For artist Voodoo Salad, creativity is a cross-media alchemy of 90’s nostalgia and heavy metal energy. What began as a way to learn English through rock lyrics evolved into a career defined by playful, layered illustrations and psychedelic animations that have caught the eye of giants like Sony Music. In our interview with the artist, he pulls back the curtain on his “50-50” process of meticulous planning and raw automatism. From navigating the pressures of high-output apparel design to the evolution of his self-expression, we explore how he balances chaos, intention, and the lingering influence of Cartoon Network.

You’ve mentioned that music was the primary reason for starting Voodoo Salad—tell us more about how music has influenced your art and career. 

Music has a lot of influence on my career and life in general if I really think about it. I’m Hungarian, and when I was a kid, English classes weren’t really a big thing. Most of us haven’t learnt anything there. While I watched a lot of cartoons on Cartoon Network in the 90s, I think that most of my vocabulary came from learning a huge amount of rock and metal lyrics. I can’t sing, but I loved to anyways, so I was super into reading the booklets that came with the CDs, shadowing the singer while listening to the music. If I didn’t recognise a word, I would hit up the dictionary and search for the meaning. I remember having a hard time with all the slang words and idioms, though. 

So in short, I learnt a lot of advanced English from music, which helped me connect with people internationally, which later helped me build a career online without ever leaving Hungary.

Your work often feels playful but layered. How intentional is that balance?

It’s 100% intentional. As I’ve said in our previous interview, my inspiration partly comes from 90s cartoons, but what truly moves me to create are childhood memories and current real life events. I like to hide a little message in every personal piece that I create. I find it kind of hard to go really deep, but I’m working on that too.

How much of your work is planned versus discovered while you’re making it?

I’d say that it’s 50-50. Sometimes the whole thing is there in my head. I draw the thumbnail, I refine it a few times and then finish it. It usually looks almost the same as I had it in my mind. On the other hand, I do have scrapbooks and I do a lot of automatism to ease my mind and draw some weird stuff that just comes out of my pen. I use these elements too in my final pieces.

How did you transition from static lowbrow illustrations to the complex, looping psychedelic animations you’re known for today?

Kind of unfortunate, but I barely have time nowadays to do animations, but I’ll tell the story anyway. I always saw my illustrations moving in my head while I was working on them, but after a long and not too successful experiment, I haven’t had much courage to try again. One time I was feeling really enthusiastic and jumped into animating and illustration. Just a few parts of it, to see how it goes. I had a lot of fun with it, so I did a bunch of them afterwards.

Now I’m more focused on doing still images again, but I might get back to animating again in the future.

Given your high output for the music and apparel industries, how do you handle creative burnout or a “blank page” when the automatism isn’t flowing?

I usually just take a look around and see if I can use something as an inspiration that’s in my immediate vicinity, or I just examine my current state of mind and try to illustrate how I feel.

I like to write random words too. No thinking, just writing word after word without filters (that’s automatism too) helps a lot.

If it’s client work, I usually get a concept and that makes my job a lot easier. At least that’s the case with most apparel companies. When I don’t get a brief from a musician, I usually listen to their work and try to think of what would suit the songs.

Has your relationship with your art changed over the years?

Yes, a whole lot! I don’t force it as much as I used to and I also tend to stray away from the style I’ve been working in for the past few years. I want to experiment more with different mediums and I would like to do art that’s not exactly about style, or a specific medium, but more about self-expression.  

What role does chaos or experimentation play in your creative routine?

Those were always part of my routine! Even when I did photography, I used a bunch of really crappy cameras with expired film, just to surprise myself. I don’t have this option when it comes to drawing, but I like to mess around and combine as many things as possible, especially nowadays. It really helps me to create with ease.

Has there been a project that pushed you way outside your comfort zone?

Yes! When Sony Music/Arista Records asked me to create an animation for Tayo Sounds music. I had to use cheap markers and I also had to animate on top of an existing live action video footage. The deadline was short, and I barely had any experience in doing animation, so it was daunting to say the least, but nevertheless, I took the job. Luckily my wife, who’s a much better animator than me, was there to team up with me when we got asked again in the future!