venerdì 9 ottobre 2009

Interview with Diane Barcelowsy





q)please tell us a brief info about yourself.


a)I live in Brooklyn. I'm an art teacher. 31 years old I have one green eye and one blue eye.


q)Tell us about your humble beginnings, When did you you first realized that you wanted to be an artist?


a)One of my earliest memories is drawing lines on paper and pretending the lines are roads and my pencil is the car. I guess I always found escaping and daydreaming on paper more exciting then other things growing up and I kept drawing so the practice and a strange imagination made me into the artist I am today


q)What are your tools of the trade and why?


a)Dip pen and india ink mostly then a lot of stuff after that.


q)Who or what gives you inspiration on your morbid art?


a)The morbid world. It's easy to want to escape from it all or really look at it straight in the eyes. So I do both when I'm making things.


q)Is your artistic background self-taught or did you go to college to study?


a)I went to college for photography and then switched to fine arts. The school basically gave a space to let loose and I still don't know how to properly gesso a canvas. I think its good that they let us do what we wanted and figure out mistakes and tricks along the way , but it cost to much money.


q)How do you keep "fresh" within your industry?


a)I don't pay attention to whats going on so I never even know if I am fresh or not


q)What are some of your current projects?


a)I was commissioned to do a drawing for "the Sak" to use on an eco -friendly bag line that will be out spring 2010. They all look amazing and each bag that sells donates money to the nature conservatory (plant a billion trees fund) http://www.plantabillion.org/ and I am really excited about a group show in Japan at the Waiting Room Gallery with other cinders artist like Maya Hayuk, and Erika Somogyi (whom i have known for a real long time) opens in nov-jan.


q)Which of your works are you the most proud of? And why?


a)This one of two elephants that got lost in the mail on the way to Beaver Projects Gallery. It took forever and my hand went numb drawing it but it was beautiful and it travelled with me, I worked on it driving up the west coast to my friends farm in northern California. It was so beautiful there I look at the drawing and I think of my friend and her husband and their dog and cat and drawing these elephants outside by their garden. I also love these three drawings that I just donated to a silent auction for the Movember Foundation to help fund research for prostate cancer. I lost my grandfather and Uncle to prostate cancer and my father is a survivor. http://us.movember.com/


q)Are there any areas, techniques, mediums, projects in your field that you have yet to try?


a)There's plenty of things i haven't tried but I am not to interested in things that become more of a technical process, I like drawing and painting because you are more in touch with the collective unconscious


q)What do you do to keep yourself motivated and avoid burn-out?


a)I have been making lists of drawing ideas to make for years, while waiting in lines at the bank or sitting in traffic. I have so many that i still need to start or finish and I work on about 5-8 at a time.


q)how do you spend most of your free time?


a)Ha.. drawing/painting I also play music with my friends Brina Thurston, Quentin Rowin and Mike Woods


q)What contemporary artists or developments in art interest you?


a)I love people like Nils Udo who make art outdoors and go for long quiet walks , who are really in touch with the solitude of nature I can really connect with those feelings. Joseph Beuys for being one of the founding members of the green party, writing pop songs about Reagan, and trying to plant 7,000 trees and always Grandma Moses for creating scenes with so much going on in small towns then giving the paintings as gifts to family and friends on birthdays and weddings. I want to live in one of her towns.


q)We really like some of your pictures, how can we get our hands on them? Do you sell them? How?


a)I sell them through Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, and Beaver Projects in Copenhagen although sometimes people just e-mail me directly if they live close by it's better to see the art in person.

lunedì 5 ottobre 2009

Interview with Arabella Proffer





q)please tell us some brief info about yourself.


a)I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to academic parents in a big spooky house. I don’t know when I went “bad” exactly, but around age 13 I got into the whole punk thing and was a mild troublemaker. It is also when I started exhibiting my art. At 16, I moved to Laguna Beach, but I was in Los Angeles every moment I could manage. I went to art school, kicked a nasty drug habit, got married, and had a variety of jobs from working at an art gallery, DJing and graphic design, to being a commercial photography assistant. My husband and I started a record label in 2002, and later moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to live somewhere a little less crazy. I’ve been doing freelance illustration, portraiture, and the whole art thing full-time since 2007.


q)Tell us about your humble beginnings, When did you first realize that you wanted to be an artist?


a)It was more my parents deciding for me, supposedly I was drawing with enough aptitude by age two that anything else – other than becoming an actress or filmmaker – was never discussed throughout my life. Their worst fear was that I would become an accountant or civil servant. I was never really good at anything other than art and making films, so that worked out fine for me.


q)What are your tools of the trade and why?


a)For years it was acrylic, because I am by nature impatient, but they do not age well, so in 1999 I started using oils. All my favorite painters used oils, so of course I wanted my work to look as good as theirs. Old Holland paints are my favorite, I wish I could afford to buy them more often; synthetic brushes are best for me as far as the scale of my work, I’ll only use hog’s hair brushes for something large; I don’t use mediums or anything like that, on occasion I use Linseed Oil, but that’s all.


q)Who or what gives you inspiration on your morbid art?


a)I don’t think of my work as morbid really, at least it hasn’t been for many years, but portraiture of the Renaissance has always been the biggest influence on me from a young age. Fashion plays a big part; Elizabethan costume, punk, goth, and anything decadent Christian Lacroix comes up with. I’m also really fascinated by the lives of old socialites, actresses and nobility who led eccentric, fabulous lives – although most didn’t have a good ending. For the most part, I love anything to do with old Hollywood or European tradition of the upper classes.


q)Is your artistic background self-taught or did you go to college to study?


a)I graduated from CalArts, but at the time it was more about installation art and theory -- not painting. I was taking a lot of film and animation courses while there, so I would say in many ways that despite going to art school I am self-taught; I was painting before I went to art school, and became more serious about painting after art school.


q)How do you keep “fresh” within your industry?


a)I do a new painting every few weeks, so it isn’t really an issue for me. I get bored so easily that halfway through a painting I already want to get started on the next one.


q)What are some of your current projects?


a)I just came off doing three large shows, so for now it is a variety of group shows taking place in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Art Basel Miami. Since I don’t have a solo show scheduled anytime soon, I may start a new body of work, I’m still not sure.


q)Which of your works are you the most proud of? And why?


a)There are a few simply for the happy accidents and technical reasons.


q)Are there any areas, techniques, mediums, projects in your field that you have yet to try?


a)Print making. I have tried it a little bit years and years ago, just nothing too ambitious. It sounds odd coming from an oil painter, but I actually don’t have the patience for it.



q)What do you do to keep yourself motivated and avoid burn-out?


a)There is no such thing as burning out for me, and if it does, I’m sure champagne can fix it.


q)how do you spend most of your free time?


a)Boozing with friends, reading, watching old movies, and snuggling with the husband.


q)What contemporary artists or developments in art interest you?


a)The Italian and Flemish Old Masters were my first love, and for some reason Albrecht Durer has always been a favorite; maybe because I think he was really hot as well as a great painter! I went through a Pre-Raphaelite phase as well as an Art Nouveau phase; Tamara de Lempicka was a huge influence on me for a very long time, as well as Erte and Christian Schad. It is funny how with every artist, I don’t necessarily like everything they do, but a few key pieces are enough to do it for me. There are so many today that might fall into the realms of Neo –Realism and Pop Surrealism -- or whatever you want to call it -- I really like, John Currin, Alex Gross, Nancy Baker and Sara Bereza.



q)We really like some of your pictures, how can we get our hands on them? Do you sell them? How?


a)If not through the galleries that represent me, I sell direct and do commissions through www.arabellaproffer.com, as well as sell prints.