Interview by Berk İlhan
Up until now, I had always been at the other end of the interview. Giving TV, magazine, newspaper interviews about my works of design has been a regular part of my life. I even had to put myself through a discipline, provoking myself to say something new every time. This is the first time I’m interviewing someone. Though, I interviewed hundreds of people for my various design research. So, in fact, I am lying. But this is the first time I had a recorded conversation with another artist about her work.
I met Gizem Vural on a damp, dark, rainy fall morning in New York, at a charming café amongst towering skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan. What I took from my chat with this talented and productive artist, whose illustrations have been featured in prestigious newspapers and magazines like The New Yorker, The New York Times and The Boston Globe are as follows: You don’t have to stay in a field where you’re not happy, but you have to take responsibility. This way, you can take steps towards somewhere you’ll be happy. Also, you’re not alone, at least you don’t have to be. To find people who can help you, you have to come out of your shell and meet people. Plus, you can work wonders even in a field you’re not experienced in, so long as you are patient, don’t stop working and bettering yourself, because change needs time and effort.
Let’s get to know you first.
I was born in 1988. I was very fond of art as a child, like most children. I started to draw, then I took piano lessons, did ballet, then I took an interest in foreign languages. All of a sudden I found myself studying a foreign language in high school. In my senior year, I dropped out of everything and with pressure from my teachers I took tutoring to study for entrance exams of fine arts universities.
At the end of that year, I was still confused, I hadn’t decided what I was going to study. I was interested in painting but later on, I chose graphic design at Mimar Sinan University after the exams. There, I studied for six years, and after getting to know more about design, I decided that it wasn’t for me.
Even the mention of Mimar Sinan made you… (laughs)
Yeah, a little… (laughs)
What happened there?
I guess the professors were a bit tough. The first thing that put me off was that. Then I realised that designing didn't really speak to me that much as well. I was more interested in poster design and that drove me to illustration. I started to fill sketchbooks, without even knowing what illustration was, where it was used. I started to sketch my day, my feelings, everything. In Istanbul, I used to see illustrations on children’s books, but I wasn’t [thinking like] “I want to do children’s books”. With this new interest in illustration, I started to paint.
When I was a student in Istanbul, I drew something for [book & music store chain] D&R. Different themes were set for various stores and I was asked to draw something with a new year’s theme. That was my first commission.
How did you feel?
It was very difficult. Back then, I didn’t like graphic design, the ad industry and I thought that illustration didn’t reflect who I was in the ad industry, I was put off when I saw that I had to draw whatever they want. “We want this, you will only draw this”. Furthermore, there is a lot of criticism, because there are a lot of people. Designer, editor, some people at D&R. Everyone would say something, that was really difficult for me. And it was my first job, so it was hard. I drew something somehow and I guess it was something they wanted, they were satisfied, but was I? I don’t know. I just drew, I drew because I was excited about my first job.
Then, when I was nearing the end of my sixth year at Mimar Sinan, my boyfriend and I decided to move abroad. He decided to study here, and I pushed aside everything I learned and started anew. There were some people I used to follow when I was in college.
Who are they?
I used to follow Daniel Fishel. Rebekka Dunlap. There was also Lily, Lily Padula.
Are they illustrators?
Yes, they are fellow illustrators. They were from the SVA (School of Visual Arts) as well, they had just recently graduated and were beginning editorial illustration and professional life. I was just following what they drew, without knowing why and how they did what they did.
I was aware of the competitions here as well and I submitted some of my work to American Illustration’s (AI) contest. I was lucky, one of them got picked and everything started with that.
Which work was it?
It was a long time ago, I don’t remember now. It was a digital piece.
How many pieces of work have you done? Roughly…
I cannot possibly count. (laughs)
Hundreds?
Maybe around a hundred. (laughs) I mean, counting in the rough copies that I haven’t finished yet, incomplete ones.
Yes, it is natural that you don’t remember every one of them.
Also, it was completely different from my current style, because I made them with a different state of mind I had back when I was in Istanbul.
Every November there is an exhibition and a party for the winners of the contest. I went to that party and met people that I knew of online, started befriending them and around that time I began to learn what editorial illustration was and different styles of it. When I was studying design, my professors showed us The New Yorker covers designed by Gündüz Doğan Ekşioğlu, I knew about that, but I didn’t know those were editorial illustrations, I mean I didn’t know such a field existed. At that party, I saw that art directors from a lot of magazines and newspapers like The New Yorker and The New York Times were there. For the first time in my life, I had conversations with people from that field and I really liked that they were really humble even though they were in such positions. They asked where I came from and what I had done. I didn’t feel like an outsider. I think it intrigued them; I was there, from Turkey, hadn’t studied illustration but I was interested, I was trying to learn. Everyone was so helpful.
