BLOGS

Mario Ayala - Mini Interview

2013-02-15T23:07:26Z

Location? Age? Education? Website?

I grew up in Los Angeles/ Inland Empire area and currently live in Oakland. Im 21, and I'm in my last year at San Francisco Art Institute. ayalamario.tumblr.com/

How would you describe your work to someone?

I guess I would tell someone I primarily work on paper, prefferibly stretched over panels. I use a wide range of mediums, gouache, enamel, oil, etc. My imagery derives from various interests I have, drug/alcohol consumption, Suburbia, and Santeria to name a few.

Influences?

Jazz, Giorgio Morandi, James Bond, the Lost Bros familia, my dog Bubba Gucci, but my biggest influence has got to be my father. Hardest working man I know.

Cheese burgers or tofu burgers?

PIZZA!/ Sam's Burgers on broadway

Favorite place traveled?

Haven't done much traveling, but I recently visited New York for the first time last summer and was pretty stoked on it.

Working routine? Music? Time of day?

I try an work either early in the morning, but I usually end up working on things late at night shackled in my atelier listening to some jazz or oldies. You know, that Art Laboe shit.

Kyle Kogut - Mini Interview

2013-02-07T19:13:59Z

Location? Age? Education? Website?

Philadelphia, PA. 22. BFA from Tyler School of Art. www.kylekogut.com

How would you describe your work to someone?

My work mainly consists of mixed media drawings and paintings of nonsensical figures/environments. A lot of it is about mankind's relationship to Nature, in both physical and metaphysical realms. Recently I've also been making animations and sculptures that deal with similar narratives.

Influences?

My biggest inspiration is the natural world; what separates man from animal, and how have we evolved to conceptualize and comprehend our own existence as independent entities from the world around us. Mythology, philosophy, religious iconography, and cultural practices all play a part in the narrative of my work. Visual influnences include the Northern Renaissance period, Greek and Roman antiquity, fauvism, Christopher Davison, Picasso, Allison Shulnik, Jan Švankmajer, Dasha Shiskin, Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and countless others. Influences really come from everything.

Cheese burgers or tofu burgers?

Cheese please.

Favorite place traveled?

North Wales.

Working routine? Music? Time of day?

I basically lock myself in my studio and pretty much just do whatever I want, no rules. I make myself be stay productive and use my work as exploration of new ideas. I'm always looking for that next image or theme to expand on or experiment with. In the studio I listen to everything from the Black Angels to Panda Bear to Om. I make work around my job schedule, so it all kind of depends.

How do you pay the bills?

I run my own screen printing company and fill in some hours at a library, which also serves as an endless resource of history and imagery. I also have some potential teaching opportunities in the near future.

Jay Bo - Mini Interview

2013-01-17T21:00:12Z

San Francisco artist Kevin Taylor introduced us to the work of Jay Bo who lives and works in Berlin.

Kevin was there in Berlin a few months back working on a solo show (studio visit pics) and thought we'd like Jay Bo's paintings. Well, we do and wanted to share them with you.

Location? Age? Education? Website?

I was born in the south of France, but living in Berlin since 86. | Enough. | None but the strength of life. I quit school by the age of 14. | www.jayboisms.com www.eyeseaeye.com www.iwishusun.com

How would you describe your work to someone?

My work is about visual fragmentation. About rebuilding. I follow paradoxical ideas at the edge of the legacy of romantism. A touch of insanity, a dance between rational and irrational, I just try to escape reality. I considere myself an abstract painter, playing with the contrast between hyperrealism and expressionism. I try to marry the two. By the way this is not a question I can answer, as my answer is the piece itself.

Influences?

I am perpetually influenced by everything, my work is based on layers, as our memories are. The raster made out of thoses bring me to new horizons. That's why I am not only influenced by the old paint masters but also on the multiple failures of mankind. by the nature, by your questioning as well as by the silence in the morning, by the words of poets, and by the screams of Earth.

Cheese burgers or tofu burgers?

Definitly both but self made.

Favorite place traveled?

Well the next one. I am interessted in the concept of traveling not in places. And this has to be contrasted, I like to observe confrontation. Visual opposition. I am walking the same ways over and over and I find something unseen everyday. I am an observer and I need therefore more time on a new place to understand it. Africa have left a big influence on my acceptance of chaos.

Working routine?

Yes which is the hard part. Discipline never has be my friend.

Christian Forrer - Mini Interview

2012-07-23T23:27:29Z

Location?

The shed in my parent's backyard. Lapel, Indiana

Age? Education? Website?

