Interview #16
Only 1 Day to the Studio tour!
Q1. Why did you choose to become an artist?
A1. I became an artist because I had a strong desire to creatively express myself and to find cultural meaning in my life. I did not formally start making art until well into my adult years. To call oneself an artist is a life changing experience and one of the best decisions I ever made!
Q2. What are your artistic influences?
A2. Imagination and daily life are the artistic influences most relevant to me.
Q3.Do you remember your first drawing/painting?
A3. I remember drawing many colourful birds in elementary school, exhibiting a passionate interest in model making as a teenager, creating experimental photography projects for the darkroom at University, learning how to visually explore and creatively present objects or the figure at Art School. I also remember my first solo art show in Vancouver and my first art sale too. All vivid memories forming a unique artist’s journey; with numerous creative events and actions thrown in along the way.
Q4.If you could use your art to express something socially important to you, what would you do?
A4.Life provides us with many political, economic or social issues to be explored or addressed through our art. Unfortunately, I find myself wanting to express my opinion on several subject matters at the same time. I use my art making as ‘selection’ tool to get grounded and to allow me to focus on the immediate subject matter at hand
Q5.If you could change a part of the world through your art, what would that be?
A5.To reduce war and poverty are goals that are essentially unattainable. However, I want to believe that somehow my art can add to the dialogue about social issues and to help people communicate or appreciate beauty, diversity and common interests too. I support people who choose to creatively express their concerns through cultural means , rather than utilize weapons that harm others.
Q6.Can you tell us your favourite artist(s)? Did one or many of these artists influence your style? In what way?
A6.I have looked at art works by Marcel DuChamp, Louise Nevelson, Eva Hess, Jack Bush, A. Calder, Warhol , K. Gerberick, Richard Prince and many others; but always, my interests, imagery and visual explorations of relationships in my daily life provide the most stimulus and influence in the development of my style.
Q7.Can you share your creative process with us? Ex: How do you a start your art? Do you plan your projects?
A7.I would like to state that I plan my projects well in advance, with precise methodology and purpose; however, the reality is that I often create my art intuitively, and rapidly in response to a brief, observed insight or experience of daily life. Sometimes my folk art like constructions lead to more abstract art explorations and composition. Sometime they fail miserably. The processes of juxtaposition and the transformation of objects to create new meaning is the real starting point
Q8.How long have you been an artist?
A8. 25 years.
Q9.What is your favourite subject to paint?
A9. Many of early images and objects reference the human figure, animal forms and imaginary landscapes.
Q10.Which colours you prefer to use? What is your palette?
A10.I love colour, yet I find the subject matter or material that I use in an art work often infers the palette to be explored. It is a necessary challenge to push colour toward a new direction that is at odds with nature and the brain.
Q11.What is your medium? Why?
A11. I enjoy trying a variety mediums and have dabbled in acrylic painting, sculpture, installation work, photography, artist trading cards, print making, collage and digital graphics.
Q12.Do you have a favourite style?
A12. I go back and forth with abstraction in art. My art is currently about spatial relationships and the transformation of found or recycled objects into new forms, that suggest alternative meanings. ‘Assemblage Painting’ and ‘Assemblage Sculpture’ are styles that come quickly to me and this type of art forms the bulk of my inventory.
Q13. How do you see your future as an artist? What is your dream?
A13. My future as an artist is secure in that it remains a passion and provides a limitless area of life to explore through the medium of visual art. I also maintain an ongoing interest in projects that involve art groups and community; especially in the area of planning and culture development. I suppose my dream is to complete as many of my art ideas as possible in my lifetime. How many, at what scale, cost or form is yet to be determined.
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