Steven Kenny

(United States)

SP: HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN SURREALISM?
STEVEN: I consider myself having always been a surrealist - - - even before I was aware of surrealism as an artistic style or genre. From the time I began making art as a boy I was never truly satisfied presenting reality in a straight-forward manner.

SP: WHAT MEDIUMS DO YOU WORK IN?
STEVEN: I always work in oil. Usually on linen or canvas, but sometimes on masonite panels. There was a short period after graduating from art school that I worked in pastel but that was only for six months or so.

SP: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON PRESENTLY?
STEVEN: Right now I'm preparing for a show in February at the Glass Garage Gallery in West Hollywood. The painting I am finishing depicts a woman with her arms raised above her head. Her hands are together, thumbs locked, with fingers extending outward to create a bird shape. Around her neck hangs a white dove, it's wings bound together by a cord. I'm also doing a somewhat tongue-in-cheek painting for a Halloween-themed show in October at a local gallery. But it's a painting I've wanted to do for a long time. It's a self-portrait as Satan. It refers to the idea that we can be our own worst enemy at times.

SP: WHERE DO YOU PAINT?
STEVEN: Geographically, my studio is located in my home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. It's an extremely rural area and the abundance of nature provides a lot of inspiration for my work. Physically, my studio is located in one of the upstairs bedrooms. It's a century-old farmhouse and the ceilings are less than seven feet high. When I moved in I had to shorten my easel to get it to fit!

SP: HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR CREATIVE / PAINTING PROCESS ?
STEVEN: My creative process varies widely. I may get ideas from images that I see in the course of my day, reading, meditating, or sketching. My painting process is always the same. Create a sketch, project it onto my canvas, and color it in (to put it crudely). But as I work on each piece new elements may find their way into the composition, or I may decide to remove ones that are already there.

SP: WHAT ARE YOUR PREFERRED SUBJECTS?
STEVEN: Generally my paintings incorporate one figure combined with elements from nature. Birds also appear in most of my work.

SP: WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL HISTORY WITH ART?
STEVEN: I didn't come from an artistic family but both my parents were very good with their hands. My father was always repairing something around the house and my mother made many of her own clothes. I didn't begin to study art until late in high school and my art teacher did his best to encourage me. At first I was planning to pursue forestry as a career but applied to art schools at the very last minute and went in that direction instead.

SP: HAVE YOU HAD A RECENT SHOW OR ONE UPCOMING?
STEVEN: I've always got work on display somewhere at any given time. Right now I'm part of a traveling group exhibition that began in Denmark, went on to The Netherlands, and is now in Nice. As I said, my next exhibition will be in West Hollywood in February. Locally there are two small galleries that always have something of mine on display.

question from previously featured artist José Roosevelt:
WHAT DOES SURREALISM MEAN TO YOU?
STEVEN: I should say that surrealism is only part of how I define what I do. True surrealism, in the strict sense, is the unrestrained release of the unconscious. As an artist, that's not the means that I employ when creating a painting. I believe very strongly in the power of the unconscious and rely on it heavily in my creative process, but I also spend a lot of time editing the imagery that eventually ends up in each piece. I think it's impossible for any artist not to be influenced by their unconscious mind. Any work of art is a reflection of the artists unconscious to one degree or another. But for me, as an artist and human being, I feel I have a responsibility to use my conscious mind to have a more intentional hand in the direction of my work.


To view more of Steven's work or contact him please visit his website

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Jose Roosevelt

(Brazil)

SP: HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN SURREALISM ?

JOSE: As a child, I've always been drawn to the marvelous in literature: the stories about fairies or genius, the comic books of science fiction, Alice in Wonderland. And there was a reproduction of the painting "The Garden of Delightful Pleasures" by Hieronimus Bosch that was printed in a book belonging to my father. That fascinated me most of everything else. Perhaps because this sort of "different dimension" of the sensible world was near to the subconscious and the oneiric universe. I was always fascinated by the dreams. For me, they were a symbolic answer to the meaning of existence. At the age of fifteen, I discovered the work of Salvador Dalí, and it was a sort of mystical revelation: I knew that kind of painting would be for me, the center of my philosophical and artistic interest for the rest of my life.