22 years young. Working on my BA in Printmaking at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, IN. You can find me here: christianbforrer.carbonmade.com/ Or here: etsy.com/shop/HUMANSHOP Here too: facebook.com/christian.b.forrer

How would you describe your work to someone?

Geometric and architectural forms that mirror both my weariness and confidence of the future. I'm drawing from a beautiful, yet growingly ominous midwest landscape. I use a bright, neon and pastel palette to balance a heavier line, and to convey a wishful personal conscious. When composing work, I tend to centralize imagery of the most importance.

Influences?

The midwest, my friends and my lady, Bob Dylan, and recently Star Wars

Cheese burgers or tofu burgers?

I'd take either, but I really just want some general tso's.

Favorite place traveled?

Had a few life changing moments in SF, but Vegas was epicly hardcore.

Working routine? Music? Time of day?

Well, I'm living in a shed right now, so i just wake up and I'm pretty much in the middle of my studio. If I have no money-making schemes to pursue that day, then I'll just work until I'm ready for bed or a movie. Lately I've been listening to a lot of oldies, but mostly the sound of my dogs barking.

Marissa Textor - Mini Interview

2012-05-07T22:58:39Z

Marissa Textor and Ryan Travis Christian are currently showing together at Cooper Cole Gallery in Toronto. Gerald interviews the LA based Marissa Textor. Check out her detailed graphite drawings.

Who are you and what do you?

I was born and breed in Southern California and I spend most of my time now making graphite drawings. I also work with my friend Naheed Simjee on a range of really exciting projects with artists through our company SIMJEE TEXTOR.

Exploding Mouse / Collaboration with Ryan Travis Christian / 18" x 24" / graphite on paper

Location? Age? Education? Website?

Los Angeles, 25, UCLA, marissatextor.com, simjeetextor.com

How would you describe your work to someone?

I would describe my work as hyperrealistic graphite drawing. The theme of the work varies but I often include elements like smoke, filtered light, negative space, water and rocks to create organic uncommon images of natural environments.

Useless Struggle / 46" x 35.75" / graphite on paper

Describe your process for creating new work.

The initial stages involve some tinkering in photoshop to make adjustments and to get a sense for what the finished product will look like. It is a lot easier to erase clouds or add more trees when you are working on a computer than to hand draw it. Deciding on the scale of the work is an important part of the process and I'm slowly creeping towards making larger and larger work although I also enjoy the intimate scale of the smaller works.

Working routine? Music? Time of day?

I'm a night person so I'm usually the most productive between 10pm and 2am but if I'm working on a show I'm drawing all day every day and I become a bit obsessive about it. Music, podcasts, Netflix or something is always playing since the work can become monotonous and this part of the process does not involve a lot of decision making. Sometimes I get a song stuck in my head and play it on repeat until I finish the piece so I'll end up listening to the same song a couple hundred times in a row. That military torture technique would never work on me.

Smoking Ledge / 20" x 14" / graphite on paper

Influences?

Storytelling and strong narratives, chain emails of crazy photos from around the world and the internet. I'm interested in the general pursuit of discovery. The amount of information out there these days can be overwhelming but it is fascinating how one subject can lead to another and in turn, how they relate to each other.

Laura Judkis ~ Mini Interview

2012-04-06T17:48:50Z

Location? Age? Education? Website?

Grew up in New Jersey but currently living in Baltimore. Just turned 23. Graduated from MICA last May. www.laurajudkis.com.

How would you describe your work to someone?

Lately my work has taken a sculptural turn, but I come from a painting background. I make aggressive, psychologically charged abstractions. I'm interested in the tactile and sensual qualities of my materials, and I'm hoping for visceral reactions.

Influences?

Lots of super fleshy figurative painting and sculpture, Abstract Expressionism (especially Clyfford Still), Gordon Matta Clark, Lee Bontecou, Louise Nevelson, Louise Bourgeois, Martin Puryear, Robert Rauschenberg, Lucas Samaras, Paul Thek. I'm also into the provisional/experimental formalism thing that's going on in painting right now. Ingmar Bergman's "Persona." David Foster Wallace, Dostoevsky, and D.H. Lawrence, for books. Samurai armor is cool as hell. I try to steal from everything everywhere.

Cheese burgers or tofu burgers?

Black bean burgers with cheese and avocado and spicy mayo, duh.

Favorite place traveled?

I haven't gone anywhere new in awhile, but San Francisco was nice.

Joyce Ho - Mini Interview

2011-11-15T16:52:39Z

Who are you and what do you?

I am an interdisciplinary artist with an emphasis in painting, sculpture and theater.

Location? Age? Education? Website?

