Artist Interviews – Page 73

An interview with Dabs Myla

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An interview with Dabs Myla

Dabs is a prolific illustrator and graffiti artist who spent his teenage years growing up in Melbourne in the Early 90s. The graffiti scene influenced him greatly in his style and technique. These days his characters come to life in more contextualized environments than ever before, whether they are painted on walls in the streets, or on canvases in the gallery.

Myla was also raised in Melbourne where she was obsessed with detailed painting and drawing from an early age. Throughout her life she continued to develop her artistic ways, and now concentrates on detailed cities and landscapes. Three years ago, along with Dabs, they combined forces to solely collaborate on their works together.

They currently live in Hollywood, spending everyday working on artworks, painting walls and being influenced by the wonders of their new city.

I recently had the pleasure of swinging by their studio as they prepared for their big ‘Golden Age’ show opening this Friday. While there I also got to catch them finishing up a nice mural on the streets just off of Hollywood Blvd near their studio/apt. In addition to that, pics are also included below from the mural install at New Puppy coming together.

Dabs Myla Earthquake Weather (Large)

Please talk a lil’ bit about the general idea/vibe behind your work and how you go about starting a piece, seeing as you work on a collaborative level together.
Our artwork is a fusion of a lot of different influences and styles that come from the two of us. Elements of our graffiti backgrounds, fine traditional illustrative techniques and our love of classic cartoons is all rolled together to make one chaotic bundle of fun!

We usually start our paintings from an idea that one of us has. We then build it into a drawing, slowly building up the characters and finding the right street scenes, landscapes or signs to photograph for the reference. Then we start painting. We paint on each picture together (a lot of the time at the same time!) and work on finishing the whole piece to look as harmonious as we can make it. Building a relationship between the two styles.

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What are your earliest memories involving art or creating art?
MYLA: I think any memory I have from when I was very young, like 2 or 3, involved me at home drawing. My mom would lay out big sheets of paper on the kitchen floor and I would spend all day drawing on it until there was no space or time left!

DABS: I was totally obsessed with Disney cartoons as a kid. All the drawings I did when I was young was of Disney characters. My uncle is a huge collector of animation and comic art and I would spend my time at his house looking though books and watching cartoons.

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If you had an unlimited budget and time was not an issue, what grand artistic vision would you two look to bring to life?
If time isn’t an issue and an unlimited budget? To be given access to a small city or town and to paint the whole thing top to bottom! Every car, every sign, every building, every house and a little face on every spoon in every restaurant! The whole shit!! Sure, it would take the rest of our lives, but it would really be something to see and a lot of fun!!

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How did you two meet and what sparked the current direction of photorealistic buildings/cityscapes (by Myla) intermixed with the detailed character work (by Dabs)?
We met each other at art school about 6 years ago…by the time we had finished school we had fallen in love!! Originally we were working on our own paintings and would do collaborations here and there. But after time we found ourselves enjoying the collaborative work a lot more. That’s when we decided to combine powers and become one.

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Do you listen to music while painting/drawing? If so, do you have a current favorite that inspires?
We always listen to music while we work. Just a couple of days ago we made a playlist that was 346 songs long…and we listened to it over 2 days! Sometimes we feel sorry for our iPod! Poor little bastard never gets a break!! More recently Ween have been getting a lot of play, as well as the most recent Cage album…and we have been seriously revisiting an old long lost favorite ‘One Foot in the Grave’ by Beck.

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Please name your three favorite things about Australia.
Aussie Rules Football, The Platypus and Australia’s all round awesomeness.

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In your opinions, what are the two major differences between Australia and the US?
Australia has less guns, but American has more candy bars!

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Please name three artists from Australia that everyone should check out.
Meggs (www.houseofmeggs.com)
Dvate (www.myspace.com/dvate11)
Brett Whitley (www.brettwhiteley.org)

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What do you consider your biggest overall influence?
It might sound cheesy, but on the real….each other!!

