Interview Seattle PI

Nick Beery’s Zombies Take over Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco…

This week I take some time with the great and powerful Nick Beery, we both started our careers in Seattle, anyway, at the fabled Orange Splot Gallery–a place that, like the Hostile was the one of the seminal spots in the Seattle art scene! Nick Beery’s work is taking the scene by storm, having big shows in California, Chicago and Washington! He is definitely an artist to keep your eyes on!

Xavier: So let’s start at the beginning–how long have you been working and where did you start out–here or in Chicago?

Nick Beery: I’ve been working as a full time artist for 8 years. I actually started working as an illustrator in South Florida after graduating from Ringling School of Art & Design. The throw back years of balancing fine art and commercial art exploration.

Xavier: Tell me a bit about Ringling, what was that like and how did it prepare you for some of the work that you’re doing now?

Nick Beery: Ringling is a private art school on steroids. I had an amazing experience with my departmental artist-peers as well as the diverse range of super talented instructors.

Being immersed in an environment that makes you constantly push the boundaries of your talents is exactly what RSAD was about. The instructors were ‘in the field–working professionals who sought to hammer in the essentials for making it on your own as an independent creative. I like to call it a “Business/Art School” as it really pushed the ingredients to make you prepared for the viciously competitive, creative world/industries.

Xavier: And, honestly that is something that really sets you apart from a lot of us–you really seem to have a good mental picture of the overall game–what you want and how to get it!

Tell me a bit about what you have got going on right now? How would you describe your newest work?

Nick Beery: It is a struggle to be independent and have the time to educate oneself on how to best market and meet your audience. I can’t speak on other art schools except from my peers’ perspectives, but there has been a lot of talent that has emerged from the nucleus of Ringling.

I like to have my finger in as many pies as possible and juggle new projects simultaneously. Right now I’m working on a new boutique apparel line which feeds my graphic art side and continuously work on new series for my “attention deficit creative disorder” which consists of experimenting with new media and strategically sharpening axes in my locker of skills

My latest work combines several ongoing series which are divvied up by the media in which I’m working them in.

At the moment I have an ongoing series called ‘pop fiction’ 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 creating fantastical mash ups that leave the mind bent for a few seconds and then which percolate the inner child which is tickled by the juxtaposition of the selected subject matter.

Xavier: Cool, do you find that childhood and pop culture motivate you to generate a great deal of what you do or are there other factors that feed your output?
Nick Beery: Right now there is a lot of the mash ups going on from all directions in the art world. I’m motivated because it is fun. It’s like taking your favorite childhood memories and blending them with culturally disturbing adult icons, to become a car crash you love to watch.

Nick Beery: I’m influenced by a lot of differing genres and aesthetics which seem to feed my constant progression of creativity.

Xavier: I like that; it creates a very vivid mental image.
Do you have any upcoming shows or projects and perhaps places for people to see your work that you would like to mention.

Nick Beery: Freelancing as a commercial and graphic artist keeps the workflow fresh constantly. It also allows my brain to split the methodologies for my work. I try and let all my inner demons bleed through, in even my most mainstream visual images.

Xavier: Cool. I have to admit that I love your zombie series rappers and non!

Nick Beery: I have a show that runs from Nov – Jan called “Nevermind” in San Francisco. It is a retrospective and exploration of the themes of the 90’s as well as nostalgia for 90’s era childhood.

The zombie rappers are featured in that show as Pac, Big, ODB, JMJ, and EAZY all were part of that time span. There will be new additions to that series coming soon!

Xavier: Very cool!

Are there any artists, living or dead that you find to be inspirational?

Nick Beery: I recently launched my premium apparel line entitled DEFIANT down in the bay area and am working on our new seasonal lines for 2011. Seriously big things are coming in the next couple of months. It’s all very secretive at the moment.
Okay, artists…

Xavier: Hold on, let’s talk a bit more about the San Francisco stuff. It looks like things are really going nicely and you are having all sorts of shows in Cali. Can you tell me about some of these shows and–what is this that I heard about Bert and Ernie pulling a gun on you?

