DSSF Interview

After the huge success of his October installment here at D-Structure, we caught up with Nick Beery to hear a few things he has to say…

If you were to describe your art to someone who has never seen it, how would you explain it to them?

My work has been described as dark, surreal, and eerily tranquil with a twisted sense of nostalgia. I believe one critic said “if R. Crumb, John K, and Tony Millionaire had a child this would be the afterbirth…” I recently coined the term ‘pop fiction’ to describe my current theme and work. It’s taking your favorite childhood memories and blending them with culturally disturbing adult icons, to become the car crash you love to watch.

What inspires your work?

Everything inspires me…particularly my REM sleep. Seriously, people have long said that to glance into one of my dreams would be like an acid trip riding Space Mountain during a white-out blizzard. I grew up reading newsstand magazines like MAD and Creepy which bled into my nihilistic sense of humor. Nowadays I go to the classic horror and sci-fi from such masters as HP Lovecraft, Poe, and Philip K Dick. Some good old fashioned reading mixed with viewing a smattering of 1930’s animations while listening to Mars Volta makes a great cocktail for regurgitating grunged-out ghouls.

Describe your process of making a new piece.

When I work on new imagery I set out to complete the theme or genre in a number of media. Aside from inking and painting traditionally I love to produce works that can be translated into commercial media. Therefore I will typically work out a quick idea (go to my black-book of brainstormed concepts), begin a painting or hand inked piece, and then rework the original digitally so I can screen print limited runs for installations, posters, prints, and apparel. Essentially I produce works in a fashion that I can merge into various outlets for my attention-deficit-creativity-disorder.

You have a number of skill sets in both the traditional realm and digital. What process of creating a new piece do you prefer?

Working digitally is not only a completely different process, it has less pulp than when working with traditional media. Although, due to the expansive advances in software and the tactile feel of a pen tablet there is an equivocal line of congruity between the two. I’m sometimes reaching for that ‘phantom ctrl-z’ to undo a brush stroke when I’m actually painting in oils on an easel.

I’d have to say that do to the ‘actuality’ of painting by brush or inking by pen is my preference. If one can’t constantly undo the mistakes it leaves a great deal of room for works to evolve with a degree of inconsistency. Sometimes the work I’m most satisfied with comes from a buffer of error and genuine experimentation. I had an instructor in art school who so deemed it as ‘happy mistakes’. I tend to feel more relaxed when in the studio slinging paint than perched at a computer monitor.

What influenced you to start making art?

Apparently when I was born they implanted a small chip in the inner cortex of my medulla oblongata that transmits neural impulses through a tiny portal that is connected to the ether of 3 dead visionaries from various ages. 2 of them, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, gave me powerful insight into telling stories through my drawings. Somehow the third, Hunter S Thompson, broke into the channel and thus began a more sub-cultural iconoclastic revolt against the authoritarian machine.

Besides the brain portal I was heavily influenced by marine life, outer space, and 80’s cartoons as a child. Anything relatively ‘alien’ or counter-normality always peaked my open interest. I began replicating the creatures of inspired youth and thus began an intimacy with my inner creative being.

When do you find you are most productive?

My most productive days are when I’ve just completed a large project for a client and I suddenly get hit with a huge wave of “I can now work on personal pieces” energy. Having enormous amounts of direction and feedback from clientele is great for getting work done timely and as precisely needed. It is a huge kick to the inner throttle when I’m freed up to simply “do my thing”. The fire is constantly lit…who said you can’t toss a bottle of ether in there to keep it roaring?

Where did you grow up and how do you feel it has influenced you?

Growing up in the quiet countryside south of Chicago nurtured my inventive spirit. Being on the fringes of urban life and yet indulging in the solitude of country living allowed a nourishing balance for my talents at a young age. Given enough time to myself I would constantly fill sketchbooks with the diabolical characters and monsters that ruled my world. Having an acquaintance with the evolving art scene in the city also affected me by tuning into the static of who was creating the ‘it-thing’ at all times. I think having this balance is still very important for any full time artist. It is great to see and feel what the community is doing, but retaining a filter to allow one’s personal work to flourish is vital in order to maintain original vision and style.

What do you like to do for fun?

Putting on new shows and consistently building the next big visual piece is my preferred vice for entertaining myself. Living in Seattle gives me the best of two worlds. Hitting the music scene and catching great local acts is a nice release during the week. Though on the weekends it is a simple drive outside the city to some of the most beautiful passes and peaks for hardcore hiking and climbing that elevates my soul. Decompressing in an ancient forest and breaking the summit of eons old mountain tops sits next to busting out the goods in the studio.

What music have you been enjoying most recently?

