Recently I sat down with San Francisco-based artist Johnny Quan to ask a few questions about art and the library. Quan has had his work showcased in a number of different areas outside of graphic literature. These areas include independent films, fashion, and video games. He also teaches art and illustration to K-12 students as well as adults, and is a DJ with a focus on post-punk genre. Here is what he had to tell us.

What’s your background?

I earned my MFA in illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco at the end of 2013, and have since been jumping between different kinds of illustrative and art projects. I've been privately teaching art to K-12 students and some adults too for the last 3.5 years.

Why do you do what you do?

I've been drawing since I was a kid. It undoubtedly started with my late grand uncle, who I was very close to and who regularly bought me Batman and X-Men comic books I devoured. Even if it's not visual art, creating something is always on my mind. I'm a very introverted person, and think art is just the best way to articulate myself openly and purely. 

What work do you most enjoying doing?

I'm typically attracted to projects with a narrative aspect (like books and film). There are often limitations I have to work within, and it's like solving a puzzle. Similarly, I also love drawing comics, but they require patience, diligence, and a steady commitment, so you gotta like the story! 

What themes do you pursue?

I'm drawn to horror, fantastical whimsy, and dream-like surrealism—all themes that push the limits of the imagination beyond reason. You'll often see elements of these in my personal imaginative work, sometimes blended together. I try to tap into and exercise my subconscious. I know some people are turned off by narratives that don't have a seeming sense of logic, but I think irrationality is a part of our reality. We are living in pretty irrational times now, after all.

I also often try to explore culture. That's something I like to integrate in my work. It requires regular research even for a sketch, but I love learning new things to draw from, no pun intended.

What does your work aim to say?

That's a difficult question to answer, since I may voice something different in different pieces of work. But I think if I were to collectively personify all my work, I would say that it is OK to be different, or to be an "outsider." I've always been attracted to "weird" or "strange" art and artists. I've always been sort of an outsider-type myself, growing up as a geek, a goth/punk-rocker, and as a bisexual Asian American. My friends are similarly geek-types, alternative, and/or LGBTQ, and inspire me too. I'm usually interested in depicting characters typically underrepresented or outcast, to some degree.

How does your work comment on current social or political issues?

At least to my own eyes, it's not typically overt in my own work, but you will spot elements celebrating or acknowledging cultural narrative, LGBTQ identity, and feminism. I'm a hardcore progressive and those are values that color my work.

Who are your biggest influences?

Oh gosh, I have a lot of art influences! Comics are a huge influence on me. I often have graphic novels and art books littered around me for visual reference and inspiration, including of: James Jean, Kim Jung Gi, Paul Pope, Skottie Young, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, Darwyn Cooke, Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, Emma Ríos, Jill Thompson, Sana Takeda, Junji Ito, Inio Asano, Luke Pearson… I really can go on forever! I also love bande dessinées (European comics), such as the art of Moebius, François Schuiten, Nicolas De Crecy, Enki Bilal, Claire Wendling, Frederik Peeters and Enrique Fernandez… they're typically hard to come by in the US, but some of them have finally been seeing publication here the last decade, particularly through Humanoids. I am also particularly very fond of Golden Age illustrators, like Aubrey Beardsley, Kay Nielsen, Henry J. Ford, Arthur Rackham, Harry Clarke, Ivan Bilibin and Virginia Frances Sterrett.

Those are just some of my illustrative influences… I have my literary influences (Neil Gaiman, Poe, Lovecraft, Oscar Wilde) and film influences (Hayao Miyazaki, Guillermo Del Toro, David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman) too. Music's also a crucial influence, especially indie/underground genres, and that's a subject you'll find permeates through my art.

How have you developed your career?

I've shaped it mostly by every commission I've tackled. You learn new things with every one… sometimes it's the business side of it or new ways to be more efficient. I've enjoyed not knowing what projects come next, and I've jumped into a lot of them where I've thought, "Well, this is the first time I've ever done this kind of thing, but I can do it," including illustrating for medical tech and doing a mural. I think jumping into teaching was one of those things, too. Students have different goals, medium preferences, subject matter preferences and imaginations… guiding them through traditional mediums, fine arts, digital art, manga and comics even… it has kept me actively versatile too.

How do you seek out opportunities?

Most of my freelance commissions come from personal connections (including as an art teacher) or social media or job-related sites and email notifications. It can be work on its own, admittedly. I love to work at cafes or libraries, and people noticing me drawing, sometimes approach me there with opportunities.

How do you navigate the art/publishing world?

Social media's a big part of it. I know that's kind of a boring answer, haha. Conventions are a fun place to connect with other creatives and publishers. It's been awhile, but I'd sometimes go to life sketching events, like Dr. Sketchy's (which are held around the world) to connect with others artists. I also love to go to the bookstore or library to discover new art books or comic books and publishers to keep an eye on.