Nick Beery: I began putting together an October themed show called Urban Undead which was a feature of my Hobo-Eaters characters and a couple of pieces from my pop fiction series. It kind of snow-balled from the first of that series entitled Pulp Street. This was my Bert and Ernie / Pulp Fiction mash up.

I ended up building out some ostentatiously large costumes to compliment the show. These ‘muppet hit men’ I created took a life of their own and inevitably left me penniless on the curbside of Haight and Fillmore!

Be careful when mixing character cocktail voodoo. A hair from Al Capone’s head, a drop of Jim Henson’s blood, and a hand puppet sacrifice can explode in your face very quickly!

Xavier: Haha! Love it!

Nick Beery: That’s life in the big city!

Xavier: Any things that I haven’t covered that you would like everyone to know?

Nick Beery: I try and keep a constant filter on while chewing the visual candy out there.

I’m inspired by various artists for very specific reasons. Dali will always be a huge influence on the way I work my backgrounds and landscapes.
Ralph Steadman will always be my go to guy for killer ink techniques. Alphonse Mucha is a huge credit to the design which overshadowed his insanely intricate paintings.

Xavier: Ralph Steadman is the man! I know several amazing artists that have been influenced by him. Mucha too! Lush and beautiful–but amazingly influential.

Nick Beery: I love classic illustrators such as Matt Mahurin and Roberto Parada. I keep tabs on all the high caliber players out there killing it in their field and have mad respect for all the upcoming ‘bad a****s’ who just keep pushing the envelope.

Xavier: Yes, even the Gibson Girls of the 1800’s are extremely influential to the newest breed of artists. Speaking of which and speaking philosophically–how do you see your work and how it fits into the art of now and how that is different than the ways that art was made just twenty years ago?

Nick Beery: The art world today has truly blended into a gray-area realm where nothing is static. What was once considered low-brow or outsider art is now main stream. Street art is now a well defined engine that steams forward and constantly shifts the ‘pop’ flavor of the art world. Tattoo art is blending more with traditional media and exploring more contemporary techniques that give a hand painted feel.

I think that there is such an abundance of profusely hard working, prolific visual artists who have their niches flowing simultaneously like parallel souls that the art scene is bleeding one genre into another.

Xavier: It’s interesting in a way–it almost seems like a backlash against the ivory towers that had been built up around the graduate schools that created and fed a very specific kind of art in the last decade. It’s a bit like Artists and the streets have taken art back to where it was in New York in the thirties or Paris in the 1800’s.

Its more real, more vibrant and more guerrilla.

Nick Beery: There is no large division between what is considered ‘fine art’ and ‘commercial art’ these days. Respectively, artists on all fronts have come together to create a new age–the 21st century Renaissance.

Xavier: Definitely!

At the same time there is a different edge–one that takes no prisoners and is definitely defining this age!

Nick Beery: Technology and today’s digital tools opened a black hole that is constantly feeding new energies into our visual universe rather than sucking them away by stagnating in a land of rigid traditions.

Xavier: Interesting, because historically speaking, that is exactly what led to the post punk and rap movements in England and America respectively–the availability of new and cheaper technologies put the artistic output into the hands of more and different people and suddenly everything changed again!

Nick Beery: If you hand us a rock we will build you a mountain. If you hand us fire we will set the world alight!

Xavier: Nice!

Nick Beery: It is all part of an ongoing cycle. We are in the midst of a major mind set shift in our shrinking societies’ perspectives on how art currently affects everything from what brand of cereal you buy to the latest app for your phone.

Xavier: So before we close this puppy up–any last things you’d like to put out there and give me a list of places we can find your work virtual and non! Not to cut things off or anything!

Nick Beery:
www.BeeryMethod.com
www.beerymethod.com/news
www.facebook.com/BeeryMethod
www.twitter.com/BeeryMethod
www.DefiantWear.com

Nick Beery: Had a blast brother!

Xavier: Awesome! Me too! See you out in the Seattle art World!