SP: WHAT MEDIUMS DO YOU PRESENTLY WORK IN?
JOSE: Even though I have experimented with many different mediums (acrylics, watercolor, ink), I work mainly with oils. Oils are the best because of the magnificence and intensity of its colors. Only with oils can you give the impression of reality to your dreamlike images.
But I like very much to draw with pencils. It is another way to represent images, more abstract . . . perhaps more artistic also, because there is less "realism" in it.

SP: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
JOSE: Well, these days - and for some months I have been working on the second volume of a graphic novel entitled "Ce" . "Ce" in French means "This". The title is purposely vague because it is a story about a guy whose name is not revealed who discovers himself in three different dimensions. He passes from one dimension to the other, under the circumstances. Two of those dimensions are dreams . . . but it is impossible (for the moment) to know which. I am working on the second volume of a series of eight. The complete work will take me some years but I will work continually on it. When the second volume is finished, I will paint for some time!

SP: DESCRIBE YOUR CREATIVE/PAINTING PROCESS
JOSE: An idea is always the beginning. It can be a visual idea, an image, and it will become a painting. It can be an idea for a story, and it will become a graphic novel. I must admit that I do not know how an idea is born in my mind. It must be what we commonly call "inspiration". It can come at the most unexpected moments. For example, when I am traveling in a train and looking at the landscape by the window. I do not search for ideas: they come naturally. And, when they are there, the real work begins: transform them into a painting or a graphic novel. Most of those ideas do not make sense to me. It doesn't mean that they are senseless, I think it is me who is not able to understand them. I only feel that they are important, because they appear with great force in my mind and I have the feeling that I must give them a form.

SP: DO YOU EXPERIENCE ARTISTS BLOCK AND IF SO HOW DO YOU OVERCOME IT?
JOSE: No I don't.

SP: WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL HISTORY WITH ART?
JOSE: Well, as I wrote above, first there was Hieronimus Bosch, after that there was Dalì . . . of course, in the beginning I was only interested about fantastic art and surrealism, but painting became more and more present in my life, so I opened my mind to this form of art. I discovered the brilliant techniques of Flemish masters of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Italian Renaissance, Caravaggio and Rembrandt. Until the age of 20, only realism interested me, but later I became interested by artists such as Klimt, Schiele, Toulouse-Lautrec (because of their fabulous drawing), Monet (because of his knowledge of colors) and Picasso (because of his invention). Everyone of those masters have influenced my vision of art. I think they helped me to increase my sensibility and to explore my possibilities as an artist.

I began to paint trying to imitate Dalí and Magritte. It was hard, of course! I used photography as models in the first years (I began to paint at the age of 15), but I quickly understood that photos were not adequate for it, because they are already interpretations of reality. So I used real models. I practiced drawing very often, mainly from the human models. Today, I do not use models anymore, or very seldom. I work from my memory. It gives me more liberty to create.
I always made surreal works, from the beginning till today. There were some rare exceptions. In the beginning of the 80's I did some "hyper-realist" paintings in the style of Don Eddy or Richard Estes and some "op-art" in the style of Chuck Close. But they are a sort of experience of technical improvement, even if I amused myself a lot doing them.

SP: HOW HAVE YOU HANDLED THE BUSINESS SIDE OF BEING AN ARTIST?
JOSE: Well, the business side of my professional life was always full of surprises for me. I had some periods of great commercial success and some periods where nothing came. It is a mystery to me. Perhaps it is linked to the fact that I am always looking for new things, always changing my goals. The public in general is not prepared for change.
They prefer that you always do the same things, so they are assured, so they can say that they know you and what you do. For example, some people do not understand why I "waste my time" doing graphic novels. They don't understand that I am always doing my work, that everything I do is an extension or a complement of what I did in the past.
But, all in all, I have always been able to survive with my art till today . . . I can't complain. And I always did what really inspires me. You know, we, artists, are here in this world to give, not to receive. To give is important, not the rest.

