medium you feel is most expressive. For me it’ s just like painting, sculpting with a chisel. They are just tools to me.
Q: You have done work with other artists, collaborations on different installations. I would like you to talk a bit about that, and how you feel about installation art or conceptual art, and does it play a big part in your art?
A: I like to experiment with anything and everything and, about conceptual art I would argue there is no such thing as conceptual art because everything begins as a concept before you lay it out. If you are doing a painting, it doesn’ t start when you pick up the brush. Sometimes it begins as something you have thought about, as a concept. When people try to detach and separate conceptual art from other forms of art, I feel it is just a contradiction. When you do photography, you must have a concept before you go out. For me every art form has a concept, so when people try to separate and say there is conceptual art and other forms of art, it doesn’ t make sense. It’ s just a tool, like installation that is another technique of putting over what you want to convey. Maybe if the idea is too grand to be put in a painting and you want to come up with something like a documentary, then photography would do it better instead of painting.
Q: There are a lot of changes in art these days; there is a lot of digital art starting up, people being more experimental with digital formats. Do you think that will influence the way you will work in the future? A: I can’ t quite say if it will influence me or not. I still like doing things hands on. I still like building things, but if I come to a point where I run into something that excites me more than building things, why not? But sometimes I think people use it as a scapegoat and for me it doesn’ t make sense what people do.
Q: You find it lazy? A: I find it lazy. I find it... how do you say this? Well the more you don’ t make sense of something the better one is at it. That’ s how sometimes I feel.
Q: How do you compare the older generation art forms and the modern generation art forms? A: Their art form was to come up with a technique that related to them and just keep at it. If you see art work from an old artist from back then and you see the work now, it is still the same. Their work is more stylistic … for them I feel like they have reached a point that their work has become more of a craft.
Q: Is there anyone in that generation of artists that you feel you could look up to or who section3: Conceptual
inspires you, or that you admire? A: First of all when I got into the art scene, the first thing I felt is that they scared me because of how they were living. They had big names but whenever I met them they did not match up to the hype. I would say mostly financially and their lifestyle. I expected to find people who are living good and matching to the names and the hype but whenever I met them they were mostly complaining and to me it felt like they were bitter and some still are as they are always complaining about something and it scared me because I thought if this is what I am now, it means this is what I will end up being. To me they were nothing to look up to.
Q: Do you think they would have been different if they had had a place like Kuona, a place where they could grow? A: I think maybe it’ s what they lacked... for us, we had them as an example and it is not really their fault because we had them to compare and contrast but for them it was just them. They were the first people to do it and they did not look into the future. They thought everything would be fine.
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