Dawn Aquarius is a psychadelic artist, DJ and vintage store owner. Her style and artwork are beautiful and have caught the attention of audiences around the globe. Dawn chatted with AAE about her art and fascination with cultures.
Who are you?
Who are you?
My name is Dawn Aquarius. I'm a freelance illustrator, music maker, DJ, dreamer, drifting on this planet till the next incarnation.
Where is home?
I'm currently living in Los Angeles, CA, but I've called various parts of the United States my home for the past decade. I like the woods as much as the city, mountains as much as deserts... I'd say generally home is wherever I hang my cape. I kind of hope someday my home will be a plot of land in the middle of lots of redwoods in California somewhere.
What's your favourite song at the moment?
I usually have a few rotating favorite songs everyday. Today I obsessed over The Troll- Werewolf and Witchbreath, Mark Radice- Wooden Girl, and The Action- In My Dream
What's your favourite movie?
Again, I'm an indecisive person when it comes to picking favorites, but a few of my favorites are If...., Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Over The Edge, all Godard and Jean Rollin films, Stalker, Sisters, The Tenant, Zardoz, Brain Damage... too many to name probably.
Three important things in your life...
Dreams, Love, and Art. Everything else is just an extension of those three things for me.
What draws you towards the 1960s and 1970s? Do you think that it was a better time?
I'm actually probably more drawn to the 60s in general culturally, mostly because I think a lot of the things that the 70s were trying to capitalize on (rock n roll, film, rebellion) were much more genuinely expressed in the 60s. I don't by any means think that the 1960s were the best era- there was great inequality, Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis where we almost nuked the planet, so much violence... But the harsh conditions in the United States in particular caused younger generations to question the intentions of their elders running the country, and that spawned the whole flower-child/youth-in-revolt counterculture and subsequent drop-out culture. And I'm absolutely drawn to all of the art, music and movies that were made as a result of that revolutionary moment in time.
How do you integrate the '60s and '70s into your lifestyle?
I don't know if I ever consciously integrated any decade into my lifestyle... I'm sort of a culture junkie - I have been since I was a teenager. I tend to relate most to people through the things that they make, since I've always been very introverted, and I'm obsessed with all art forms, but the '60s in particular have provided me with the deepest well from which to draw. I think it's all integrated in my mind, too. Life, the way I dress, the way I speak, art is sort-of an expression of all of the things jumbling around in my brain. Kind of like using your mind as a juicer, if that makes any sense, like distilling the essence of everything you experience, see, hear.
What inspires your work? What is your creative process?
I'm inspired by almost everything. It's either by something I read, watched, heard, or a conversation I had. The same things that all artists are inspired by, I guess. Love inspires me, both romantic and compassionate. I always think of my work as mostly spontaneous and inconsistent in its genesis. I basically only make art if it comes to me - I'll never force it unless I have a commission deadline. My personal work never really has an incubation period. If I have an idea, it's a compulsion to get it down on paper as soon as possible. Thankfully, I work from home, so I truly have the benefit of being able to do that most of the time. I usually sketch something out very fast, then fine tune it meticulously till it looks almost the same as the end result, then I ink it. I often use a computer in the very last stage of my process, just to drop-click colors into places. I don't know how to vector or anything fancy like that. Plus, I like the natural look of pen lines, even when they're shaky or imperfect, or my pen bleeds. It doesn't need to be perfect.
How did you begin to create your work? How did it develop from there?
I've been making art since I could grasp a pencil, so I guess I don't totally recall the birth of my creative process, but it has evolved over the years. I've always been a pen-n-paper kind of artist, or paint-n-canvas when I painted more often. I attended art school in my late teens/early 20s, and was shuffled by the administration between the Fine Arts and Illustration departments, because they had no idea exactly what to do with me. I was also encouraged to streamline my style into something more palatable for the general population. Needless to say, I struggled against that for years and eventually dropped out. I've sort-of embraced my particular style and idiosyncratic methods and somehow have managed to keep it together while maintaining rapport with the many lovely people who commission me and keep my life afloat.
What are you favourite pieces that you have made?
I don't think I have any favorites. Most of the time once I've drawn something, I don't really think about it again. I did draw a Zodiac series for my friend Sasha's shop Astral Weekend, which I'm happy with (you can purchase them here).
Follow Dawn on Instagram (@dawn_aquarius) to see more of her work.
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