Scott Belcastro : Questions & Antlers
Interview by Jen Zern
Photography by Love Ablan

Scott Belcastro is known for painting lush, evocative, meticulously detailed landscapes, many of which feature lone woodland creatures. His scenes exude a childlike sense of wonder and a resonant stillness — the kind you might experience in the wake of a snowstorm.

Growing up in upstate New York, Scott spent a lot of time in the woods, and he continues to draw on these memories for inspiration.

So, for our photo shoot, we took Scott to L.A.’s Griffith Park where we watched him climb trees and chase wily brown squirrels. Then, as a tribute to one of his favorite subjects, we asked him to pose with antlers sprouting out of his head. Luckily, he was game.

After we got our snaps, traversed the hills and sat down for avocado sandwiches at Trails Cafe, we shot him some quick questions.

I’ve seen your paintings interpreted as a statement about our relationship with nature. What’s your take on that? 

My paintings are not so much a statement of nature, but a statement of where I see myself as a part of this place. The things I paint are more for myself. I think of them as a private place that no one can go, or ruin with their bullshit. Like a nice forest that will never be ruined by some asshole throwing his McDonald’s bag in the middle of it… Well, not so much that material, but you get my point.

What most inspires your work?

When I’m painting these landscapes, I feel like they could be the moment I’m in right now or the past. Usually I reflect on the past, it seems to give me a melancholy feeling. I don’t know why, but it feels satisfying. I get inspired by the strangest things: Christmas trees all lit up in a dark back yard, or looking at lights inside a warm house from the outside. Rainy Sundays, going underwater at night… I’ll stop there. But the point is, it doesn’t have to be a forest or a certain place, it mostly has to do with light from what I figured out. 

A lot of antlered animals appear in your work. What do stags and elk, etc, represent to you?

I like that imagery, it reminds me of being strong, but not a big dumb strong, a strong that says ‘you need to be wise, too, because you’re not the only one here’. It’s also one of those animals that just looks like what you want to see in those environments.

What tools do you use to get your details so surgically precise?

Deep, slow releasing breaths.

What do you listen to when you paint?

Ohhh, so much. I’ve been listening to so much classical lately. I just hook the Bose speaker system up to the computer and go to commercial-free classical on the iTunes radio all day.

You exhibit quite a bit, and yet you seem like a really private guy. Is that ever a conflict for you?

Yes, I like to spend a lot of time alone. It’s hard to isolate yourself and then try to expose yourself to mass audiences to get to where you want. It’s a bit ironic at times. 

Who are your comrades (your artist friends who inspire you)?

I don’t know, really; I get inspired by other things. My friends are my friends and my art is my art. Usually, when I’m with my friends, it’s time for my brain to rest from thinking about painting.

You’re self-taught, which is inspiring in and of itself. What advice do you have for aspiring artists?

I can’t see myself being important enough to give advice… I can say, “Don’t get mad and burn all of your paints and brushes.” It sucks when you realize you have to paint again and need to go buy them all over.

Your first European solo show, “Nothing Gold Can Stay“, just opened in London. What’s next for you?

I have a really important show coming up in December. I say it’s really important, because I’m going to try to paint some stuff that goes beyond anything I have ever done to date. 

If you could go camping in the woods one night with one person — real, historical or fictional — who would it be?

Hmmm, I would like to go with Pollack, but we would probably get drunk and fight each other… that might not be fun. My Dad, that would be a good time; we haven’t done that in a long time. Buster from Arrested Development. Yeah, that would be great.

• Scott Belcastro’s first European solo show “Nothing Gold Can Stay” opened Sept 18 and runs through Oct 5th at London Miles Gallery, Notting Hill, London.
• Read Scott’s blog
• Read Scott’s in-depth interview at Erratic Phenomena

Paintings by Scott Belcastro

Jude Buffum
Photographs and Interview by Love Ablan

Artist Jude Buffum, co-curator Jon M Gibson and I (along with our friends MyTarPit and Rockpool Candy) recently spent 48 straight hours bombarding the Neurotitan Gallery in Berlin with 15,000 Post-It notes for our massive “ich bin 8-bit” installation. By the end, we were utterly delirious, jetlagged and running on empty without sleeping. Nor bathing. And we were all getting pretty ripe.

However, back at Neurotitan’s amazing artist residency in historic Haus Schwarzenberg, we had the dilemma of a transparent shower stall smack in the middle of the kitchen. So privacy was going to be an issue between the three of us who had to share the pre-war flat for 10 days. Or it was an issue, until Jude approached the shower with a handful of Post-Its and created a really long penis-shaped censor bar which would cover our naughty 8-bits whenever we bathed.

