"Either the Work Explains Itself, or F**k It"

This month's GARAGE Magazine is all about transformation. The tenth-ever issue features 360-degree fashion editorials, 3D museum tours, supermodels dressed up as Marvel's most iconic superheroines, and even a special GARAGE Mag app. The Creators Project was lucky enough to snag an excerpt from the mag, part of a conversation with artist Jamian Juliano-Villani. Peep the interview below, and head over to GARAGE Magazine's website for more.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, and now based in Brooklyn, New York, Jamian Juliano-Villani—night owl and smoker—reaches out for inspiration to comic books, cartoons, memes, illustrated books, and popular animated characters. Her studio consists of a vast collection of books and images that she began collecting while in high school, and from which she regularly borrows in her works. The aim?

To find a more “popular way of communicating,” and deconstructing the sacral character of traditional pictorial language. “I feel a lot better about making the paintings I do by using other references, so it’s not insolent, and not so personal,” she says.

Having had previous solo shows at Tanya Leighton Gallery in Berlin, the MOCAD in Detroit, and JTT in New York, Juliano-Villani is currently appearing in Flatlands, running until April 17, at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her work was also featured at the Unrealism exhibition, curated by Jeffrey Deitch, at the Moore Building in Miami last December.