I also had illustrator friends back in Turkey but everyone was on their own, they didn’t really want to help. Maybe it is different now, but back then people were distant, no one was really approachable. My friends here are really open with suggestions like “read this!”, “look at this!” I didn't know such a thing as the history of illustration existed. I learned about the Golden Age of Illustration. I even got to take online illustration lessons from Daniel Fishel after that party. In fact, we knew each other from Twitter, we met again at that party and he started teaching me through Skype. He taught me things that can account for the first three years of college, I was very excited about that. After that, I began to recreate my portfolio, I tried to find my own style. Standing out is important because the illustration world is very competitive. I studied on my own for a year buying newspaper and magazines, trying to understand the works of my friends here or other people, e-mailing them and asking questions.
Is this something that requires a great deal of patience?
Let me put it this way, I was far away from the centre. When you’re in a small town like Ithaca, there’s not much to do so it was easy for me to focus. It could have been harder if I was in somewhere like New York. That calmness allowed me to focus on myself.
Between 2012 and 2015, I tried to improve my portfolio, enter contests, came here and attended parties around November or December, communicated with people, had face to face time with art directors. Then after three years, I got my first gig from PLANSPONSOR.
Your first editorial gig, that is.
Yes, from PLANSPONSOR. The art director there was very into finding new talents, commissioning young people fresh out of college. So long as you reach them. They attend these parties frequently or you can drop by their office and show them your portfolio. I met them at the AI party. I told them about my work and got my first gig in a couple of months. I can still remember that excitement. You don't get the full info, you get a summary of the article, a sentence and you are expected to think about that and make something. I wasn't sure how to handle that, I didn't want to screw up my first gig.
As a matter of fact, that loneliness was really hard. I had no one that I could ask for advice, I only had friends to ask about stuff. People who have studied here, at least have their professors, they can get feedback on their portfolios. I didn't know if what I had been doing was good or bad, I was just trying to exist. When you come from abroad you don’t get to have a lot of connections, not many people know you. I felt a bit lonely.
Establishing all these from scratch was hard. I was extremely shy when I met those art directors I mentioned; I was constantly questioning what I was doing, I was so confused.
But you pushed yourself anyway?
It was really hard. And I studied at Mimar Sinan for six years, I had a strong sense of failure in me. I was here and I didn't know what I was going to do. My husband was studying, getting ahead. I didn't have a degree or a job, because I didn't want to make a living out of graphic design.
When you drop out and leave, people ask “What are you going to do there? What are you going to be?” There were some things my professors told me, those words sank deep. I was like “Watch me, look at what I’m going to do. You’ll see!” (laughs)
After three years and my first gig, more started to come. In 2016, I did my first The New York Times commission and then one for The New Yorker and one for Nautilus, which earned me a medal.
Where did you get the medal from?
Society of Illustrators, it was a great honour. It is an institution established by nine illustrators in the early 1900s and is sustained with donations. It is one of those organisations that brings illustration to everyone, making it popular. Another artist who got a medal with an editorial work is Gürbüz Doğan Ekşioğlu.
It is a great success.
That is how I felt. I had a dream of that, “I will get that medal one day!”
So your mind was set.
One year later it happened and it was a great surprise, I wasn't expecting that. I thought maybe in ten or twenty years, when I got ahead and became more successful, then I would get it. This happening, of course, lifted my spirits up a lot, I started thinking I was in the right place, I was going down the right path.
After winning the medal my popularity soared even higher and I started to get more jobs. And one year later I got another medal, this time for my personal work.
What was that?
I was overwhelmed by New York City’s crowds, how the sidewalks were packed, people walking left and right like a flood, it was a piece I drew about that. I guess it spoke to people quite a lot. (laughs)
It is a special feeling, winning an award with a piece like that. It wasn't something that I worked on with an art director, it was all me. I think that is why it had a big effect on me.
Meanwhile, I have been working on abstracts for a year now. I have my first exhibition in December.
Where will it be held?
Lazy Susan Gallery in Lower Manhattan. It’s going to be the first time I will present people something other than editorial illustration. I’m really excited about that.
When will it be held?
16 – 22 December.
Right before Christmas.