Clearly, Jude sees everything in pixels and was the perfect person to design the installation for our “i am 8-bit” exhibition for the Pictoplasma Character Walk. Armed with only the measurements and low-res images of the gallery space far off in another country thousands of miles away, Jude developed an impressive array of characters — the ultimate lifesize pixelated experience — before we even had a chance to step into the space.

After 10 wild days of Bohemian artist-living in Germany with him, I’ll be the first to say that though Jude’s vision is a pixelated wonderland, he is definitely not square.

Tell us about the exhibit and the process of putting up 15,000 Post-It notes. Who and what did it involve? And what were the challenges?

The basic idea that Jon came to me with was to do an installation of my pixel style art made completely out of Post-It Notes. Even though my characters are original, having already seen dozens of Post-It Donkey Kongs and Megamen on Flickr, I was initially skeptical of the approach. However, when he proposed incorporating other artists’ drawings on Post-Its as some of the “pixels”, I realized it was a brilliant concept. I loved the idea of an exhibit within an exhibit, that the viewer could appreciate on two different levels.

So while I went about designing the pixel art that would comprise the installation, the curators contacted 17 different artists and collected drawings on Post-Its from all of them. Putting up the installation was extremely challenging and we only had 2 days to do it. Fortunately there were five of us (myself, Jon, you, and Andy and Inga Hamilton) and we didn’t sleep much.

With what kind of sorcery were you able to make such magnificent technically accurate schematics for the “ich bin 8-bit” installation design?

Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft a five-pack of Post-Its and said “By the power of Adobe… I HAVE THE POWER!” Also, the occasional acid flashback that causes me to hallucinate in pixels helps, but it’s unpredictable at best so I tend to grid everything out in Photoshop just in case.

How did you design such a detailed installation without ever having set foot in the actual gallery?

The gallery sent us photos with measurements for each wall, so all I had to do was convert centimeters into inches, then every 3 inches into a Post-It, and then every Post-It into a pixel. From there it was just a matter of firing up Photoshop and waiting for the hallucinations to kick in.

Despite my best efforts at planning everything down to the pixel, we did hit a few snags that required… adaptation. For example, this one section of the wall had this large electrical fixture that was not in the photos, and it just happened to be where the armless blue character’s head was supposed to be! And of course we didn’t realize this until we’d installed the rest of the figure, so the solution we came up with was to make it look like the fixture had burst through his head. So all those bloody pixels and the giant “FUCK!” were not part of the original design, Jon totally did that from scratch and it looks so much cooler than what I had originally intended! It was just this pure, typographic expression of our frustration at that point, we were pretty much losing our minds!

The characters in “ich bin 8-bit” have a wonderful totemic monster/deity quality. What was the concept behind the characters?

I’ve always been fascinated by humanity’s need to create “characters” and the necessity, or even ignorance, out of which they evolve. Like, where does the sun go at night? Well there’s this guy named Apollo with a chariot who drags it across the sky of course! What causes earthquakes? Well there’s this evil god called Loki tied up beneath the surface thrashing about because a snake is dripping venom in his eyes! Obviously! Unfortunately science has since destroyed the credibility of these characters and their mythologies, so we need new gods and totems to answer the really important questions like: Why are these cookies so fucking delicious? Well there are these magical little elves who live in this hollowed out tree who reproduce asexually because there are no female elves and… well, you get the point. As faith declined and capitalism rose in power, we no longer needed characters to explain the world around us, they just needed to explain what was in our shopping cart.

Now video games completely changed that paradigm though because instead of having gods and beings that help us understand our own world, we are now creating characters who need our help understanding theirs. We’ve created their worlds, so we are the gods now. With this installation I wanted to reverse-engineer this relationship, casting my creations as gods and demigods, in the hope that they would explain to me all the mysteries of the universe. But somehow I think they just ended up looking confused and completely terrified of their situation. Especially that poor amputee bastard with the electrical fixture bursting through his face.

People kept asking me, “Why the pink ones?” Is there a meaning behind why the artists doodled on the Ultra Pink Post-Its? Or was it purely aesthetic?

It was mainly for the sake of consistency. We picked pink because it was used throughout the entire installation. It also served as a visual cue for people exploring the exhibit, to help them find all the amazing artwork that was nested within the main imagery.

Putting up that many Post-It notes in just 48 hours was pretty brutal. On the second night, I barely got 1 hour of sleep on the gallery floor. Somehow, you continued chugging along after only 15 minutes. You barely closed your eyes, then you were back on the Post-It grind. Was it just pure adrenaline pushing you at that point?

I don’t know how you were able to sleep, what with all those Post-Its shouting at us.

Umm I thought I was the only one that could hear that… Anyway, after discovering that not all Post-Its are equal, in size anyway (and sometimes hue), do you plan on ever working with them again?

