LLYAZEL (Angel Raymond) is a French digital artist, currently working from Brussels to create 3D forms and experimental pieces that combine an intrigue of pop culture and visual observations of the direction in which our world is headed, exploring the concept of technical advance and digital evolutions for humanity.

LLYAZEL has a clear focus on the idea of collaboration, something which is incredibly refreshing to see in the art world, which can often be so hyper fixated on the individual and what we can create alone without help, often collaborating with fellow artists on individual pieces and on exhibitions, whilst also taking inspiration from pop culture individuals and subjects such as fashion collections.

Whilst originally focusing on collage and landscape, implementing 3D forms onto real-life documentary photography and vice versa, as well as creating digitally manipulated environments with flashing lights, neon colours and intricate shapes, LLYAZEL is currently involved in creating more relatable beings. Their exaggerated, human-like creatures and clothing items such as ‘trollishoes’ feel almost identical to our own human adorations, but perhaps digitally rendered 50 years into the future, teasing the idea of a digital existence and what that could hold for us.

What drew you to creating digital art in the beginning?

My interest in visual creations was awakened quite early, according to my memories, with the photoshop software that my uncle made me discover, when I was very young. Afterwards, my interest for other softwares increased. It is thus in an intuitive way that I was interested in other medium in the future.

Describe your work in 5 words.

Organic / rave / hybrid / fairy / club

What made you deviate from combining 3D manipulation with real-life photography to solely creating 3D environments?

I like the impression that arises from the meeting of the natural world and the artificial creation. It also allows me to play with different approaches of visual creations.

Do you see a need for physical art anymore? Why/ Why not? What do you personally believe digital art provides us with instead?

Yes, in my personal experiences, I am inspired by elements of real life, such as architecture, sculpture or even body modifications. It is particularly the shapes, the textures of bodies and objects that in a more or less conscious way constitutes a basic material for my purely digital creations. On the one hand digital art offers possibilities of sharing wider and more fluid and can reach more easily a large number of people because it is dematerialized, On the other hand from a creative point of view digital art allows a much freer creation, because of the absence of concrete limits, which allows to create total universes, which is not restricted by technical constraints.

What programs or processes do you use to create your art? Do you have a favourite piece of yours? Why is it your favourite?

I have been using C4D software for about 4 years. Since I acquired an occulus headset about 1 and a half years ago, I use Adobe medium software, allowing me to experiment in 3d modeling, and blender to texture or even animate my creations. I have several pieces that I like a lot, especially for their creative process and the technical improvements that I acquired from these projects. But if I had to choose only one then I think of the visual for the label high heal, only produced with C4D. It's a very personal imaginary universe that I knew how to transcribe faithfully in this work.

Where do you draw lots of your inspiration? I feel I recognise a lot of pop culture references within your work - is this intentional?

My source of inspiration comes mainly from rave culture (music, club...) and fashion. I grew up with internet and reality TV, so unconsciously in my work, there is the expression of some element of pop culture targeted around the bimbo sphere. For me it's a kind of game in which I rearrange the symbols from several pop culture and alternative universes.

Do you have any opinions on the concept of the metaverse and shifting towards digital existences as a digital artist yourself?

For the moment I don't have any opinion about it because of my lack of knowledge, but I plan to be really interested in it during 2022 ! In particular with the nft and the virtual galleries.

I see you have a big focus on collaboration with your work- if you could collaborate with any artist or individual, who would it be and why?

I have a lot of artists that I would like to collaborate with such as bjork and arca for the richness of their creative universe very hybrid. And I also love to collaborate with labels such as pc music or harlecore, for their talented labels with which I have a strong ressonances with their musical and visual aesthetic.

I have noticed on your page you have begun to experiment with film and moving image- is this something you wish to progress and experiment with further?

Yes of course, I always have a lot of things to discover!

What can we expect next from your work and projects?

I would like to collaborate in the future with talented artists, I would like to create a fighting video game, and start to be interested in 3D printing.