Interview with Olivier Allemane

q)What is your name?

a)My name is Olivier Allemane

q) Where do you live and work?

a)I live and work in Paris and Ris-Orangis (suburb of Paris-France)

q)What is your creative process like?

a)I put my fingers in the wall socket !

q)What is your favorite medium?

a)Acrilic and ink on canvas

q)What is your current favorite subject?

a)Haggard situation

q)How long does it take for you to finish a piece?

a)I am very quick.Only one day maximum

q)What has been your biggest accomplishment so far?

a)I succeeded to pull my fingers out of the socket !!!

q)Are there any contemporary artists that you love?

a)No !!

q)Can we buy your art anywhere?

a)You can buy my art in galleries

(I am at the Galerie les Singuliers in Paris), at my studio, and sometimes in auctions

q)Anything that people should know about that we don't??

a)I am a magician

q)What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?

a)Bon courage and trust nobody

q)What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?

a)If the going gets tough, the tough get going

q)How do you describe your work to those who are unfamiliar with it?

a)Figurative and haggard sensationnisme

q)What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?

a)Work work and work

q)Is there a tool or material that you can't imagine living without?

a)My bottle opener

q)Who are your influences?

a)Human behaviour

q)What inspires you to create?

a)Running life

q)…your contacts…

a) olivier.allemane@free.fr

Interview with Natalie Reis

q)What is your name?

a)Natalie Reis

q) Where do you live and work?

a)Montreal, Quebec

q)What is your creative process like?

a)Creating inventive narratives with found images and my own photos through painting and drawing

q)What is your favorite medium?

a)Drawing and painting

q)What is your current favorite subject?

a)Female figures found in the media and on the internet, such as murderers, victims and saints

q)How long does it take for you to finish a piece?

a)It takes months to conceptualize a piece and a few weeks to execute it.

q)What has been your biggest accomplishment so far?

a)Dedicating myself to being an artist.

q)Are there any contemporary artists that you love?

a)Kati heck, Kent Henricksen

q)Can we buy your art anywhere?

a)Right now, from me. In 2009 from Galerie Trois Points in Montreal.

q)Anything that people should know about that we don't??

a)No

q)What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?

a)Stick to it. Challenge yourself and others.

q)What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?

a)Being inspired by good work. Lights a fire inside of me and a desire to push my own work further.

q)How do you describe your work to those who are unfamiliar with it?

a)Conceptual figurative art

q)What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?

a)I completed a masters in fine arts, assisted an artist in Brazil for 2 months and a Montreal/New York based artist for the last 3 years.

q)Is there a tool or material that you can't imagine living without?

a)Primsmacolour dark grey pencil crayons

q)Who are your influences?

a)Great historical painters (Caravaggio and Rubens for instance)

q)What inspires you to create?

a)Found images on the web and the media along with random things on the street

q)…Your contacts…

a) www.nataliereis.com

Interview with Alfredo Sabat

q)What is your name?

a) My name is Alfredo Sábat.

q) Where do you live and work?

a) I live and work in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

q)What is your creative process like?

a) When I’m working editorially, I am following a subject which isn’t my own invention. Although I am trying to follow it as best as I can, I’m also trying not to leave behind my own points of view and tastes, while being as clear as possible to most audiences. So I try to think about the specific story I’m telling, and search for the clearest symbols on my own “visual dictionary”.
When I am doing my own stuff, I move within my own world, so I don’t need anyone to understand, not even myself. I am free from that obligation. So it’s more of a “free association” thing.
On both cases, I usually look for documentation, mostly on the Internet. Then I do sketches, sometimes I even do collages with photos on the computer so as to decide the composition and color combination faster. Then comes the real work.

q)What is your favorite medium?

a) I do a lot of digital illustration, 2D or 3D, I also do watercolor, and sculpture in plaster or clay, but lately I enjoy the most painting in oil.

q)What is your current favorite subject?

a) More than a subject, I feel I have found a world, a period that I enjoy a lot. Let’s say it’s a language I use to tell other stories. And that is the world of early 20th century entertainment, circus and vaudeville. All that mixed with a lot of magic, mystery and a bit of decadence.

q)How long does it take for you to finish a piece?

a) When I’m working on the newspaper, I can’t take too long, usually two hours at the most. If I’m given the subject in advance, I may spend a couple of days on it.
When I’m painting an oil on canvas, it may vary from a week up to a month, or even more.

q)What has been your biggest accomplishment so far?

a) Regarding size and type, it may be the 8 murals I designed for a subway station in Buenos Aires, a couple of years ago. And that’s not because of the amount of people going by them every day, they may not even notice the murals at all. It’s the genre that impressed me. I had to think in a different way. I felt like a Cabaret piano player who’s asked to compose a symphony.