Exactly, just before the year ends. That was a big surprise for me as well. I don't know how things will go but I’m really excited. I would have never imagined my first exhibition would be in Manhattan. (laughs) I thought that it would be more like in Brooklyn, somewhere around my friends there, but this happened through a connection as well. That too was really interesting, people I met showed my work to the owner of the gallery and they were interested. They came to my studio, looked at my work and right then and there said “OK, so are we doing this?” I was shocked. (laughs) We will see how everything turns out.
I didn't think I would only do editorial illustrations. I mean there are people who do that but I was sure I would do something else, and that is slowly coming up. I don't know if I will concentrate on fine arts from now on but I still like editorial illustration. I guess I will keep on doing that as well.
What are the parts of editorial illustration that you like or dislike, restricting sides of it? And I also wonder, say, someone is writing a piece and you need to make an illustration, how exactly do they ask you for it?
It depends on the customer. For example, when something comes from The New York Times, I generally have a short time to work, since it is a newspaper. They usually ask for it for the next day, or in four, five days. The piece is being written simultaneously, they come to me with the main theme or the draft of the piece.
Top secret. (laughs)
Yes, I usually read the draft, but mostly I approach the art director with a question like: “What do you want to focus on?” Then, I start coming up with ideas.
Most of the time, I create a couple of drafts, send them over in a couple of hours, we talk it over with the art director and choose one, then I finalize it. The news editor comes in and gives their feedback if they have any. Then I resend it and so on. If the piece is scheduled for the next day, I have around six hours.
Really? When I saw your work, I thought it took at least a week. I’m shocked.
Most of them took five or six days, a couple just a day… I mean the next day. It is published on The New York Times website that night and then on the paper the next day. To be honest, that is really difficult, that is the most stressful thing.
Because they are hand-drawn. As far as I can see from the photos and videos it looks really difficult. The artistry takes precision. On digital it takes time to try and find what you like, constantly changing, but when it is hand-drawn you do something irreversible.
If I’m drawing digitally, the composition is already in my mind and I start drawing what I need to but up until I start sketching I don't know what is going to happen. So it is not a big problem, not being able to undo. Also for my editorial illustrations, I don't work with large papers. I use A4, then I scan it, if I see any defects I fix it on Photoshop. Though I put all the effort physically, I use pencils and graphite. All these in just a day is stressful. And at first my English wasn't that great, that stressed me out too. I mean I used to look things up in a dictionary…
To make sure there are no miscommunications, right?
Yes, so that I won't focus on the wrong thing, I don't misunderstand. I sometimes draw for book reviews. I have the book summary at hand, then I research online what the author wrote before or anything I could find about the book and read all of that for a while. Because if I don't understand the point, something really different can occur, I mean if I don't know the book. That is kind of difficult. There are different kinds of pieces I can draw for, politics, daily stuff or book reviews. When it is out the author is going to see it, the readers too, that is kind of stressful.
Because inevitably you put something from yourself into it.
I interpret as an illustrator. There are the editor and the art director but eventually, it is what I draw that is going to be published. That is sometimes really stressful but sometimes really fun as well. I guess the best feeling of all is to see the work printed. You get up in the morning, run to get the paper, you open the paper, see it and say “That is my work!” It is a delight.
How many pieces have you given to The New York Times?
On The New York Times, I guess it is around six. I guess The New Yorker is a bit less than that because I had just recently started, then I took a break, maybe three or four. My only cover, for now, was on The Guardian.
So it was on the cover of the newspaper?
Yes, it was on the cover of the book insert called Review.
The newspaper has a different texture.
Doesn’t it? When you start drawing, you know it, you don't use colours too dark for instance, because it looks very bad when they go on top of each other. Sometimes colours don’t look as shiny, you try and find out that not to make it too dark, to not use too many textures, or sometimes the art director helps.
I guess you gave an interview to the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
Yes, for the blog titled Eye on Design.
On that interview, you mentioned artists that you like, that you take after like artistic heritage. Can you tell about that?
At first, I was really interested in compositions of Hungarian and Polish designers, I mentioned those while I was talking about posters and illustrations that inspired me as I was starting. Those helped me simplify and constitute things when I was doing editorial illustrations.
Your work reminds me of Kandinsky in terms of abstract work.
My later work. Something caught my interest when I started doing illustrations. People would always convey what was written, but I tried to find ways to convey what is written after I abstract it and make it understandable. I had contemplated on this, there weren’t much abstract work around 2015 or 2016; I think that’s what stroke the interest of art directors.