Fuck 3M.

I think the sight of Post-Its make us all cringe after that experience. How was it working with Neurotitan Gallery in Berlin? Would you work with them again?

Oh they were so great to work with, if they asked me to fly to Berlin tomorrow to do another show my suitcase is already packed. The gallery is in this amazing historically preserved building that hasn’t changed since the forties, and there’s an artist residency in the same building that they let us stay in. They pretty much just gave us keys to the gallery and the flat and let us do whatever we wanted. Total freedom!

That’s so great that they can give artists a place to stay. I was kind of shocked when they offered us the flat.

I know, I imagine they’re able to bring in a wide range of artists from all over the world this way. Oh yeah, so the flat was just like this… time capsule, it looked like no one had lived there for over half a century. It had these beautiful decayed walls with hand painted wallpaper and a wood-burning furnace that powered the stove in the next room that we had no idea how to use… the only trace of modernity in the whole flat was the stand-up shower in the kitchen that we endowed with pixelated genitalia.

The flat overlooked the courtyard where the gallery was, and you could also see the Anne Frank museum, which had this giant, mechanical steampunk cockroach hanging over the entrance that you could put two euros in a coin slot and it would come to life. It was like Chuck E. Cheese meets the City of Lost Children. The juxtaposition of Anne Frank’s face and this giant bug was so disturbing, I loved it. Except when we got home from clubbing at six in the morning and the cockroach would go apeshit at seven. Fucking tourists.

That whole place (Haus Schwarzenberg) is just so amazing and I kind of love/hate that mechanical cockroach as well. Tell us a little more about your Berlin experience.

Oh man, it was incredible. Particularly where we stayed, in Mitte, it was just saturated in art. Philadelphia has its share of street art, but nothing like what I got to experience in Berlin. It seems like people there not only tolerate it, they appreciate it. It really hammered home for me how lame all the government-sponsored murals in Philly are…

So, on top of all that we had the Pictoplasma conference and the 30 galleries participating in the Character Walk so you have some of the most creative people in the world all converging on this already artistic city… wow. Complete and total overstimulation to say the least, it was like that scene in the Matrix where Neo downloads a lifetime of kung-fu training into his brain in just a few hours.

I don’t even know where to begin… well of course TADO’s exhibit was loads of fun. Who doesn’t enjoy donning a giant panda head and busting out some sexy pole dancing?

The Joumi exhibit was really fun too, very innovative. They had this DDR-style pad you stepped on to create characters out of constantly moving, evolving geometric shapes, and each new shape you created would add another piece of rhythm or sound to this building musical soundscape. Totally cool shit.

And the conference was just so inspiring, whether it was Friends With You’s insane bouncy house installation or presentations by artists like Gastón Caba or Boris Hoppek. And then having these guys come to our opening and add their art to our installation? Fucking brilliant!

You’re well known for your fantastic pixelated paintings and illustrations. What is it about the pixel that appeals to you?

I’ve always been interested in the universality of symbols and the science of figurative abstraction, and I think the pixel offers an opportunity to explore both. Even before I started using the pixel as a medium, the work I did at Headcase Design was all about reducing images to their simplest forms that were still recognizable. In one of Scott McCloud’s books he talks about how the more abstract a face becomes from realism, the more people it can represent, and therefore the more universally accessible it is.

The reason I started using the pixel, is that it is emblematic of the whole concept of video games, which is just so rich in metaphorical language that can help us understand our current predicament.

Which is?

Emotionless cosmic beings that have completely lost our purpose.

Or maybe that’s just me. No but in all honesty, I think there’s this supercharged sense of purpose in video games (Save the princess! Defeat the bad guy!) that doesn’t exist in real life for most people. So I try to exploit that in my work, to say, yeah this is all just one big stupid game with no purpose, but you have no choice but to play along, and make the best of it. Break the rules. Manipulate the system. And yes, shag the princess while you’re at it.

Speaking of, I absolutely love your “Happy Ending” series. Tell me about it.

I did those for the third annual I Am 8-Bit show. At that point I was doing a lot of pieces that exploited the childish nostalgia of Nintendo characters for the purpose of examining themes of lost innocence. This series explored the ulterior motives of classic 8-bit heroes like Mario and Link, begging the question, why exactly did they want to save the princess?

Hah! Well that brings new meaning to the term ‘1-Up’! Did you play a lot of the early 8-bit games? Any favorites in particular?

I did, and in fact what little time I do have these days to play games is split about 50/50 playing new games and old. One of the more obscure games I really enjoy playing from the 8-bit era is Monster Party. It’s just such an odd game and the ending is so fucking creepy I still have nightmares about it. But I would say the Legend of Zelda has always been my favorite, if for no other reason than it was the first game my mother and I beat together.

