Today we are very excited to share our interview with Charles Crouzat aka cotton.tv who is known internationally for his minimal colourful style mixed with a dreamy world scapes.

I was born and raised in Paris and now living a sweet dolce vita in Rome. I’ve been surrounded since my young age in a creative atmosphere, my father and sister doing photography as a hobby and my mother writing. My first memory of art practice must be with comics that I read and tried to reproduce, and some characters that I used to draw on my high school notebooks.

After some studies in Hotel management, I quickly realized that I needed more creative work to bright up my days. I followed a design courses in Italy that allowed me now to work as a free-lance graphic designer since 2 years, and also produce artworks as a digital artist that I have been posting on instagram since 2016.

Tell us about your greatest inspirations or influences?

• My first influences are part of some main movements in history of art. I’m a huge impressionist fan with artists like Monet and Renoir and the colors work that they combined. I also really enjoy the poetic and romantic aspect of some baroque masterpieces like Bernini sculptures. Finally, I found the work of Edward Hopper and David Hockney really inspiring because of the quiet atmosphere they give.

• I find myself really inspired by moments of life that I see in the cities I lived in, holidays, time with friends.. It can be an evening night out, sunsets, a special memory that I want to illustrate with colorful artworks, peaceful compositions. I guess my main inspiration is based on how to recreate an emotion the most honest way possible. I’m really sensible to that summer mediterranean vibe that I enjoy everyday in my hometown Rome and that is full of poetry and art in every street corner.

• Finally, my inspiration comes from texts that I read. I’m really into french and italian poetry with writers like Arthur Rimbaud or Eugenio Montale. It’s always nice to feel words hitting your soul and that allow you to create artworks that link with a special sensation you lived at an exact moment. This also works with songs lyrics that I enjoyed. It directly makes me want to create the image I have in mind reading or listening to it.

Tell us a bit about your creative process?

My main objective in the creative process is to recreate the closest way possible the feeling I have and the image linked with it in my mind. My goal is to create a kind of personal diary with colorful compositions. I start by defining the main direction to take: landscape, street scene, fantasy scene, collage.. Once I know where to go, I work on the composition and where the main elements of the picture will be put. I usually take elements from images I took myself or from pictures I find on images banks. Once I have found the composition that was in my head thanks to the feeling I got, I work on the colors, usually pastel and sunset gradients that I like the most, and I finally do an edit of the composition to arrive to the peaceful atmosphere that is the objective to reach.

I don’t force myself to create. I do my art when I’m inspired. Can be once a week or once a day, depends of my personal life and the moments I enjoy.

How has the pandemic affected your creativity and how do you see the world changing?

The impact of the pandemic, even if it changed my daily life, didn’t had a huge repercussion on my creativity. I realize that it has been hard times and a lot of negative points, but I found myself happy to be at home and having time to work and create, trying to find positivity in this particular moment. I actually got more involved in my free-lance work and activity since the pandemic has been here, trying harder to find projects and new ideas to work on.

I think the world is changing constantly, especially in a time where technologies improve everyday. I guess we have to live in our time, enjoying experiences that it affords, but I also think that it’s good time to time to take distance from all of this, try to understand ourselves better, have breaks and keep maintaining a constancy in the simplicity of life. This is an idea I try to share with my work: it’s also good to escape a bit of the reality sometimes.

Who do you consider to be an icon of our time?

So many names coming in mind; actors, musicians, artists, politicians etc. In my opinion an icon should simply be someone who has the strength to give his life to a passion or a conviction, to share the messages that they believe in, and to show respect doing it, with an open mind and kindness.

What does wellbeing mean to you, and what do you practice?

Wellbeing for me would be a sensation that allows you to find positivity even during the bad times. I noticed with time that happiness can be reached by enjoying simple moments of life, enjoying the present, what is happening right now. I think that when you find a way to be happy with less needs, it totally changes your vision of life and helps you feel special daily moments.

Also, a wellbeing aspect would be to surround yourself with people that you love, persons that helps you to be the best version of you. It’s important to share emotions, to create nice connections and create memories.

Anything else you would like to share?

I will take this question to simply thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to open myself a little bit more and to show how I work. I also would like to thanks all the great people I met threw the years that support my work. I’m really blessed to have created such nice connections for all this time.

instagram @cotton.tv