1xRun Thru Interview
Self Portrait by Joker
1xRun: Tell us a little bit about this piece, is the original still for sale??
Joker: This piece is titled Self Portrait and is part of a series of self portraits from 2011. The original piece was painted on canvas while the rest in the series were painted on wood. I normally paint on wood because the few pieces I’ve painted on canvas the paint tends to crack in spots, as it has with the original piece. The cracking is minimal, a handful of spots on the edges where the canvas wraps around the stretcher bars, but there are cracks nonetheless. I currently have it listed ‘not for sale’ as I just can’t bring myself to sell a piece that has damages.
1xRun: Was this piece part of a recent theme, series or show that you had?
Joker: Self Portrait is the seventh and final piece in a series of self portraits. I worked from one to the next, finishing one before starting the other, each one drawing from a moody palette with a focus on aesthetic placement.
1xRUN: What materials were used to create this piece with?
Joker: I started with a pencil sketch before working out placement on the canvas. The entire piece is painted with spray enamel, sanded, then finished with a light matte varnish.
1xRun: When was the piece created and how long did it take to complete?
Joker: The original drawing was done in the early part of 2010, but wasn’t painted until the fall of 2011. I started on the piece while working on several other pieces unrelated to the series in the fall and finished it by years end.
1xRun: Anything immediate you would like us to highlight?
Joker: I had painted the piece to be part of the Unintended Calculations exhibit in Vancouver with Augustine Kofie, Remi Rough and Scott Sueme, but chose to hold onto the piece because it was the only one in the lot that was on canvas. So for consistency I didn’t show the piece. It sat in my studio for about a year before being invited to hang, along with several others, at a friend’s business. Modern environments call for modern art and the pieces worked perfectly. It hangs there, still.
1xRun: Tell us how the idea and execution came about?
Joker: Prior to working on the series I had been painting mostly bright, colorful pieces using as many colors as I could fit into the piece. Most of the time I didn’t give thought to the piece and how the colors were laid out, starting with one color and then deciding on the next once the first had dried. It was a weird way of building up to a result but it challenged me and the result wasn’t always too bad. The process definitely forced me to think about the next color wisely, sometimes choosing colors that normally wouldn’t work well together. Somehow, it all worked out. With the Self Portrait series I spent a lot of time not only with the placement of the initial idea but also the colors and how those colors related to one another. It was something I hadn’t really done before, and something I haven’t really done since.
1xRun: What is unique about this piece?
Joker: I think what makes the piece unique is the color choices and the aesthetic placement of the portrait. I normally paint in black, greys and greens and usually find my way to them when starting something new, including all in the Self Portrait series except for this piece. It’s the only one in the series with blues and teals. Not only that, but I naturally don’t gravitate toward the color blue for any of my work. There have been only a handful of pieces I’ve done that have blue in them, and this is one of them.
1xRun: Describe this piece in one gut reaction word.
Joker: Veracious.
1xRun: When did you first start making art?
Joker: I first started working on canvas back in 1994. A very good friend of mine was working as a sign painter (and still does) and had a studio in his attic. He challenged me to put down the can and paint something with a brush, so I bought a canvas and used his paints to see what I could come up with. It was Graffiti, but with oil paints. I wasn’t particularly excited with the result but I enjoyed the process and it definitely made me want to do more. I began thinking more and more about how I could make Graffiti more like architecture/design and marry that idea with abstract art. It was a long, slow process finding the right feel. About a year later I had been asked to participate in a retrospective group show in Pittsburgh (I went to design school there and spent more time writing my name on walls than doing school work) that highlighted the areas more well-known writers, and writers who made their mark there. It was really the first time I worked on anything that was considered gallery worthy, I suppose.
1xRun: What was your first piece?
Joker: My first canvas piece was the one described above, done with oils. My first wall piece was when I was fifteen, done with stolen paint from a night of garage hopping. It was on the back of a small convenience store that you could see from the busy road. It was a hollow of my initials and it was awful.
1xRun: What artists inspired you early on?
Joker: As a young writer in the mid-eighties I was inspired by New York guys like T-Kid and Futura 2000. I really gravitated toward those two very distinctive, very different styles.
1xRun: What artists inspire you now?
Joker: As mentioned in a previous answer, with my canvas work I eventually went into a direction that was inspired by architecture and design. Early on I was very much inspired by Zaha Hadid, and still find her work to be pretty incredible, but more recently, at least the last five years, I have found inspiration in graphic design. Just very simple, very clean design.
1xRun: Do you listen to music while you work? If so what??
Joker: I listen to a lot of electronic music while I work. The more famous band I could mention to explain the style of electronic music would be Autechre. However, I’ve recently been playing a lot of Eprom & TNGHT… definitely different in sound, but still enjoyable.
1xRun: If you could collaborate with any living artist who would it be and why?
Joker: Anish Kapoor or Richard Serra. Lately I’ve been very interested in taking my 2D work and translating it into something more sculptural. Having an opportunity to work with either of those artists would be, obviously, pretty amazing.
1xRun: If you could collaborate with any deceased artists who would it be and why?
Joker: I don’t know why, but that is much harder to answer. I suppose working with artists from the Constructivist realm would be incredible.
1xRun: What was the first piece of art that you bought? Do you still have it?
Joker: I’ve been pretty lucky to have a good deal of my fellow artists offer to trade work, but the first piece of art I spent money on was a piece by Dave Kinsey, and I still have it. He had a small art show at a local gallery in Portland that is also part of one of the biggest book stores in the US, called Powell’s Books. He did a series of portraits on book covers and I picked up one whose book title is ‘The Golden Book on Writing’ – love that piece.
1xRun: What was the last piece of art that you bought?
Joker: The last piece I bought was a small piece by the Polish artist NAWER. He and I were part of a large group show where all the pieces were the size of a postcard. He submitted three pieces, and I wanted all three, but budget allowed for one. It was a hard choice but I’m glad to finally add his work to my collection.
1xRun: Where else can people find you?
Joker: Website – Instagram – Twitter – WebStagram – Agents of Change – Transcend Collective
-1xRUN