Wait, your mom was a gamer too?

Well, not exactly. Not at first. My mom thought television was an evil, brain-rotting box and forced me and my brother to read a book for every hour of tv we were allowed to watch. In hindsight, I guess this made her one of the greatest moms ever, but at the time we hated it. I think the only reason she even let video games into the house was because our grandfather, her father, worked for Coleco and gave us a Colecovision for Christmas one year. When the NES came along, she was reluctant to let us get one. But at that point I think she saw the cognitive benefits of gaming, that in many ways it was closer to reading a book than watching television, and so she relented. And then I got the first Zelda game, she actually got really into it, we’d give each other hints when we figured out how to beat certain bosses or where certain items were hidden, that sort of thing.

What are some of your other early influences?

I spent the first decade of my life brainwashed by a cult. “Influences” were not… allowed.

Really?

Yes. I don’t like to talk about it.

Fair enough. Working with you directly on installing this exhibition was genuinely inspiring to me. Who are your peers, your comrades, that inspire you?

In no particular order: Gina Triplett and Matt Curtius, Martha Rich, The Heads of State, Chris Neal, Aaron Meshon, Doug Boehm, Chris Buzelli, and a whole bunch of other really great people.

Honestly though, I don’t even enjoy looking at other artists’ work because I feel like what I’m doing is such shit in comparison, and I would probably hate these people for being so fucking awesome if I didn’t already love them so much.

I’m also really inspired by other artists that work with the pixel like Christoph Niemann, Doctor Octoroc, Eboy, Chris Olian, and a whole slew of other really talented people.

How did you get connected with Jon and “i am 8-bit”?

Two words: Glory. Hole.

Wait. No. Shit! I meant to say MySpace.

Hahaha! I’m going to pretend that it really was a glory hole chance encounter. What is your work process like? Do you sketch out your vision first, or do you start out digitally? Do you have a giant stock of graph paper that you work with? Or, dare I say, Post-Its, haha?

I usually do some sort of non-pixelated sketches first, but from there it’s completely digital. The only time I paint or use mixed media is for gallery shows.

So what did you study in school? How did that apply to your current work?

I graduated from the Tyler School of Art with a BFA in Graphic Design, but Tyler’s design department also comprises interactive design and illustration, so I studied all three.

I had always wanted to be an illustrator until the day my idol, Joe Sorren, was a guest speaker in my illustration class. He stuck around for our class critiques and when he got to my painting, he said, I shit you not this is exactly what he said: “I’m personally offended to have to talk about this piece, it’s THAT BAD.” I went home practically in tears, didn’t leave my room for a week, and almost dropped out of school. But I realized at that point I was a better designer than illustrator, so I stuck with graphic design.

After graduating, I ended up working for one of my professors at Headcase Design, where we mostly designed books. We ended up doing a lot of illustration for some of the books we worked on, and over the course of several years I moved away from design into primarily illustration. And now, as many illustrators do, I’ve turned to doing gallery work as a way to experiment and push my work in ways that clients might not necessarily be comfortable with.

Apparently, in addition to all of your fine art and illustration work, you also teach. Tell us a little bit about your course.

I taught at Tyler for a number of years after graduation, but I’m currently teaching in the Illustration Department at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. My course is called Design Methods, and it’s basically a cross-disciplinary class that gives the students the opportunity to illustrate and design in tandem, so that helps them understand how the other side (art directors and designers) operates. It’s kind of the perfect class for me, as I came from a background in graphic design but have transitioned over the last few years into primarily illustration.

So a majority of your work is 2D. Then you have your great plush characters on your website, a cool transition to 3D. And now an all encompassing installation. What’s the next step for you? Are you going to get all Matrix on us?

I’m glad you like the plush toys. Do you want to buy some? Cause nobody else does. No, I like doing the toys, but I think I need to get a distributor or something, I just can’t handle all the marketing bullshit needed to get them out there. I think I need to get myself a sweatshop too. I thought people would like that they’re handmade here but I just can’t charge a reasonable price. People don’t give a shit where it comes from I’ve found, I tried to be all “ethical” or some bullshit but nobody cares. China FTW!

As far as installations go, I think for my next one I would like to do something more three dimensional, I liked what Boris Hoppek does with cardboard boxes, something like that could be cool with pixel art.

Do you have any upcoming exhibits or projects where can we see more of your artwork?

I have a piece called Saved by the Bell: The Columbine Years in Gallery 1988’s current show Idiot Box, but other than that, no plans. I think I actually need a little downtime to recalibrate my creativity and just… digest all that German inspiration. And by inspiration, I mean kurrywürst.