What do you dislike about the art/publishing world? 

I'm the kind of typical artist who says, "I just want to draw," but you have to know or learn how to handle the business side of it. It can be easy to be taken advantage of as a working artist. The use of social media is also significant these days to market yourself… and there are a lot of social media apps and websites to lose your time between.

Which current art world trends are you following?

Comic books and graphic novels are my thing, so I'm regularly keeping an eye on what's new in that realm, particularly by independent publishers (outside Marvel and DC). I've enjoyed some of the comics over the last decade that have tackled diversity, feminism, and/or LGBTQ characters in refreshing ways. Some examples that come to mind are John Layman and Rob Guillory's Chew, Noelle Stevenson's Nimona, and the books of Tillie Walden (On a Sunbeam).

I keep my eye on technological developments in the arts too. Digital art, social media, phones and iPads are all changing how art is being made, and how it looks and is being presented. For example, social media memes are now a part of that today, for better or worse… they’re the new form of the newspaper comic (e.g. Sarah Scribbles, False Knees, Adam Ellis, etc.), and a platform for political cartoonists as well.

Why art?

I think art, all art, is the exploration and expression of being, and an exercise of discipline. It's a representation of the individual human experience and possibilities for the future. Without art, life would be empty. I think it's the sincerest and most unrestrained form of communication. Art celebrates individuality and personality. In art classes, we draw live models, but everyone interprets them differently—sees the world differently. It's like how everyone might make the same dish differently. And how everyone may taste the same dish differently. Even when we experience the same things, we experience them differently.

Art shapes culture and influences sociological attitudes, even politics. It visualizes abstract realities like emotions and mental health in ways that others can realize or relate to, "I am not alone." There was a quote in Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles that has heavily shaped my outlook on art throughout my life: “Science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle.”

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

A few years ago, I went to see a Q&A at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, with the late Genesis P-Orridge (who passed earlier this year) of the industrial/experimental bands, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV. S/he said something that really resonated with me, "Create something every day. To create something is divine. After all, what was God's first act?"

Has literature impacted your art making?  

If I'm not listening to music when I'm drawing, then you might find me listening to an audiobook. To be honest, I'm particularly fond of classic literature, especially gothic horror and classic sci-fi. I also really like many romanticist poets. I also have a modest collection of books on fairy tales, folklore, and ghost tales from around the world that I love to flip through to fuel my imagination with—from Iceland to Tibet to the African-American South. Those are actually my favorite books to immerse myself into world cultures. I like to tackle these elements I absorb from them in my illustrations when I'm able to.

Are libraries a part of your world? How important are libraries to you as an artist?

Before the pandemic, if I was not drawing at a café, then I was probably at the library. It's my favorite place to focus and I can have all kind of references at my fingertips. I encourage creatives not to substitute the library entirely with the internet, but to use them together. While doing research on a project once, I had found valuable and detailed information in books that I never found on the internet. It's also my favorite place to discover comic books I didn't know about before!

How has NYPL been helpful to your work?

I've watched a few clips of interviews on the NYPL's YouTube channel (Art Spiegelman, Werner Herzog, John Waters, etc.). I recently watched the excellent video interview with Luca Guadagnino and André Aciman, for Call Me By Your Name. I haven't read the book yet, but loved the film, which I related to as a bisexual man. I also just started listening to the Coraline readings on there too with Neil Gaiman, LeVar Burton and Rosario Dawson; I think I remember they had produced this in light of the pandemic over some initial Twitter exchanges. I own and have read the book, but was thrilled to revisit it with their voices, while drawing. 

I noticed there was an online graphic novel meet-up there too, I may have to try joining sometime when I'm free... and maybe when feeling less shy, haha.

What have you been working on recently?

My other great passion besides art, is music, particularly post-punk music. Anyway, I've been using some of my freer pandemic time to record music (an EP and an album). My music project's called The Sun Has Wept Rose (which came from the title of a poem by one of my favorite poets, the French symbolist Arthur Rimbaud, as translated by Paul Schmidt). I've been creating art for that as well, including a short comic for the album. I've been preliminarily planning a short comic adaptation of a Hans Christian Anderson tale too, somewhat inspired by my time in Denmark a few years ago, but that's still in rough stages right now.

Have the recent events had an impact on your art practice?

In a way. I'm not teaching at the moment due to the pandemic closing the studio at which I teach, so I've had more time with personal projects. I hate to admit I focus much better at a café or library, so it took some time to readjust to drawing mostly home!

 

Thank you to YA Librarian Joe Pascullo for help putting this blog post together.