q)Are there any contemporary artists that you love?

a) I look a lot at art, from Giotto up to Lucien Freud, and everything in between, but mostly figurative painters. I also admire a lot the work of photographers August Sander, Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus. Lately I have been both fascinated and repelled by the work of Joel-Peter Witkin. It’s disgusting yet memerizing. I can’t explain. There’s also the illustrators: Saul Steinberg, Mark Ryden, and caricaturists Al Hirschfeld, Edward Sorel and Philip Burke.

q)Can we buy your art anywhere?

a) Send me an e-mail and we’ll talk about that.

q)Anything that people should know about that we don’t??

a) The real reason to work is enjoyment. If you don’t enjoy it, it’s useless. So I’m all the time making some inside jokes and allusions that maybe I’m the only one that understands. Anyway, if you saw the jokes, I don’t have to explain them. And if you didn’t, it makes no sense explaining them. It’s like Picasso said: I may explain the painting, but you will understand the explanation, not the painting.

q)What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?

a) Go to a lot of museums. They’re the real universities. You may look at reproductions of a work of art for years, but you won’t understand it until you see it “live”. There you see the scale, the texture, things that make up the real meaning the artist had in mind. And that’s when you learn. You see the artist at work. When you see the brushstroke, you see time. You see him at work. And you learn.

q)What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?

a) Many times you move ahead on automatic pilot. Let’s call it the “craft machine”. But that’s when you weren’t really interested on the work to begin with. If I do have time, I put it on the freezer and wait fot it to come back by itself. I wander off, look at old movie clips on the internet or something like that. Suddenly it reappears on my head and I know what to do.
Other times I just think, “what would so-and-so have done? He usually handles this stuff”. I go and look at other people’s work, see their solutions and learn. And then I go and do my own stuff. It’s just like asking for help.

q)How do you describe your work to those who are unfamiliar with it?

a) Portraits and figures. Old fashioned. Theatrical. With a lot of humour. Cartoonish and serious at the same time. A lot of pop and high culture references. A lot of attention to light and weight. They’re not snapshots, it’s more like standing still or floating on the same spot for ever.

q)What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?

a) I’m mostly self taught. All I know I learnt it from looking at my father working. He’s Hermenegildo Sábat, a well known cartoonist and artist in Argentina. He never told me how to do things. I just watched and learned.

q)Is there a tool or material that you can’t imagine living without?

a) Nowadays all editorial illustration must become digital at some point. So I guess I’d get a lot of headaches (and waste much more time) if I had to go back to work on paper for each job. But I’d still be able to do it. What I wouldn’t be able to live without would be the mistery and pleasure of oil painting.

q)Who are your influences?

a) Giotto, Fra Angelico, Leonardo, Memling, Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Bosch, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Goya, Japanese prints, Rodin, Van Gogh, Picasso, Balthus, Magritte, Max Ernst, Hopper, Bacon, Lucien Freud, August Sander, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus and Busby Berkeley. And a lot, lot more people in between.

q)What inspires you to create?

a) Having fun. The ideas come on their own. Of course you have to work for them to come. But the ony reason to work on this, for me, is having fun. So have fun working, and ideas will come.

q)…your contacts…

a) avsabat@fibertel.com.ar

www.alfredosabat.com

Interview with Paul Faassen

q)What is your name?

a)Paul Faassen

q) Where do you live and work?

a)Amsterdam

q)What is your creative process like?

a)Observing ordinairy daily life and create poetry or nonsense out of it

q)What is your favorite medium?

a)My photoshopbrushes

q)What is your current favorite subject?

a)People who thinking of nothing,
and all the lifestyle blahdiblah in general

q)How long does it take for you to finish a piece?

a)Most of the time between 120 and 1200 minutes

q)What has been your biggest accomplishment so far?

a)Make a living.
ha !

q)Are there any contemporary artists that you love?

a)Too many

q)Can we buy your art anywhere?

a)Most of my work will be printed in limited edition. You can press the 'vragen' ('question') button on my site.

q)Anything that people should know about that we don’t??

a)Euh...rather not !

q)What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?

a)No, sorry. See for yourself!

q)What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?

a)Money.
Or all the stuff I did before.
Or coffee
Or a mail from someone like you.

q)How do you describe your work to those who are unfamiliar with it?

a)Drawings and photographs of simpel visions on life.Or something like that.

q)What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?

a)Academie of arts

q)Is there a tool or material that you can’t imagine living without?

a)Paper and pixels.

q)Who are your influences?

a)Pfoe...