SP: WHAT OTHER INTERESTS DO YOU HAVE OUTSIDE OF PAINTING?
JOSE: As you have noticed, graphic novels have a very important place in my activities.

SP: WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO AN ARTIST STARTING OUT?
JOSE: I do not know if I have enough authority to give an advice, but if I have absolutely to give one, it is: do what makes you feel happy.

SP: HAVE YOU HAD A RECENT SHOW OR ONE UPCOMING?
JOSE: I am part of a group exhibition of fantastic art that began in Denmark in May, after that it was shown in Germany and now it is in France in the city of Nice till the end of the month. It is called "Venus and the female intuition" and it is organized by the Danish artist and art collector Claus Brusen. It is a very big show!
In the beginning of 2008, I will have a great exhibition about my work on painting and graphic novels, in a cultural center in Toulouse (France).

SP: WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE QUESTION THAT YOU ARE ASKED AS AN ARTIST?
JOSE: I don't know . . . all questions are interesting, especially when you do surrealism. Surrealism is there to incite people to ask questions. Very deep questions.

question from previously featured artist Kristian Adam: WHY DO YOU CREATE?
JOSE: That question is perhaps the hardest to answer. Does any artist really knows why he creates?
For me, to create is as natural as breathing. I always liked to draw and paint and tell stories. I could not live without doing those things. I asked myself many times about this necessity to create... but the answers I gave did not convince me.
Perhaps we creators function like channels: we receive beauty that come to our eyes, to our intelligence (from who? from where? from everywhere surely, it is enough to open our mind. . .) and using our eyes and hands, we give this beauty to the world; transformed in drawings, paintings, writings. We are channels, or, better still, we are tools.
I am not sure about this, but it makes sense to me.

Be sure to visit José's website.
It is very complete. You can see more than 150 paintings, more than 100 drawings and illustrations, and see examples of his graphic novels and books.

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Kristian Adam

(Canada)

SP: HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN SURREALISM?

KRISTIAN: Mystery attracts me and motivates curiosity and self-exploration. When I became serious about my art I initially went through a period where I struggled with my own creative ability simply because I became incredibly demanding of it. It hadn’t been exercised with intention or intensity before. When I realized my dreams were a powerful source of creative and primal thought I began to focus more energy on understanding and remembering them.

SP: WHAT MEDIUMS YOU PRESENTLY WORK IN?

KRISTIAN: I work in a variety of mediums. For me, oils are the romantic choice when capturing the subtlety of light. They are always a pleasure to use.

SP: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON PRESENTLY?

KRISTIAN: I am working on the concepts for my next solo exhibit called ‘Dead Rose Red’. I am also working on a large collection of paintings for two ambitious book collaborations, March of the Fat Babies and Rupert Greenwood, written by Michael Sasi. He is very eccentric. He wears hats made of whale blubber and toothpicks, and drives a new muscle car every week.

SP: WHERE DO YOU PAINT?
KRISTIAN: Anywhere. My James Bond easel is quite magical, fully retractable and extremely fashionable. It goes where I go. My studio space is definitely efficient, but painting on location is more inspiring.

SP: DESCRIBE YOUR CREATIVE/PAINTING PROCESS

KRISTIAN: I work with abstract shape, concentrate on composition, then build upon those shapes. Sometimes I start with a title that helps stimulate thought. It's all very suggestive. I allow my mind to wander naturally. The construction process is usually quite mysterious.

SP: WHAT ARE YOUR PREFERRED SUBJECTS?
KRISTIAN: I work from experience and memory because I feel it creates a dimension unique to me. If I struggle with the physics of an object, i.e.: lighting, I will at last resort, examine it, possibly paint a specific study of it, but then go back to the original concept and create a unique instance of that object using what I learnt in its dissection. Anatomy and biology of things interest’s me.

SP: WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL HISTORY WITH ART?
KRISTIAN: My mother was an artist so I think she instilled a love of art in me when I was young. She says I used to watch her paint, and I would draw on her walls and mirrors with lipstick because she wouldn’t let me use her oils. My family has always supported my artistic decisions through all levels of experimentation. Support equals growth. I’m thankful they were respectful of my desire and passion.

