from different angles.
Looking back, I realize that all my past experiences and approach to creativity have led me to what I’m truly happy doing. I’ve always loved cinema and viewed it as something magical. It’s wonderful that in our time, artists are not confined by narrow boundaries. Artists and designers are needed almost everywhere, and I genuinely believe that creativity makes our world better.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
An interesting question. I grew up in Moscow, and my early years were in the 2000s, a time when there was no established design code in the country. The city was filled with homemade signs and advertisements that were clearly not created by professionals. Combined with the gray panel buildings, it often evoked a sense that artists were not needed in this society. I remember those childhood emotions vividly. Perhaps many people who grew up in Eastern Europe during that time can relate. However, over time, many things started changing for the better. Businesses began to turn to designers more often, urban spaces were designed with a contemporary approach to environmental design, and this gave me hope.
The best thing society can do is to break free from stereotypes, expand its thinking, and embrace fresh perspectives. But it’s equally important for the art community itself to participate actively. We should share our experiences and help young, aspiring artists in their development. I’m genuinely pleased to see that with each passing year, there’s a growing demand for creative individuals, and more and more sectors are turning to artists and designers for their expertise.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most valuable thing that the artistic profession gives me is the constant need to learn. I’m 26 years old now, and I still keep learning, always returning to the basics of painting, composition, color, and light, or learning new software, which sometimes becomes outdated and gets updated within a year. I dedicate a lot of time to observation, watching movies, and studying works of art by the classics. An artist is a perpetual student, and there is no limit to it. But the most beneficial aspect of this is that you are constantly evolving and seeing things you might have missed, because in our world, there is an endless amount of beautiful and interesting things, and that is truly inspiring. In connection with this, I want to give a small piece of advice: don’t limit yourself, don’t be afraid that you don’t know enough, keep creating and learning, in a way that’s most comfortable for you, and then you’ll always feel valuable and useful.
Contact Info:
- Website: matthewfox.art
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- Other: Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/matthewfoxart Behance: https://www.behance.net/matthewfox_art