ISSUE
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MARCH 2014
ART CRUSH MARCH 2014
Contents ....................
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Cory Olsen
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Ryan Patrick Martin
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Chris Milllic
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Cameron Welch
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Luke Lunsford
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Editor’s note
Featuring
(cover) Untitled Ryan Patrick Martin 2014 (left) Chum Cory Olsen 2014
ART CRUSH, Brooklyn NY www.ihaveanartcrush.com facebook.com/ihaveanartcrush ihaveanartcrush@gmail.com
Staff Editor
Brandon Elijah Johnson
Curation
Brandon Elijah Johnson Valerian Ocampo
Design
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Valerian Ocampo
Editor’s Note Mar. 29 2014 Welcome back, its been too long. Feel free to leave that cold, wet jacket on the chromed out antler coat rack, don your silkiest smoking jacket and pour yourself a glass of bubbly, because love is in the air tonight, its art crush time. This time around we have an especially diverse cast of characters ready to drop knowledge and make your eyes salivate. Inside, Ryan Patrick Martin shares with us the secrets of self regenerating currency, Cory Olsen makes blandness extremely interesting with his endearingly mundane iconography, and professional skater boy Chris “MANGO” Millic drops in to spread the love with his colored pencil and water color whimsy. And that’s not all. It truly is a marvelous spread, so bask in the glory, its art crush 5 ya’ll, and remember not to inhale the cigars. youll throw up. - Brandon Elijah Johnson
‘Find your density.’
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Cory Olsen CL:
(right) North wind 2014 Shark Teeth 2014
AC:
So theres a very stylish sensibility to all of your work and I was hoping that you would be able to tell us what that is to you, how would you describe your aesthetic?
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I studied graphic design, so composition, filling the frame, and colors are very important to me. I’m also interested in stock and catalogue images because of their interchangeability and use to describe.Â
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AC:
Theres also a very dry humor (to me at least) that runs through all of these photographs. What is you're take on that? CL:
Yeah it is loving though. I try to describe it how you would make fun of your best friend. Even though you’re making fun of something they do, you love them for it.
(right) Swans 2014
(pg. 10) Pictures 01 2014
(above) 6 rings 2014
(pg. 11) Rachel 2014
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AC:
How do you know what you are going to shoot? What makes a successful photograph in your mind? CL:
I usually have a general idea of what I want to photograph. It’s a mix of having an idea and finding things along the way. A successful photo to me could be one that gives some answers but asks more questions.
(left) Grapes 2014 Carlotta 2014
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AC:
What does your work strive to accomplish? What is holding it all together? It seems as if there is some sort of common theme that encompasses all of it. CL:
I was raised in Maine so that influences some of the themes of my work. I think it also influences the light and colors I am interested in. I use light and color to give my photos a consistent flow. I try to make work that is critical yet genuine. I guess I strive to make something a little bit country and a little bit rock’n roll. (haha.)
Beneath the Plane Rock, glass 3.5ft x 6ft x 2ft 2012
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Ryan Patrick Martin AC:
Explain the significance of Plinko to your work, as it shows up in your paintings and music. RPM:
I get excited about certain words. It has a lot to do with the way they look when written or sound when spoken or the combination of both. "Plinko" is one of those words that just seems to resonate. This is what inspired me to it use it for the Slop Wop album Zop Plinko. With the help of my friend Nathan Dufour Oglesby (Sir kN8 the Knight of the New) we began to dissect the meaning of Plinko. Deciding that it was a self regenerating form of currency (like infinite money) that is both earned and spent in the expression of positive vibrations and living lovely with others. With that considered, my paintings usually end up on my friend's walls and my music in their ears in this way we exchange the Plinko money. This is what drives me the most - simply making things for friends.