SP: HAVE YOU HAD A RECENT SHOW OR ONE UPCOMING?

KRISTIAN: My last show was ‘Heartworks.’ It was the largest body of work I've ever created for one show (24 oil paintings). I painted 16 hours a day for 3 months to complete it. I drank in excess of 300 Slurpies to get through it. Quite scary really. My next solo exhibit will be ‘Dead Rose Red.’ My subject matter and symbolism are becoming more complex, so it will take much longer to complete this show. I will be exhibiting work at the Canadian Embassy in Japan in 2008.

question from previously featured artist Mary Carter:
HAVE YOU ALWAYS PAINTED IN A SURREALIST WAY? WERE THERE TIMES WHEN YOU PAINTED IN, FOR INSTANCE, AN IMPRESSIONISTIC OR ABSTRACT WAY?

KRISTIAN: I like to explore all mediums and artistic styles. Over the years I’ve settled on a combination of techniques that have solidified into something unique to me. I admire the early surrealists but much of my own work contains rational metaphors and meaningful symbols which exclude it from being classified as ‘true’ surrealism.

Click here to contact Kristian as well as viewing his up to date portfolio.

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Mary Carter

(United States)

SP: HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN SURREALISM ?
MARY: When I was sixteen I purchased an art book on Bosch. I was immediately entranced by his work. The images just looked so "right" to me. It was the start of the opening of a certain mind's eye for me.

SP: WHAT MEDIUMS YOU PRESENTLY WORK IN?
MARY: Acrylic on canvas or board. I work very lean, watering down the pigments until they splash and run on the substrate. I also use a lot of transparent glazes which I make with pigment and acrylic mediums.

SP: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
MARY: Talking about my current work is a topic I address on my painting web site/blog. I am very opinionated, in fact, on this topic. But for the sake of brevity, here is a short answer. For details see my posting entitled "Never, Ever, Talk About What You Are Working On" in the Blog II section of www.mary-carter.com.
Since 1996 I have been working on figurative images which fly, float or fall through atmospheric backgrounds. Many of my recent paintings include a goose girl figure, part bird, part human.

SP: DESCRIBE YOUR PAINTING PROCESS
MARY: I work every day. As a morning person, my day starts around 7:30 am. My work day is generally about 5 hours of painting and drawing, then lunch, then a couple of hours of just looking at the work in progress.
Images "pop" into my mind somewhat fully formed. Most of my paintings are very large format -- up to about seven feet in height. First I draw the figures on large pieces of paper. I draw and alter the drawings, cutting them apart, redrawing many times as the figures evolve in my process.
During the same period of time that I work on the figure drawing, I work on the canvas. Always, I work lean -- that is with thin washes and glazes. -- pouring, splashing and spilling paint, then blotting, scratching, or scumbling the watery paint to create a background that has a certain depth to it. In other words, I work the surface to create the illusion of space. After the splashing phase, I go back and completely rework the entire surface with soft round brushes, moving inch by inch over the entire surface, to enhance the illusory space. The backgrounds of my paintings are very complex and rich. Then I take the drawing and re-draw elements of it so that the figure moves in and out of the space of the painted background. I work standing at a waist-high table. Throughout the painting and drawing processes, I move around the image, sometimes working on it upside-down. As a result of this action, many of my paintings do not have an "up" direction. Many of them may be viewed with any edge uppermost.

SP: WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL HISTORY WITH ART?
MARY: I received a BA in Art, studying figure drawing, oil and watercolor painting, serigraphy, pottery, sculpture and art history. I attended Chouinard for one year of graduate work in painting and serigraphy.

SP: WHAT ARTISTS HAVE INFLUENCED YOU AND HOW?
MARY: Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Paula Rego.
Surrealists! Women! What a discovery!
What an inspiration!
Marc Chagall for his figural floatation.
John Singer Sargent for his painterly bravura.
Franz Hals for painting laughter.
Schiele, Ernst, Bacon, Tamayo for intensity and broken rules.

