We've been working together on several collections now, but could you tell us a bit about yourself?
I'm Jim Kylam, a self-taught visual artist living and working in Paris. After doing graphic design for a while, I wanted to develop a slightly more personal style and started drawing. Originally, the simplest way for me to work was with paper and pencil, but I've diversified my mediums, moving on to tattooing, painting, ceramics and objects.
Symbolism is omnipresent in your work. Where does this come from?
I think it's a form of sensitivity that leads me towards this work on symbolism and archetypes. I like to transcribe my emotions onto different media and in different ways.
I like to transcribe my emotions onto different media and in different ways.
Since our first collaboration we've changed our process, working in greater depth with fewer artists. How did you feel about that?
I immediately found it really interesting to have his work on several pieces, it gives you a more interesting panel to create a universe. And I think that for Olow it creates a regularity in the collection.
For someone like you who grew up in a rural area, what's it like living in the hustle and bustle of Paris?
I think that having spent my childhood and teenage years in the countryside, the attraction of the city was something that was missing in me.
Being in a city that never sleeps is very stimulating and tiring. I think that city-dwellers fantasise about the countryside, but when you're a teenager in a department on the diagonal of the void it's hard, the lack of culture is blatant.
I like the anonymity of the city and its harshness is very inspiring, but for how long?
Has growing up in the countryside influenced your work? In what way?
There's an element of the countryside in me and my work, with elements like trees, snakes, birds... I think that growing up in the middle of nature has also helped me to develop my introspection and imagination.
What does the world of the forest, the theme of this collection, evoke for you?
For me it's a form of nostalgia, in the good sense of the word, a form of bucolic memories. The power of the forest is indescribable.
