16. März 2009

Interview with Zach Johnsen

About his art and his relation to nature

InterviewWhile working on “Wes­tern Con­fe­rence”, © Zach John­sen

Hey, du wun­derst dich, warum das hier alles auf Eng­lisch steht? Dann lies die deut­sche Ver­sion*!

I wrote about Zach Johnsen’s instal­la­tion “The Hyper Stumps” back in febru­ary (Ger­man only) which attrac­ted my atten­tion because actually John­sen is known for his illus­tra­ti­ons and sket­ches. Howe­ver, I had to find that the inter­net didn’t really take notice of it and there was no state­ment by the artist about his work.

Rea­sons enough for me to ask him for an inter­view in which he does not only speak about his art in com­mon but also about “The Hyper Stumps” in par­ti­cu­lar and his love for nature.

 

Me: Hello and thank you for taking the time for this con­ver­sa­tion!
In the United Sta­tes you and your art are quite popu­lar for a lon­ger time – would you like to intro­duce your­self to the Ger­man readers?

Zach: My name is Zach John­sen. I am an artist, illus­tra­tor, and desi­gner cur­rently living in Port­land, Ore­gon in the paci­fic northwest. I am a visual artist most known for my fre­ne­tic pen & ink lines and loose, drippy water­co­lor, alt­hough I work in many other media inclu­ding acrylics, pen­cil and gou­ache, mostly on paper, but also on wood and can­vas. I love dra­wing and it is the basis of almost ever­y­thing I do.

Zach Johnsen: Life under the Powerlines“Life under the Power­lines”, © Zach John­sen

Me: You are a much-noticed illus­tra­tor for a couple of years now, have crea­ted designs for famous skate– and snow­board manu­fac­tu­rers and some other nota­ble brands and take part in the desi­gning pro­cess of your own T-shirt and appa­rel com­pany “Tank Theory” – ever­y­thing bran­ded with your own dis­tinc­tive style. How dif­fi­cult or how easy is it for you to reinvent your­self over and over again while keeping to give your per­so­nal touch to every work?

Zach: Oft­en­ti­mes with free­lance work, I take into account the style and feel that the cli­ent is loo­king for. Each free­lance pro­ject is uni­que and I am usually given some direc­tion which helps me hone in a style or tech­ni­que. Regar­ding my own brand, Tank Theory, I create a theme for each line of tees that we come out with.
I do rese­arch and think about what I am try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with each theme. And dea­ling with a dif­fe­rent visual lan­guage each time around beco­mes a uni­que pro­ject unto its­elf.. then I go to work sol­ving the puz­zle so to speak. It helps keep it fresh for me and the work con­stantly different.

Me: Your illus­tra­ti­ons and sket­ches often remind me of street art cha­rac­ters. Some­ti­mes one can find pho­tos of several pos­ters and sten­cils in your blog, which you dis­co­vered in the streets of a partly aban­do­ned town near Pitts­burgh. Is there a clo­ser connection?

Zach: Well I was invol­ved in graf­fiti for a num­ber of years, so street art I guess crept in some­where. But I don’t con­sider mys­elf a street artist in any way, so there isn’t much of a con­nec­tion any­more. I do app­re­ciate it though and I am plan­ning on get­ting more of my woo­den cha­rac­ters out into the public soon. I guess that would be con­side­red street art.

Zach Johnsen: The Wanderer Series“The Wan­de­rer Series”, © Zach John­sen

Me: Your illus­tra­ti­ons appear to have deve­l­o­ped bit by bit from the moti­va­tion to see what may evolve during the pro­cess of dra­wing. Do you fol­low a par­ti­cu­lar approach when you start with a blank sheet of paper?

Zach: Indeed. I start out with an idea first and fore­most.. a story I want to tell. I usually have a photo or live refe­rence of some part of the main illus­tra­tion and that’s where I usually start – sket­ching out the gene­ral shape of this main ele­ment as well as basic com­po­si­tio­nal parts. Once I have that down, I’ll usually throw around some soft color to help fill it out.. then I’ll get deeper into it with pen or pen­cil defi­ning ele­ments more cle­arly and really just crea­ting drama and depth in the line work. From there, it’s tigh­te­n­ing up the work little by little, adding more color, adding detail in pen and ink or pen­cil.. lastly I’ll go in w/ gou­ache and add details until I feel like the work is done. Some­ti­mes though, I’m never sure when a work is done.. in that case, I’ll work up until a point that I think if I went any fur­ther, I would go over­board.. then the work is done.

