Meet Kenzo Han

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kenzo Han a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Kenzo with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

I grew up playing soccer competitively at a high level which taught me a lot about discipline. With any sport you always need to work on unglamorous, difficult, repetitive tasks and I didn’t gain an appreciation for that until I was forced to do it to train for soccer. I still wish I lived in an alternate universe in which I spent all the time I spent on soccer on my art. However, the lessons I learned from soccer have helped me in every aspect of my life, including my art.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

My name is Kenzo and my main practice is creating 3D digital art. I like to make work which takes advantage of the way the medium can be used as a platform to discus speculative topics that aren’t as easily reached in physical mediums. I think the way my mind works is to always think of improvements and this medium allows for reworks and ideas to be implemented without fully thought out practicality. I have always been enamored by science fiction and my work usually fits in that genre.
3D is also a very cost effective way of exploring and creating fictional spaces and objects. I don’t have to rent huge warehouses or buy thousands of dollars of supplies to create scenes. I also don’t have to manufacture and throw away anything. Sometimes the lack of structure or limitations saps the work of improvisation or “happy mistakes”, so it’s not a flawless medium by any means. It just works the best for what I want to create most of the time.
Truth be told my practice is in kind of a weird place right now, because I am no longer working on my art or freelancing full time. Through discussions with my peers it seems as if a lot of us have become burnt out from working in front of a computer screen alone all the time, especially after all work became remote in 2020.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I feel like I’m talking about the medium of 3D a lot but my biggest skill in 3D is taking inspiration from other mediums and life experiences. Creating art in the online space is always weird because of the amount of inspiration we have to draw from. It becomes simultaneously freeing and suffocating, especially if a large amount of what you consume is from your own space. That feels a little specific to 3D art, but it can be applied to any medium, whether it’s visual art or not.
Another skill that’s always benefited me is the ability to learn on my own and from the internet. 3D is one of those mediums that is kind of impossible to learn directly from other people, because there’s so many different directions you can go in.
This may not be the most helpful for aspiring artists, but the critical space and collaboration of art school has definitely come in handy in my art making. If it hadn’t helped that would be really stupid. I would never generally and broadly recommend for any aspiring artist to invest in art school, but that’s a whole other topic that many others have spoken on.
I guess if I had to give one piece of advice to aspiring digital artists it would be to be patient. I don’t love making broad statements about how certain generations compare to each other, but I think it’s safe to say that gen z and after really like things to be fast and instantly gratifying. It is actually a good thing that this is mostly not how the art world works. Just because you always see people on instagram posting their “I started using blender 1 year ago and this is how good i am now” videos doesn’t mean that’s how it works for most people. Good things take time.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

I mentioned this earlier but I’m so sick of sitting in my room looking at a screen by myself all the time. It seems that everyone has been feeling that lately, since it has now been four years since the beginning of the covid 19 pandemic. Having the end of school, work and personal work be in the exact same place and body position can never be a formula for physical and mental health. It just feels more difficult since my art is digital and until recently I could only work on it on my desktop PC. Maybe I need to go back to creating more physical art.

Contact Info:

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Leadership Development
Empathy Unlocked: Understanding how to Develop Emotional Intelligence

“Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It’s the impetus

Productivity
Where do you get your work ethic from?

We’ve all heard the phrase “work hard, play hard,” but where does our work ethic

Productivity
Boosting Productivity Through Self-Care

When you have a never-ending to-do list it can feel irresponsible to engage in self-care,