Interview
Kalli Horn
Kalli Horn, 36, was born in Brazil but has been based in Faro (Portugal) for the last 10 years.
She is a professional illustrator, who specializes in pets/animals, and realistic drawings made on paper with colored pencils/soft pastels.
Kalli is one of the Hahnemühle Illustration Awards winners and one of her drawings is in their 2022 Calendar, which was a great honor for her.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I started drawing as a little girl. At that time, I was passionate about drawing perfect little circles on a blank paper sheet. I was always drawing in my childhood because of my dad, he is also an artist. With time, I left my drawings behind. I went to Biology School for two years, then I went to Management School for some years, and I started to work. During that stage, I was not drawing anymore, just for a few times when somebody asked me for a small commission. Even though I took some drawing classes with Fernando Silva Grade (Famous artist in Faro, Portugal), I was not adapting myself with all those classical methods.
In the beginning of 2021 I had a burnout because of the pandemic situation. I then decided it was the right time to go back drawing again, just to clear my mind and calm down. I’ve chosen some bugs and animals to start and developed my own method for coloring. Luckily, people started to notice my kind of art, and they started asking me to draw their animals/pets and now I have been receiving more commissions. I couldn’t imagine this would happen. Last year, I had my first exhibition in London, at The Holy Art Gallery, and I won the Hahnemüle Illustration Award with one of my drawings that is now printed on their 2022 Calendar. I can say I have been blessed.”
What inspires you most?
“The colors and the way they blend themselves on the paper. Also, when I’m drawing I am always listening to a good podcast or an audiobook so I can improve myself, and have some kind of company while I work. These moments in themselves inspire me.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“As I mentioned before, I love bugs and animals, including pets, they are lovely! The message in my work is nature - this is pure love. If you have a pet you know that they are part of the family. So I want to help those people to have the chance to eternalize those memories with their pets in a different way, and also bring a form of consciousness to those who don’t care enough about life, in whatever manner it presents itself to us in our world, in our nature.”
“Every kind of life matters and is important, and it is our obligation to protect them. My way to protect them is showing their beauty through art so people can see their colors and their essence in a different perspective.”
How would you describe your work?
“My drawings are realism. I follow the dimensions and the proportions of a real picture to build my art. This is fundamental, it is also mathematical to me. I have to follow this real picture to base all the creative processes off of: choosing the materials, the paper, the method, lights and shadows, everything. I usually go for watercolor, colored pencils and soft pastels. At this moment of my career, I am in the process of improving my work, so I am always trying new things, discovering new brands, papers, and a new way to achieve certain techniques.”
Which artists influence you most?
“Alissa Monks and Hugo Laurencena - they are amazing artists and I am always checking what they are doing and how they are doing their works. Allisa Monks, by the way, has an encouraging story as a person and as an artist, how she needed to rediscover herself in art after she lost someone she loved, her mother. Because of that, we can see a before and an after in her work. I love them both! There are so many good artists that I follow, for example, Arinze is another artist that greatly inspires me.”
What is your creative process like?
“I am an organized person. So, I need to feel that everything is planned before I can start my work. I usually need the mornings to do that, to organize myself and my day, so I thank God, meditate, do my prayers and practice some yoga during that time. That makes my mind clear. After that, I am ready to look for some real good pictures, talk to a photographer or to a potential client that needs my help. It seems simple in that way, and it is.
I can also say that I am much more creative and concentrated in the afternoons. Another thing that might sound strange for most of the artists, is the fact that I cannot listen to any kind of music when I’m working, because I lose myself in singing instead of drawing. That is why I prefer to listen to an audiobook for example. I just like people telling me stories, it helps me to focus.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I believe that artists have the blessing to express their beliefs in so many different ways that allow us to reach a large range of people. So the main role is that we need to have this consciousness and know what we are trying to communicate. To know that people will be impacted through our message, our art, no matter how big we are at this moment - it is our voice, our idea and maybe it will last forever, who knows. So we need to think about what kind of message we want to leave!”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“I’m new in the art scene! So, as I’ve mentioned before, the only exhibition I've participated in was November last year (2021), in London at The Holy Art Gallery in the MODUS Exhibition. I was really happy because I couldn’t imagine that I would reach that far in a short amount of time.
I know I work hard and I am always trying to improve myself and my work, but the competition is high, there’s a lot of good people doing amazing things out there, so I feel really blessed! I hope this year can bring many new experiences in this area, and that I can keep growing in my career doing what I love.”
