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Spraygraphic Interview with Artist Van Arno
By Spraygraphic | May 16, 2008
Spraygraphic’s Chuck b. Interviews Artist Van Arno about his amazing painings and about his art career in Los Angeles.
Spraygraphic Interview with Van Arno
SG: Where do you currently live and work?
VA: Los Angeles
SG: What mediums do you work with?
VA: Oil on canvas, or sometimes on panel
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
VA: I start by deciding what I want to see. This is usually something really simple (woman fighting octopus) and I then develop a composition while I fabricate a premise (who is this woman?) The premise can be anything, but I like to use elements from history or mythology. That stuff was good enough for Rubens . …or maybe Jean Harlow , she always makes pictures look good.
SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?
VA: Just keep pounding away at it– or work on something else. Lightning isn’t going to strike me and bring me an answer, I just have to fight my way through it. Being an artist seems to be mostly about physically dragging the damn thing over the goal line.
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
VA: 20th century song lyrics,…blues, big band, old rock…
SG: Can you please tell us a little about your painting, Mexica Cannot Be Roused to Fight?
VA: The Wilson administration’s violation of Mexico’s border in pursuit of Pancho Villa, inspired Kaiser Wilhelm to dispatch a telegram to Mexico City during the first World War. He offered California, New Mexico and Arizona to the Mexican government, if they sided with Germany and forced America to tie up military resources in the Southwest. Mexico passed on the opportunity to invade the USA.
I always liked paintings that used the figure symbolicly, so I came up with symbolic embodiments for Mexico and Germany. This was part of a WW1 themed solo show at the Corey Helford Gallery in June of 07.
SG: Can you please tell us a little about how you started doing cut outs?
VA: Early in my career, I wanted to put big cartoon images on walls, so I started doing the cutouts…. Never did graffiti, weirdly!
SG: Can you please tell us a little about your Olive Series?
VA: I was fascinated by her as a kid, and later realized there was a term for waterfront women who dated sailors. I did a bunch of my early paintings of her as a stripper, taxi dancer, drunkard, runaway…
SG: Where has your work been seen?
VA: The Shooting Gallery (San Francisco), L’autre gallerie (Montreal, QC), Corey-Helford (Culver City, Ca), Fuse Gallery (New York), Jonathan LeVine Gallery (New York), Feinkunst-Krueger (Hamburg,Germany), Mendenhall Sobieski (Pasadena, Ca), Rogues Gallery (Belfast, N Ireland)….and some other fine places I’ve probably left out
SG: Where will it be seen next?
VA: Laguna Art Museum "In the Land of Retinal Delights" in June,2008 and The Shooting Gallery in San Francisco, Nov 2008
SG: What is your dream art assignment?
VA: No assignments, please!
SG: What is your favorite color?
VA: Yellah!
SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?
VA: That changes all the time. Right now. Walton Ford , Kent Williams , George McManus , Boucher …sheesh, what a group!
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
VA: The New Yorker… and rereading "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy
SG: Ever do a self portrait? Where is it now?
VA: Ha, …Nope, nobody needs to see that
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
VA: Bars near my house I can walk to, or anyplace my friends are- that’s the main thing
SG: Any final words of advice?
VA: If your an artist- Never give up. You can’t fail until you quit. If you are not an artist- Buy some art, ya deadbeat!
1. Medusa Infested
2. Sweet Home Valhalla
(oil on canvas) 24"x48" -2007
A Valkerie secures a dying german fighter pilot and carries him to his reward. The Valkerie was originally depicted as an armored woman on horseback, and later as a winged, angel-like figure. I wanted her to look more pre-christian, so I referenced the antlered shamanic figures seen in neolithic cave painting.
3. Leviathan Harnessed By Harlow’s Nightie
(oil on wood panel) 24"x35" -2006
The powerful allure of Jean Harlow is on display, as the screen ‘Siren’ tangles with a different sort of menace to sailors. The lingerie that has never failed to advance her agenda, is here employed to steer the octopus that unwillingly powers her craft.
4. ”She Had a Dream About the King of Sweden” Minnie the Moocher
(oil on canvas) 24"x30" -2005
She had a dream abut the King of Sweden@ after a trip to Chinatown to "kick the gong around" which translates into Opium Smoking in the parlance of 1915 Harlem. Cab Calloway’s trademark song- ‘Minnie The Moocher" was used by Max Fleisher in his best Betty Boop animated short, where Cab is portrayed as the walrus who’s picture graces the wall of Minnie’s boudoir. The lyrics, about the dreams of dancer at the bottom of her game , are brought to life in this image of smokey aspirations.
5. Clean Shaven Gams
(oil on wood panel) 16"x24" -2006
The newest Olive painting, this was made a decade after the first ones, and it’s less boisterous A painting on the back wall of a corncob pipe reads “Dis Ain’k Me Pipe” which is an homage to Rene Magritte’s "Ceci n’est pas une pipe"
6. The Soul Is Extracted And Judged By Weight
(cell vinyl and oil on wood panel) 24"x36" -2004
The marriage of religious fundamentalism and market capitalism is taken to the logical extreme. The Soul turns out to be a parasite that is harvested by Our Savior after death, and that person’s life is judged only by how big this worm grows.
7. Mexica Cannot Be Roused To Fight
(oil on canvas) 24"x36" -2007
Topics: Artist Interviews, California Art Scene, Paintings |
