Artist Spotlight: James Collier

Art by James Collier

Enter the world of James Collier, one filled with birds in suits on their ways to work, night time walks and industrial environments slowly becoming overtaken by nature.

We chatted with James over email to learn more about his creative practice and inspirations. If you find yourself wanting some work of his for your own, you can DM him on Instagram.

Art by James Collier

Also Cool Mag: How did you get into making visual art? What mediums do you use most often?

James Collier: Drawing and cartooning have almost always been part of my life. I learned how to read from Carl Barks' Donald Duck comics and grew up drawing all the time. My dad is a great cartoonist, and there were always comic books around which I would consume voraciously. I never really questioned art-making as a kid and thought making comics and drawing was just an intrinsic part of life, a way of making sense of the world. I stopped drawing altogether for a while though, and it wasn't until age 18 or 19, after a particularly bad mental health episode, that I picked it up again.

Mediums are pencil, ink, paper. Most of it is done in various notebooks with cheap pens or graphite on Stonehenge paper when at home. Though drawing is the most accessible, both cost and space-wise right now, I'd like to explore printmaking more in the near future.

Art by James Collier

Also Cool: What kind of work and aesthetics were you interested in early in your creative practice? What inspires you now?

JC: Again, Carl Barks was a big one. There are a lot of people like Milt Gross and E.C. Segar who were/are big influences. Julie Doucet is continually inspiring – I can't wait for her new book, coming out in the spring.

I'm looking at the printmaking work of people like K the Kollwitz and James Ensor a lot these days. Herge, Joost Swarte, E.S. Glenn. The comics and drawings of Walker Tate as well. The comics and zines of U.K.-based artist Michael Kennedy are very inspiring. I've started looking at Walt Kelly again. I really like Charles Burchfield's paintings. I've also been looking at photographers such as André Kertész and Alfred Stieglitz.

Art by James Collier

AC: Where did you grow up? How did your upbringing shape your ideas about art and design?

JC: I grew up in Hamilton, Ontario. Hamilton is a city known for steel manufacturing. It's pretty grey, generally. Plenty of abandoned vacant lots, which I've gone back and drawn. There were also hidden bits of nature that you could get away to. There was an overgrown area known to my family as the "secret spot" that you could get to by canoe, as it was across the Hamilton Bay. I spent a lot of time reading and drawing there. There were also people around that you could collaborate with. My first printed work was with a local kid on my block, where we created a small photocopied zine entitled "The Guy who Never Returned" at age six. I don't remember what was in it, but we went around selling it on the street.

Art by James Collier

AC: How has your personal style developed over time? Can you tell us a bit about your bird characters?

JC: It's just the result of continually drawing in sketchbooks. It's a subconscious development, so it just changes incrementally over time. It's hard to track development. 

As for the bird characters, while working as a window washer, I would be very tired at the end of the day and barely have time to make a few doodles and scribbles before bed. The birds emerged in my sketchbook one night while fatigued, and I've kept drawing them since. Related to this, I'm working on a comic right now about a duck with insomnia.

AC: Tell us a bit about the creative communities you've connected with and any artists/projects within them who inspire you.

JC: I'm lucky that I currently live around many talented artists. Being able to show things to people around you helps with not becoming disillusioned. I've found creative communities even in the world of minimum-wage work. When I was working at Metro Food Inc., as a greeter during the height of the pandemic, I had many discussions with the security guard about old animation and art history. Right now, I work at an art supply store with nice people who are very encouraging when I show them drawings.

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James Collier is a cartoonist and visual artist originally from Hamilton, Ontario and currently living in Montréal, Quebec.

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Artist Spotlight: Sophie El Assaad

Hello, and welcome to a small walk-through of the world of Sophie El Assaad.

Sophie is an award-winning designer, director, and theatre-maker, and she cannot help but ooze her lovely sweet creative aura. I would describe her energy as a light fluffy mist that may crack with a low rumble or quick flash of lightning. 

With her company, Theatre Nuaj, she has developed the project Black Balloon in many iterations: live outdoors in Centaur Theatre’s Portico Project late 2020, as Leila, a short film presented at Centaur Theatre’s 2021 Wildside Festival, and through multiple residencies.

This interview was held over two sessions with the intent to give a non-linear progression and experience of Sophie’s thoughts and world through visuals, direct quotes, as well as some snippets of her work or inspiration.

Sophie has curated a playlist here, that I would encourage you to listen to as you read through.

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Segment from experimental video ( Sophie El Assaad, circa 2014)

I thought about this word yesterday.
[ Underbelly ]

Maybe I should have used it when describing themes I like to work with artistically; the hidden violent side that exists in people.

“For my birthday, my dad got me a cake, my mum got me a cake, and my sister got me a cake. It was perfect.”

On working in residency on Black Balloon:

In the past, I approached work via building a very solid core and working my way out of it, but what my last creation residency has done (working with dancers and movement actors) was it allowed me to be use impulse and intuition, working from the outside in, and discovering what that means afterward — the whole process of trusting the work and the process has been super interesting — very scary and always kept me on my toes, but, in the end, amounted to something reliant on body and emotions rather than intellectuality.

I really like involving artists that don’t necessarily specialize in the medium, who can contribute to the piece in unexpected ways and teach me. I just love surprises. The actor who played Leila (Maria Marsli) was not an actor before we worked together, for example.