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AC:
What is your process like? What materials do you use? These paintings are really visually exciting and theres a lot of play with materials and pattern. What are you looking at?/what informs (if anything) these paintings? RPM:
My process usually begins with scavenging for materials which exist in fairly organized piles on the floor of my room. Piles of paint, tape, fabric/canvas, string, markers, and other things i've collected over the years. My paintings begin simply as material play. For example, I stretch a scrap of fabric that has been sitting in a corner for awhile around a broken frame. At this point, because I'm not starting with brand new materials the painting has already become something.
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con’t;
The materials I use typically already have a life to them meaning they've been with me for awhile and perhaps were in another piece already. I'm very interested in breaking and fixing things and creating games for myself. Most of the time my paintings deal with connections in some way like electronic connections, circuit boards or intersecting sound waves. My ultimate goal as a visual artist is to create a painting or an
object that energizes the viewer and hopefully they look at it and sense a familiar vibration, or imagine a sound it would make, or just laugh. I also try to make my process visually known and enjoy showing the viewer the mistakes that I chose not to fix (rips in the canvas, drips of paint, lines gone askew) it gives the object a realness. I'd rather show people my buzzing brain then to tame that buzz and make an object that just sits still (i think that makes sense).
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AC:
Whats the creative process like in comparison to your music projects, can you draw any parallels? RPM:
I'm very interested in creating cohesive multi-media environments involving all the senses. Right now, my bedroom is my painting studio and recording studio. I'm constantly stepping over my music gear and more often then not I'll accidentally drip paint on it. In this way they are physically connected because
they live together. Moreover, since I'm working on both things sometimes simultaneously they end up having the same sort of energy, they heavily influence each other. It's interesting to think "if this painting had a sound or a voice, what would it be?" or vice versa "what's the visual equivalent to this sound?" so sometimes I try to answer those questions. It's a very organic process that I think happens without my knowing it sometimes.
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AC:
What are you up to now? any new projects? RPM:
Right now I'm working on a new series of paintings that is kind of a collaboration with my 2 year old niece. I'm glueing her scribble drawings to the canvas and using them as a launching point for the piece. Not sure where this is going to go yet but she's got some solid scribbles and is consistently making them so I thought it'd be cool to archive them this way. I'm also working on a new Slop Wop album and doing some design and merch things for my music collective SHOW and SMELL Recordings.
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Chris Millic Chris “Mango” Millic was kind enough to send us some of his facemeltingly fun drawings, they are super imaginative and reflective of a diverse array of interests from surfing the concrete wave (that’s skateboarding) to watching Saturday morning cartoons, but all with a charming sensibility that references high art just as frequently as it might Nike or Scooby Doo, with little discrepancy between the two. AC:
What’s your process like, how do you decide what you are going to draw? CM:
Most of the time i draw stuff, i don’t know really know how its going to turn out. I usually just sit down at my desk and start drawing! the drawings usually start with some eyes, or a face. The only time i know what i will be drawing is when i draw Scooby doo. AC:
What art have you been looking at? Does anything particular inspire this stuff?
(left) Mother goose goes for a walk 2014 Self portrait 2014
CM:
I have mainly just been looking at all of my friends artwork on the internet and stuff. Umm not necessarily... I just really like drawing tables, and plants, and dogs right now.
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Dog and two plants 2014 Some THING 2014
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AC:
AC:
How do you feel about your artwork in relation to skateboarding? Is there a similar sort of creative energy?
Where do you come up with your best ideas? CM:
CM:
Im not sure how it really compares but yes i think it is a similar kind of energy, skateboarding is really fun and just a nice time! and making my art is really fun too, and i always end up drawing happy stuff. like I'm never sad when I'm out skating, my drawings never really turn out that sad either! AC:
What does the future hold? CM:
Im not sure, just to get better! I'm still not very good at making art yet... Its really fun, and i enjoy it, so I'm just gonna keep doing it.
(right) Scooby needs a NEW friend 2014
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Sometimes when I'm with my friends, or sometimes ill see something cool looking like a corner of a room, and take a picture of it! but definitely some of my best doodles that end up turning into paintings come from school, its weird. AC:
Anything else we should know about you? CM:
Yeah MAN! I'm a freak bitch ;-) haha jk i don't know!
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4.14.10 2013, oil, acrylic, and spray on canvas 56 x 68 inches
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Cameron Welch Cameron Welch’s paintings are an effort to produce an aggregate in perpetual recalibration. Through the employment of pattern, fractured imagery and textiles the artist attempts to give viewers the experience of a space in constant flux. The works posit a moment where
content is in direct collision with formal play. grids, gestures, shadows and hues coalesce into a fissured whole that imitate digital forms of layerings. The work aims to confuse where spaces start and stop, providing a loop-like arena for viewers to exist within.
Hoop Dreams 2014, oil, acrylic, and spray on found textile 52 x 58 inches
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Big Brown 2013, oil, acrylic, faux fur, and spray on found textiles 56 x 68 inches (right) Low Dunk 2013, Oil, acrylic, faux fur, and found objects on canvas Dimensions variable
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Big Blue 2013, oil, acrylic, and spray on found textile 68 x 72 inches
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AC:
How would you describe the transitions that you've gone through in your work in the last few years?
Luke Lunsford 38
(right) Stringing velvet 2014 Roundup 2014
LL:
In 2012 I used photographic sources found through a feature on a photo hosting website that pulls images from its database randomly. When we talk about 'the cloud' it sounds as if we store our pictures, videos and personal information in the atmosphere, when in reality a physical drive is humming off somewhere storing all our data.
With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to take an image that a user uploaded (often these are found in albums buried among thousands of other pictures) and give it physicality in a painting. I would search the database for photos that reminded me of work by other artists or motifs from art history, or shots that resonated with me in a per39
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sonal way. I would then handle the paint and make the painting based on what the image seemed to require. Some paintings have drips that obscure the image that further differentiate the painting from the original photograph. At first I was most excited about sampling the sea of these dredged up images, but slowly I was much more concerned with creating interesting paintings as adaptations of the sources that could stand on their own. At the beginning of 2013 I abandoned the online resource and started to work on imagined imagery. For these, the source material was taken from personal day-to-day sensations or fixations that I tried to insert into the work. For instance, I had just signed up for amazon prime and was so impressed by the breakneck speed and efficiency in which doodads, kitchen utensils and other shit I ordered made it to my doorstep, shipping boxes made their way in the paintings. In 2014, I am merging the two processes together incorporating photographs, transfers and industrial materials into the work.
(left) Self portrait 2014
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AC:
Describe your process, whats your typical painting day looks like? LL:
I love to draw using the blob tool on Illustrator. You can delete lines you don’t like easily and it’s a fun way to plot out compositions. I will usually make a few dozen drawings in this way and go back and forth between a sketchbook. Lately, the paintings have been less planned and painted over again and again until something crystalizes. I’m growing tired of working this way and I’m exploring other methods to plan the painting so I won’t have to start over. AC:
Tell us about Olympus Pen? LL:
(right) I owe it to myself 2014 Touching a dead snake 2014
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Olympus Pen came from a snapshot from the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. It showed a confident looking woman wearing a choke collar and chain around a man’s dress shirt worn open to expose her breasts. She was in a great pose and had a certain classical sensibility that I thought she might be a new Olympia. The title is a combo between Manet’s creation and the camera company Olympus’s digital point and shoot cameras.
AC:
Tell us about round up? LL:
I went through several years of school of religion and was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church. It was funny because through the eight years, everyone kept to themselves and nobody talked to one other. With Round Up I referenced a photograph of a group of children lining up awaiting their first communion, and I thought about that isolation. It might be that we all weren’t buying what we learned and we didn’t dare ask questions or mention our doubts to one another. AC:
What is a succesful painting to you? LL:
A successful painting is when you get a sense the artist has something at stake. Then, extra successful is when it’s formally beautiful and has a bit of something surprising. But it would be artless without a seed of something risky.
Olympus Pen 2014
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