Always trust your gut: In art, business, and life, we’ve found that our gut never lies. Seven years ago, while living an ocean apart and not speaking the same language, we left behind our cushy corporate safety net, paychecks, 401ks, and paid time off vacations simply because we trusted our gut, and we haven’t looked back since.
As a part of our series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became An Artist” I had the pleasure of interviewing Another Day.
Another Day is a New York-based art studio founded by Vicente Garcia Morillo and Eugene Serebrennikov. The artists began their creative partnership a decade ago, despite living on opposite ends of the globe and speaking different languages. They are thrilled to launch their first solo exhibition and short film, Another Day: A Beautiful Chaos — a visual exploration of balance in the city of juxtaposition — New York, New York. While the city is their muse, Morillo and Serebrennikov’s personal experiences equally influence their work. Opening this October in Brooklyn, we spoke about what inspires and drives the artist duo.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path? Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Our journey here has been a beautiful chaos. Before founding our art studio, Another Day, we lived on opposite ends of the globe, speaking different languages, and never met in person.
Born and raised in Spain, Vicente has been immersed in the art world since he could first hold a crayon. He graduated as valedictorian from the Fine Arts University of Seville, honing his illustration, painting, graphic design, and sculpture skills. In contrast, Eugene’s artistic journey was forged by his experience growing up with financial constraints as a Russian-born immigrant in New York. Art became his means to create what his family could not afford.
Eventually, our paths crossed around 2011, and we have Kobe Bryant to thank for that. Eugene worked as an Art Director at Nike Basketball in Portland, Oregon, while Vicente juggled a full-time job at a European fashion house and freelanced at night. Eugene stumbled across Vicente’s artwork online, and we connected via Skype to collaborate on a project for Kobe.
Vicente’s English was bad at the time, and Eugene’s Spanish was non-existent. Our first project was comical and was only made possible with the help of Google Translator and some Post-it note sketches to try to communicate our ideas back and forth.
A deeply rooted artistic connection and equally strong friendship formed even with a significant language barrier. The bond was strong enough to convince us to quit the cushy safety net of our corporate design jobs to build our dream studio together in NYC — Burn & Broad, a creative studio focused on creating impactful designs for clients, and Another Day, the creative playground, focused on our artistic self-expression — with the goal of working together creatively and finding balance at the intersection of art and design.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you draw inspiration from? Can you share a story about that?
We’ve spent the last two and half years crafting our artistic vision inspired by our experience navigating daily life together in NYC — this October; we’re finally bringing it to life — launching our first solo exhibition and short film we’re calling — Another Day: A Beautiful Chaos.
This project is so special to us because it’s about the city that has captivated us as artists and friends. New York City is our muse and our canvas. Our work attempts to capture the city’s beauty amidst all the chaos.
We are showing NY through our perspective across multiple mediums, including paintings, three-dimensional sculptures, and experimental creations. Another Day: A Beautiful Chaos is our visual love letter to the city, flaws and all.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
The goal of our work is to show that there’s beauty in everything if you look at it right. This is why we incorporate street relics and objects that otherwise might be overlooked or discarded, and transform them into meaningful art –creating visual metaphors for daily life in the microcosm of the world.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- Mamba mentality: Kobe Bryant, who we worked with before starting the studio, coined the phrase to describe his approach to life and basketball. This mindset emphasizes the driven, never-give-up attitude and reminds us to persevere and push through challenges and adversity head-on.
- Dream bigger dreams: We write out our goals and set our intentions each year. We try to cross off the entire list and continue going bigger each year after that. We’ve found that simply writing out our goals has helped keep us on course and motivate us to focus on the long-term version, even when faced with short-term distractions.
- Build the house AND the playground — Structure is important, but so is curiosity and experimentation in order to truly discover the unexpected. Let your inner child run free.
- Balance is key: From how we approach working together to how we treat life, we’ve found that balance is the key to everything.
- Always trust your gut: In art, business, and life, we’ve found that our gut never lies. Seven years ago, while living an ocean apart and not speaking the same language, we left behind our cushy corporate safety net, paychecks, 401ks, and paid time off vacations simply because we trusted our gut, and we haven’t looked back since.
We have been blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding,Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she just might see this. What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
https://www.instagram.com/anotherday.ny/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Another Day: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became An Artist was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.