She is hard to define, because she has never been just one thing. But, at the same time, Rosanna Webster has never needed to be categorised. At an early age, she is an artist, an illustrator, a photographer, a covers’ thief. She shares the fact that she has already worked for big fashion brands with the same calm she tells us she is now counting the days to go to Cuba for a holiday. Bringing back the feminine style, her artwork is an eternal spring, paradoxically coming from a foggy city like London.
How was your experience at Brighton University? Did it shape you in a certain way?
Amazing. Brighton itself was a wonderful experience; being by the sea in a place that’s so walkable was pretty ideal. The illustration course certainly shaped me, I went in to it drawing in quite a meticulous tight way and came out three years later making video, collage and taking photos. The idea there, to me, seemed to be if you could do something, try another medium, experiment, and have fun with it. They pushed us to be explorative and to find our best way to visually communicate.
Traveling is one of your passions, but could we also call it your ‘inspirational fuel’?
For sure, I always come back from being away with lots of ideas and visual references. There is something about being somewhere new and experiences being fresh that really gets my brain ticking. In a few weeks, a friend and I are going to Cuba for five weeks, it’s going to be a total feast visually, I cannot begin to explain how excited I am.
How would you describe the aesthetic of your work?
I suppose I can’t deny my aesthetic is pretty feminine. I always work with a balance of colour, shape and surface texture.
Fashion and botanical prints, where did this match come from?
I‘m drawn to the beautiful, intricate shapes, textures and colours. I started juxtaposing the two and felt it worked.
Could you explain the process of your work?
Collage is almost like a backwards jigsaw for me, taking elements and reassembling them – a combination can be moving in the wrong direction, and then I might swap a piece out or change a colour and somehow it clicks in my head.
Why is being able to work in different mediums important to you? And what is your favourite one right now?
It allows me to keep evolving my style, and moving forwards. I’ll come back to something I haven’t tried in a while and find a new angle within it, and get excited all over again. And then my favourite medium... Right now I’m really looking forward to getting back to taking lots of photos on our trip, and being away from my computer. I like the idea of finding images, and through my camera being able to capture and keep them.
You’ve been working with some of the most important fashion brands of the business. Which has been the most delighting collaboration till now? Or was the collaboration with your boyfriend the one that “killed it all”?
For me Dior has been incredible, I didn’t see myself working with a brand on this scale until it happened. The shows and the images from these are so incredibly beautiful and imaginative to work with, the collection is always a surprise from the last, and the show itself is a total spectacle.
And yes, the music video project with my boyfriend was great to do too! We were given total creative freedom, which doesn’t often happen, so we felt like we really owned the end result. We also worked on an interactive web version of the video, which was a really interesting side to it, something I’d love to explore again.
And yes, the music video project with my boyfriend was great to do too! We were given total creative freedom, which doesn’t often happen, so we felt like we really owned the end result. We also worked on an interactive web version of the video, which was a really interesting side to it, something I’d love to explore again.
What is your relationship with new social media?
I like Instagram, and the immediacy of it. It’s like a quick poll, I often find it interesting to see what people respond to and in turn what they don’t. I find it quite intimate as a platform, the things people share and put out publicly. I’ve been asked to do a few takeovers of accounts and through this have reached out to amazing new audiences. I feel there is a strong community of artists, photographers, etc., encouraging and supporting one another, and to me it seems super positive. I’ve discovered so many great and talented people who inspire me day to day through it.
How do you manage to keep challenging yourself over and over again?
I think this often comes through projects you are approached with, sometimes a project can come in and at first it might be daunting if it’s not your typical approach, but finding ways to work around this pushes you to adapt and reconsider how your style can fit. I also try to have personal work ongoing, to explore ideas I wouldn’t necessarily be able to through commercial work. At the moment I’m looking at taking my work in to more of a three dimensional space and working with real materials as opposed to digitally, it’s nice to mix it up.
Where will we see you in ten years from now?
Right now it’s freezing in London, perhaps I’ll relocate!
