Apollonia Saintclair

Illustration By Apollonia Saintclair

WHY ART?
This is not something you choose for a reason. One day you take a pencil, you draw a line, then another. And you keep this up, until you cannot stop. You do not “make” art. You do something with a certain intensity, with some obsession. And then people look at it and say, “This is art”.

HOW DOES ONE BECOME AN EROTIC ILLUSTRATOR?
How do you become an illustrator of locomotives? You must have a certain affinity with the subject; you have to see there's something you'd like to represent. For me, eroticism is a kind of filter that allows me to reveal hidden sides of our world, telling stories that go beyond the surface.

WHY HARDCORE?
Per the dictionary hardcore means, “To be exactly what you claim to be and never change. To be unrelenting and uncompromising.” This is also what I want for my drawings, whether they are rough or delicate. What’s the point to revealing a part of yourself, if you don’t have that honesty?

WHAT BACKGROUND TRAINING DO YOU HAVE?
I’m self-taught. I learned by watching the work of masters and trying to achieve similar results. It is a slow process where hand, eye and mind learn to enter a mutual resonance.

WHAT IS YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS AND WHAT TECHNIQUE DO YOU USE?
Most of my drawings originate from a picture whose discovery triggers a sort of overlay where I see a new image in the making. Then I look for references to support my imagination. The final image is a collage that, if successful, seems cast in one go. Much of the drawing is formed during inking with highlighting and distribution of contrasts in the frame. I work mainly digitally.

WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION?
Everything is inspiration, if viewed from the right angle. The difficulty is not to find something to draw, no, what is difficult is to find subjects that are also graphically effective.

WHO ARE THE ARTISTS YOU LOOK UP TO?
A great bunch of them... Manara and Moebius for the graphical expression, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis Borges  and Richard Matheson for the narrative technique. But maybe above all, Louise Bourgeois and Man Ray for their unspoiled and relentless creativity.

WHAT PLACE DOES PORNOGRAPHY HAVE IN OUR CULTURE, DOES IT (HISTORICALLY) INCITE OR SUBDUE VIOLENCE?
I have no answer to that; you have to talk with a sociologist ... However, I note that violence, particularly against women, existed long before pornography was spreading on a large scale. I also think it would be helpful to first define pornography in a more articulated manner and independently of the conservative political vocabulary. When the Divine Marquis wrote “Justine” for example, what terrified his contemporaries were not the lashes, but the societal implications of these transgressions.

IS YOUR FANBASE COMPOSED OF MEN AND WOMEN ALIKE?
I don’t know ... I get a lot of positive reactions from the girls, but that does not mean they are the majority; maybe guys are just quieter...

HOW ARE YOU BYPASSING THE GRAM’S CENSORING POLICY, OR DOES “NO NIPPLES” ONLY APPLY TO THE FEMALE GENDER?
On Instagram I’m unfortunately obliged to censor nipples - and the rest of the breeding female anatomy. My profile has already been reported and erased several times ... What also seems to shock most of these anonymous informers, is the sight of a penis ... I let you deduce what that means...

IF YOU WEREN’T DOING THIS, WHAT WOULD YOU BE UP TO?
I wouldn’t be.