André “ants in his pants” Carrilho
It bugs him when he’s told that he should stick to the fields in which he excels. A proven cartoonist and illustrator, his unique style has been seen in publications the world over for a decade. Comic books, animation or VJ-ing, the restless artist likes to experiment and is never satisfied.
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“Do you still live in New York?” is the recurring question. André Carrilho does not live in New York, nor in Macau – although it was in the former Portuguese colony that he took his first steps into the world of newspapers. He was 17 and given a blank page in the newspaper Ponto Final. The first caricature (the former governor of Macau, Vasco Rocha Vieira, with Mao Zedong’s hair) must have impressed the bosses, as he became a frequent contributor to the recently created paper, drawing “focussing a lot on customs, such as the differences between the Chinese and Portuguese, and visual jokes about the city.” 21 years later, André Carrilho has become the best known Portuguese illustrator in the world. Winning the Gold Award of the Society for News Design in 2002 was one of the defining moments in his career. At that time, his portfolio was left in a pile of other portfolios that were destined for the New York Times, which “probably helped things along”. Along the way, he caught the eye of one of the jurors, the art director of Britain’s The Independent newspaper, who hired him for the covers of the Sunday supplement, which has he continued to do ever since.
Currently, the only reason he isn’t working with the New York Times is because Steve Heller, art director of the New York daily and also his “mentor and specialist in illustration and caricature,” decided to take a sabbatical. But he can’t complain: from his house in Olivais (Lisbon), where he really lives, he sends work to the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and the New York Magazine. In London, in addition to The Independent on Sunday, he is also a contributor to Word magazine. Recently, he also began working with the Swiss newspaper NZZ.
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The jack of all trades
Although exceptional at both illustration and caricatures, André Carrilho always keeps his eye on new technology. Perhaps the demise of paper will take longer than previously thought; however, according to the illustrator, there is no harm in being prudent and prepared for this eventuality. Let’s not forget that “the Internet is a combination of all other means and should be seen as much more than a still image. I’m interested in exploring the potential of image. This is exemplified by Spam Cartoon, which was established in 2008, and Video Jack, which was created in 2004.
The first is a joint microfilm project that pokes fun at contemporary Portuguese politics, as well as the personal “bugbears” of its makers. It’s the result of a partnership between Andre Carrilho and João Paulo Cotrim, which also involves the Portuguese illustrators Cristina Sampaio, João Fazenda and José Condeixa, who are the first in the world to regularly make animated features on current affairs. The second is a VJ-ing project, which he shares with the musician and programmer Nuno Correia, in which he feels “a kind of liberation.” He confesses he has always been jealous of jazz musicians because their creativity is immediately perceptible by people. Perhaps it was this that got him into VJ-ing. With a trademark programme created by the duo, they choose “animation loops from an image library that match what’s being played.” After a year of performing at the famous Lux club in Lisbon, they performed at various music and audiovisual festivals in cities like New York, Prague and Lille, and in countries like Finland or Estonia. In the middle of all this, they also debuted the animated short film Jantar em Lisboa in 2007, which boasted a script and music by J.P. Simões, winning José Álvaro Morais newcomers award that year at the Covilhã Film Festival for good measure.
On his business card, which he himself designed, the word “versatile” should precede his signature. “I like discovering new things. It annoys me greatly when people tell me I can’t do this or that. I was always told that I couldn’t do anything apart from caricatures. When I started doing comics, they told me I was a cartoonist, and I couldn’t do it. When I started doing illustration, they repeated the same nonsense. When I wanted to do animation, they also warned me that I shouldn’t do it because I’m an illustrator. I’m so stubborn that I’ll eventually be accepted in every area. I just want to be allowed to do it, I might not be good at them all, but I like to explore.” And the fact is that everyone eventually has had to admit their folly, as André’s explorations have been successful. “Having graphic design as a foundation has had an impact on all my work, not only in visual terms, but technical ones as well.”
After the Franco-Belgian comic books
His sharp critical sense, which is a very clear feature of his personality, is something that comes from his childhood. From the time he drew pirates and swordsmen, his mother recalls, “He was always complaining that nothing he ever put on paper came out right.” At the age of 11, and inspired by the Franco-Belgian comic book collection of his uncle Victor, who was a cartoonist, he entered this world, definitively. His uncle was the muse for his first caricature.
