Raphael Lacoste was born in Bordeaux, France and spent most of his childhood there except for a two year stint in Algeria where he became fascinated with the Arabian world. And he recently had the opportunity to indulge his fascination while he worked on the Ubisoft game “Prince of Persia” as the art director. Raphael is a man of many talents; he excels as a photographer, matte painter and artistic director. He began his studies focusing on fine art and then he went for a master in 3D animation at CNBDI in Angoulemme, France where he made a student movie that was shown at several important festivals including Siggraph and Imagina. Since graduating his talents have not gone unnoticed and Raphael has been able to assemble an impressive portfolio working on many games and now he has moved into the film industry. Raphael is currently living in Montreal, Canada and working at the visual effects company Rodeo FX as a concept artist and matte painter. IT’S ART had the pleasure of getting to know better Raphael and his work and we would like to share with you the opportunity to meet this gifted artist.

IT’S ART: You put a lot of attention to mood and light in your art work. Is this because of your artistic influences or just because this is what you love to focus on?

Raphael Lacoste: I worked as a photographer for a theater company for a long time and I still love to take photos. I always have a camera on me. When taking a picture I like to focus on mood, lighting and atmosphere. In this I think my references are Friedrich, Vermeer and the 19th century orientalist painters.

IA: Which artists do you think influenced your work? I noticed a resemblance with Jean Marie Poumeyrol. Are you familiar with his work?

RL: No I have never heard of his work but thanks for pointing that out to me. I really love the work of another French contemporary painter, Jean-Pierre Ugarte. Now this guy could have been a great matte painter! I also have many classical influences but in the concept art community there is Craig Mullins, Dusso and traditional matte painters like Michael Pangrazzio…

IA: Can you tell us about the evolution of your art? Do you think it has evolved from working on so many different projects?

RL: Sure, the good thing about working on a team is that you are always challenged. You meet people with huge talent and you can challenge ideas and exchange some good tips. I would have never evolved if I didn’t meet people like Hydropix, Sparth, Mathieu Raynault and other important artists. It has been a real opportunity to work with them.

IA: What have you learned from working in the game industry?

RL: It has been good to meet so many talented people, good to work on challenging projects and good to earn a living. But, it is also an industry I am not very happy in any more. There are huge teams and never-ending meetings and you have to deal a lot with the game design, technical constraints and tool development. There are a lot of technical problems that can push you away from your first goal, to make a piece of art!I must say that I met incredible artists while working in the game industry and you won’t find easily such creative teams in the movie industry but I think I’ve done my time in videogames. And I’m just not enough of a hard core gamer ;)