q) What is your name and what do you do?
a)My name is SMEAR and I paint, fuck, read, write, shit and sleep.
q)When did you really get into art?
a)About 4 years ago...I was (and still am) a graffiti writer for over a decade before I decided to pick up the brush.
q)How did you come to the realization that you should try your luck at art on a more serious level?
a)I was tired of getting arrested for my street work and similarly tired of seeing terrible art in pretentious galleries selling for heavy sums of money by artists that havent really lived and who have nothing worth saying...art school can't teach you to be an artist. It just makes you a technician- like a dental assistant.
q)How did you discover the particular style that you have?
a)I just took everything around and inside me and started doing what I needed to do.
q)How would you describe your style?
a)Personal. Emanating from my deep subconscious mind with a little forming from my conscious mind to hold it together like a form of glue.
q)Who or what influences your art?
a)Picasso,Miro, Pollock, Basquiat, Rauschenberg, Willem de k Kooning, Kandinsky, Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh,the dadaists, Cy Twombly, Larry Rivers Francis Bacon, Robert Crumb,comic books,history, the occult, my city- Los Angeles, literature-Bukowski, Knut Hamsun, John Fante, Hunter S. Thompson....the list of my influences can take several days to compile...lets just say, life, death and everything in between.
q)How often do you create a new piece?
a)Whenever I feel the need to paint.
q)What kind of success have you had with your art?
a)I rate success by how I feel that a particular piece either succeeds or fails in expressing what I feel that I wanted to express with a particular work...success is archived on a per-painting basis...sometimes I don't succeed. And I may break a few things when I don't. But when I do...I stare at the finished piece for hours on end in a state of pure Ecstasy. It's like a drug, but much more powerful.
q)What would be the ultimate goal for you and your art?
a)For it to save my soul.
q)What do you see as an accomplishment in the way of art?
a)If you can bring your inside to the outside.
q)What kind of message, if any, do you try to convey through your art?
a)What kinds of messages do you get from my art?
q)Sum up your art in one word.
a)Honest.
q)Any additional comments?
a)Don't be afraid to reveal yourself...let people see how damaged you are, how pure you are.
q)…your contacts…
a)Are many...
