Katana Barnett recently interviewed me about my recent body of work, my process, what inspires me, and matters involved in retiring from corporate graphic design.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
What are five artists you think everyone should check out?
1. Chuck Close has been one of my favourite artists for many years. He worked in a hyper-realist style up until a spinal artery collapse in 1988 caused him to be almost completely paralyzed from neck down. In spite of this challenge, he developed a new method of painting his work continues to amaze me.
2. Damien Hirst is a British artist who has developed a strong body of work as a conceptual artist, and has a reputation for being a bit of a prankster. I’ve often found that I enjoy most of his work because I enjoy the attitude with which it was conceived. I’ve seen photographs of his recent work (as of late 2009) — paintings he did with his own hand, without the aid of any of his assistants. In my opinion, it’s absolute shite. In spite of it’s poor quality, I think it’s still important work given the context of how his previous work added to our cultural understanding of what art is, isn’t or could be. But only within that context.
3. Audrey Kawasaki: Her work is excellent, and it’s become very popular with a young audience in the last few years — especially online. I’ve seen a lot of younger artists trying to replicate her style and subject matter. I think that everyone should check out Audrey’s work, enjoy it, and be inspired by it, but focus on developing their own style and creative voice.
4. Feng Zhengjie: I love his enormous paintings of women. The colours he uses are electric and his work has such a strong and persistent presence. I’ll leave it at that and let your readers seek him out on their own so they can have their own reaction.
5. Patrick Nagel: Everyone knows his work, even if they don’t know his name. His images defined the 1980s, and his minimal reductive style was a primary influence of mine. I’d go so far as to say that looking at his work taught me how to draw faces at a very young age. Nagel died before his time, and I often wonder how his work would have evolved if he were still with us.
Visit Katanaville.com to read the entire interview.