• JudeBuffum.com
• Jude’s Blog
• ich bin 8-bit exhibit
• Gallery 1988 : Idiot Box Exhibit
• i am 8-bit
• Neurotitan Gallery, Berlin

Interview by Jen Zern
Photos by Love Ablan

Scott C. is in his own world. Literally. For our photo shoot, the artist is hanging out with puppet-sized figments of his imagination: a caveman, a mummy, and a knight, to be exact.

And yes, they did walk into a bar. They also pet a rooster, rode a motorcycle, played videogames and went to class — but what really interests Scott is where they live.

“Caveman lives in a house shaped like a dinosaur,” he says. “Mummy has a pyramid house of course, Knight has a castle house, and they’re cut away so you can see what they’re doing inside.”

It’s what his latest solo exhibition Homeslice (running now through March 23 at Nucleus Gallery in Alhambra, CA) is all about: whimsical cross-sections of all kinds of dwellings, from a huge, multi-floored rocket for astronauts and aliens to a hollowed-out gravestone fit for a zombie and his TV. 

Scott isn’t only known for painting. He also writes and draws comics, some of which he has won awards for, and some of which are being compiled in a book slated for release this month, Double Fine Action Comics (Vol. 1), which everyone should buy.

Also, he is awesome.

COMRADE: Your style is so playful and distinct. How did it evolve?

SCOTT C.: I was struggling a long time trying to figure out what it was I wanted to say, what made me super-excited about creating. That was the biggest thing for me: Why create something? What is the point of it? But then I realized that what I got out of it the most was people enjoying it, people having a good time looking at it, laughing and pointing… that was the greatest sensation. More than ‘Oh, that’s well done’, it was seeing people have a good time, that’s what got me.

Your work seems so fluid, so effortless. Do you ever agonize over the process?

Oh yeah, all the time! That’s the thing, if something is going one way or maybe things aren’t interesting enough for me, I think, ‘God I wish I could think of something better!’ And then I start struggling and painting and the stuff I’m really struggling with, I think I’m not really excited about the concept. Once the concept feels really funny or awesome, the painting and everything goes superfast and smooth. If the concept isn’t there it totally bums me out and I just have a hard time painting that. And that’s the hardest thing, is coming up with the concept, that’s when I pull my hair out, is coming up with something interesting.

What made you decide to start the daily comic?

The whole idea of sitting in front of a blank piece of paper and coming up with an idea was so stressful for me that I thought, ‘Okay, great: Every morning when I get to work, I’ll do a little comic. Just spend a short amount of time on it, an hour; and we’ll post it every day on the website.’ Just as a way to loosen up. And if that joke isn’t awesome or whatever, it doesn’t matter; tomorrow’s gonna be another one. Somehow [taking off the] pressure, in a sea of all these ideas, helped me loosen up and come up with cool new storylines. 

Speaking of, you have a new book! Tell us about it!

This is superhot off the presses, my first time holding it in my hands. This is the collection of the first 300 strips of my Double Fine Action Comics, with a bunch of other stuff in there, there’s a war game in there, and some making of, commentaries… It’s very inspiring, there’s also a pinup… (Opens to centerfold of Knight in Burt Reynolds pose) It’s really racy. You can put this up in your bathroom, your den, maybe in a private place where you don’t want anyone to see… perhaps. Anyway, yeah I’m excited to finally have it, so this is out now. It smells good, too! (savoring its new book smell) It smells super good.

An important selling point! Tell us about the characters. 

There’s five main characters in the book. There’s obviously this guy (points to flying two-headed baby on cover), the logo for Double Fine, the Two Headed Baby. 2HB is just a silent kind of dude that hangs out. But he is very magnificent. And then there’s these two space men, the Captain and Thompson, the Muscleman, and Knight. Those are the main guys, those are the really good friends. And in here it shows how they met and became friends. And on the back of the book is all the other characters that you meet along the way, just falling. And it’s amazing; (talking to Caveman puppet) It’s so amazing.

What about your other characters in other comics? Igloo Head and Tree Head, for instance.

Oh yeah, in Flight comics 4 & 5, there’s igloo head and tree head, which is a dude with a igloo on his head and a dude with a tree on his head. And all their friends have other things on their heads. There’s tank head and teepee head, and canoe head… just different heads. And they all just have adventures together.

How does an idea like that come to you?

I think it’s just one of those things of hanging out and doodling. That’s the thing about coming up with ideas for [anything I do], [it comes from] drawing random stuff and writing notes, and just kind of free floating and seeing where it takes you. At some point probably I just drew an igloo and had a dude smiling under it, and it just looked funny. And after a while I thought, Oh man this’d be great, to have a whole bunch of these guys, and all the humans are still hanging out with them, but they don’t say anything! The humans are just kind of the side civilization.

