I’m Denise, I am from Germany and I work as a freelance illustrator, photographer and concept artist. I spend most of my time creating universes which are inspired by 90s anime, space travel and anything I see and experience on my travels. 

I spend a lot of time every year in Tokyo and travelling to different places in Japan, mostly to take photos. I grew up in the middle of the 90s anime hype which influenced me and my art greatly - I love the use of vivid, dreamy colours and I use them to depict fantasy environments in a way which evoke a sense of nostalgia in anyone who looks at them. 

Anywhere I go. I love travelling because I love learning about different cultures and architecture. Being from Germany, I am already very familiar with European architecture, so anything new is automatically very interesting and inspiring to me. I also really love anything related to space - the moon and fantasy planets are something I often implement in my works, it’s a sense of longing for something that’s in sight but yet still unknown. 

Other than that, I also find a lot of inspiration in anime, movies, video games and music. 

This collaboration is something that has been in the works for a long time and I am so excited about what we created. ark/8 is the perfect match for me because of our shared love for video games, anime and Japan - everyone involved shares the same passion and that’s something that is super important to me when I collaborate with a brand. We’re all people who wanted to create something unique fuelled by our passion and I’m happy to say that “Space Dreams” is exactly that.

Check out our “Space Dreams” capsule which comprises of 2 sustainably made sweaters with surudenise’s wonderful art here: https://us.ark8.net/collections/surudenise