I think your work is even more abstract than Christoph Niemann. He abstracts by putting real objects in different forms.
Yes, he simplifies them. Slightly tempers with their shapes.
But by carrying colours and textures to an imaginary world, you…
Yes, it’s more geometric… In fact, I work more on composition, I like playing with the composition, what I’m bringing to the foreground, what I’ll put in the back and the lines and textures of my own world; I like to convey the topic by playing with them. At some point, this caught a lot of eyes as well. I don’t know, maybe I don’t like what is out there a lot, I also don’t want to do the things that I’m seeing too much. I always try to keep away from doing what is popular. When I first came here, I was obsessed with throwing everything to the wind and finding my own style. I guess that somewhat happened with time.
I think it did. When you look at it now, there is a consistency, a continuity. When you put all the drawings together it is apparent that they come from the same person and a whole with a very special, unique style can be seen. One of the first things that came to my mind was “How can get one of these, how can I buy one and hang it in my house?” Are you selling any of your prints somewhere?
It’s only at RoomFifty now, they are being sold online. Apart from that, I don’t know, I’m a bit too picky in that sense. For instance, RoomFifty is a platform established by the art of director of The Guardian and works with only fifty artists all around the globe. They put a limited number of pieces online at the beginning of every season, and I really like it too since I can track the demand; I can see what is more popular, which drawings sell more.
Amongst art exhibitions and events in Turkey, are there any that caught your eye, that you would want to be a part of next year?
I’d like to be in Contemporary Istanbul and the biennial, maybe I’d like to hold an exhibition of my abstract work. Maybe a couple of years later an exhibition of my editorial work, I’d really like to introduce myself.
Would you like us to publish an interview piece of this conversation? Maybe then they’ll get to know you. (laughs)
Well, it’s my first interview in Turkish, so why not! (laughs)
There’s one more thing I’d like to know. I’m a product designer, when I’m about to start a new project I’m dealing with a problem, I’m trying to solve a problem or I’m seeing a new pattern, a change in society. Then I say, “Oh! How about this idea for this change?” I observe, I track both the shortcomings and the changes, that’s what drives me. On one of your interviews, you too mentioned problem solving, the joy of solving problems by drawing. How do you problematize?
In graphic design, you face an already stated problem and you respond to it. I think in editorial design a similar process is present. There is this problem, a brief, and to answer that you have to draw something. Something that will add up to it, something that will provide a new perspective for the reader.
What nourishes, energises you when you’re trying to come up with new ideas? When you are starting a project, do you just pick up a pencil and get on with it or you go someplace else? Do you start by looking stuff up online?
Usually when pick the pencil up I focus more on composition than the idea. I think about what I want to foreground. Since I analysed works of people like Hilma af Klint, Kandinsky, Miro, Saul Steinberg a lot, I have this accumulated knowledge, I convey that to the composition.
As far as I can see other illustrators read the brief, find keywords and create a world through a colour scheme. For me it is more about composition, shapes, texture and then telling the story, foregrounding. Colours and alike comes way after. Yeah, composition is really important. (laughs)
What do you think clients The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Nautilus, where your editorial illustrations were published, find in you? What do they like about you?
I guess my abstractions and the particular way I constitute… My perspective, I mean they like my solution.
Because it’s extraordinary.
There are a lot of people in the industry who constantly get commissioned by the same paper or magazine. Art directors like to tell these people’s work apart from the others and be able to distinguish “This is Gizem’s”, “This is someone else’s.”
I dream of seeing your works on Fast Company. I think they would fit very well there.
Why not? (laughs)
In one of your interviews you said “I like to draw New York’s busy, intense, rushing people”. But at the same time I’m thinking about Gizem, who is living in Ithaca. Do you like that intensity, or is it because you don’t like it that you like to draw it?
Most of the time where I am affects me. When I was in Ithaca I used to include a lot of green and nature in my drawings. I guess since I came here I am drawing people more because it intrigues me. Like the rats eating pizza, the ones we see on the subway. (laughs) Even they have a different life. I used one in my drawings, a rat walking amongst people with its luggage. Even they travel. Or like the birds on the street, they are not afraid of you, you push them away with your feet and they still don’t budge, they just walk away. (laughs) Even that is interesting, it wasn’t like that in Istanbul. What intrigued me was the fact that we live so harmoniously with this crowd.
It was a nice conversation, thank you for that. I guess we have covered everything.
Thank you for your time. If you have any other questions you can always send them.
