Episode 5 with Shira Barzilay aka Koketit 

ON HOW TO FOLLOW YOUR LINE WHEREVER IT TAKES YOU!

“At some point a friend looked at all of my work and he said: “ You know that out of 100% of things you are doing only 20% of that is fashion and yet you call yourself a fashion illustrator?” I had to see this with my in my own eyes to understand. It’s so hard to realise things about yourself, it’s so easy for someone else to see things about you. And if they are true friends, they will tell you. And if you are smart enough and courageous and if you are not stubborn you will allow to see yourself through others eyes and maybe learn something. I realised that I have built my name and my confidence in these confines and didn’t know where to go from there. The funny thing is once I let go of defining myself as a fashion illustrator everything opened up. It may sound cliché but really the only limitation that we have is in our head. The second I said goodbye to fashion I was an interior designer, I was a landscape artist, I was the canvas artist, I was the digital artist and that’s how the phrase THE WORLD IS MY CANVAS was born.”

In this episode I am talking to the wonderful Shira Barzilay (@koketit) and there are so many insights that I will have to devote several posts to this wonderful woman! Koketit is an Isreali born artist and illustrator. As a young girl, she fell in love with the smells of paint and turpentine wafting through the air of her aunt’s studio. With a love for storytelling she explored various avenues of self-expression. Following her studies she embodied a ‘more is more’ aesthetic. Over time, she understood that though her work, she could say more by doing less. Her journey began to manifest as she incorporated a subtractionist methodology to her work. At the start of her newfound appreciation for minimalism, she endured growing pains of removing elements from her work, until she reached a point where the initial draft didn’t consist of many lines to start. Using Picasso as her guiding light, she shares his belief, “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.” Primarily she creates digital prints, in an attempt to reveal the unseen. You can connect with her and enjoy her art by visiting her web page www.koketit.com.