Brett Amory Brings His Lil Homies To 1xRUN

1xRUN Thru Interview
Lil’ Homies by Brett Amory

1xRUN: Can you give me a little background on these Lil Homies pieces? What is the story behind them?
Brett Amory: These pieces are the same idea as my work with the Waiting series, they are just these random snapshots of the people that I see when I am out. They are a bit more of portraits, while the other Waiting pieces are a bit more landscape.  It still falls into the Waiting series with the same concepts, these are just a little smaller. I wanted to make them a little bit more accessible for people that like my work.

1xRUN: How many of these are there so far? What materials did you use for these?
Brett  Amory: The series is ongoing, I am at about 60 so far, there will be 10 available here on 1xRUN. I don’t really have a plan on ending it any time soon. Each painting is oil on masonite.

1xRUN: How long did these pieces take?
Brett Amory: About an hour and a half on each one, which is pretty short compared to some of my other pieces.

1xRUN: Are these new people or people pulled from the Waiting series?
Brett Amory:  It’s a little bit of both, there are some that I have included in the Waiting series and others I haven’t for whatever reason. They could be in some of the Waiting series because I took some pictures of them and I only usually will take pictures of a certain type of person.

1xRUN: What type of people do you usually find yourself taking pictures of?
Brett Amory: It’s more of a feeling that I’m after. I know it when I see it. I can’t really describe it. It’s usually people that are pretty normal, or that are overlooked. Not really flashy, don’t draw a lot of attention to themselves. The common “Everyday Joe’s.” I don’t look for glamor or flash, or really anything like that.

1xRUN: Tell us a little bit about your recent show Twenty Four San Francisco, how did that come together?
Brett Amory:  Basically I picked 24 places in San Francisco and each place has an hour of the day assigned to it. I went to each place and sat for an hour shot some video, collected stuff on the ground and took pictures. Then from the 24 videos I picked 12 images to make paintings from. So then there ended up being 6 days and 6 nights. Then in the back room I put together a video montage of all the 24 places, so it was a montage of 24 clips that made up one day. Each clip had an hour of the day  assigned to it. Then below the paintings were display cases with found objects that were found at each location to give the viewer more of an experience while they are looking at it. The whole show was just an evolution of the Waiting series. Instead of just having the paintings, I wanted to describe these places, and be a little more focused on the experience for the viewer and for myself. Each of the paintings have a display cases or a label that talks about the place to give the viewer a little more information and food for thought.

I’m also going to be taking that same idea on the road. The next show will be at Jonathan LeVine Gallery in July, that will be Twenty Four New York. So I will go out to New York in March and document 24 places, then come back to San Francisco and paint everything before I go out there with the show. Then I’m going to get on a plane after the show in New York and spend a month in London documenting some of the places for my show Twenty Four London. Same ideas. That will be at Lazerides in their main space in February of 2014.

After that, I want to come back to the US and do 24 states across the country. Then, possibly, I’m still interested in the concept and the idea of doing that show while doing 24 countries around the world, but there’s nothing lined up for that one, that one is still in my head. I think the 24 states will give me an idea of how feasible it will be to do 24 countries.  If i did that I would want to hit up every continent, Russia, Asia, Africa and India, I would want to hit up everything.  It would be a really big project, I would have to start raising some money.

-1xRUN