Who do you consider your comrades, in terms of other artists you know, friends who keep you inspired?

My friend from school, Paul Allen, he’s probably one of my biggest inspirations. We’ve just been friends forever and I love his art style. So he’s always an inspiration to me. My friend Graham Annable who I do comics with, is really inspirational, and Nathan Stapley, and relatively new friend John Klassen is an amazing illustrator and Chris Appelhans and all those guys are just super-inspiring. And they’re all very driven, so they’re just some of the many people that I’ve met that I’m excited about.

Does their drive keep you driven?

Yeah! It makes it so great! That’s why that art group was going, and why Hickee kept on going, because it was a group of people. The group dynamic totally helps you create stuff; if I was on my own with it it’d probably be much more difficult. My friend Graham is so driven, he does these little movies on youtube called The Grickle Channel, those are amazing; and I love talking to him on the phone because we get each other all riled up and excited to do stuff. It just helps to know other people are doing it too. You’re not in a vacuum working on your stuff. I mean, I think that’s a [valid] technique too, but I think that’s better for me.

Who are your early childhood influences?

I think it was probably all the superheroes. I was really into Spiderman and Superman and I’d get those coloring books, and want to copy them. I traced them a lot, I cheated a lot. And Star Wars – just watching those cartoons got me into drawing. My mom had a lot of art books, too.

What do your parents think of what you do?

Oh, they think it’s great, man. My mom reads my comic every day, even when there’s no new one. That’s her way of keeping tabs on things. Both my parents, they’re awesome, they’re super, they’ve always been supportive — my mom’s always been supportive of art and stuff, she painted, she’s really crafty, she makes quilts now. They say they get a kick out of it.

How useful do you feel your formal education was?

I think everything that has led to being where I am right now has been super-useful. Anything and everything I learned in school was awesome. I learned the basics in drawing, being disciplined… But the main thing was meeting people; people who were really driven to do things, and after graduating, when you have no idea what to use your skills for – I had NO idea what to use my skills for — everyone went their separate ways but kept in touch… Everyone tries to help each other out, and you meet more people through them, and that’s probably the best thing.

Have you thought about doing animation? Have you done any?

No, but when I was a kid I made a lot of flip books. I used those Big Little Books, those little ones that are really thick? Somebody else had made one in there: it was a little circle with two wings, and every page is down, up, down, up, and it would just fly around and I’m like ‘This is amazing! It’s animation magic, and it’s just a circle and some lines!’ So I copied that, and then I started to try other things. But since then, no, I haven’t done much with animation. I love the idea, and I love making these guys [the puppets] move.

You should have a TV show.

Yeah! I’d love to! That would be awesome. It just like takes a lot of time and I don’t have a full amount of patience for animating, but… maybe.

You could get someone else to do that part for you.

Yeah, that’d be great! I’ve always wanted to, I’ve always loved to see my stuff move, and seeing it in the video games* has been really satisfying, but I’m really interested in [live action] stuff too. Seeing them move is incredibly satisfying, I think there’s a little extra imperfection, a little more reality in seeing these guys move in 3D. So I’d like to see these guys do something, have some adventures.

[*Scott also does art direction for Double Fine videogames.]

I wanted to ask you about your transition from 2D to 3D, with these puppets, and some of your rad 3D flyers for shows – the 8bit flyer that folded into an arcade, the rocket for your latest show…

I have to give credit [where it's due]: Jon Gibson had the idea for those awesome standup arcade games, I love ‘em, and then Ben at Nucleus thought of the idea for the rocket flyer and they’re amazing. I love making those things tangible. I’d love to get into that more. Russ Walko made these puppets and they are amazing! I mean, even just sitting here like this!

Did you meet them for the first time today?

A couple days ago. I’ve been spending some time with these guys. I mean, I wish this guy’s mouth would stay closed right now… (tries to close mummy’s mouth)

He thinks you’re fascinating. Or he’s sleeping, I can’t tell.

(Does impression of open-mouthed mummy puppet with accompanying noise amid laughter) But I kind of think with their mouth closed it’s a little more emotional, because he (points at close-mouthed Caveman) could just be thinking about something for a long period of time. Or this one (Knight)… He’s over what I’m saying. He’s so bored. I’m sorry, bro.

And after today, you’ve got a bunch of new storylines. Like, involving the rooster petting, the caveman’s death…*

The caveman’s death! (laughs) He was just exhausted. He had a long day of shooting. 

[*Caveman fell over during shooting. It was very dramatic.]

It looked pretty bad. Maybe they rushed him to the hospital.

Maybe they did. (addresses Caveman with concern) What happened, buddy? What were you trying to convey my friend? (met with silence) Okay, that’s cool. (back to us) Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of storylines to work with now. That rooster, definitely, I’m excited for him to be involved. These guys and their lives.

