Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

But what’s your most popular piece?

The first two digital print series. Both series are eye-catching. Very pop. Just cute girls, cute outfits. I guess people like that. Actually, people who usually don’t pay more attention to paintings can probably relate to that better than to my abstract paintings. It’s something I’ve observed in the past… I’m not sure… designers tend to like my abstract work more. They’ve been exposed more to art and their eyes are trained.

So you’re placing your abstract paintings on a higher level?

… I guess so.

Where do you want your art to be overall on this scale?

Somewhere in-between. I want to do high-quality pop art. Hahah, that sounds cheesy…
Well, I want to do high-quality pop art of a specific kind. Not the Andy Warhol kind -- I don’t like his work. To me they’re not aesthetic. I appreciate what he did, but his art doesn’t appeal to me. You know the Marilyn Monroe prints? They’re scary.

Okay, what’s one word you’d use to describe your art?

Progression. But in this context, cool.

And one word your audience uses most often?

Cool. Cute, to be specific.

Is this what you want to hear?

Am I communicating right? No, that’s just to capture attention. My message is something else. But to be honest I don’t know what it is yet. I just know that what I’m doing is a part of culture and I enjoy it -- culture works as some sort of blind against a reality that's meaningless sometimes. I just have something to communicate. That’s why I quote Mark Rothko on ideas. There’s an idea I can’t describe in words, so I try to communicate with paintings. It’s not just about visual aesthetics, it’s something deeper. To me he had a clear idea, but even for him it was very hard to describe his message.

Is there any artwork of yours you don’t like?

Not really. The ones I don’t really like I just throw away. I don’t keep them. If I had to choose my least favourite, it’d be the first digital print series, the more colourful one. They’re eye-catching, but there’s nothing more to them.

Bengal said an artist’s always his own favourite penciller. How true is that in your case?

You have to love what you do. That’s like asking people if they like themselves. Of course I like what I’m doing, but I’m not satisfied. I’m not satisfied. I see more potential and I want to be better. I like my paintings, but I don’t love them. I’m just not satisfied.

With anything in particular?

Finding my voice, that’s part of what I’d like to work on. I need to progress, to get better so that I can describe what I’m trying to do and communicate better through works. It’s not so much about technique. I aspire to Mark Rothko -- not so much in terms of visuals but in terms of his ideas. For visuals, there’d be too many.

 

 Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4