Inspired by 80’s and 90’s cartoons and animations, Hungary based freelance artist and musician Voodoo Salad creates art with a psychedelic feel to it. Pushing the boundaries of surrealism, he developed his style with the goal to record music and animate his songs. Using an explosive palette of colors and characters, he creates a trippy world of images and animations that are open to interpretation for the viewer, and will visually blow your mind.

Nickname(s): Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Burrito or Sushi: Sushi.

What do you want to be remembered for? I want to be remembered for throwing a chewing gum through a small hole on a double window. It was epic, but no one saw it.

Strangest thing in your fridge right now? Chicken stock in a plastic bottle. Takes up less space this way.

Best advice you’ve received: Quit your job.

Every artist should have: A pencil and a sketchbook.

Your bio says you’re an Illustrator from The Middle of Nowhere, where is that exactly? 

I grew up and live in rural Hungary, but I refer to the `Courage The Cowardly Dog´ show with that.

When did you first catch the art bug and how have you developed your style over the years?

It’s just the usual cliché. I was a bored kid with a bunch of free time so I spent it drawing and photographing in my late teens and early adulthood. I gave up on drawing a few times, but my now wife has convinced me that I should get back to drawing after I felt difficulties with expressing myself by doing only photography and photo-manipulations. I always did lowbrow-ish drawings, but it was usually a huge helter-skelter. I started to develop what I call my style at the moment in 2017, basically the same day when I made the Voodoo Salad account on Instagram.

Your art is so colorful and has a psychedelic feel to it, where do you find your inspiration for this style from? 

Most of my inspiration comes from well known surrealists, 90s cartoons and adventure games and Japanese animations from all times (but mostly from the late eighties). What probably made me want to do surreal art the most was the art of Roland Topor. I love everything he worked on, especially the animated film, titled Fantastic Planet.

Do you feel that you create art with an intentional message or do you prefer the observer to interpret for themselves?

Either direction works for me, but I mostly prefer to create images and animations that are open for the viewers. I’m an observer myself, so I make art that has a different message for everyone.

You have created quite a few album covers and band logos. Being a musician yourself, how does music influence your art and what are some of your top albums?

I think that music and visual arts have always been in correlation with each other in my life, so music and sound in general is a huge influence for me. Music in fact was the main reason why I’ve started the Voodoo Salad project, because my goal was to record my music and create animations for my songs right from the beginning… it’s a pity that I wasn’t really good at any of them (neither do I consider myself good even today, but I’m trying hard as you can see ).

My top list of top albums are constantly changing, but here are some that I really like:
Ween – Quebec
Kyuss – Welcome To Sky Valley
Fu Manchu –  The Action Is Go

How did you get into animation?

I always thought that it was an intriguing form of art, so I always wanted to try myself in the craft of animation. It’s hard as it gets, but it’s a great challenge that really forces me to think out of the box.

You created a monthly drawing challenge called “Jolly Scribble July”, can you tell us a little more about that?

The idea came from my wife, Cobra Salad, on one sunny spring day. To come up with ideas daily, we both scribble a lot and we try to come up with ideas by trying to see things into the chaos we made. She’s constantly thinking of ideas, and that day she said that we should make a challenge of this. I thought that it’s a great idea, so I rolled with it. Unfortunately we couldn’t host it this year, because there are a bunch of human things that we had to do, but hopefully we will be back with the challenge in 2023!

What are your thoughts on NFT’s, and how do you think artists can thrive in a virtual world?

I think that there’s a huge potential in NFTs! Digital ownership still might sound a bit weird, but so did the idea of everyone using the internet not too long ago. As of now, artists can build a great support system for themselves by selling their artworks to collectors and buying from other artists but later, as more companies will adopt, there will be more possibilities for artists to get work on NFT based projects. I’m not thinking of another 10k profile pic project here of course. I can imagine people getting asked to create props for games for example.

You’re on Discord, how do you engage with your audience through that channel?

My Discord channel was created mostly for the collectors of my first NFT collection on OpenSea, but there’s definitely less interaction there nowadays. I’m thinking of how to revive it for a wider audience, but I’m happy if someone wants to interact with me on one of my channels!

Words of wisdom?

I’m not a wise man, but here you go: Don’t spend time with people who pull you back.

Instagram: @voodoo.salad

https://linktr.ee/voodoo.salad