Vincent Nappi is an illustrator from New York, now living in Florida. Nappi is the author of Sucker’s Game and the founder of his fashion brand NOIR INC.
[The following is an excerpt from Vincent Nappi’s interview in AV3: The Man Issue]
First things first: did you draw today?
The night is still young and the drawing pad calls.
Why do you deserve to live
First off, if you’re referring to the Victorie City blurb on the back of the trade I shared yesterday, great eye… Second, I’m too good looking to die.
Men need fathers and mentors, ideally in that order. The former isn’t always available to us, but I like to believe that there exists a Mr. Miyagi out there for every guy willing to seek him out. Were there any mentors in your rise as an artist or are you self-taught? Do you believe in the self-taught artist?
I think that even if you received no direct instruction from another human being, you’re still being taught. The art you consume shapes you. The films you watch, the music you hear, the work that calls you again and again has something to teach. With that said… Yes, I’ve been very fortunate to have several mentors in my creative life. George Pratt chief among them. He was also my introduction to a program called the Illustration Academy, run by John English, which gathered together some of the most influential and skilled illustrators in the country for a month of uninterrupted teaching & art making. Industry legends like Gary Kelley and Anita Kunz would pass on their wisdom, demonstrate their working methods and help shepherd the next generation of illustrators into the business. It was a magical thing and I was fortunate to attend for several years—first as a student, then on scholarship and then as part of the furniture, moving to KCMO to take up space in the studio that was used to host the program every summer. All of the folks who taught there acted as mentors in some regard.
Something I love about your work is that none of it preaches masculinity (or femininity for that matter) — it simply is masculine. Clearly, the online manosphere is filling a void for men who are elsewhere constantly being told their instincts are “toxic,” but why further emasculate yourself by moaning about this all day when you can just instead invest in a leather jacket? Your art supplies various representations of the ideal man, but how would you characterize the current state of man irl?
You’re right about the jacket. We’d solve a lot of problems if guys would just invest in a second hand Perfecto… I think I summed up my feelings on the matter in my first graphic novel, Sucker’s Game. My opinion hasn’t changed in the ten years since, but I think if a person is basing their entire philosophy of the opposite sex around what a bunch of miserable Twitter anons say, they’re going to be very unhappy. Men need a North Star in life that doesn’t revolve around a woman’s approval or presence. Some kind of mission to keep them on target. Art has always been “the other woman” for me and it’s always kept me grounded and focused and offered a sense of perspective. Every man would do well to find out what that purpose is for themselves and pursue it daily. I think a lot of their problems would fall by the wayside in the process.
Speaking of leather jackets, your fashion brand NOIR INC. has a lot of swagger and attitude that I’m drawn to. Anyone can throw a graphic on a T and sell it for $30+, but your apparel is very tastefully designed and well-considered. Frankly, it’s just really fucking cool. When and how did you come up with NOIR INC.?
Thank you, Ryan. I appreciate it. NOIR INC. came about in 2015/16, post-Yeezus, when every hypebeast and their mother was obsessing over vintage band merch and starting terrible t-shirt brands with a few bucks and a dream. Despite the questionable aesthetic, I was inspired by the DIY ethos of all these kids on Instagram doing their thing. I was also horrified by the graphics that big brands were slapping on hoodies and charging $300+ for. Instead of complaining, I proposed my own solution. I was looking for a way to monetize my work in a way that was scalable, that wasn’t dependent on freelance illustration gigs and was in line with my interests. NOIR INC. was born. The aesthetic is a few miles away from my own personal style these days, but I would still put the graphics toe to toe with anything pushed out by big brands.
There’s an incredible eroticism to your depictions of female beauty that feels precariously balanced between two opposite extremes: cold objective observation and hot libidinal attraction. I try to achieve a similar harmony in my work between the art object and pornography and often feel I’m at war with myself in trying to keep my libidinal impulses within the bounds of good taste. In illustrating beautiful people, do considerations of “eroticism,” “attraction,” “objectification” etc. etc. ever pop in your mind or are you just going with the flow here?
This is why I love your work with American Vulgaria. There’s a very simpatico sensibility. I’m much more interested in eroticism than pornography. I want to be turned on mentally. Pornographic art strikes me as lazy and boring in most instances. The majority of it that I’ve been exposed to looks like a direct translation of photography into bland photorealism. Where is the artist’s eye imposing a design onto the picture? It’s what I don’t see that interests me. Or the hint of something. Or something that violates a norm in a compelling way. Silvana Mangano’s unshaven armpits as she dances in Bitter Rice. Kim Basinger losing herself in a fantasy as a slideshow of art plays on the projection screen in 9 ½ Weeks. Eva Green standing in a doorway wearing nothing but long black gloves with a sheet wrapped around her waist. That’s hot. Plastic people under perfect lights? No thanks. I think Helmut Newton and Guido Crepax walked this tightrope beautifully. Newton’s subject matter is transgressive, but his absolute control over every aspect of his compositions reveal the mark of a master. His models are very real, but the scenarios, the choreography, the wardrobes are total artifice. Crepax had plenty of sex in his work, but there’s always a cerebral distance. It can be tremendously transgressive but somehow it never strays into dull pornography—unlike his contemporary Milo Manara’s work, which I find much less interesting.
[To be continued…]
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