Today we’d like to introduce you to Grigor Eftimov.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be an artist – this coupled with constant moving as a child really made an impact on me. My family of two younger siblings and parents immigrated from Eastern Europe (Macedonia) to the east coast of the U.S. in a small town of North Carolina. There, at age four, my earliest recollection of drawing began in nursery school. My father also was very talented and did some wood carving from time to time. I and would usually ask him to draw things for me which seemed like magic at the time. We were very poor back then – I remember using brown paper bags cut up and taped on the wall to draw Voltron! Crayons were also rare and getting a new set was sacred. My mother took care of us and father worked on a plantation picking tobacco and strawberries and wasn’t until we moved north to New Jersey he had more work opportunities.
Growing up involved a lot of moving – North Carolina, New Jersey. Moving back to Macedonia and even to Australia. We eventually made it back to the US and settled in Chicago. During this time, I’ve probably been to six high schools and made and lost many friends. There were a lot of times that were difficult and the feeling of “home” was something that wasn’t physical but definitely metaphorical and during those times I would bury myself in drawing and dreaming of wanting to become an artist. Being a very shy kid and not realizing at the time but- art was a universal language and did more to communicate those around me than any words I’d ever say. It helped bridge friendships and standout, it made someone who was mostly homesick feel welcomed and special. Without a doubt every time, we moved, or if there was change on the horizon- I knew that as hard as it was, I always had the feeling that as long as I was making art or drawing, that this was what made a home feel like it was always with me.
At the age of 19, my formal art training began and enrolled at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Money was always an issue and was only able to pay for one semester. I was working with my father at the time doing asbestos abatement and was all I could afford. I continued working with father for a couple more years so that I could pay off school in full and even took a year off. Around my second year of school, I began doing caricatures at six flags. A lot of artists had a hard time dealing with the general public even quitting under pressure halfway their first year of working there. The caricature was something that really helped expand my mind and creative thinking.
At first, it was just a job I was trying to muscle through and just make money to pay for school but over time, specifically my second year there I began to really push my caricatures. It became more about making artwork and less about making money. I used the opportunity to push my mind and thought past a lot of my comfort and always tried to take opportunities to do something new with caricature and the medium as a whole. It was definitely an outlet for me and my peers who we had a very strong like-minded outlook on the medium. Even though I worked at six flags for four seasons, I knew that it was temporary and was always thinking of larger things to shoot for. I felt that I lacked so much in ways of painting and really started falling in love with academic works done by the old masters.
Back when I was in Australia around the age of 15, I had my first nude figure drawing class and fell in love. Wasn’t years later that I would pick it up at the Academy. I wanted to go to Florence and study but that dream didn’t last very long and looked for other opportunities to make a living and continue my study. That was when I found a school that had a very similar setup, “The School of Representational Art.” It was a smaller more intimate setup then the Academy – with personalized critiques and the sight of seeing figure drawings and paintings I knew this was the place for me. Immediately, I enrolled in the program. I knew that this was where I wanted to be and made every moment count. The program took about four years to complete and about my 3rd year there, I began student teaching, doing demos and being more involved- eventually becoming part of the faculty.
Shortly after my art training, I began storyboarding for commercials. This was something I had no experience in but was determined to make happen. After about a year of apprenticing as a storyboard artist, I was comfortable to take on live jobs for clients. This over time allowed me the financial freedom to start doing more personal work and open up my own atelier in 2013. Today, it is called “Atelier Eftimov” and since then, I have had the pleasure of teaching some highly dedicated students while doing personal and commercial work out of what I presently call my true home.
Please tell us about your art.
My work can be broken down into a few categories, commercial, personal and academic/teaching.
When it comes to commercial work, I have done a lot of storyboarding work over the course of ten years. A lot of the clients are household names – such as Mc Donald’s, Nissan, Comcast, Nintendo even a lot of unfamiliar ones. Most people are unaware that this is what I do to make a living, without it the luxuries of teaching and working on personal work would be nearly impossible. I will be the first to admit that I am not the best out there when it comes to this type of work – but what I will say is my willingness to be as professional as possibles. That means being able to communicate with clients, maintain a consistent level of quality within my work that represents who I presently am and most importantly being able to work under tight deadlines that can be extremely strenuous. Something that I appreciate more than anything else is how valuable my free time is when I’m not hammering away at commercial work. Even though the work is art related and is very grateful, this is still a reminder that while working for a client, you’re just a cog in the wheel of larger production and your voice is not your own. This can be viewed in many ways but I choose to see it as an opportunity for me to reflect on the work that is greater to me – such as teaching and my own personal projects. So, whenever a large workflow does come by, I take the opportunity to get it done and out of the way so that I may get back to what matters more to me. The contrast between my personal work and commercial work I think helps to keep me humbled and balanced in a way. It also makes me all the more eager while developing as an artist to have my own voice that is not dependent on anyone else.
I feel that we all have something to tell and experiences that can be shared. I do a lot of doodling and jotting down ways of interpreting experiences. I believe we all can identify with feelings of love, joy, sadness and all the common expressions of being a human being. The interesting thing for me is to find my way of evoking and interpreting these experiences good or bad, regardless of the medium – paint, charcoal, pastel, digital, etc. I relish the moments in life that bring out the best in us and the worst, for me, it is in those times either in the moment or in a reflection that I feel driven and inspired to create and interpret my human experience.