What have you got coming up in terms of shows in the coming year?
We are having a show called ‘Golden Age’ which opens this Fri, November 13th at New Puppy Gallery (2808 Elm St, Los Angeles 90006). We will be painting an installation on the walls and be exhibiting brand new works. Included in the exhibition will be a group show that we are curating. Its going to be a lot of fun!! We will also have some work in a show coming up in December at Thinkspace and more throughout 2010 with Thinkspace (watch for details soon).

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Since living in LA, what have you found to be your favorite thing to do when not creating together?
There unfortunately isn’t much of that, but we do find the time to get away from our desks occasionally…and when we do, we love to go for a hike up through Griffith Park then balance that out with some In-N-Out burger delight!!

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‘Golden Age’
Featuring new works and a massive installation from Dabs Myla
+ a great group show curated by Dabs Myla and Dan Levy (see details on postcard image below)

THIS Fri, Nov. 13th 8-11PM

GOLDEN-back

New Puppy Gallery
2808 Elm Street,Unit 1
Los Angeles,CA 90065
On view through Nov. 22nd

An interview with Craig “Skibs” Barker

Skibs

An interview with Craig “Skibs” Barker

Craig “Skibs” Barker grew up in Southern California during the early ’80s in the midst of both the punk rock and surfing culture explosions. With a healthy dose of punk flyers, album covers, and surfing magazines buzzing through his head, Barker began making flyers and t-shirts for his friends and his own punk bands. Fast-forward to today; Barker’s most recent paintings infuse his long-standing love for painting and rendering the human female figure with his punk-fueled graphic design. Mixing different approaches, techniques, and mediums, he creates a sense of memory, personal history, and appreciation for the female form. Combining elements of pop culture, literary censorship, and a positive mental attitude, he creates layered scenes of voyeuristic mischief. Barker’s work explores the junctions between past and present, memory and imagination, fantasy and reality, while creating a dialog between image and viewer.

Barker’s work has shown around Southern California in such galleries as Ghetto Gloss, The Hive Gallery, C.A.V.E. Gallery, Koo’s Art Center, J. Flynn Gallery and the bi-monthly Cannibal Flower event. Barker’s work was also recently profiled at the Beyond Eden New Contemporary Art Fair in Los Angeles.

'And You Run Across The Courtyard Just To Take Her Hand'

Please talk a lil’ bit about the general idea/vibe behind your new series of works for “Sight For Sore Eyes”? What’s the story with the show’s title?
The general “vibe” in my most recent paintings is interpersonal relationships. I like to investigate the foundation of relationships. How these connections become anchored in both a physical location and an emotional sense of “home”. And, I like legs!

As for the show title, it’s like in the old movies when the dame would walk into the bar and the barflies would say “well, isn’t she a sight for sore eyes”. That sense of nostalgia is also something I try to bring into my paintings. Nostalgia and memory play a huge role in relationships and family, like an old family photo album.

Much of your work includes the use of old Polaroid pictures. Are these photos you’ve taken yourself or do you go about collecting these at garage sales/swamp meets?
I take all of the Polaroids myself. It started when I wanted to get a different perspective on my paintings while I was working on them. My wife gave me my stepdaughters old “Spice Girls” Polaroid camera and I would shoot cheap grainy images of the progress of the work. The pictures started piling up, so I started adding them to the paintings. The result was what guided me toward the theme of relationships and memories. Old Polaroids and photos always seem to have a kind of voyeuristic nostalgia. The other, non-Polaroid, photographs in my paintings are either from garage/estate sales or from my personal family archives.

'Awake Enough' - new work coming in this weekend

If you had an unlimited budget and time was not an issue, what grand artistic vision would you look to bring to life?
I am really enjoying the direction I’ve been headed in lately. I would just push the scale of the paintings and add some more sculptural elements to the collage aspect of the work.

If you could stand by and watch the creation of any piece of artwork from over the years, which would it be and why?
I thought about this one for a while and wanted to say something deep like Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. But, I’m afraid of heights and I’d get a stiff neck looking up at that thing all the time. So, I figured the most action and fun would be to watch Paul McCarthy create “Caribbean Pirates”. Yargh…ahoy matey!!!