q)What inspires you to create?

a)sleeping anchormen, dogshit, hair, flying ducks, laughing girls, a lonely cloud, soap, weatherwomen, farts, conversations and desserts.

q)…Your contacts…

a)mail:paulfaassen@wxs.nl

http://www.paulfaassen.nl

Interview with Mark Planisek

q)What is your name?

a)Mark Planisek

q) Where do you live and work?

a)Washington, D.C.

q)What is your creative process like?

a)Within my photographic composition, geometric composition, color and texture correlation, I have a very natural, flowing, process. Look. See. Think. Do.

q)What is your favorite medium?

a) Hand painted, photo collage

q)What is your current favorite subject?

a) Photographing my old studio building up until the time it was boarded up

q)How long does it take for you to finish a piece?

a)Approximately a few days .

q)What has been your biggest accomplishment so far?

a)Winning an award from the historic Camera Cub of New York and my past museum exhibits.

q)Are there any contemporary artists that you love?

a)Kathe Kollwitz, Henry Koerner, Chaim Soutine, Berenice Abbott and Charles Burchfield.

q)Can we buy your art anywhere?

a)Check out www.markplanisek.com and www.123soho.com/mark_planisek

q)Anything that people should know about that we don’t??

a)I work in several different mediums

q)What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?

a) Be interested and you’ll be interesting. Get involved in your arts community.

q)What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?

a) I know that I have to, want to and need to make art.

q)How do you describe your work to those who are unfamiliar with it?

a)I describe it in different ways to different people. I usually like to hear what people think of it then I can react to their take on it. Otherwise you may be influencing their real opinion.

q)What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?

a) I was an illustrator for NASA, John Hopkins University and other companies for more than 15 years

q)Is there a tool or material that you can’t imagine living without?

a) The camera has always been integral in my work

q)Who are your influences?

a)My former teacher and artist from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Mr. Henry Koerner. I work at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in DC.

q)What inspires you to create?

a)I’ve been artistically creative since I was very young. It’s a natural way of life for me.

q)…your contacts…

a) planisek@hotmail.com

Interview with Callie Hirsch

q)What is your name?

a)Callie Danae Hirsch I am the second child of four and my mother wanted some creativity when she named me.My Grandparents were not so pleased....She found "Callie" from a North Carolina phone book, I was born on an air force base in 1964.My middle name comes from a Greek myth.

q)Where do you live and work?

a)I live and work in my studio in Brooklyn. I moved into a loft four years ago and am loving every moment of it.

q)What is your creative process like?

a)I just begin, without any planning.I love attacking a blank canvas, not knowing what will happen,just as surprised as the viewer about what appeared.

q)What is your favorite medium?

a)Iridescent acrylic paint on thick, cotton black etch paper!I used to love oils, but they take too long to dry.

q)What is your current favorite subject?

a)Hands down, - nature.

q)How long does it take for you to finish a piece?

a)About a week on the 32" x 23" sized pieces.I can only work nights and weekends due to my day job.But that time is shared with my social life and getting out to see art.

q)What has been your biggest accomplishment so far?

a)Being chosen for the "Arts in Transit", NYC MTA subway art series.My station will be at 105th, Beach Station in the Rockaways, NYC.It is such an honor and the work is slated to reside there for the next 100 years.My art pieces will be translated into faceted glass panels.

q)Are there any contemporary artists that you love?

a)Yes!A lot of them in fact.Zak Smith, I love his use of octopi, and Candice Smith Corby, and Inka Essenhigh to name a few....

q)Can we buy your art anywhere?

a)Yes, right now I am showing in a gallery in Brooklyn, Metaphor Gallery. www.metaphorcontemporaryart.com And I have some framed works on paper and oils at ABC Home in NYC, on the second floor. I love the nature that they bring into the store and their wonderful sense of design. http://callieart.com/ABC%20Home.html

q)Anything that people should know about that we don't??

a)I am a loner in denial. Life can be very distracting, it is ok to be alone and do what you love. I need to accept that.

q)What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?

a)Go to artist residencies and see how other artists work, you automatically rise to the occasion and take yourself more seriously.

q)What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?

a)I take a break and come back at it fresh.I never really have artists block. I already have so many distractions in life pulling me in all directions, so when I have time to paint, be it good or going terribly wrong, it is all a puzzle to solve my way out of.

q)How do you describe your work to those who are unfamiliar with it?

a)My work is nature inspired and resonates with Aboriginal dots in a realm of iridescence.

q)What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your currentlevel of artistry?

a)I would have loved to be an outsider artist, but I did go to school for photography and studio art. I like to think that they taught me how to use the tools, I taught myself how to see my visions and translate them.

