1xRUN Thru Interview
Afro Boy by Glenn Barr
1xRun: Tell us a little bit about this piece, is the original still for sale?
Glenn Barr: The piece was created for my mini solo show at Miami Basel 2014. Andrew Hosner of ThinkSpace Gallery had invited me to participate at their booth where he gave me a large wall to exhibit my work. This was at one of the large satellite venues in Miami called SCOPE. “Afro Boy” was the first piece to be sold at the opening.
1xRun: Was this piece part of a recent show or theme that you had?
Glenn Barr: Some of my other ThinkSpace pieces were in the vein of Anime and Kaiju ( giant monster ) and their respective actor(s). Television sci-fi was by and large the undercurrent theme. So in creating “Afro Boy” I went through my sketch book and found a loose study that gave the initial spark that lead to Astro Boy in league with a leather clad biker. A lot of my characters are based on people I’ve actually seen on the street or from some vague B grade film memory.
1xRUN: What materials did you use to create this piece?
Glenn Barr: The original was painted in acrylic on wood. I recall when I was rendering the piece that I painted the girls face, hair and torso many times to get it right but Astro came quite quickly. I only made a few passes on his figure and it was done. I didn’t want to over work him. I think that’s why the piece has a lot of life to it. It retained the energy of the sketch.
1xRun: When was the piece created?
Glenn Barr: November 2014.
1xRun: Anything immediate you would like us to highlight?
Glenn Barr: With this print we decided to approach it a bit differently. Along with it being a pigment print, we wanted to add another layer of depth, so we went to a screen printer to accentuate the floating orange orbs. I guess you could say it’s technically a 5th color. So, since the print was taken to a screen printer for this added treatment we were able to add fluorescents to the ink. This will really give the print an added dimension.
1xRun: Tell us how the idea and execution came about?
Glenn Barr: It was a bolt out of the blue. I looked at the image and thought “silk screen the orange dots”… just like that.
1xRun: Describe this print in one gut reaction word.
Glenn Barr: Robots & Leather.
1xRun: Where else can people find you?
Glenn Barr: Website – Instagram@glbarr – Facebook
-1xRUN