Introducing Kilo Kish, Our Editor at Large

The Creators Project is launching a month-long editor at large exclusive feature with Kilo Kish, the LA-based vocalist, visual artist, painter, and textile designer. She is best known for her high-profiled collaborations, including Chet Faker, The Internet, Childish Gambino, SBTRKT, A$AP FERG, and Vince Staples. A model and DJ, she is frequently asked to collaborate with brands like Kitsuné.

As a creator, Kish jumps in and out of many disciplines, bringing a fresh, raw voice to whichever project she takes on. In the next six months, she will launch Kisha, a home products and apparel brand inspired by Japanese minimalism, as well as a new record with the producer RRReymundo, entitled Reflections In Real Time. We asked her to share her creative process in developing both projects and in turn she tapped some artist and designer friends to further investigate how various people approach the act of creation.

Throughout the month, Kish will converse with a diverse intersection of artists in the design and music industries, as well as fine art circles, to discuss process rather than product; from Millie Brown and Awol Erizku, to the creator behind DEERDANA, and DJ SoSuperSam. We’ll also give you behind-the-scenes glimpses of Kish’s inspirations and travels.

“I am always interested in creative process from all artists, I love hearing demos and seeing in-process drawings and productions. A finished project can feel so purposeful and effortless, but the road to get there could have been utter chaos and confusion and doubt, epiphanies and failures,” Kish says. “I need to see that from others to know that no one is a god. Especially in our current generation everything seems so perfect, these perfectly curated lives and bodies and aesthetics plastered everywhere. It’s nice to see what’s behind that.” 

Over the next few weeks we will get personal insights in diary form about how her two current projects are coming to life. Kisha, the brand, was inspired by Japanese minimalism, the relaxed French style, and Mid-Century patterns in homewares and furniture. The first collection is based on the word “tiger,” and the products borrow from the colors and landscapes of nations where tigers are the national animal, including Vietnam and Malaysia. She will share moodboards and product sketches. Her upcoming album Reflections In Real Time differs from her earlier musical works: “I kept away from traditional love songs and cutesy songs for cuteness sake. It’s meant to feel like you’re wading around in the liquid of my brain and jumping in and out of waves of thought.” 

Kish went to Pratt Institute for her first year of college, but ultimately finished her schooling in textile design at the Fashion Institute for Technology in New York. She says, “I think my brain was better suited to deepness and the creative push of a traditional art school. Although, I learned so much technical and specialized awesomeness at FIT, including advanced weaving techniques, and making prints and patterns the old fashioned way. I kind of needed a mix of both.” 

Throughout school she took on various jobs and internships and credits those various experiences and the people she met with how she developed her career. “I was mentored by Jodie Patterson. And by working at a few of Serge Becker’s restaurants I was introduced to so many rad people. I interned for Ross Menuez, a super cool artist and designer. And when I was 20, I met Matthew Martin of The Internet, and had he not flown me to LA to create my first EP we wouldn’t even have any music to speak of! I’m forever indebted to people who believe in me because my actual views on making work and putting it out can be so backwards sometimes,” she explains.

While her music is considered experimental and alternative, we rare catch glimpses of her paintings or sketches. Today, her various experiences in the arts and music are a necessary but experience in tandem. “Design for me is like a puzzle, fitting together colors and ideas. I think because I don’t make it with such a relation to myself it becomes an outlet for me to explore others and their tastes. If I don’t have both outlets I start to design my music which can be a bit sterile or I start making really dark paintings and drawings which don’t readily capture my emotions as simply as music.”

With this month-long residency, The Creators Projects will let Kish take command, from earnest conversations about failure, to how to make a profit from your designs. Kish will tap a creative bunch as she shares her own experiences as an artist. “At the end of the day, I just see myself as Kish Robinson, and I am learning to make a bunch of different things, sometimes at the same time.”