ARTIST STATEMENT:
My name is Suzie Barretto and I am an illustrator and graphic designer based in NJ who enjoys making short-from comics and character-driven art that live within reality, often mixed with fantasy or sci-fi elements. The stories I create can vary from being sentimental to humorous, with some dramatic bits here and there. My work is aimed more for young adults, but I've recently been interested in artwork aimed for children and teens.
When I look back at my journey as an artist, I always found enjoyment in making comics. As a kid I would create episodic comic strips with random plotlines based on the things I liked whether it was cartoons, webcomics, or video games. There was something about the gutters in comics that always fascinated me– although the visuals on the page were still, the spaces between the panels allowed me to see the art like a movie. It’s so close to animation, which I’m also a big fan of, but it instead lives on the side of literature. Getting to incorporate my newfound love for typography into my art was something I didn’t expect would mesh so well when writing for my comics or zines. And, alongside my writing, I have my characters that make the stories possible.
The earliest catalyst I know for why I started making my art is because of my fondness for character creation and representation. As a first-generation college student and woman of color, I didn’t always feel seen in the media I consumed, and so, I thought I’d change that once I got the skillset. Now, when I make comics, I intentionally create characters who reflect real-world diversity: people of color who are complex, funny, soft, strange, or all of the above. At the same time, I am passionate about displaying female empowerment in my artwork, and I feel like I owe it to all the women in my family that they’ll get to see more strong Latina characters being represented in comics and media. Above all, I use my art to make sense of the world and my relationships in it. Making comics helps give my personal experiences a new life and, hopefully, acts as a safe place where viewers, especially women of color, can come to escape, share a laugh, and maybe get inspired by the characters I create.
As part of my comic or zine-making process, it often starts traditionally on paper which I think works best for brainstorming a story. Depending on the context of the work, I might finish it with ink and maybe some color in marker or colored pencil, then using digital software like Procreate or Photoshop to finalize it. Lately, I find that I primarily work digitally when finishing my art, but I still enjoy using dry media that I will mix with wet media such as gouache. For typographical designs or other graphic design work, I will also start on paper and finish the work in either Illustrator or InDesign. Currently, I’m still finding an illustrative style that works best for me, and I’ll usually switch from realism to cartoony/anime-like when it comes to designing characters for a scene or sketching out a comic strip. Artists right now that I’m heavily inspired by are Natasha Allegri, TheBrujoAri, and Davi Go. I plan to find a balance of my art style soon that lies between the anime and cartoons I grew up with and the beauty I find in diverse human anatomy.
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