Michal Lisowski is a Polish illustrator and a digital artist who depicts dystopian settings with a romantic and steampunk taste. He has contributed to give colour to the atmospheres of several video games (Halo 4 just to name one) and he has collaborated with several musicians. Last of them, he has worked with SBTRKT aka Aaron Jerome, a renowned English musician and one of the prominent names of the international electronic scene: for him he illustrated the cover of Save Yourself.
What brought you close to the world of digital illustration?
Story is always the same, when I was a kid my mom bought me color pencils etc. And of course that’s true. Then I got a job in an animation industry. Nowadays I don’t know many artists who prefer to work traditionally, for many reasons everything is digital. And those two worlds – animation and illustration, interfere each other. Many people work for both of them, it’s very natural.
Who inspires you in your work?
Maybe not who but what. It’s everything. From art related to things that are totally somewhere else. To be honest to myself I have to say I am receptive like a sponge – that’s important to me right now. I am not constant in my inspiration sources so I would like not to pick any artist because in a year or even a half, it might not be actual anymore.
How did the collaboration with SBTKRT begin?
Neela, Aaron’s manager contacted me and asked if I would like to work whith them. I am familar with his music so the answer was simple.
SBTKRT has been on the stage for a long time and has a well-defined artistic character: the masked face, the visuals, the atmospheres … How it was to create the image of an artist like him?
The best thing was that we were thinking in the same way. We had the same vision of the cover. In general, I like when my client understands the same visual language as mine, then everything goes nice and easy.
What’s the best album cover ever?
I like Joy Division Unknown Pleasures, very minimal and characteristic. I also like Tycho, and the fact that he’s creating all the graphic content for his music, which is on the same good level that his music is. My thought is that the album cover and what’s inside (I mean music) is inherent. Hard to talk about cover when you don’t know artist’s music, lack of context might be crucial. More of that – I am almost sure that it is impossible to name the best cover ever in any rank of best album covers the one with the bad music. First we are considering good music, then we can focus on cover.