SP: HOW HAVE YOU HANDLED THE BUSINESS SIDE OF BEING AN ARTIST?
MARY: Since 1981 I have entered selected juried exhibitions where the juror or jurors were either from major galleries or museums or were artists I admired. I have sent out slides and portfolios to various galleries and have been included in some group shows that way. Now that I have a web site it is easier to make those presentations. Now all I have to do is send my URL and the work speaks for itself.
I also participate in my town's annual Open Studios event where I sell some of my smaller works.
I also wrote a book on copyrights in plain English for artists. My book: Electronic Highway Robbery, An Artist's Guide to Copyrights in the Digital Era was published by Peach pit Press in 1997. Writing about copyrights clarified the business side of my studio work especially on the Internet. Over the years I have also had my share of "day jobs" -- work unrelated to my painting, but which pays the bills!

SP: WHAT OTHER INTERESTS DO YOU HAVE OUTSIDE OF PAINTING?
MARY: Gardening and my animals. Cooking. I am a voracious reader. I love to go "junking" for furniture and objects. I love used book stores.

SP: WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO AN ARTIST STARTING OUT?
MARY: Show up. Just go into your room and do the work. Even if you're too tired, upset, distracted, sit with your materials and sooner or later you will make a mark.
Do not talk too much about your head and heart work. Do not talk about the secret wellsprings of your work. Talk of this type dilutes the energy required to actually DO the work. But, consider this: Do talk about process and technique with other artists. Learn stuff from them. Do look deeply at other artist's work.
Learn all the techniques and tricks of the trade of your chosen medium, become technically proficient, then UN-learn those constraints and fly blind.

SP: WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE QUESTION THAT YOU ARE ASKED AS AN ARTIST?
MARY: During open studios people who are not artists (I call them "civilians") will ask me, "How long did it take for you to paint this painting?" It just drives me nuts!

question from previously featured artist DANIEL CHIRIAC:
HOW IMPORTANT IS BEING APPRECIATED BY THE PUBLIC TO YOU?
MARY: Ah, great question. I think about this a lot. My work is very well loved by only a handful of people. Mostly my work is not well received by "civilians" (what I call people who are not artists), nor widely exhibited . . . and not for lack of trying on my part. For the few who really "get" it and can really "see" it, my work is very intensely loved. Oddly, my work sells well, once I get it into a gallery setting. For instance, my solo show at Arte Loca was almost a sellout!! But surrealism is not mainstream, never has been, and so there are limitations to its popularity, I believe. "Fame" is a topic I have considered several times on my web site. Check out the post dated February 27, 2007 "That Fame Thing Again" for more of my thoughts on the subject.

Mary Carter's website

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Daniel Chiriac

(Romania)

SP: HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN SURREALISM?
DANIEL:
To be fair, I'm not a truly surrealist artist! My "first love" is abstract art. And when I say" first", it means really first. I remember the first museum visited when I was 5 or 6 and how much I was impressed by abstract pieces! Well, you can say that abstract is surrealism too. Many people would say that Miro's art, for example, is abstract rather than surrealism. It depends on your point of view.
So from three years ago to today, I have been painting in the style generally recognized by the majority as being surrealism. I arrived at this kind of surrealism because I was fatigued and bored by the abstract style.
When I'm working on a painting I love the final surrealist work only for a few days. After that I become impatient because I hate the process of painting it! I hate the fact that I can't paint fast enough to not lose that fever of a new idea! When I used to paint abstract it was a joy to do it and the final satisfaction wasn't as big as the expectations each time . . . don't mention the waste of colors which are so expensive!
I don't know if I'll work surreal forever, but it's certain that I'll make at least small breaks to other styles.
Another reason I like abstract and surreal painting is because I love enigmas. I love that the "stories" of my compositions are revealed slowly.

SP: WHAT MEDIUMS YOU PRESENTLY WORK IN?
DANIEL: I usually work traditionally in oil on linen and sometimes canvas, at least when I work surrealist. I work in many mediums and methods in abstract style.