'Get A...' - new work coming in this weekend

What do you consider your biggest overall influence?
My biggest overall influence would have to be when and where I grew up. Growing up in Huntington Beach, CA during the explosions of both punk rock and surfing culture really guided me in directions both extremely creative and extremely self-destructive. The punk aesthetic of slogans spray-painted with block, stencil lettering carries over into my work to this day. And, I can’t go anywhere around here without seeing palm trees and power lines which continue to pop up in my work all the time.

I know you have roots in the SoCal underground music scene. Do you listen to music while painting/drawing? Current favorite?
Yeah, I listen to all kinds of music while painting. It kinda depends on what I’m doing in the studio that dictates what I listen to. When I’m doing a lot of action based collage/under-painting stuff I tend to listen to energetic music, mostly some kind of classic or hardcore punk like The Clash or The Bad Brains… or maybe some of the newer hardcore bands like The Regulations. When I’m painting the figures and need to concentrate and be more detailed oriented I tend to listen to something a bit quieter like Nick Cave, Tom Waits, or some Dub Reggae like King Tubby. I also like to listen to a lot of weird music while I paint… obscure French pop like Francoise Hardy… old Jazz or Blues stuff like Oscar Peterson or Mississippi John Hurt. But, for the most part, it’s whatever isn’t too scratched or covered in sawdust to play that I listen to.

As far as a current favorite goes, they aren’t new, but I’ve been on a big Guided By Voices kick lately.

'Laugh and Dream' - new work coming in this weekend

What’s your favorite thing about living in Southern California?
The beach for sure…being able to surf before work when the waves are good is fantastic. I’ve done quite a bit of traveling, lived in other cities/countries, but I always miss the beach and come back to it. It definitely has that sense of “home” for me.

'Stay Right Here' - featured in the Juxtapoz 'Big Payback' 15th Anniversary Auction

You and your wife are also quite the art collectors, having amassed a very nice collection and I don’t think you’ll be slowing anytime soon (if you’re like us). What’s your favorite piece from your collection currently? Who’s on your ‘list’ for the coming year?
You had to get me started on collecting…this is gonna be a long one!!! Our collection is kinda broken up into 4 different sections…prints, underground artists, photographs, and established artists. That makes it kinda hard to pick just 1. So, I’ll pick 1 from each section…my interview, my rules! My favorite print is our Chloe Early… favorite underground artist our L. Croskey… favorite photograph is our April Falling… favorite established artists is a toss up between our Ian Francis and our Dave Kinsey. The favorites all switch from day to day though…ask me tomorrow and you may get a whole different list.

My wife, Kristen, and I have had our eye on Jason Shawn Alexander for a while, but haven’t bought one just yet. So, he is definitely on our “list” for this coming year. We’re running out of wall space!

What have you got coming up in terms of shows after your show with us?
I’ve got a painting in a group show the night after my opening with you all, on Sat. Nov. 7th, in Washington D.C. at Art Whino Gallery… that show is then traveling to Art Basel in Miami Fl. in Dec. I’m super stoked to be a part of the Juxtapoz Magazine 15th Anniversary Auction Show on Nov. 14th. I’m also in the United C.A.T. group show in Fullerton CA. in the end of Nov. Then in Jan. 2010 I’m in a group show at the C.A.V.E. Gallery in Venice CA. and hopefully more shows with you there at Thinkspace (including our January ‘A Cry For Help’ benefit for endangered species).

'Sight For Sore Eyes' installed at Thinkspace

Look for an interview to be posted with Hurley in the coming weeks as well – we’ll be sure to post a link here once it’s live for all to check out. Also, in case you missed, check out a recent interview Juxtapoz did with ‘Skibs’ here.

