‘xps yourself’
How This Artist Turns His Mental Health Struggles Into Superpowers To Create 11/10 Work
For the first brief, we cast a net searching for illustrators and artists to create some ~magique~, and heavens to Betsy it did not disappoint.
Meet JESWRI, a Sydneysider-turned-Melburnian (good choice) who has been cranking out masterpieces since his days tagging moving trains and crafting paintings down side-streets.
Welcome art fans, art admirers, art detractors and most importantly, the casual reader sitting on the toilet.
For the past few months, we’ve been working alongside Dell for its XPS Open Studio, a campaign where we wrangled up some of the best Aussie and New Zealand talent to contribute any form of art dedicated entirely to self-expression.
“My process is deep-diving in YouTube, getting lost in countless rabbit holes on the internet,”
JESWRI explains. “I’ll start by reading a brief, understanding what I have to do, then I allow myself to get lost — Neil deGrasse Tyson, Star Talk, kids falling over, monkeys throwing gunk at the zoo.
“I’m currently watching how stingrays have babies. ”Why is it that every time I fall into a YouTube hole, I get less creative and six hours pass by without me knowing? Life is unfair, sometimes.
For this particular brief, JESWRI used the people around him for inspiration (the pregnant stingrays too, one could assume), as well as harnessing his mental health.
“All throughout my career I’ve been very open with my struggles with mental health, things like ADHD, depression, anxiety — all of those that a lot of people would lean on, I try and treat them as my superpower.”
