Roy Bourkel is an 18-year-old concept artist and illustrator who currently resides in Luxembourg. Although Roy Bourkel is one of the younger members of the Slashthree collective, his maturity seems to know no bounds. Roy encountered and overcame numerous obstacles during the year of 2010, and has only continued to grow as an artist. During Paradigm Shift, Roy showed his true growth and produced a myriad of high quality illustrations. The responsible, friendly and charismatic Roy Bourkel is a Slashthree artist that everyone should keep their eyes on.

Saad Moosajee:
Hello Roy, congratulations on being the featured artist for the truly monumental release of exhibition 15, Paradigm Shift. Lets start by having you tell the readers out there a few words about yourself:

Roy Bourkel:
Thank you Saad! Well, my name is Roy Bourkel and I am an 18-year old student and self-taught artist living in Luxembourg. Besides harnessing my creativity, I love to learn, and try to learn new things on a constant basis.

Saad Moosajee:
Interesting! How exactly did you learn about digital art, and what in particular motivated you to pursue it at such a young age?

Roy Bourkel:
Well, I’ve been working in all kinds of art for a long time, and my father has always worked closely with computers and such, so one day I found a copy of Photoshop 5.0 and the love affair began. I was amazed at the possibilities that Photoshop had to offer (especially the ability to choose and undo), and I knew that this was the right way for me to go.

Saad Moosajee:
Well then, the whole collective is thankful that you found Photoshop 5 on that fateful day! Everyone here at slashTHREE is really curious though, what transformations did you go through while we’ve been working on this exhibition, and what caused you to submit an unprecedented 10 high quality illustrations?

Roy Bourkel:
At the moment I’m working hard, striving to become one of the best in this field, and I feel that when you’re trying to improve you must never stop working. That’s really all it took to motivate me enough to put out all those pieces of work.

Saad Moosajee:
Well, one must only take a quick look at all of your pieces to see that you’ve made a huge step towards becoming one of the best. If you had to choose one of your pieces as your favourite, which would you choose and why?

Roy Bourkel:
If I had to pick just one, I’d take Horokosuto; it holds so many impressions and emotions, both personal and influenced by my own world-view. It’s simple but it’s strong, and that’s what I like the most about it… It’s totally different from what I usually do.

Saad Moosajee:
Horokosuto is definitely a great example of a paradigm shift. Please, give us a brief walkthrough, from start to finish, of how you put together this beautiful illustration.

Roy Bourkel:
I started thinking about the piece when I revisited some horrific facts about the Second World War; I wanted to address humanity’s two biggest crimes – the Holocaust and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – in my own way. The idea was simple, and I wanted to keep the finished product simple to reflect that. It was one of my quicker pieces – I only spent around an hour on it - and all I used was Photoshop, my mouse and some simple brushes. At the end I played around with some stereoscopic effects in order to make the image a little more disturbing.

Saad Moosajee:
That’s an interesting process, and a great meaning behind the piece. At which point during the process did you implement the exhibition’s theme, “Paradigm Shift”, and how important was the theme to the illustration?

Roy Bourkel:
I believe that the theme was there from the beginning. The events I wanted to reference in the piece were so incredibly shocking that, still to this day, they‘ve changed the way that all of humanity sees the world; I hope that we never forget that.

Saad Moosajee:
It’s refreshing to see such an intricate use of the theme through this incredibly deep and emotional concept; clearly the meaning behind the piece is something that you truly value. Moving on, if you had to choose one of the artworks from this exhibition aside from your own that you think was the strongest, and the best representation of “Paradigm Shift”, which piece would you choose and why?

Roy Bourkel:
I’d say “At the Dinner Table”, by Danny Stolk (BRAAAWH). It shows that there can be weird and complicate situations even in the most comfortable of places. The simplicity and almost-abstract nature of the piece really enhances the concepts it shows. It’s so weird you could imagine using stuff like it… I mean, I would.

Saad Moosajee:
An unexpected but excellent choice. It seems like in the modern era, so many digital illustrations have been made with no real thought or concept behind them, simply to look good, and passed off as “surrealism”. What’s your take on these illustrations?

Roy Bourkel:
I think that we, as viewers, tae these things for granted. A real illustration always has a message or a point to get across, and if the viewer doesn’t understand that message I think it’s a bad illustration. I agree with you that we see far too much fancy work which is made for no other purpose than to look good; as long as they’re not used as excuses to not get into real illustrations, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

Saad Moosajee:
Well said! You’re incredibly well-educated for your age, and so I must ask, who or what are your major inspirations? Not just in terms of art, but life in general…

Roy Bourkel:
I try to find inspiration in everything, rather than only a couple of things. Even the smallest circle and the faintest sounds has a greater meaning if you just open your eyes and ears to find it. It’s not about what you see, but how you see it.

Saad Moosajee:
For the most part, your submissions to slashTHREE exhibitions have been digital paintings. Do you see yourself continuing to pursue painting at a higher level, or eventually expanding to other mediums?

Roy Bourkel:
I love to experiment and play around, so I would not only imagine, but bet, that I’ll definitely expand into more than just digital painting. At the moment, though, digital painting is my focus, and it will always stay that way. That being said, I can easily see myself working in a graphic design job; it’s all about being able to create, it doesn’t only have to be concept art.

Saad Moosajee:
It’s great to see that you’re so adventurous, we all look forward to where the future takes you. If you had to choose one CGI program that you wish you knew better, which one would it be and why?

Roy Bourkel:
In all honesty, I’m not too sure. I’m not an expert on 3D environments; I only know a few, and I don’t know much about the few I know, so before I could make that choice I’d have to get more into the field. However, if I had to choose by taste I’d choose “Maya”. I like Maya’s interface, simplicity and the abundant community support behind it.

Saad Moosajee:
It’s no secret to the slashTHREE community that over the period in which the collective was working on Paradigm Shift, you encountered a number of obstacles in your personal life. A paralysed hand forced you to create a third of your submissions with your weaker hand on an optical mouse, and massive amounts of pain associated with this; yet you produced an astounding number of submissions through this. How were you able to motivate yourself to create so many pieces of work for our exhibition?

Roy Bourkel:
Life is never easy, whether you suffer from illness or disease or lose someone you love, it’s never easy. I never had it easy, but instead of asking how I managed to create so many pieces, ask yourself how we as humans always stand up after great hardship; we rebuild cities after a war and we laugh after we cry. The answer is simple: we do is because we have to. When my right hand wouldn’t move, I worked with my left. If you chase a dream, you’ve got to do it with heart and sometimes, that’s not too easy.

Saad Moosajee:
That’s an amazing view, quite profound. Do you have any last words for those who are reading this?

Roy Bourkel:
What can I say? Thank you all for taking the time to read through this interview and to look through the exhibition. I hope you enjoyed it, and remember, if you want to become better at something, stop wondering and start working! I’d also like to thank you, Saad, for the interview, and give a quick shoutout to Bechira Sorin who always supports me when I need it.