Craig ‘Skibs’ Barker
‘Sight For Sore Eyes’ (’Fresh Faces’ series)

On View: Nov. 6th – Nov. 27th, 2009

View the works featured in ‘Sight For Sore Eyes’ from Craig “Skibs” Barker:
http://www.thinkspacegallery.com/2009/11/project2/works.php

PLEASE NOTE:
We’ll be getting in a half dozen or so new works from Barker this weekend (some of which are pictured/noted above). After the huge demand created by the recent opening of ‘Sight For Sore Eyes’, we asked Craig to bring us in some more work – please email contact@sourharvest.com if interested in receiving info and images on the new works coming in from Barker.

Thinkspace
4210 Santa Monica Blvd. (near Sunset Junction)
Los Angeles, CA 90029
#: 323.913.3375
E-mail: contact@sourharvest.com
www.thinkspacegallery.com

An interview with Timothy Karpinski

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An interview with Timothy Karpinski

Coming up THIS Fri, Nov. 6th we are proud to present ‘My Heart Never Sleeps’, the second solo show at our gallery from Portland based artist Timothy Karpinski. This will be the first solo exhibition with the artist in our main gallery space, following ‘The Place I Call Home’, which took place in our project room in the fall of 2008. ‘My Heart Never Sleeps’ will feature a large installation featuring the artist’s ”Fear Fort” which he has been living in for the past few months as he worked on the show and he plans to be sleeping and living in the fort during the week-long installation of the exhibition itself.

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Please talk a lil’ bit about the general idea/vibe behind your new series of works for “My Heart Never Sleeps”? What’s the story with the show’s title?
The title comes from my friend’s band “lovers” – me and cubby the singer/songwriter are alot alike but she makes songs and i make art 🙂 With this show ill be telling a love story – the best one I’ve ever told.

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Tell us a lil’ bit about the idea behind your ‘fear fort’, which will be one of the highlights of your upcoming show with us.
It’s where I can go and everything is okay, no fears in the fear fort.

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If you had an unlimited budget and time was not an issue, what grand artistic vision would you look to bring to life?
Hmmmmm…. i have a sweet idea about a traveling artshow via sailboat, a really beautifull and huge old shanty sailboat, kinda like a noah’s ark type thing, but Timothy’s Art Ark is where I’d maybe take one piece from all my favorite artists and friends and sail around the world. You wanna back this idea Andrew?

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Much of your work includes the use of found objects and old books. Do you have a favorite place around Portland that you go hunting for that perfect object? Old books? Do you gather items while traveling?
I’m a dilligent collector. I kinda plan my day around different thrift stores around Portland, I know which ones are near the bank or a gas station or on pretty much any errond, I sail thru a thrift store almost everday, and this summer me and my lady made weekend trips all around Oregon hunting for treasures. I have too much stuff, but I think I’m getting better at thrifting, I can now walk out sometimes empty handed 🙂

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If you could stand by and watch the creation of any piece of artwork from over the years, which would it be and why?
I would have been interested in seeing Henry Darger at work for sure.

What do you consider your biggest overall influence?
I think love for sure, both loving others, myself and the work I make, but I’m also pretty influenced by my friends and my surroundings, NE Portland represent!

Do you listen to music while painting/drawing? If so, do you have a current favorite that inspires?
I pretty much listen to music around the clock, I wake up and sometimes have my headphones on from the night before still playing, and always all day in the studio, all my roomates also play music and there’s a mini recording studio in my basement, so my house is always shaking! Right now I’m really digging jazz of all sorts, Dizzy, John C. Miles and anything on 89.1 the jazz station. But for the muses, currently in the studio I have Karen O blasting from the yeah yeah yeahs, and for supe late nights like tonight it’s gonna be M83 – they always make the sun come up.

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What’s your favorite thing about living in Portland?
I guess the attitude among the community, everyone I know is doing something rad and creative, it seems everyday I see someone who’s workin’ on some new project or is playing a show that night or having an art show, so it’s really inspiring and motivating, and pretty dang affordable, plus my cats like it, NE Portland where I live has a huge cat community, they have friends coming over all the time.

