Artist Profile – Christian Schupp/ARO, Illustrator
Cover Artwork, Kid Mac No Man’s Land LP
This month, we’re turning our attention to the work of Christian Schupp also known as ARO.
ARO was born and grew up in the German city of Koblenz. He now lives and works in Berlin as a freelance illustrator. As well as being a member of the GOOD FOOD Collective he is also the co-founder of the company Style Needs No Color. His past clients include Activision, Electronic Arts, MGM Records and Rimowa.
The Euphorics, Illustration Shirt Design
I crossed paths with ARO for the first time in 2006 whilst exhibiting at the Intoxicated Demons Gallery in Berlin, Germany. I seem to remember this guy turning up to the show in a pretty cool t-shirt which turned out to be ARO. Don’t ask me why I have a memory for these odd and seemingly unimportant facts, just accept that I do.
I remember various snap shots of that night. One of those is a bunch of us chatting about computer software and Aro mentioning how long it takes to render illustrations using the pen tool. At the time I was almost to be considered something of a luddite when it came to using computers but I was starting to get around to the idea. So, when ARO spoke about the laborious task of using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator I guess I felt that I had a pretty good handle on what he was talking about.
That was until I got home to Scotland the following day and decided to get on the net and check out this ARO guy and his work.
Upon viewing ARO’s illustrations, I had to accept that my daily exercises with the pen tool I’d been undertaking courtesy of “Adobe Illustrator CS, a classroom in a book” which consisted of me tracing an image of a simple pear over and over again didn’t exactly qualify me to understand the level of digital penmanship that Christian was referring to.
Christian’s dedication to creating the detail that he achieves in his work comes from a discipline that not everybody is blessed with.
Baron
SCHWARZ AUF WEISS, Book of Illustrations
Another of his qualities is his ability to retain the energy in his illustrations despite the high level of detail.
I’m not going to spend much more time trying to write an insightful criteria of Christian’s work. The work speaks for itself.
To quickly sum up, Christian is one of those artists that seems to be able to unlock the door to his imagination with ease. Everything he does is an explosion of color, detail and energy. We love it!
To view more of ARO’s work and his projects go to…
facebook.com/ChristianAroSchupp