SP: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
DANIEL: I just started a surreal composition which I think will be purchased by a director from Boston (Ma). I started a small Venetian masks series and he missed the last which he wanted to buy. Generally, I avoid series! I rapidly become bored, even if the subject is almost a guaranteed sale!



SP: DESCRIBE YOUR CREATIVE/PAINTING PROCESS
DANIEL: As I said above, I hate the process of painting surrealism. By that I mean the process itself of putting the paint on canvas (Oh ,those little details, those many details! it kills me!). But I love to make sketches when I have ideas.
Sometimes I have too many, sometimes none. The ideas just come. At times, in a middle of a chat with my wife, sometimes during dinner or in dream. It isn't rare when I wake in the middle of the night to make a quick sketch! For me, that is the most important part of creation, the idea! After that I'm unhappy that there isn't an invention where a brain can be connected to a printer. Not one of my paintings is not as I "saw" it in my mind. The rest is technique . . . that can be learned by oneself or helped by teachers.



SP: DO YOU EXPERIENCE ARTISTS' BLOCK AND IF SO HOW DO YOU OVERCOME IT?
DANIEL: Oh! Of course! Certainly! Where is the artist who doesn't experienced this!? When that happens and the block isn't from fatigue, I take out my many old sketches which are not transposed into a final work, and I have many! I look at the sketches, and while looking through them, suddenly, some new ideas come. It is a very, very rare case when I use sketches older then 2 months. Another way to overcome artists block, for me, is to do nothing or play stupid PC games like the FPS (first person shooting) games are :), which is really the same as doing nothing.
Trying another style by making a break from my current style has also worked for me in the past.

SP: WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL HISTORY WITH ART?
DANIEL: Well "the history" is short! I always have been IN art since childhood . I wasn't a "contest wining" child/teen/man . . . I was silent. I started to be "in business" just since 1999 and I'm 34 years old. When I was 18 and it was time to choose which college I'd attend, I thought to myself, "I want money !" Big money! How can I do it? Hum? Painting? Making art? NOOO !!!! So I choose to be a lawyer :-(
I spent the most wonderful years of life trying to become that thing - a lawyer. I hardly managed to finish college, but I NEVER professed to be a lawyer or connected with it. I finished Law Study only to finish it . . to have the diploma :-)
The art call was too present in my soul and I choose to embrace the path of art assuming the risks. That's it, but during that time I had some lessons with some teachers .

SP: WHAT ARTISTS HAVE INFLUENCED YOU AND HOW?
DANIEL: J. Pollock (especially) and Karel Appel . . . hmm . . . J. Miro in abstract style. In my early surrealistic works Escher and Magritte. Now there are many, but no one in particular from the surreal side. Although it isn't obvious, Caravaggio influenced me a lot in my surrealistic compositions.


SP: HOW HAVE YOU HANDLED THE BUSINESS SIDE OF BEING AN ARTIST?
DANIEL: Hmm . . . in the past, let's say it wasn't so good for me as a represented artist. The only good thing was that I could experiment a lot without risks . Now I'm self represented and I do it all by myself.
Even my website is self designed and managed . Being a freelancer is a bit harder, but I have much more satisfaction. On the other hand it is very hard, nearly impossible to rise above the vast mass of good artists without an agent. Yet if I were discovered by a good agent with many connections who knows. Maybe tomorrow I'll sell one print for the amount of one present original :-)

SP: WHAT OTHER INTERESTS DO YOU HAVE OUTSIDE OF PAINTING?
DANIEL: Linux is my other "world " . I'm captivated by the open source/free software current and trying to help. I'm proud to be nominated in the list of "Thanks to" in an open source software ( FET - timetables generator http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet). Then PC hardware things . . . I love to know all about it.

SP: WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO AN ARTIST STARTING OUT?
DANIEL: Be confident, but realistic! And it is good to know: every painting has at least one admirer (aside from you, family and friends).

SP: HAVE YOU HAD A RECENT SHOW OR ONE UPCOMING?
DANIEL: Unfortunately, none recently. Upcoming? I have a promise for next year. As usual , it's hard for me to keep paintings for futures shows. I live from selling my art, so I need to sell not long after a painting has dried.

