Inside the warm and fuzzy animated world of Juan R Lage

It can be difficult to find your ‘style’ as an illustrator or animator. It might be something intangible that even you haven’t noticed about your work, a kind of visual language that outsiders pin down for you. Or, it might simply just be one continuous line of discovery. Underneath a distinct cartoon-like aesthetic and the soft fuzzy grain of his work, animator Juan R Lage’s practice is “an exploration of movement’s plasticity”. Naturally he is drawn to subjects like: “the circus, exaggerated love, ghosts, the monstrous, the tender, fantasy, the psychedelic, and everyday objects that conceal a universe of meanings – like toys and films.”

Working frame by frame, the animator likes mixing things up, weaving together different techniques and experimenting across formats. Although he often creates work digitally, his process usually begins as more traditional drawings, before they transition into the colour-filled rhythms of his fuzzy animations. The creative process itself is where the animator “finds the magic”, in this blending of abstract experiments and animated character developments, “where figurative elements meet the unpredictable”.

Juan has been exploring animation since 2017. After studying film and audiovisual arts, he was initially drawn to live-action filmmaking but gradually shifted toward experiment with frame-by-frame video art and 2D character design. “Through this process I was able to develop my own unique style,” he says, helped along by a whole array of inspirations. “Guiding me along the path were figures like David Lynch, Maya Deren, Jan Švankmajer, along with Rocko’s Modern Life, Peanuts, The Powerpuff Girls, Wile E. Coyote, the Road Runner, and Hello Kitty… I’m also a big admirer of the Teletubbies.”