At best, the digital environment is a playground where magic happens. At worst, it’s a daunting world of never-ending conceptions. 

Dorian Legret, a self-taught artist from Orléans, France, knows how to balance these. He loves the digital world for giving him more creative freedom, but he has to fight against feeling overwhelmed by “the abundance of choices” it comes with. 

Digital art, he says, is a trial-and-error process — his psychedelic, vaporwave-inspired pieces are the result of creative curiosity and years of experimenting. But it’s through these that his works become a new genre in themselves. In fact, this was the case for ‘Orestis’, which was inspired by photos of nebulae. “It [took] repeated tests until I found the satisfactory shapes and colors [for this piece],” he told us. You can buy it as framed wall art here.

[Note: The interview below contains minor edits for clarity and brevity.]

Tell us about yourself. How did art come into your life?

I have always been attracted to the artistic world. I already liked drawing in my childhood, but the discovery of software like Photoshop in my adolescence pushed me to develop my creativity in new ways.

What does the creation process look like for you? How do you feel while you’re creating a piece, and after a piece is complete? 

My creation process is quite simple because it’s very abstract. I try, first of all, to create something aesthetically [pleasing] that calms my mind during the time. This goes from the colors to the shapes I use in the piece. [These] have little importance — it is the intention that counts, and what I’m feeling during that very instant.

Your art seems radically new and different, almost as if you’re part of a new genre. How do you push styles and ideas forward? Where does your confidence to help shape a new style of art come from?

My style probably seems different because I never tried to belong to a style or a branch that’s already been defined. I have experimented for a few years and gone through several phases to end up reaching my current style, which satisfies me.

What do you think is the most important element of your art style that makes it new and different? How do you come up with ideas to work on something new?

I think that the fact that I work only in a digital environment is one of the factors of [my style] being different. My ideas are generally linked to questions that I ask myself. I try to transcribe them through the creation of a work, or even into a purely abstract piece that seeks only to transcribe an emotion.

As a digital artist, what do you think are the challenges digital artists face that traditional artists may not have to deal with?

Digital creation is an increasingly accessible field, and therefore, creators have less and less physical constraints in their creations. I think that the most difficult things for a current artist [to face] are to succeed in disciplining themselves, to not to be dominated by the abundance of choices that are offered to them, and to decide that a work is really finished.

Follow Dorian Legret on Instagram here.