Time Travel: Interview with Artist Loui Jover
Credit: Loui Jover
If you ask artist Loui Jover when he discovered his passion, his answer opens up a conversation that sheds light on what has molded this talented artist. "I have drawn since childhood and as other children stop at some point in their development, I never did." As it turns out, it wasn't just one period of time or merely one life experience that inspired and pushed his work. It was a series of moments. It has been his life journey thus far that has unfolded around the world that has shaped this artist.
Born in Debeljaca, a small town in former Yugoslavia, Jover "was a mere baby (when) my parents migrated to Australia after a short spell in Austria. In all I am culturally a mixed up fusion of all these places, I have found that I can belong to either yet truly belong to none and in it's own funny way this has served my creative ethos well".
Credit: Loui Jover
With an overactive imagination and the encouragement of his parents, a pencil always remained in his hand. By the time he was a teenager, the pencil was replaced with an ink pen. His mother remembers him as a "chronic drawer". His father "was a blacksmith who has always had a creative yearning. He painted and sculpted. He has always been interested in creativity. This helped me immensely."
Jover got an informal art educations in, of all places, the army. "One day I was walking past a recruiting centre for the Australian Army. I was desperate to find an occupation that allowed me to draw and be paid for it. I had no interest in anything military except to try and draw tanks and guns. I noticed that the army had a graphic section known as 'Illustrator Reprographics' who drew stuff all day and were paid to do so! You were told what to draw, but I didn't care. I signed up. I got in and became a Sapper in the Survey Corp. I drew and drew, and that was a great time.I learned about computers and a lot about mediums like off set printing and etching."
Jover's army career ended and his art career truly began when he left the army. " I don't take well to being told what and when to draw things. That's why I left the army in the end. I was over it. After the army I ran a small graphic art business with a partner, it was called 'Gumtree Graphics' in the end he bought me out." Jover now works as a freelance artist. "My goal is to keep living off my drawings the way I am at the moment. I never take this for granted"
Credit: Loui Jover
After walking me through the moments of his timeline that lead to him being the artist he is today, he pauses to reflect. "I saw Picasso's works in Paris, I saw Vincent's in Britain, Klee in Berlin, I saw the Mona Lisa and Rodin's Atelier. So all these influenced my development undoubtedly, but in the end its always the more intimate moments that effect one's sensibilities the. I loved the narrow run down areas of Paris streets more then the grand processions, I liked the damp crowded spaces of London better then Trafalgar. I liked the wild and undisciplined feel of Montenegro or the ancient walls of Dubrovnik, the brooding city of Belgrade with its bombed out buildings and the crazy back streets of Rome. All this has been invaluable to the formation of my artistic ideals. Travel is a wonderful thing." Indeed it is.
You can check out more of Jover's work here>>