Yeah, I think for sure they need a show. I mean, what else are you gonna do with them?

I don’t know, hang out with them. I’ll ask them what they want to do. ‘Cause they’re kinda new, so they haven’t seen that much around the world. So, maybe back in New York I’ll take them to the Brooklyn Bridge; they can see that, maybe they can see the Empire State Building. They’ll like seeing those things.

What else do you have on the horizon, Scott C.? 

I’m participating in the 8-bit show in Berlin [Ich Bin 8-Bit, March 17-Apr 4]. In two months I’ll be part of a show at Gallery 1988 called Quiet Storm, that’s a three person show, so I’ll be back in L.A. for that. And a zodiac show [New Moon: Interpretations of the Chinese Zodiac, opens April 10th] at a place called My Plastic Heart in New York City.

• Check out Homeslice, online or in person up to March 23 in Alhambra, CA (just outside of LA).
• Scott’s blog
• Pre-order Scott’s new book, Double Fine Action Comics published by Nerdcore
• Scott’s daily (awesome) comic at DoubleFineActionComics.com 
  (Recent margin doodle: God and Creation of the Turkey: “Yeah, it was easy. I just traced my hand on this one.”)
• Ich Bin 8-Bit Show, Berlin 
• Gallery 1988, Los Angeles
• My Plastic Heart, New York City

Art by Scott C

An interview with acclaimed L.A. artist and brand-new gallery owner Peekaboo Monster, aka Damon Minaey 

Photography by Love Ablan / Interview by Jen Zern

“There’s an art to it,” Peekaboo insists, only he’s not talking about painting. He’s talking about launching a bucketful of water clear across the room.
 

The room is actually his new Echo Park art gallery, Ronin, and in it we’re attempting to recreate Dalí Atomicus, the famous Salvador Dalí portrait by Philippe Halsman. In the photo, the artist, a chair, a trio of cats, a sheet of water and two easels appear to be suspended in mid-air. Obviously Peeka, who rocks a Dalí-esque curlicue ’stache daily, is the star of this modern update. Co-star, if you count Genghis and Mr. Magoo.

Partly to avoid the wrath of the ASPCA, and partly because we’re not assholes, we’ve taken separate low-to-the-ground jump shots of his two beloved dogs that we’ll superimpose later. But the snakelike water stream can’t be so easily cheated, and despite the fact that we’re flooding his brand new floors a week before his gallery opens, Peekaboo is determined to help us nail the shot.

It’s pretty clear that this level of commitment pervades everything he does. From his artwork to his gallery venture to his affection for his four-legged friends, Peekaboo Monster gives it his all.

Born in Iran and raised in the midwest (Chicago, Denver and Billings, Montana, respectively) Peeka, who also answers to Damon Minaey, broke out in Seattle with his bright, playful, delirious visions come to life, the “Peekaboo Monsters”. Now he’s taking the L.A. scene by storm.

After the shoot, once we got him to quit mopping his floor for us, we asked him a few questions.

You mentioned Dalí as an inspiration, plus you’re rockin’ that Dalí ’stache. How do you feel your work relates to his, or to surrealism in general?

I dont know if my work relates to his, I moreso look up to how he twisted reality and gave you a crazy way to look at things. Plus, I like to hear about how he was an odd character, and how that paralleled his art in a crazy way.

Who were your earliest influences?

Basically, Saturday morning cartoons and cereal boxes… things that entertained me as a kid. I was kind of a latchkey kid because my mom worked a lot, so I never really saw her until 9 o’clock. So I watched a lot of TV, a lot of cartoons and that kind of pop cartoony imagery stayed with me. I do this to stay five, basically, forever.

Were you always drawing as a child?

Yeah. I didn’t do my homework, I would just draw on it; doodle around it… It was hard to keep my attention with math and science and stuff. But I think every kid loves to draw — I think everybody instinctively loves to draw, but as you get older you get more self-conscious about what you’re doing and how people perceive it; it jades that artistic part of [us]. I think everyone wants to be artistic and express themselves like that because it’s raw and primitive and you don’t need to read or write in order to do it.

I never thought I could be an artist and make a living at it. It was always a daydream at the back of my mind… It’s interesting to see where things go when you’re not expecting them to go there.

How would you describe your style?

People always ask me that. ‘What kind of art do you do?’ I guess you could call it cartoon pop surrealism… lowbrow… I don’t know, there are so many different definitions. I think it’s up to critics and fans to put a label on it. I don’t like putting myself in a box like that, because I really just like to paint, and I try to become a better painter every day, and if my style changes [I want to have that freedom]. 

What made you want to open a gallery?

