The Graduates 2013: creation myths and nightmare narratives from Juliana Futter

London College of Communication graduate Juliana Futter is an illustrator par excellence with a penchant for the strange, surreal and the downright filthy. Here at It’s Nice That we have a special place in our hearts reserved for illustration that pushes the boundaries of simple aesthetic pleasantry, and shoves something altogether more challenging into your face – particularly if it’s able to make us laugh at the same time. Juliana has succeeded in doing just that, grabbing our attention as soon as her submission arrived in our inbox with her playful renderings of grotesque religious mythology.

In terms of subject matter Juliana favours the archaic over the contemporary, producing work that’s influenced by ancient creation myths, the Surrealist practice of interpreting dreams and the fabrication of her own personal religious lexicon (it’s based around cosmic eggs). But her image-making is a combination of traditional and contemporary practices, incorporating ceramics, screen-printing and gouache alongside photoshop, illustrator and a website filled with charming gifs. Anyway, that’s probably enough waxing lyrical from us, here’s what Juliana has to say for herself…

Why or who or what made you go to art school?

Art classes were what I always enjoyed most so it was just a natural progression really. I can’t imagine studying anything else!

What’s the best mistake you made when you were studying?

The best, worst mistake I made was that in first year I had a bit too much party time and had to re-submit some work. Honestly there is nothing like the fear of failure and of having to work full-time in the outside world to get a motivational kick in the right direction. 

If you could show your work to one person, who would you choose and what would you show them?

Geeky answer – I’m a little bit obsessed with Doctor Who, and one thing on my life bucket list is to try and intern on the set somewhere somehow. I would love to meet the set/prop designers and convince them to let me paint a dalek or something equally awesome. 

Can you give us one prediction about your work for the next year?

I recently collaborated on some screen-prints with my friend Ruta and really enjoyed the process (and being less precious about making) – so definitely some more collaborative work. I’ve also started making ceramic 3D versions of my illustrations and, really want to explore that area more. So hopefully more 3D experiments, but i’m really up for anything that might come to me!

What’s the best thing you saw in the last three years?

There are so many great things that it’s hard to say what is the “best,” but one of the best things I’ve done for sure was to take a couple of trips to upstate New York – in particular we went camping by Echo Lake near Woodstock. I mostly didn’t sleep because I was told there were bears in the area and I had just seen Grizzly Man (mistake) but all was fine and it was worth it.

Represent

We are very pleased that The It’s Nice That Graduates 2013 is once again being supported by Represent Recruitment who are themselves celebrating being ten years old this summer. The graphic design recruitment specialists have developed a peerless reputation working with designers of all levels and matching them up with the right positions in some of the top agencies around. Represent’s support has helped us grow the Graduates scheme over recent years and we are thrilled they have partnered with us again in 2013.
www.represent.uk.com