Gabrielle Côté has been featured in two previous Beaver Magazine issues and is now also our header artist! Our editor, Haley Winans, conducted this interview.
Hey Gabbi, it’s so good to speak to you through the interweb echoes, my gorgeous angel bean! Please tell us beavers slowly crowding around you about your recent art obsessions. What drives your process?
I’m so excited to get into it! Thank you for being interested.
In regard to what drives me to actually document things is that I’m scared of losing moments or forgetting experiences in old age or getting rid of physical things that hold memories. I once heard that “the artist is the ultimate collector”. If I can find a validating excuse for saving things like my dog’s puppy teeth, hair from my previous haircuts, and things like receipts or old buttons, I’ll reference that quote each and every time. I think it was a previous professor who said that to me but I’m not certain.
The artists I find inspiring right now are primarily abstract expressionists and mainly those from the 70’s. In regard to application philosophy, I really love Richard Deibenkorn for the past year or so. He considers a 90 degree visual plane in his Ocean Park series which I find progressive in that it’s globally sort of a measurable approach. When I graduated high school I moved to Los Angeles and worked in a café right around where he had his studio in Ocean Park. I highlight him primarily because his expertise ranging from his early observational work into his expressionist work is consistently experimental and yet still appears deeply concentrated. His work is dear to my heart, and one of the first breakthroughs I had with understanding abstract expressionism the way that I do, and through his process I discovered a newfound trust in my own process. Also, he doesn’t like to use erasers and I don’t either.
Anders Nilsen is an illustrator that I stumbled upon in a public library. His graphic novel Poetry is Useless was one of the first times I saw a fine ink application and journal-type documentation that I could relate to. It’s a hardcover book of non-linear scans of his sketchbook entries. I was inspired and not discouraged, and it made me feel challenged in a good way. His perspective on the contemporary world touches a lot on the advancement of our political, economical and technological society. There’s definitely a dark undertone of topics being balanced with the whimsical style he’s adopted.
Pat Perry is one of the most incredible artists walking the earth right now, the work speaks for itself.
What drives me as a creator is generally a fear of losing an idea or a moment and it getting lost in the back of my brain and it becoming unretrievable or altered over time so I try to keep notes. What I get interested in, I do deep dives into, and take tons of notes. At that point, it’s like, I either write a Gabrielle encyclopedia of what would ultimately end up being biased opinions and interests which no one would care to read until assumingely posthumously- or, I take that information and put it into developing myself as a visual artist, which is what I’m most confident in, but I do love playing with writing often in my process.
I think the real key is to be proud of being a curious person. Oh, and also nurturing the relationship that exists between my inspirations and imagination and the I that exists within and outside of them. Things that get us excited should be honored for the sake of whatever that thing is and I believe it’s vital to be grateful that you two have met.
Yumi Sakugawa has really good philosophies in regard to the relationship between art and the artist that I recommend anyone reading this to consider.
What’s your relationship with color on the page?
I use alcohol-based (Copic) markers when I color hand-drawn illustrations, and my favorite part about them is their ability to layer really well, because alcohol evaporates and the pigment will stay, so it can be extremely versatile. When working in more expressive ways, like with gouache and mixed media, I consider the form in which the material would benefit taking a new shape into. I have a pretty limited color palette. I’m most at peace while working with neutrals but I’m aware that heavy saturation can catch the eyes of passersby in different contexts, so I try to use that to my advantage depending on the project I’m working on. Each of those approaches are a result of/require different head spaces for me.
Your work seems to let the mundane like skateboarding or gardening, dip and often dive into the surreal. Can you tell us more about this relationship?
Growing up, until about 18, I was around skateboarding culture a lot. I really loved the style of deck graphics and the idea of street art and slap stickers, and I realized at an early age that you can always start where you are with what you have. Skateboard culture graphics and styles were my original inspiration. Infinite Rot specifically, which no longer exists.
I have to give big thanks to that period of my life because it is a valid part of my style evolution. The way that I depict mundanity is just a stylized approach. It’s more fun for me and I can’t communicate in any other way that feels right to me. Making normal things in the world a little synthesized with other sorts of dimensions feels natural and keeps me engaged.
