Have you found inspiration in being able to create on the go and having a customizable experience to your workflow? It’s interesting to think about our tendencies as children, too. Thinking about your natural inclinations and what you were drawn to or what experiences you really enjoyed over others can give insight into what you might explore as a starting point. Yeah, I think so. I remember a big turning point for me in school, which I still think about. I was trained academically during the first half and then turned loose to make whatever I wanted. It was kind of frightening. We had done lots of figure drawing courses and were forced to do academic drawing, but I had a moment when I thought, “Wait, if I’m not going to paint naked ladies for the rest of my life, what am I going to do?” No, but it has a lot of feeling. Exactly. That’s what I’ve tried to create. I always thought there was something wrong with me because I grew up hearing interviews with people who said, “Oh, I love telling stories.” Films are all about stories, and it’s about great storytelling. Don’t get me wrong—I love stories—but what about when you don’t want a story? What if you just want to feel something? What about the artist who believes there’s another language and grouping of emotions that you can’t express through words? In the past, you were constantly crumpling stuff up if you’re embarrassed by it. Now the process is like a stream of thought, and I think there’s something that’s really liberating to the mind when it comes to developing ideas and creating. It’s more about the ideas and that stream of consciousness rather than the aesthetics of what you’re placing. I’ve found that to be really inspiring and helpful when it comes to the act of creating.

Growing up, being born and raised here in LA, I’ve started to understand — upon my various travels in Europe, Asia and South America — Los Angeles definitely does have a certain weather to it, a certain kind of brightness that fuels the culture of the city. You wake up, and it’s 75 degrees out every single day, and it feels like you’re going to the beach. Everyone is less afraid to wear color — to celebrate color — to celebrate graphics and drawings. Often described as psychedelic-Pop Art, Harrington’s acid-infused illustrations seem to grin in the face of chaos — bold, large-scale paintings and sculptures that personify familiar fixtures of LA. The palm tree, for instance, is a visual motif often deployed by Harrington and seemingly renders fantastical beings in the City of Angels. Steven Harrington: The ASUS Vivobook is kind of my first time applying artwork or my illustrative imagery to a digital device of this kind. So I thought it would be really interesting to play around with my world, almost meeting this visual representation of the future and tech. On the product itself, you’ll see this really playful world kind of meeting this space-like scene. It’s my way of playing around and being inspired by the possibilities of technology. Being a visual artist, it’s something that I use quite frequently within the production of my own paintings, drawings and products. So I thought it would be really cool to reflect the dreamlike qualities of being able to create a tech device. SH: For incorporating and having the ability to draw the Disney characters and blend them into my world at first it felt extremely surreal. At the same time, having permission to pull and experiment and extract elements from this really rich world of art for me felt really exciting.After college, you dove into design work and started National Forest with your friend, Justin. How did that come about? I met Justin at Art Center and the two of us had a mutual passion for art, design, and drawing. At the end of college we both thought, “Whoa, we’re either going to split up right now and go work for different companies or we can do this together and try to figure something out.” It was a really big decision. We chose to put our portfolios together, create a business, and try to get jobs. And that’s what we did: we literally put our illustration portfolios together and hustled our work around.

I really liked that. I liked how he talked about art being personal poetry. Over time, I embraced that. Everything I make in my own time is poetry, even if it looks like an illustration or even if it starts to become client-based. It’s about letting myself explore new ideas and be intuitive with what it is that I like doing, which I’ve realized has to do with drawing.

Steven Harrington

Yeah. Let’s talk about your voice. It’s fun, vibrant, fresh, and definitely recognizable. Did that moment you just described—thinking about music and the things that inspire you—help you find your voice? Was it a conscious evolution for you? No, it wasn’t. It was actually something I was trying not to do, which is bizarre for me to think about now. Somehow We All Seem Connected, Collaborative Exhibition with Justin Krietemeyer, Subliminal Projects, Los Angeles Your artwork is known for capturing a Californian-infused pop aesthetic. Being based in LA, how has the city informed your work?