His most beloved comic books at the time were Spirou, Tin Tin, Lucky Luke, Asterix and Comanche. At around the age of 14, he started buying comic books regularly and was particularly interested in the craft of Hugo Pratt and his sailor Corto Maltese. Scissors in hand, he began to cut out illustrations from newspapers, from both here and abroad. He began collecting the drawings of Vasco, Augusto Cid and Antonio in a file, as well as illustrations from Le Monde, which his stepfather bought, and Suivre, “it was the best French comic magazine, featuring various authors, such as Hugo Pratt and Moebius.” Needless to say, he always carried a sketch pad to do caricatures of those willing.
Macau – Lisbon
In 1990, he went with his mother to live in Macau. In addition to meeting João Lam and Gonçalo Viana at secondary school, who gave him ideas for his portfolio and a passport for his talent to start bearing fruit, André was fascinated by “mobile phones and pagers, objects that I’d never seen before. The first time I went to a McDonald’s was also in Macau”. Later, he left the consumer’s paradise to return to Lisbon, attending a graphic design course at Escola Superior de Belas Artes. In his “inspiring” geometry classes, he created a rather suggestive series called Kamasutra Para Obesos (Kamasutra for the Obese) with his classmate João Lam, who had also come from Macau. He didn’t finish his course because, in his second year, his friend Luís Lázaro invited him to set up a design studio. Later, he started working for the satirical paper Fiel Inimigo, and he began meeting people from the world of illustration and developing his own style. “In the arts, people are more interested in a portfolio than a degree”.
And because André already had one, he gave up college. “I was essentially self-taught. And at school they didn’t teach what I wanted to learn.”
It doesn’t stop him from aiming for perfection. In his living room, he has two caricatures of Jimi Hendrix, “a symbol of excellence”, and although he says he doesn’t possess the talent of the guitar virtuoso, we are dealing with a perfectionist here. “I try to be so because much of my work isn’t very good.” Nobody believes it, only him. “I always want to be better because I’m dissatisfied. There are a couple of people that when they tell me it’s not good, it’s not.” This last sentence does not apply if his stubbornness tells him that it is really good. “Then it’s because it really is.”
To get the caricatures right, there’s work to be done. “To get the tics, you have to see various images, because a single photograph may not capture the essence of the person. Caricatures aim to capture the whole person; it has to do with movement, the way they talk, move, think and even the way they look. It’s essential to know if the person is depressed or not. Caricatures are not so much what the person is, but the collective perception of them. There are photographs in which we don’t recognise the person; however that is a luxury I can’t afford.”
Graphic meanderings
Over the last decade in Portugal, his work has filled the pages of Público, O Independente, Expresso, Euronotícias, Diário Económico, Jornal de Notícias, Livros, Ler, Tabacaria, Egoísta, and since 2006, he has had an exclusive contract for Portugal with Diário de Notícias. His work has moved from the pages of the newspaper to its gallery where, in 2008, he exhibited 38 works from national and foreign publications. Two years previously, he had 80 caricatures of Portuguese and foreign writers displayed in the Linha e Ponto e Vírgula exhibition at the Bordallo Pinheiro Museum in Lisbon.
When he’s on holiday, he adheres to the maxim of an animation teacher who once told him: the art of living is finding inspiration in all of the other arts, apart from your own. ”I use my free time for inspiration, to explore other artistic areas, or to spend time doing things that are unconnected to drawing, which have more to do with animation. Basically, I like interactive games.”
Having awards and enjoying his work is both a blessing and a curse. ”On one hand, I like what I do; on the other, I don’t have a schedule that allows me to take a whole month’s holiday, and the Trans-Siberian can’t be done in a fortnight.” Let us explain: André’s dream trip is currently on the back burner, waiting for progress to reach the Russian railway and to have wi-fi technology available in the near future. So as not to despair at the station, until the next journey, André will do more animation, another short film, more comic books. “It’s my ultimate dream.”
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by Maria João Veloso
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