Ok ok ok tell us about your love of comics. You made me my snail girl comic and I stare at it every day in awe. Which ones are you reading? What comics are your big influences? What is the beauty of comics to you?
Growing up I was never allowed to read comics and still to this day I’m not sure what’s really
going on in the big, popular world of comics. I really began just journaling and combining little images with silly little text entries in my sketchbooks in about 2014. I had some friends and family that I shared them with who all really loved them and urged me to pursue it. I started realizing graphic novels were a thing in about 2017 and I also took a few classes at MICA beginning in 2019 that lent me the opportunity to experiment and learn a lot about text/image relationship and did a lot of trial and error. It’s really fun for me to consider all of the possibilities.
I really get excited about how many variations of a story can be told depending on the visual
choices made by the artist. You can have one story plot in mind, but a million application possibilities that will influence the story. You can stick everything into a recurring box structure with quote bubbles, or you can separate text and image, you can hand letter your text, you can scan in photographs and combine with type. There’s so many options. Ultimately, the story changes based on the artist’s choices and it’s up to the artist to make the choices that best support the mood and message they’re trying to express and the relationship they want to have with the reader. I’m so glad you love the snail comic. It’s based on a Chinese folktale!
My most influential comics are Marc Bell, Emil Ferris, Jim Woodring, Anders Nilsen, and Roz
Chast.
What projects/ideas/dreams do you have in the works?
I really want to work in 3D again. Right now, in my program at MICA, it’s heavily 2D and
formula-driven. I miss working in 3D a whole lot. Once I attain the space to work efficiently in that realm, I’ll work on lots of things I’ve been incessantly daydreaming about. I’m looking
forward to larger-scale paintings and sculpture. Plaster is my absolute favorite! Sculpture studio is my happiest home. In regard to 2D, right now I’m super into background design and hand-lettering. Trying to stray from digital stuff for the time being. I’m looking forward to the tail end of my illustration degree and continuing to work with the Baltimore Banner and other editorial publications!
What does your creative process look like? Iced coffee, Elliot smith, meat puppets, your pets? How do you follow a creative idea?
Elliot Smith’s birthday was just yesterday as I type this! Realizing we’re both Leo’s. Yes I love all of those things! Pets can be distracting though. I try to listen to full records when I work which can be challenging. I find I get less distracted when there’s a bit of air to breathe in the music I listen to if that makes sense. I’ve tried to listen to podcasts or watch shows when I can’t find the right music, which some people can do, but it’s not my thing. I like things that feel kind and quiet primarily, and I work quite well with certain types of synthetic music as well.
I’m most efficient when I wake up early and go immediately into drawing, otherwise I get easily consumed with junk on my phone or the outside world. I spend a lot of time in public libraries and I live next door to a used book store which helps me in sparking new interests. When I go to the library or get new books, I take heavy notes on them in my sketchbook. Anything I hear that inspires me or catches my interest I write it down, and it’s always good to reference them from time to time. I have about 60 sketchbooks from the last 5 or so years, and I’d say roughly 50% of their contents are written text or artist references.
Recently, I’ve been trying to remind myself that it’s not necessary for me to respond to my
immediate world. For example, I don’t need to feel obligated to find inspiration in yesterday or last month or tomorrow, rather I’m trying to give myself permission to consider 10 years ago, or 10 years in the future. Those things sort of yield the most freedom and imagination potential. It also takes a lot of pressure off to not try to articulate what’s happening right now, but try to use past experiences or future possibilities. I think that’s my biggest thing right now.
Thank you for having me!
Here’s a link to my Spotify playlists that I’ve worked alongside over the years.
Gabrielle Côté is an illustrator and designer living and working in Baltimore, MD, pursuing an Master of the Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree and a BFA in Illustration. Their illustration work synthesizes imaginative characters with the observed modern world. Advocating for the strength deriving from the process of simplification, Gabrielle’s work offers an invitation for the viewer to create trusting relationships with characters, repeating original symbols, and new worlds. You can explore more of their work at http://www.gabriellecotenielsen.com or @byegabthanks on Instagram.
Beaver Magazine 