q)Is there a tool or material that you can't imagine living without?

a)A pen.I love drawing in pen.

q)Who are your influences?

a)Lee Bontecou, Adolf Wolfli, Darren Waterston, and Hundertwasser.One can not help but notice the influences of Kindinsky, Klee and Miro as well.

q)What inspires you to create?

a)Everything, I can not imagine a life without making art.I sit in meetings at my 9-5 job and draw, I come home and paint, I go out and photograph.My life is all about possibilities and the very reality that we can imagine creating fantastical worlds and the creatures that inhabit it.

q)…your contacts…

a)callie@callieart.com

www.callieart.com/

www.theartvibe.com

Interview with Chris Dean

q)What is your name?

a)Chris Dean

q) Where do you live and work?

a)Right now I am living in a little city north of Detroit called Ferndale here in the US. Ironically half of the creative types that list themselves as being from Detroit are actually from Ferndale. . . . they just keep a Detroit address for image. That is why I do it. That and I am trying to promote the idea that I am a giant black man not to be triffled with.

q)What is your creative process like?

a)Left to my own agenda it is fun and organic. It involves a spark of idea that rolls around until it becomes mature enough to do something with. I work on the computer quite a bit and that aspect is usually dry execution of something I have already developed to an advanced stage. Prior to that things are wide open. Often times a technical curiosity will open a path to something, like the organic firestorm that happens when you touch a 9V battery to a piece of steel wool. You know it is cool and so it becomes your job to find something interesting to do with it. Will it be a hobo's beard? A kitty? Many pieces start out that way.

If the creative process is influenced by another's agenda, for an illustration or commission, the process if often pain-filled. I always second guess myself and think too much about the client. I may ultimately produce something that the client and I both like but the process of getting there is seldom fun. But I suppose that is the price you pay.

q)What is your favorite medium?

a)Right now it is all things lenticular. The result looks like holography, portraying an artificial sense of depth, but the process is quite different. Its like those baseball trading cards only on a much larger scale. It is really impossible to judge a work of lenticular art from a simple picture, I keep a website but the pieces must be seen in person to get the full effect. I tend to think it is the lenticular part that most people resond to but Proximo Spirits just used one of my images for a new campaign they are running and I am not even sure the ad agency that brokered the job knew the piece was originally 3D. They created billboards from the piece. . . . . I am trying to convince them they should all be lenticular!

q)What is your current favorite subject?

a)I like art as an avenue for humor. I also like the world as revealed by science. Those are probably the only constants, otherwise all sorts of topics are fair game. I have been working to integrate more 3D photographic elements, I have this fabulous camera setup that lets me take live action digital 3D photographs. I am still trying to figure out all of the fun things I can do with it, I am shooting Detroit bands in concert as a side project but there is just no limit to the potential. I expect you will see an expanded roll of photography in future projects.

q)Are there any contemporary artists that you love?

a)I have to admit that the most inspiring art of the last decade has come through my television in the form of Space Ghost and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, among others. I think those shows have actually altered the course of my life.

q)Can we buy your art anywhere?

a)Right now a few galleries have work for sale here in the U.S., Harold Golen in Miami, L'imagerie in Hollywood and Tag Gallery in Nashville are three that I know for sure, but someone who is interested can contact me through my website too.

q)What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?

a)I feel like I am in this same boat so I don't know what objective advice I have to offer. You like to balance your own vision with the reality that there is still much to learn, and be open to influences but not become the things you admire. It seems like if you do anything long enough, with enough intensity, there is no way to avoid becoming better. Ok, probably a dozen exceptions to that rule just came to mind, but it still must be mostly true.


q)What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?

a)I am propelled by an energy that is nearly compulsive so going is never an issue. On the other hand because what I do has a strong technical aspect I can spend a good deal of that time making new equipment or fussing with software when I should be out making art. That is my biggest obstical.

q)What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?

a)I left my masters program in art doing things that will remain turned to the wall in the back of some dark closet. School was undoubtely beneficial in some ways, especially from a technical point of view, but I could have learned many of the same things on my own. I did develop a growing hatred for most expressions of conceptual art however. Interestingly your typical web-monkey and lenticular artist share a very similar work flow including photoshop files with lots of layers, perpetually turning on and off images and saving subtle variations a million times. My background as a web designer probably helped beat my mind into the numb subission required for this "level of aristry".

q)Is there a tool or material that you can’t imagine living without?

a)My laptop.
q)…your contacts…

a)Come by and visit if you are ever in Detroit. . . . . I mean Ferndale. In the mean time stop by my website, www.chrisdean.com