I didn’t want to waste the money I made as an artist, money comes and goes so much that it’s gonna get spent regardless, it was just a matter of what I was gonna spend it on. I found this spot and I thought it would be a good thing to do. And I thought if I could provide artists with a space run by an artist, it might suit them better. Most galleries do a 50/50 split, that’s standard… but I always felt that the artists did most of the work. I really feel it’s the soul of the artist who makes you your money as a gallery. So I think they should get a little bit more of the pie than you do. I really want to be able to give artists a spot to be as open and free as they want, make it an easy experience for them, and to give them representation that’s not a clothing store or restaurant or bar or toy store… it’s a gallery, for you to be taken seriously, with nothing to distract you to buy something else, just: Come and see the work. ‘Cause we want to be taken seriously, even though it seems a little bit kiddish or fun or whatever, I know a lot of us work really hard and we deserve to be taken seriously for that. 

I know a lot of amazing artists and if they can get legitimate representation in Los Angeles, I don’t see why they couldn’t be a little bit more successful. I want to help my friends live off of what they love to do.

Why the name ‘Ronin’?

‘Ronin’ is a term for a rogue samurai, not under the rule of the shogun anymore. There’s such a strict code of what you can and can’t do as a samurai, a caste system of power, but when you become ronin, an assassin for hire, you’re seen as an outcast. I feel like my friends and I take that risk. We go out there to be seen as crazy or ridiculous or bummy, but we’re doing this because we have this trade and we don’t know anything else. That mentality is what I want to do with this gallery. I don’t care what anybody thinks, I’ve got a real fuck you attitude about it right now, I don’t care what you think about it as far as it should be run. The taboos or stigmas don’t apply, so we’re gonna do it and do it the best we can, and just be happy we’re able to eat off of it at the end of the day. 

Who are your favorite artists right now?

I’m always highly influenced by my friends and the people I work with, ’cause if I were to absorb off of anybody, I would rather it be them. Maybe if you asked me this six, seven years ago I probably would have listed off someone you know. But I’ve said this before, my friend Ego, who I’ll be showing in April — watching him paint recently was really awesome, because he puts so much time and detail into his work. I tend to rush things a little bit… I guess I appreciate the things I can’t do.

I like Mr. Jago from the U.K., his new stuff is really impressive to me… My friends, the people I’m surrounded by. I really like all those Project kids, they’re really doing it, Tessar [Lo], Yoskay [Yamamato], Edwin [Ushiro], Scott [Belcastro]… all those guys are super-talented and it’s awesome that they’re all a tight unit. It’s kind of cool to see because as these Pockets we all stick together and it’s cool to see a super-talented group of people doing that and all progressing together. It’s awesome. It’s inspiring to see my friends doing well, because it makes me want to do well too. It doesn’t keep things out of reach. When you focus on people you don’t know it seems like they’re a rock star or something… [their success] feels harder to achieve.

Tell me about the opening show.

It’s called “Cowboys and Samurais”. I’ve always liked the parallels between the two, they’re very similar. Their sense of loyalty and ethics are kind of the same. Live by the sword, die by the sword; live by the gun, die by the gun… I chose about 23 artists for the show, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they interpret the theme. I’ve seen a couple of the pieces so far, and I think it’ll be a good show. 

You have a tattoo on your chest that reads “EAT YOUR YOUNG”. Why do you want us to eat our young? And should we be worried about Genghis and Mr. Magoo?

[Laughs] ‘Eatyouryoung’ is a motto that kinda means the opposite. I feel like people have this “eatyouryoung” mentality: an animal side that feels threatened by new and young things and ideas, and instead of supporting it, they would rather fuck it up and watch it die. It’s like a reminder not to grow up too much and to see new ideas as refreshing ones. Genghis and Magoo are safe… If you don’t include how I toss them in the air for camera flicks! [laughs]*

*We swear no Genghises or Magoos were harmed in the making of this interview. 

Speaking of Genghis and Mr. Magoo, when will they be painted as little Peekaboo Monsters?

Ha, well, I’ve had G-money for like two years, so he has popped up in stuff… We painted the whole floor at Spike Studios out in Santa Monica (with Woes** and Food One) and I snuck a Genghis head in there! Magoo is new to the fam-bam so I’m sure we’ll see more of his wrinkly butt face in stuff!

**Woes = Angstwoebots

Cowboys and Samurai opens Friday February 27, 2009
The Ronin Gallery
1924 Echo Park Avenue
Los Angeles, CA
Phone # 323-284-8782

• Peekaboo Monster
• The Ronin Gallery, Los Angeles

Zdravstvuite, comrades and droogs!

The letters from the editors shall be posted here shortly. In the meantime, enjoy the dossier interviews. 

From COMRADE Magazine with love…

The devotchkas,
Luba & Jenlena