Julian Honig is a renowned industrial designer, having shaped automobiles coveted by consumers around the globe. He trained at the Technical College of Design in Graz, Austria (’96-’00), then, on an Audi scholarship, to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena (2000-‘02), where his talents were quickly recognized, being hired by Audi in 2003 and moving to the position of Senior Designer. His initial work on the Audi LeMans showcar of ’03 led to exterior project management for the Audi ‘RSQ’ in the film ‘I, Robot’, as well as real-world models A4 and Q3. His success with production cars, several ‘show’ prototypes, and futuristic film creation, brought him to the attention of fantasy-on-the-road carmaker Lamborghini, where Julian was the Senior Designer.
Julian’s childhood love of paint and abstraction were rekindled during a college internship at a large cardboard company. While exploring novel forms and uses for the board, he experimented after hours with dyes and paints on hand…and has been exploring a relationship between cast-off work materials and personal expression ever since. The highly technical, disciplined process demanded by his industrial design contrast sharply with his ‘after hours’ activities; painting and surfing. Using cast-off industrial drawings, he responds to the rigidity of the lines with a fluid brushstroke, guided by intuition and feeling, a physical response or even reaction to the concrete boundaries, constrictions and tight parameters of daily industrial design problem solving.
The obsolete drawings like a ghost behind his fresh gestures and mini cartoon drawings perhaps are suggesting the ironies in our culture of being trapped in unworkable unsustainable systems or conversely presenting the hope of technology solving environmental issues. At the same time the large scale, and and references to japanese calligraphy create a sense of joy. New work utilizes inventive materials such as car paint and wood stain on mulberry paper, and ink jet printed engine drawings exploding into abstractions. Hoenig's work, in icons and materials raises questions about man's relationship with technology.
