Dogs gotta bark.

In conversation with Roz Joseph, RJG Select, NYC

What motivates you as an artist. Motivation is such an abstract: it’s driven by personality, ability, expectation, ambition, gender, age, needs, wants, desires… for me it relates more to surrendering to the id and ego, manifesting works that are connected to my own instincts as well as the influence exploration has.. 

What is your process in making art? In sculpture I work in scale models in clay or metal that are then scaled using state-of the art technology. Then into the hands of a team to realize the fabrication and installation of works.

With paintings I tend to plot digitally to best understand the tension and relationships of the form, and how it reflects on others in a series. But once on the canvas the paint takes over.

Photography becomes more about peripheral vision that quickly edits the mind’s eye. Images can be complex compositions of massive digital files. Or not. My preference is shooting in single point perspective to imply the dimension of a subject rather than exposing it.

Do you remember the first time you picked up a paint brush? At dinner not long ago with an author, a photographer and an architect – I posed a similar question: Do you recall the point in your life that you realized what it was that you would do? The answer of age was similar to each of us.

I was maybe 6 or 7 spending unsupervised hours inventing – squatting with a bucket of water from the hose, a large brush gripped in my hand as I “painted” gestures across the foundation of the house. It was powerful. The unsealed concrete turned dark at my command, then vanished. Without doubt the genesis of a continual inspiration of line and form. Certainly a lesson on the ephemeral.

Do you choose one type of paint over another? 
I like black. It’s a colour that’s made up its mind. It holds authoritative rebellion within the colour wheel. I’m not a rebel, although a grade-school teacher once chided that I "learn to colour within the lines". 

I prefer to work in carbon black acrylic as my base before introducing colour – oil or water colour is totally disproportionate to manage in either skill set or attention span.

Which papers do you prefer? That depends on the subject matter. For colour photographic works, I prefer satin papers, and cotton rag for pigment works on paper.

What do you want people to know about you as an artist? I’m a really good cook.

Where are you from? Halifax. On the Canadian east coast, where, after living half my life in Toronto, I now have my home and studios. From my travels I would love to have lived in Italy, but after years of returning to Nova Scotia for summer studio time I decided to make that my creative centre far from the madding crowd. 

 What can you tell us about the art community there?  The culture of Nova Scotia is rife with a sea of artists – and the kitchen (or pub) is usually designated as the favourite place to share or challenge ideas.

 What are the challenges you face?  It's like swimming laps – a solitary exercise of repetition, of meditation and trying not to drown in your own thoughts.

Which artists do admire and why? I tend not to have heroes, but am moved by the power of generations of artists: Cimabue, Etruscan bronze, permission from Picasso or Bacon, electrification from Mary Weatherford, sex from Ken Price, ethereal immersion from Julie Mehretu, tempo from Twombly, tension from Serra, climax in Riopelle or courage from Fischl.

The amalgam informs the subconscious.