There is nothing out there I won’t listen to with the acceptance of modern country and most mainstream pop. I’ve been in this weird flux musical menagerie most recently.
Lately I’ve really been digging new releases from Metaform, Gorillaz, Neon Indian, Russian Circles, Wooden Shjips, God Is An Astronaut, BRMC, and Big Boi. Of course I have my steady go-to artists of all time such as Black Sabbath, ODB, STP, QOTSA, The Pharcyde, and Eazy m’f’n E. Good old West Coast rap keeps me perpetually stoked.

What do you do to pay the bills?

Who ever said you have to be a starving artist?…que middle fingers in the air. I’ve been freelancing for about 8 years now. Keeping the work constantly fresh and utilizing various techniques gives me access to a multitude of clientele in various industries. It is refreshing to jump from doing an album cover to say designing a line of water bottles. Balancing contract work with running my personal shows is quite challenging but keeps me invigorated and gives me what I need to stay persistent.

Tell us a bit about your recent show here at D-Structure SF.

Urban Undead was a conglomerate of my most recent plan for imperial domination which conveniently happened during the wicked witching month of October. It is what I like to call the ‘dark trifecta effect’. This is a 3 part show that correlates various themes seamlessly.

The first ingredient is Zombie Rappers. Who doesn’t love the undead and better yet, the all time martyrs of gangster rap. Growing up on ‘gangsta rap’ and simply having a passion for the hip-hop culture has lead me to do a lot of rapper/music inspired pieces over the years. I have to say groups like NWA made a huge impact on not only my youth, but the way I interpret urban imagery as artist in my adult years. Slanging hard core beats, nasty lyrics, and funky fresh kicks is all I wanted to do as a youngster…that has still not changed. My love for zombie themes coalesced with dead rap artists seemed like the perfect route to get these martyrs of the game out there like never before.

The second ingredient, and bulk of the show, was a lineup of my Hobo-Eaters characters. The term hobo-eater refers to an entity who, through ritual means, would take on by means garbage and liquor the sins of a deceased bum, thus absolving his or her soul and allowing that person of the street to rest in peace.

What was once a ritual performed by beggars and vagabonds in certain villages of bygone years is now performed in a reverse of roles by animated entities who take on the form of the hobo whose diabolical lifestyle is reflected upon the appearance of the hobo-eater. The hobo-eater would be brought to the dying vagrant’s curbside or stoop, where a neighborhood drifter would place a crust of dumpster pizza on the chest of the dying and pass a 40 oz. of malt liquor to him over the corpse. After reciting the ritual, he would then drink and remove the crust from the derelict tramp and eat it, the act of which would remove the sins and deadbeat-scars from the dying transient and take it into himself.
Often times hobo-eaters are not only filled with the sins and scars of the deceased but take on a ghostly appearance, ragged with the lines of deceit and chemical abuse of the former vessel. The result is a vaporous apparition whose tattered clothes and grungy attitude is forever portrayed among the urban environment. Thus the ethereal term Agents of Chaos has come as a contemporary descriptor for these aeon old hobo-eaters who are destined to drift the streets perpetually consuming fiendish souls.

Last and definitely not the least third ingredient comes from my Pop Fiction series which is centered around parody-type concepts of imagery from my youth that has been engrained not only in my mind for life, but into American culture as well. Bringing characters, shows, music, and movies together is nothing short of fantastical mash ups that leave the mind bent for a few seconds and then percolates the inner child which is tickled by the juxtaposition of the selected subject matters. For example, the piece titled Pulp Street had to do with my love of sesame street as a very young child to the affect of the cult classic Pulp Fiction on my teenage years. As someone who grew up in the midst of these societal-pervading entities I have to regurgitate new meaning on the details of what specifically made these programs so successful.

Why Burt and Ernie?

What better to start off this series than mashing up that infamous puppet duo Bert and Ernie with that other killer duo Vincent and Jules of Pulp Fiction? What I find hilarious about Bert being portrayed as Jules is that there was always this subdued underlining that Bert was just a hint on the angry/evil side. Ernie always seemed a little more passive aggressive and fit the role of Vincent perfectly.

I loved that you had Burt and Ernie mascots for the opening. Did you make the heads yourself?

Low and behold I did make those ostentatiously large muppet heads and costumes for the opening. It is tough for me to not have a finger in every slice of pie that involves the clever fist in the eye. Those are my boys!

Do you have any other experience with costume crafting or was that the first?

Making costumes is something I’ve done since my first Halloween trick or treat spree. Molding a 3D mask or sculpture is more time intensive than producing 2D visual art. It is a lot like giving birth to Frankenstein. You can hold it in your arms, sing to it, and dance with it. At the end of the day, it takes a life on of it’s own…and then it just may rob your ass blind!

Any upcoming projects that you are excited about?

Most of my projects I treat like those polymer dinosaurs that when you dowse in water, grow 3 times the original little dried out size. I keep a mass of them in my pocket and when the time is right toss one in just to watch it grow. I have lots of irons in the fire for 2011!