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Alice Nell
October 31, 2014

Meet Viktoria Cichon

Meet a lovely creative soul Viktoria Cichon, aka Vikunia. At our 5 Years betahaus Festival we had a first-hand experience of Viktoria's creative process when she performance-painted the Mural on our Cafe window, which we still have the joy of admiring every day! Her artwork is not just limited to Murals, she is a master of many different disciplines in art but mainly leans to her favourite art form - Typography. Her work definitely​ correlates to her personality. Witty and youthful but forward thinking, don't just take our word for it we'll let you be the judge!

Let's start at the beginning. Tell us a bit about how you got into Design and where your passion for Typography stem from?

I think it all started with my brother, who drew comics. As a kid I always imitated his style until I tried drawing my own stuff. In school I chose the art class and graduated in it. After an internship I was sure I wanted to study design. Typography was always something that fascinated me. As I listen a lot to music, I wrote a lot of lyrics and quotes, that inspired me. During my studies I tried a lot of illustration and always came back to lettering somehow.

At our betahaus 5 Years Festival, you had a performance with designing a wonderful Mural on the Window of our Cafe, It has added to the vibe of the Cafe making it an inspiring and delightful experience to look outside. Can you tell us more about where you got such an idea for Performance Window Painting, where does the inspiration for it come from?

After my finishing my studies in design I spontaneously decided to do an internship at one of my favourite artist collective Klub7. They do a lot of windows and murals, which I already did, too, but I used to do a lot of sketches before drawing on big surfaces. I admired their spontaneous way of working together, they rarely plan what they are painting and always react to what the others paint. I also wanted to interact with the crowd at 5 years of betahaus. Listening to what they're talking about I used everything that was happening around me and transformed it into abstract or floral patterns and combined it with lettering. So it became like a little protocol of that day.

You are a young and inspiring artists, you are involved with a range of things from Murals, Typography, Merchandise to Editorial Illustrations and more. How do you constantly maintain your recognizable style in these different genres of art?

I don't do it deliberately. The more I create, the more people tell me they recognize my style. That's actually when I notice that a lot of different artworks look alike. Of course I have my favourite letterings or plants, that I use often.

A lot of your artwork has very meaningful messages with an added pinch of sarcasm and cute elements to brighten the imagery. Where does your inspiration come from?

Basically from life. Whenever I had a bad experience, I try not to give up, but take it as a life lesson. I think that's what life is about, making mistakes and learning from it. But it's important how you let it affect you. I try not to take myself and everything I create too seriously. I think humour is the most important thing in my art.

Not so long ago you launched your wonderful designs on tote-bags and t-shirts. What’s the next step for your brand?

I actually don't want to make a brand but rather do designs for existing brands. I want to concentrate on making art, printing and distributing doesn't really interest me and takes up too much time. Since music is a big part of my life, I enjoy making t-shirts for bands of friends, but that's it.

You recently became a Berliner. Tell us one of your favourite hang out spots and a place that inspires you the most?

During the summer I love hanging out at Tempelhofer Feld, since even though there's so many people, it never seems crowded. It also reminds me of the seaside, I can't really tell why. Now when it's getting colder I like having coffee at Roamers in Neukölln. I met a lot of very nice people there and it kind of feels like a second home.

Share with us your favourite book, booklet or a quote and compare it to a drink, Go!

One of my many favourite quotes is from a Black Keys' song "You know what the sun's all about when the lights go out". It's a very dark song about loneliness, teaching you that you don't know what you have until it's missing. As you already know I love summing up life lessons. Have a whiskey sour with it, cheers.

 

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Connect, follow and keep in touch with Viktoria's projects on Vikunia Arts!

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