Interview by Jimon

1-Where do you currently live and create?  Most of the time I’m in Kyiv, Ukraine. But sometimes I leave this city to create something abroad.

2-When did you start painting and how did it start?  When I was Seven years old, my mother gave me my first verbal tutorial on “how to draw ducks in gouache”. Since then, this has been the most accessible way for me to express myself and to make living of it.

3-Your artist name is n0rmski, why?  It happened that I grew up very far in the north of Siberia. And so in my school days, when I needed to enter a nickname in a computer game, I used the name Norman because I found out that it means “man of the north.” Subsequently, this name was already everywhere in my everyday life, and even some people began to call me variations of this name. And when the time came to sign somehow my first works, the name of Normski was already entrenched to me.

4-Your have done a collaboration with Vans shoes, who else would you like to collaborate with?  That would be great to do something with Vetements one day. When I look at the clothes that they release, how they sit on the models, their vibe, it feels the same as my drawings and paintings to me.

5-Which artist working today you admire?  I really appreciate what Sainer does. His work is something out of this world, it inspires me a lot. It was a great honor to meet him in person last year in Spain. Great personality. I like what Dima Rebus creates with his watercolor. The way he mastered this material is somewhere beyond my understanding of the world. I would also like to mention Aryz. This dude has gone beyond the boundaries of material, style. I think he can do anything with any amount of paint, or even without it, and even not blink an eye.

6-How would you describe your style of painting?  If I had to come up with a name for this style, I would call it Norm-Art, why not?

Once an Instagram follower wrote that my drawings are such a hip-hop. And I like that definition, let’s leave it like that for now.

7-Do you paint digitally or on paper?  It all starts on paper, then it can be finished either with a software, or on canvas or on the wall.

8-Do you think you would have been an artist in a pre computer age?  Of course yes! And in this case, I would not have to spend any time and money for my computer repair.

9-What kind of art hangs on the walls of your home?  These are mainly photographs of significant people for me (family, friends) and some prints of my favorite artists.

10-What influences you as an artist?  I really like the world of modern street fashion. Plus, how modern youth express themselves with the help of fashion tools. If all this is mixed with hip-hop and vibe of strong and deep personalities, it will turn out what inspires me the most. Also what inspire me is hairstyles and lips. Some people are just lips.

11-What advice would you give putative collectors?  Do not waste a minute and start right now.

12-If you had a working time machine which time period would you choose?  I would choose a time when it will be possible to travel between galaxies as easily as between countries now. But something tells me that globally there will be no big difference between that time and the present: video cards will crash as they are now and they will need to be taken for repair.

13-Is there any reality behind the characters in your paintings or are they purely fantasy?  Recently, they are based on people who one way or another left some mark in my life. And then the imagination draws the image to the final point.

14-If you could have dinner with three artists living or dead, who would be at your table?  It would be incredibly cool to have dinner with Egon Schiele, Repin and JC Leyendecker. But it is unlikely that I could cope with the excitement in this company and eat at least a salad.

15-Three things you can’t live without in your studio?  Certainly nothing would have happened without food, music and tobacco.

16-Do you have a place/person or thing that you visit for inspiration?  Sometimes I need to leave the city to reboot myself and I go to the country side to visit my parents or my grandmother and spend time with them. Then I become restless and want to draw or paint something.

17-How would someone find you on social media?  It’s @n0rmski on Instagram and Twitter

18-Anything else you’d like to mention?  I would like to remind myself and others no matter how they themselves at the moment: go outside, walk in the park, sit on benches, spend more time with people you love and in places you love. In addition to work, you need to remember to have a good rest to fill up.

And stay hydrated!