SP: WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE QUESTION THAT YOU ARE ASKED AS AN ARTIST?
DANIEL: "Will you accept my offer for this painting?" I really don't like to be questioned about my art. But I can tell you that the most annoying question is " What did you want to represent in this painting?" Well I'm a painter, not an writer. If I were a writer, I'd transform my ideas in a novel, not a painting.

Daniel's website
contact Daniel

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James Sebor

(United States)

SP: HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN SURREALISM?
JIM: My art was surreal from the start I just didn't know that's what it was called.

SP: WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION?
JIM: Inspiration is something I try not to take for granted because it comes and goes. Curiosity engages me and then inspiration follows. I also love the mystery of it all. I'm never quite sure what will happen next or why I did what I did but yet there it is.

SP: WHAT MEDIUMS YOU PRESENTLY WORK IN?
JIM: Acrylic on canvas

SP: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON PRESENTLY?
JIM: Stop Motion Animation -Mold Casting - Foam Latex and Armature Building

SP: DESCRIBE YOUR CREATIVE/PAINTING PROCESS
JIM: Chance and serendipity play a huge role in my painting. The outcome is completely unpredictable and quite often new ideas are drawn from a finished piece. Sometimes I'll scan through images until I find one that interests me. I observe it irrationally, doing so allows new images to appear all on their own and then I attempt to capture what I see the best I can.



SP: DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONAL HISTORY WITH ART
JIM: I have been drawing for as long as I can remember and I started painting in 1982.
I graduated from Southampton College in 1990. I have done commissioned work, taught art workshops, had art shows and paint whenever I can.

RECENT and UPCOMING SHOWS
James Sebor's website
contact James Sebor

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Ria Hills

(United States)

It seems appropriate that I be the first interview considering that I am the creator of this website, so here's my story.

My first exposure to surrealism was when I saw MC Esher's work when I was a teenager. That was some time ago. Although much of my work does not fall into this category, it's my favorite to work on.

Where do you find inspiration?
I am always inspired to paint because of the richness of our visual world. Some of my paintings have been inspired by a dream, a song and sometimes a single word.A few months ago I started painting a small work, averaging 5" x 7", every day. These paintings are mostly inspired by ordinary small objects.

What are your materials?
The surfaces I use are either Wallis sanded pastel paper or Art Spectrum Colorfix board. Both papers provide the tooth I need to apply many layers of pastel. I use Nupastel to block my colors and shapes and work my way up in layers with soft pastels. My favorite brands of pastels are Unison, Sennelier and Rembrandt.

Your preferred methods?
My method is the conventional method of working from hard to soft pastels in layers. I love the vividness of color that pastels provide and the direct contact with the medium. I use only my fingers for blending.

Preferred subjects?
My subjects vary as much as my subject preferences do. For me, subject is not as important as the process of trying to translate blocks of color and light into something discernable. I greatly enjoy the challenge of realism. I am fascinated with the ways light plays on a subject and have had comments on my interpretation of light which is a wonderful compliment for an artist.

What is your painting process like?
I always paint in my studio. For my surreal pieces I start with a raw idea and fully create it before it is translated to paper. I frequently need reference photos and I either take them myself or use purchased stock photos. From there I "sketch" on the computer using Photoshop until it matches the idea in my head. I then use the finished composition as a reference for the painting. Other paintings are sketched as drawings before translating to the final surface.
For my realistic paintings I use either a photo for reference or a found object. I start each painting with pastel pencils carefully drawing my shapes. I then block my colors with Nupastel (a hard pastel stick). I add many layers to achieve the effect I want ending with the softest pastels.

Your history with art?
As a child, once I realized that ballet and playing the violin were not my strengths I tried drawing. I discovered that I was good at it and have been drawing ever since. As soon as I got my drivers license I spent countless hours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
I am mostly self taught but have taken art classes along the way.
I have 25 years of professional experience in graphic design and as a fine artist.

More surreal work by Ria

Ria's websites -
Daily Pastel Paintings
Ria Hills

Interviews with other painters are already in the works!

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