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What makes your cat cooler than everyone else’s cat?
Good question. I have 2 and they are polar opposites, one is the sweet and cuddly type and the other is the hunter, so I get love and protection!

You co-own and operate Together Gallery up in Portland, OR. Tell us a lil’ bit about how that came about and some of the ups and downs you’ve encountered thus far. Best show thus far? Upcoming show you are looking forward to?
Running a gallery is great and a lot of work, but it’s great for the community, I have sooo many people who come in and say wow, this is sooo inspiring, or kids who make zines and prints just to get there stuff on the walls. It’s got me way in tune with the Portland art communty and the community in general, and given me a real good understanding of the art as a “business” and helped me be more professional as a working artist. The downside is the backend of running a business, taxes, rent, managing employees, emails, countless sleepless nights hanging shows. Coming up we have a huge group show and our 2 year anniversary with over 40 artists, then next year a few solo shows by the likes of Doodles, Jay Howell and more!

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What have you got coming up in terms of shows after your solo show with us?
Pretty much right back to work when I get home, I’m in the December group show at Whitewalls in SF, alongside some of my heroes: the Clayton Brothers and Thomas Campbell, I think it was some sorta mistake, but I’m gonna send work anyways 🙂 – j.k. – but really excited about that, then right after that in January I’m in a split show at Gallery Three in SF with the Shooting Gallery / Whitewalls crew with my studio mates Mark and James. Then some sleep 🙂

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Check out a great interview that Juxtapoz just conducted with Timothy Karpinski below:
http://www.juxtapoz.com/Features/back-talk-with-timothy-karpinski

View a ’sneak peek’ of Karpinski’s work for the show via the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkspace/sets/72157622377680535/

Timothy Karpinski
‘My Heart Never Sleeps’

Opening Reception: THIS Fri, Nov. 6th 7-11PM

Timothy will be in attendance from Portland for the opening reception, so please be sure to swing through and say hello.

Thinkspace
4210 Santa Monica Blvd. (near Sunset Junction) in Silver Lake area of Los Angeles

An interview with Camilla d’Errico

An interview with Camilla d’Errico

Camilla d’Errico is a product of her split heritage, Italian and Canadian rolled into one: Italian fiestiness, Canadian politeness, and an early addiction to Saturday morning cartoons and comics. Her first love was and still is comics. Growing up she was more often doodling sexy damsels and dragons on her textbooks than reading them. In 1998, Camilla first attended her first San Diego Comic Con where upon the moment she walked through the doors she realised that a 9-5 day job would kill her and this was what she wanted to do.

After a few years in the comic industry Camilla expanded her style into a variety of other ventures: snowboard decals, magazine covers, toys, clothes and the pop art gallery scene. Thanks to her relentless energy, dedication, and sleep deprivation, she has followed her dream of working creatively for a living. She is part of what may be the first art movement in Western History where women are not second-class citizens, but have an edge in the mind of the public, especially when it comes to capturing the essence of the modern woman.

Please talk a lil’ bit about the general idea/vibe behind your new series of works for the ‘Vain Remains’ show with Caia Koopman.
This series is very unique for me because i’ve stepped outside my comfort zone and explored a different visual theme. Vain Remains, is really about nature, cycles of life and death, and normally i play out my themes with living animals, or head gear, but this time i chose to take the literal approach of skeletons. Often times, people will look away from them because its too grim, but its part of life and its important that we don’t loose sight of that. Sometimes you have to look at the scary things to see how beautiful they really are.

What do you consider your biggest overall influence?
For these pieces i found a lot of inspiration from my youth. I grew up in a small country town, and often i’d come across a deer skeleton, or cow remains in the pastures and fields i traversed, so i really tried to remember those moments. I picked out the colors from my memories, and put them back into these paintings along with patterns, for me those represent the vanity and beauty of the remains. Decorations to ease our eyes and hearts.

