Nathan portrays his hero

Nathan Julien has been drawing for at least half of his ten years, and he’s continually evolving. He alternates between three styles: traditional cartoon, semi-realistic, and realism.

Nathan is one of 35 artists aged 17 and under participating in the Rotunda Gallery’s exhibition Heroes: A Child’s Perspective. Nathan’s painting features his grandfather, Everol Bruce, a retired police officer.

Nathan said he chose to honour his grandfather for a few reasons.

“He took his work as a police officer very seriously and served his country for many years. He is the kind of person that anyone can call on for help. But the biggest reason I chose him as my hero is because he always looks out for me and my sister. He is generous, hardworking and he makes everyone around him feel safe.”

Nathan is the son of journalist Joel Julien and artist Evelena. He thinks he inherited his love for art from his mother, with whose help he came up with the web series Nate's Super Little Show that was featured on Trinidad and Tobago Television during the pandemic. In the series, Nathan explained the world around him from his point of view.

“Her genes just came down to me I guess. I think I was born loving art, though I can’t remember how my art used to be, or when I started drawing. It was probably when I could hold a pencil.”

He said he does both traditional and digital art but prefers digital art because it doesn’t need as much material and it takes less time.

“Digital art is just one thing, a tablet or your finger or a stencil, like that. When I’m doing traditional art, I mostly use a pencil, paper, and an eraser, of course. My mom allows me to use her pens or markers when I’m drawing, so I use those too. Sometimes I try painting, but I’m not that good. Trust me, when I try to make browns, those browns don’t look like brown, they look more like purple.

“The portrait of my grandfather was done in acrylic, ink and watercolour. My mom was the one who suggested using the paint to make it pop more.”

Nathan said he is good at drawing characters, but not landscapes. His main inspiration is anime.

“I’m not that good at landscapes but if I try well enough, I could make it look half decent. If I want to do a big piece, I would do an animated semi-realistic style.

“But I do lots of portraits of anime characters, I’m a very big anime fan. One Piece, My Hero Academia, and Demon Slayer are my three favourites. I know a couple more but I don’t really watch them.”

He said he plans to get much better so he can make art like others in the exhibition.

“I feel like my art is already really good. I can do realism, I just don’t have the patience. I lose interest extremely quickly."

Although he mostly does anime right now, Nathan said he wants to try to expand his styles.

He hasn’t formally begun studying different artists, but he believes anime is an advanced art style.

“It has all kinds of squashing and stretching, exploration of different styles in one TV series, that it just gives me ideas. But the thing is, I can only draw one character. I don’t know if it’s just a mental thing, but once I have a favourite character I’ll latch on to that character and draw them a million times until I get bored of them. I’m not sure if it’s just a kid thing in general, but it is what it is.”

Nathan also plays chess and swims. He lives in Arima with his parents and his sister Aiko, who all support him and are proud of his achievements.