As of late, I have been developing a lot of ideas digitally, tablets are a lot more accessible and I have the ability to draw and record ideas without the pressure of wasting paper or materials. Sometimes, I find it to be difficult to develop new ideas while being in a studio all day and what is nice about doing things digitally is that you can take it with you on the go. Just like a sketchbook, you can just record what you want whenever you want. You will most definitely find me in a coffee shop daydreaming and sketching away, regardless of the medium digital sketchbook or not I find it to be a great way of stimulating creativity and just being able to freely explore. I do rather feel that once I have a good grasp on a theme or idea I do dive back into it in the studio and start developing an idea much more thoroughly. Lately, I have been doing a lot more developed studies of ideas that I’ve been wanting to turn into future paintings. I have always loved Pierre Proudhon and his charcoal studies done on toned paper and highlighted with chalk. This has made developing my preliminary studies more enjoyable and rather than treating them as mere studies but more as finished works in themselves.
Once I have the study prepared, I usually work alongside it with any other references in completing a painting or piece. I don’t mind the long process such as this where developing and composing ideas is something im always rushing through with storyboards, but here with my own work, I can take the time and work at a more comfortable pace and enjoy the process. You get so used to just pumping out so much work on one end of the art world – it’s nice to be able to slow down put the quality and care into a craft. A lot of my work is figurative and can be is seen as dark or maybe even disturbing? Regardless of the opinion you may have or is seen as – I want that to always be paired with the word beautiful. What I mean by that is having spent so much time studying the figure and nature – and learning a visual language it would be a shame to not have that set the visual stage for adequately presenting an idea. That to me, in any figurative work, should be the bassline, you may not be taken by the message but the craft of drawing and composing was not an afterthought. When the two do come together, that to me a is a great achievement and I wish that more collaborations of craft and idea are more often welded together. This is something I wish and desire very much in works that I aspire to create and works that I admire both of the past and present.
Teaching is something that I never thought I’d do and began as a way to pay my way while enrolled as a student. Around my 3rd year of atelier training, I began student teaching and found the response to be very positive. It helped me reiterate and solidify the knowledge that was bestowed on to me as well as introduce ideas that I personally felt would make the student’s curriculum even stronger. I’ve been teaching for nearly 15 years and even till this day I still do academic work, figurative studies, still lifes and developing ideas into compositions. It is not only to serve as a demonstration for my students but to keep me sharp and grounded. My need to observe and appreciate the world around is also above all something I will never tire from. It’s hard to explain to someone why you would spend dozens of hours in front of a painting or drawing but that is something that can’t be put into words and only experienced. It serves as the groundwork for developing the visual language and craft of developing ideas in all mediums. Like I mentioned earlier when craft and idea come together that is something I hold in high regard. Much of contemporary art even contemporary realist work is either all technical and used as a segway to the art world with very little intention other than to just produce. Likewise, a lot of work that has put out effort in trying to convey ideas ends up being lost because the idea was poorly executed or didn’t have the technical language to say what was intended.
In 2013, what seems to be a necessity – I turned what was to be nothing more than my personal workspace into a full atelier. Since then, I have had the honor of teaching some very hard working and aspiring students. The groups I usually work with consists of no more than five students at a time. This allows for a far more personalized and tailored critique. Most of my teaching methods are based on what was passed along to me. I take great pride in the work that comes out of each student and the studio. I offer no degree any paper, but a skill set that is applicable to traditional and contemporary mediums of expression. Each student that I have encountered has reached out to me on their own accord and with that, I feel that each student is a personal project in the making and feel very responsible. Often times, I feel that the struggles of a student are the shortcomings of my teaching and it is very hard to not take it personally. I really do think that teachers need to uphold the highest of standards not of just their students but of themselves. If you are going to be taking credit when a student is succeeding, then you also have to be equally responsible for their struggles.
As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
Not everyone is so fortunate to know what it is in life they want to pursue. Success is measured on an individual level and just like being in school there are many ups and downs along the way. The important thing is that you are able to support yourself along the way and be focused on the long term. I’ve known a lot of students who had to earn their place amongst the more “talented”, by doing so they were usually the ones who also were less likely to give up. I’ve also seen may “talented” peers of mine give up along when life throws them a curveball, things may have been easy, thus far, but may be unprepared to handle the uncertainties and challenges that life usually throws at them. The one thing I know for certain is hard work is 90% and talent is 10%. Like I mentioned earlier, I went out of my way to learn a new skill (storyboarding) and paid off tremendously. A lot of times, we have to do things that are outside of our scope or even in our field of work in order to sustain and support our selves all the while pursuing our goals. The pay off may not be evident along the way and people may be disgruntled about what it is your doing. You may never feel that your adequate enough, but that feeling of uncertainty and desire to persevere is what success truly is.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
The best way to see my work nowadays is pretty much online. I have for the most part only done small shows, group shows things like that. If anyone is around the Pilsen/Chinatown neighborhood, I’d gladly give them a personal tour of my work my studio.
Contact Info:
- Address: 629 W. Cermak Rd. suite #480
Chicago, Il 60616 - Website: https://grigoreftimov.com
- Phone: 7738654476
- Email: geftimov@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grigoreftimov/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grigoreftimov
- Other: https://www.ateliereftimov.com
Image Credit:
Grigor Eftimov
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