Please describe your perfect day out in Vancouver.
When its sunny here, nothing beats this town. If it were sunny, light breeze, not too hot, I’d go down to the ocean for a walk, then over to Granville Island Market to pick up fresh produce and flowers and enjoy it with my friends at Third Beach, where the sunset is breathtaking, then walk down Robson street in the evening and catch all the street socializing i could…probably couldn’t ask for more.

Camilla at work in her studio in Vancouver

If you had an unlimited budget and time was not an issue, what grand artistic vision would you love to bring to life?
A fashion show that featured my helmetgirls. I would give anything for that, to have a runway show. I would create dresses and headgear that i’d place on models, paint them black and white and watch my living paintings going down the walkway.

Any highlights you’d care to share from your recent onslaught of comic festival appearances? You’ve been around the globe in the past few months promoting your Tanpopo series and everything else you’ve got cookin’.
Comic Con was amazing as always, and the biggest highlight for me there was my panel with Dave Mack and Terry Moore, on Life Drawing Amanda Palmer. It was amazing! My first SDCC panel ever. What a great audience and concept, too cool ^_^. Though i have to say that my Singapore trip was pretty awesome too. I featured my entire booth on Tanpopo, sold out of books, and had an overwhelming response to my art. I was quite moved.

Please tell us a little bit about all the upcoming projects you have planned for the coming year and what lies ahead for Tanpopo?
The next thing coming out is my issue #1 of Sky Pirates of Neo Terra with Image comics. Its coming out at the end of the month, and will be part of a 5 issue series. This comic is based off a Nintendo DS and Wii game that i worked on the art for. It’s very cool. And the game comes out in the spring of 2010, so watch out for that! Also, Tanpopo continues with issue #3 this winter! I’m very excited to work on this, its my passion project that people are really responding to so i’m very thrilled to be able to give another chapter in the series. I also have many other things on the go, but you’ll have to check out my website, or else this answer is going to become epic in length!

‘Vain Remains’
Camilla d’Errico and Caia Koopman

THIS FRIDAY @ Thinkspace
4210 Santa Monica Blvd (near Sunset Junction) in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles

Digital preview of works from ‘Vain Remains’ here.

Look for Camilla’s ‘Back Talk’ set of questions over at Juxtapoz in the coming days.

Camilla and Caia will be present at the opening, so please be sure to swing through.

An interview with Caia Koopman

Bio Pic for SH

An interview with Caia Koopman

Please talk a lil’ bit about the general idea/vibe behind your new series of works for the ‘Vain Remains’ show with Camilla d’Errico.
My newest body of work has a bit of a goddess of the garden de los muertos feel. My girls are tethered to the earth by all its cycles, they are surrounded by and part of life, death and beauty.

What do you consider your biggest overall influence?
My biggest overall influence is the idea of humans being part of nature rather than separate from it.

Please describe your perfect day out in Oceanside.
Hiking with my dog first thing then getting a ton of work done and still having time to catch the sunset.

If you had an unlimited budget and time was not an issue, what grand artistic vision would you love to bring to life?
I’ll have to get back to you, that would take some serious thought and after four months of thinking of nothing but this show my brain is mush. Okay, I’ve got one, I could give every parking lot everywhere a rooftop garden so from a birds eye view there are no parking lots.

Any highlights from your recent trip to Europe and your shows with Spacejunk in France?
You will have to ask the girls in my paintings, I sent the kids off without me, I hope they all found good new French homes. The show went really well, or so I’ve heard.

Upcoming plans following your show with us this September?
Yes, a solo show at La Luz de Jesus 2010, I’ll keep ya all posted. Also, I’ll be working on another collaboration project with Oakley and another Artistic Sin with Rossignol.

‘Vain Remains’
Caia Koopman and Camilla d’Errico

THIS FRI, Sept. 11th 7-11PM @ Thinkspace

Check out the digital preview of ‘Vain Remains’ here.

Also check out a recent interview with Juxtapoz Caia did here.

Look for an interview with Camilla d’Errico to be posted here tomorrow as well…

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