I moved to the United States from Taiwan when I was 14. This experience of being transplanted from my home, family, and culture had a huge impact on me and my works. After receiving my M.A. in studio arts from University of Iowa, I went back to Taiwan for my solo exhibition and a few set design projects. I plan to move back to the states in 2012.

www.joycehostudio.com, www.joyceho-art.blogspot.com

How would you describe your work to someone?

The images that I paint all have some disturbing quality, whether it's the angle of the character's head or the awkwardness of the distorted bodies. But in order to complicate these unsettling images, I use strong yellow hues to create a warm overall lighting that emanates throughout the entire space. I like this idea of “peaceful violence,” of seducing the viewer with bright colours, while simultaneously confronting them with the damaged characters.

Describe your process for creating new work.

I normally spend a few months developing a series of images and then over the course of an evening take a number of photographs and experiment with different compositions and lighting. For my works in my house, I usually choose rooms with more angular architecture and multiple lighting sources. There is something cold and inhuman about many of the new high rise apartments in Taipei, with their cold, reflective marble floors, fluorescent lights, and long corridors. These apartments seem more like conference rooms or hotels.

Working routine? Music? Time of day?

I usually work at night. ( late, late night ). I like listening to music when I work, but I always forget to turn it on.

Tom Betthauser - Mini Interview

2011-10-21T17:46:17Z

Who are you and what do you?

Tom Betthauser, I draw, paint etc.

Untitled Land, 2011, 48"x60" graphite on paper

Detail

Location? Age? Education? Website?

I'm 24, I was born and raised in the bay area, where I graduated from the indomitable San Francisco Art Institute in 2010. Currently I live in New Haven Connecticut where I'm wrapping up my MFA at Yale. (www.TomBetthauser.com)

How would you describe your work to someone?

Right now I just say that I make landscapes. It's vague, but I like the way it makes people (including myself) interact with the work, and it leaves me with a lot of room to explore the core of what I'm interested in.

Detail

Describe your process for creating new work.

I like the idea of creating a world from the ground up. I start very abstractly, with large areas of dark and light, and then try to pull a blank landscape out of that. Once that's built I'm free to explore and add elements of content as necessary.

Anne Wolk - Mini Interview

2011-09-28T16:00:46Z

Location? Age? Education? Website?

Berlin, 28, MFA Fine Arts, www.annewoelk.de

How would you describe your work to someone?

I am a contemporary figurative painter, who creates mixed-media paintings with a penchant for bright colors, geometric shapes, and street-art forms. My work explores the relationship between cultural plurality and a recycling of pop-culture, by layering different motifs from Science Fiction film stills and quotations from an art historical background, like Symbolism and color-field paintings. Overall I am constantly studying the possibilities of oil paint as a medium and trying to push my boundaries.

Influences?

I appreciate the work of Kai Althoff, Corinne Wasmuht, Daniel Richter, David Hockney, Franz West, Gerhard Richter, Pierre Soulages, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko.

Cheese burgers or tofu burgers?

I always get two with cheese.

Favorite place traveled?

In the summer of 2009 I undertook a journey by car for several weeks along the French and Spanish-Atlantic coast with stops in Paris, Bordeaux, Vieux-Boucau, Biarritz, San Sebastian and Bilbao. I enjoyed myself immensely.

Working routine? Music? Time of day?

Sometimes I like the sound and the noise of the studio building with its different characters, but usually I love to listen to: audio books, The Cure, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Costello, Erykah Badu, The Fugees, Faith No More, Jeff Buckley, Amy Winehouse, John Lennon, and Lassie Singers, (among others). Honestly I have no real daily routine, I paint when I am hot for my work. Late in the evening is the best time to concentrate. During the nighttime I get ready for new things and I have my best ideas.

Mik Shida - Mini Interview

2011-08-23T18:05:32Z

Location? Age? Education? Website?

Australia, 21, University Dropout, http://shidaart.tumblr.com/ - http://www.flickr.com/photos/shidaart/

How would you describe your work to someone?

Pictures of Crystallised Fractaly Inter-dimensional mystics.

Influences?

Artist like Rodger Dean and Frank Frazetta, the graffiti scene around me. Australian Street Art Godfathers like Lister and Phibs.

Cheese burgers or tofu burgers?

Cheese burgers

Favorite place traveled?

Loved Vienna a place thats ridiculously cool for young people.

Working routine? Music? Time of day?

Try get to work on something every morning, whether its studio stuff or street work. Listen mainly to rap the cheesier the better and folk music.

How do you pay the bills?

With my art since 16.

Describe your process for creating new work.

Have a good coffee and get going no thought. Figure it out along the way.