Zach Johnsen: Welcome to the Neighborhood“Wel­come to the Neigh­borhood”, © Zach John­sen

Me: I was a bit sur­pri­sed as I saw your instal­la­tion “The Hyper Stumps” for the first time since it is your first instal­la­tion or at least the first you actually showed on your web­site. What was the rea­son to have a try at instal­la­tion art?

Zach: Actually, pro­bably the first instal­la­tion I made public was my 2007 “Wel­come to the Neigh­borhood” instal­la­tion at Foun­da­tion One Gal­lery in Atlanta, Geor­gia. This con­sis­ted of much of my cha­rac­ter work made life size out of cut ply­wood. That was really the first time, I took my flat work and crea­ted it in real space. But the Hyper Stumps is a fur­ther pro­gres­sion in my instal­la­tion work.
I am basi­cally beco­m­ing more and more inte­res­ted in brin­ging my dra­wing work and ideas on paper into real space. The inspi­ra­tion for that work was really the paci­fic northwest of the United Sta­tes where I recently moved at the time, it’s natu­ral beauty and the clear cut­ting that was (and is) des­troy­ing much of that natu­ral beauty for the sake of lum­ber and our buil­ding needs as a society. The wood came from the coast of Ore­gon, where I sca­ven­ged big drift logs from the beach, dried them, san­ded them, then pain­ted them stark white. I wan­ted the stumps to look like they had been recently cut and the wood’s natu­ral energy was still visi­ble from the cut. I was really happy with the end pro­duct, espe­cially against the flat grey of the gal­lery floors.

Me: “The Hyper Stumps” fol­lows a quite sub­tle approach. Would you say it con­tri­bu­tes to your illus­tra­ti­ons and enhan­ces their mes­sage or do you see it as a sepa­rate piece?

Zach: It’s defi­ni­tely a con­tri­bu­tion to the ongo­ing story my work crea­tes, just in a dif­fe­rent form.

“The Hyper Stumps”, © Zach John­sen

Me: Tree stumps appear in your works every now and again and belong to the ele­ments you con­stantly use. What do they mean?

Zach: I have had a strong con­nec­tion to nature since I was very young. I grew up in the woods of the nort­hern US, very close to Canada, where the trees were my backyard and play­ground. From an early age, it hel­ped cul­ti­vate a deep respect for nature, not only for its beauty and the­ra­peutic qua­lity, but also its role in sus­tai­ning us as human beings. Ever­y­thing we have comes from the earth we inha­bit so it deser­ves our respect.. It’s a bit of almost a reli­gious belief for me. So in my work, cut trees and tree stumps are almost like the work of the devil.. care­less humans run­ning around has­tily taking down ever­y­thing that the earth has put up.
And I rea­lize that trees often need to be cut.. for wood, paper and all the things we use on a day to day basis.. I just feel that most of this defo­re­sta­tion is care­lessly exe­cu­ted.
When people cut down trees, little spi­rits and ghouls emerge when that energy is cut.. that’s where a lot of my cha­rac­ters come from as well.

Me: Speaking of spi­rits and ghouls: Many of your cha­rac­ters seem to be mean or angry. This reminds me a lot of some of the movies of Hayao Miyazaki who used such cha­rac­ters in a quite impres­sing way to depict nature’s fury about man­kind.
With your atti­tude towards defo­re­sta­tion in mind it appears that, besi­des human sins and mali­gnity in com­mon, our hand­ling with our environ­ment is one main topic of your works. Do you feel that the people app­re­ciate you as someone who points a fin­ger at environ­men­tal pro­blems? Or, do you think, that most of your fans like your art just for the beau­ti­ful colors, ideas etc. – simi­lar to what Miyazaki’s movies have been hono­red for.

Zach:I defi­ni­tely think that some people app­re­ciate the environ­men­tal issues that my work explo­res, but only those who reach out to me through email or talk to me at shows and really ask me what the work is about.
Other­wise, and unfor­t­u­na­tely, I think most people really just app­re­ciate the color and energy in the work.. which is ok too! But I defi­ni­tely want the work to stand for more than some­thing that is just “pretty”.

Me: When will be the next time we can hear from you?

Zach: Well I’m in a bit of hiber­na­tion now while I work on some free­lance work and try to gather up some funds for my next show. I will soon be working on a new series of dra­wings and pain­tings, so I’ll be in touch when I have a whole new body of work to show!

Me: Thank you for the inter­view, Zach!

 

For some more infos on Zach John­son and his art: