6 minute read
Chor Boogie
What kind of kid were you? Where did you grow up? What were your influences?
I was a crazy kid. A daredevil, a very adventurous type. I still am. So I live “the kid within” at times. I grew up in Oceanside and Vista near San Diego. The place has its ups and downs as does any city. My influences back then up, until I started painting with spray paint, were comic book artists like Todd Mc Farlane, Rob Liefield, and Jim Lee; skateboard culture; and 80’s culture. Then, I explored the old masters like Salvador Dali, Michelangelo, and Gustave Klimt and contemporary masters of spray paint like Phase 2 ,Vulcan, and Riff 170.
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"Street Artists" are valuable to todays art culture. Most street artists operate in the dark...literally. One that does not is Chor Boogie. He is a master artist who wields an aerosol can like Michelangleo used his chisel or Van Gogh his brushes. His works appears in museums and galleries from San Diego to Switzerland. He is an American national treasure. - editor
When did you first think about art as something you wanted to do? Were you encouraged or discouraged by family, friends, teachers, mentors?
When I was around 5 years old in Kindergarten my teacher said, “Do you want to play duck duck goose or do this activity over here…” I was interested in the activity. “So what is this activity?” I asked. “Painting like an artist,” she said. “So what do I do?” I asked. She replied “Paint anything you like. Paint yourself.” So I did and it was a big mash up of colors hence the colors I use today. She came back and asked how I liked it. I replied, “When I grow up I’m going to be an artist.” I was never really discouraged. I only received support from loved ones. The only discouragement is the state of the art world today. But I keep going because I love what I do, and nothing will dictate the flow of that except for me.
Your style is very unique. Did you work on developing a style or is that what naturally came out of you?
It was a little bit of both actually. It takes both nature and nurture in order to find out who you really are when it comes to originality, and then taking that creativity to new heights every time you create something.
You do a lot of “street art” that seems to now have gone mainstream, How did that happen?
Depends on what you consider mainstream.That actually could be a bad word within the genre. Even though I paint on the streets and on canvas, I’m even creative with my terminology when it comes to the genre of my artwork. Instead of “graffiti” or “street art,” I call it Modern Hieroglyphics, which is basically what this culture really is based off of. We create stories, symbols, and images with meaning and context on any surface. Nothing wrong with the other terminologies, but as far as my work goes, that's where I push it. You are asking how did it go mainstream, and I’m just going to have to respond, “VERY CAREFULLY, it’s like playing a game of chess on this roller coaster ride called LIFE.”
Social media plays a role. Media plays a role in general, but usually when I’m painting on the street that's enough promotion to get the job done. Going out networking and schmoozing is alright and helps to get involved in things, but I think I put my name out their enough to where the promotion comes to me. So it’s basically a two way street and we have to meet in the middle.
What’s the future hold for you? Any ultimate goal?
I live for today, my friends. I’m not a psychic. I know it’s bright though... Always has been, always will be.
Your sculpture seems to be more charged with satire than your paintings. i.e. the spray nozzles for nipples and the skull covered with what looks like lacquered money, etc. does the medium influence the message with you?
It’s fun, and I always look for new avenues to create from. I make music as well and entertain the possibility of being a renaissance man like my ancestors.
John Cuneo Interview with
by Leslie Cober-Gentry
WHO WERE YOUR GREATEST INFLUENCES IN ARRIVING TO YOUR CREATIVE GENIUS?
In the course of a lifetime of looking around, the drawing influences just continue to accumulate don't they? So much so in fact that I sometimes lose sight of my own course while I"m being buffeted around by whoever's work I've recently become helplessly enamored of. I mean I get crushes. It's embarrassing.
As a kid, I always drew, and I always preferred drawings to paintings in the books and and newspapers and magazines I was exposed to ( the only museum I ever visited as as child was in Central Park and had stuffed animals and a giant whale hanging in it). So, it was those artists who drew black and white pictures on a page, surrounded by type - that's all I knew, and that's what got me off; E H Shepard's Wind in the Willows and Pooh stuff, Garth William's Stuart Little ,John Tenniel's Alice pictures. YOUR SHAKY LINE WORK IS EXTRAORDINARY. PLEASE ELABORATE ON HOW YOU DEVELOPED IT
Someone will occasionally mention that "shaky" thing, and honestly I'm not all that aware of it. I try and hold my pen rather loosely , I suppose that's partly to blame.I went through a long stretch making heavily cross hatched advertising illustrations in a style that owed a lot to the mostly European pen and ink guys I saw in the Times and certain magazines. They were doing gorgeous, ponderously metaphor-heavy drawings to represent big, serious concepts like war, famine and dictatorship. I was doing dumb drawings for bank ads. My imitative efforts were almost robotically mechanical in their lifelessness , as if drawn by an angrily clenched fist in a very cold room. Maybe my slightly "wandering" line today is in rebellion to those efforts. Maybe it's an apology. Btw, I'm not sure at what age I first saw your father's art ( the great Alan Cober); but his work , his loose, eccentric line, how he made his marks and decisions in progress on paper- it was profoundly important to me.A kind of permission to think about drawing in an entirely different way.
