Illustrating every dark sugar-baby, cyborg fantasy brings feminist and multi-cultured artist Vesper. Exploring the world from Asia to Europe, since youth Vesper exploits her girly futuristic sexual imagination alongside her culture-wise qualities through ink. Demanding female sexual liberation through art she instinctively intrigues the taboo loving communities across the world, connecting to everyone open about the human body. Vesper shares the deepest and darkest secrets of being a techno-friendly cyber tattoo artist.

What first got you interested in graphics and illustrations?
I’ve been drawing ever since I was a kid and my childhood is a big influence on my work. I was born in Seoul, South Korea and I grew up in Manila, Philippines, so ever since my birth I was surrounded by East Asian culture which is heavily present in my graphic research and my illustrative world. In my teens I really started to draw as a way of creating my own utopia (which today is a crazy ero euro dystopia) because I was living in Switzerland, a place where I felt very isolated and that lacked a lot of creative stimuli. I would actually use Instagram to discover artists that I liked and took a lot of inspiration from before finally creating VESPER and her world here in Milan, the city in which I blossomed I would say.

My graphic work for FIKAFUTURA is my visual translation of techno, rave, cyborg, cyberpunk and queer culture. Our symbol is the Hindu goddess Kalì wearing a ski mask. I chose to portray her in this way because FIKAFUTURA (both generation 1 and 2) was started by strong women, so a feminine persona was essential, but masked so that you can’t really tell if it’s a woman or a man. This embodies the cyborg or post-gender vision we have created around the art collective. Kalì is also the destroyer of the ego in favour of the true self, the basis concept for our experimental theatre workshop, FKFLAB.

How far do your designs relate to your personal experiences?
That’s like asking a lyric poet if they’ve ever suffered at the hands of love

Talk us through your influences when designing illustrations?
My way of working is very instinctive. I always draw based on feelings that I have in the moment that add to all the visual stimuli accumulated in my subconscious, like the hard disk of a cyborg. My very first fetish masters or sexual liberators were Araki Nobuyoshi and Toshio Saeki, then came the even gorier artists Suehiro Maruo and Junji Ito. Some of the more western influences found in my work come from my childhood cartoons. Tarantino and Tim Burton are also at the top of my list. A lot of movies and books related to totalitarian societies or Nazi Germany such as “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” or “1984” are also part of my research on different types of domination or control. DISCLAIMER I am not a supporter of fascism in any of its forms, I am purely interested in its history as well as in the dynamics of quasi total domination for the purpose of understanding my relationships.

My tattoo flash is heavily inspired by Sailor Moon, Disney and other anime or cartoons but with a fetish or perverted twist. Elf hentai is an obsession but I also like to draw less figurative designs like neo-tribal things mixed with chains and sparkles. My gothic neo-tribal typos are very fun to do especially when clients ask for a custom word. It gives me a chance to step out of my bubble a bit and work directly with someone. Being an independent artist is kind of a lonely business

What impacts do you think you make with your designs and graphics?
My parents are horrified and wonder what they did wrong for me to turn out this way ╮(¯ω¯;)╭

I got mixed reactions last weekend during the 7th edition of Sprint - Independent Publishers and Artists’ Books Salon, the very first zine fair I participated in. Some people got embarrassed while reading my pornzine because I am so explicit in my drawings and maybe sex and weird fetishes are still taboo to them when represented in visual form in a public space. Others were quite impressed or intrigued by the fact that I was so open about it all.

My work is my therapy but it’s also my way of connecting to people. I hope to make a positive impact on people to further female sexual liberation and the elimination of the whole taboo around the human body in general. Sexual education is something I am seriously thinking about getting into because all I ever learned in Sex Ed classes were periods, pregnancy, protection and wet dreams. Somebody has to teach teens about the pleasure and fun of sex so that we can normalise sexual conduct allowing teens to learn about themselves and their bodies in a free from judgement, protected way, which was the opposite of what I went through.

What's the number one thing that makes you a unique illustrator?
You tell me ゚ ☆*:·゚

Travelling to many venues across Europe which is your favourite city to design in, why?
I think the most interesting tattoo requests I definitely get from Berlin and London. I get to do more of my wild hentai designs and I get really excited when other people are down for that kind of explicit work on their bodies. It’s just good fun and shows that we’re all freaks; some people are just more at peace with it than others.

You recently released merchandise called the 'VSTRING', explain the process of making these?
I was trying to figure out what my first merchandise could be that isn’t your typical boring tshirt or hoodie that everybody seems to do. That would also have been very uncharacteristic of VESPER as she is half naked most of the time whether you see her serving fast drinks at the bar of Club Plastic or “sotto cassa” at Macao. I wanted something sexy and fun so a thong or underwear with a print on them was my eureka idea.

The VESPER typo with sparkles is the print I went for because if you’re going to be trashy, you’ve got to go all the way with a neo-tribal tramp stamp. I screen printed them with Wellness Press studio of Macao to support one of the only truly underground spaces in Milan that pushes for independent and experimental art.

“VSTRING” was just the perfect catchy name that refers to both the underwear’s shape and VESPER simultaneously. Uppercase always because, to quote MY$$ KETA, “Se è una vita del cazzo, io la vivo col capslock”. All or nothing.

What's next to look out for after the ‘VSTRING'
You’ll see ฅ(•ᄉ•❀)ฅ