Segment from Sophie El Assaad’s video Leila, shown at the Centaur Theatre’s Wildside Festival in 2021 ( This process is made possible by the support from the Government of Québec and the City of Montréal as part of l’Entente sur le développement culturel de Montréal, and from the Canada Council for the Arts)

Sometimes in film, I think that theatricality is lost because you have the liberty to take many takes to get it exactly how you want and perfect it. Filming a mistake rather than having to start again could be a form of theatricality in video that I am interested in exploring. Those moments really drive me - those moments of live, unpredictable human behaviour, mistakes.

I really love paying attention to the little details that happen in the in between space — the micro moments before going into action. Observing that – it’s so beautiful when you can see it and take the time to watch the brain processing and how it translates through the body.

It’s been amazing to shift my process upside down and give more control to other artists involved in my process- it’s liberating and collaborative! It leaves a lot of room for surprise and the unpredictable.

The photo was taken by Sophie El Assaad of Chadia Kikondjo for the project Black Balloon: Portico Project. 2020

An important image for Black Balloon was the moon. There’s a theory that the moon was created by a collision that happened between the earth and another planet and all the debris that was created from the collision that was floating around the orbit of the earth came together through gravity to form the moon. So it was through destruction that this essential part of our world was created.

“I’ve always wanted to be the kind of person to memorize poetry and say it to someone in the right moment.”

On decolonizing work and family history:

I am trying to decolonize my work by doing a lot more research into my own culture and bringing that into the process. I’m Lebanese, and I grew up in Bahrain, but I find I am very Western in how I was brought up; my mum is British, and I went to Western schools. So everything I learned in terms of history and art is from a Western perspective. So I’m going through this process right now — it’s kind of like an identity crisis or rebirth — of rediscovering my father, his culture and baggage, through my art. In a way, it feels like the longer I am physically away from my Middle Eastern roots, the more I try to get closer to it through my work. There is an invisible thread tying me to the sea, the sounds of street cats and the call to prayers, the salt in the air, the sand and the rocky desert. It’s like a past life that I constantly mourn. Even though I love my current life and probably wouldn’t move back, there is a certain void.

Image of my paternal ancestors. My grandmother is the young girl between the man and woman.

My dad shows his love through cooking. Every Sunday, my dad cooks and my sister and I go and spend time with the family (as much as we can). He actively plans his weekend around what he is going to cook for us. It’s a great way to bring me back to my past living in Bahrain, or summers spent in Beirut with family, because he mostly cooks Lebanese food (even though my mum’s British palette doesn’t always leap for joy at it). He’s a very silent man and there's a lot about him that I find very mysterious. Sometimes it’s hard to connect. That’s kind of why I feel driven to researching and creating through my ancestral culture. It’s also a way for me to connect with and rediscover my dad.

Image of a broken mirror (photo by Sophie El Assaad)

Something that has been inspiring me lately are the traces of life that you can find in dead material. I am obsessed! An example would be a shattered mirror – it holds the traces of the action in its appearance. It has so much energy locked into its absolute stillness.

Flayed Man Holding a Dagger and His Skin, From Juan Valverde de Amusco, Anatomia del corpo humano, 1560

Some of my favourite ways of working costumes are when I can put a lot of energy or emotion into a fabric – new fabric (especially when it is machine made) is “dead”, but the more you manipulate it, the more it absorbs your energy and holds traces of that love or hate – like human skin. You can often tell the kind of life a person has had from their skin and it’s the same with material. If you give love to material, you can see it. And I try to put that into consideration as much as possible when I’m thinking of design and how I treat my materials. They’ll share their life story with anyone who’ll pay attention, using their own unique language.

I love the body. That’s why I love theatre, performance and dance. There is something I am really drawn to in certain art – it’s this primal connection that, as humans, we tend to neglect or actively conceal in our daily lives. I love to see the body do things that I don’t get to see in my daily life because it’s a part of my being that I don’t really get to explore. Witnessing our primal side, or the animal within us, is cathartic for me. There is a violence inside all of us that I think is dormant but easily awoken. We see it in times of war, or political hysteria.

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“There is a secret part of me that I would really love to have more opportunity to explore – my clown.”

When I say clown, I mean a weird creepy out of control thing. I have this clown that I only present to some people. I don’t know what their name is yet, but she’s a troll. She comes out sometimes when I am in a special mood.

Self-portrait of one of my inner trolls. 2022

When I get into my clown, it just happens naturally and not very often – it’s funny, talking about it makes it sound as though it’s a real thing that is developed, but I have only recently discovered her. She comes out when I say something mean or that I consider unreasonable (or when I get exaggeratedly emotional/passionate) – “ah there she is! The troll is out”. It’s my way of coping with my inner animal.

I don’t know if stories belong to anybody – it’s not necessarily about where a person is from or what they have personally experienced, but how a story is told. I definitely think that if someone wants to talk about an experience or an identity that isn’t theirs, they need to make sure they work with people who have that experience or identity, to make sure the story is developed in an informed way. It is important to have that authentic perspective.

I think artists need to be accountable for how they represent people, especially if those people are marginalised in society and already have that weight to carry. There is an ethical question to ask about whether you are profiting from a situation that misrepresents others. I think there is great responsibility that comes with the privilege of being an artist who is given a public platform.

Unfinished painting of a horse by Sophie El Assaad

Image from a workshop of a creation piece by Sophie El Assaad ,2022. Lighting designed by Zoe Roux and modeled by Nasim Lootij.

Image from Sophie El Assaad’s video Leila, shown at the Centaur Theatre’s Wildside Festival in 2021 (Chadia Kikondjo as Mother Moon; This process is made possible by the support from the Government of Québec and the City of Montréal as part of l’Entente sur le développement culturel de Montréal, and from the Canada Council for the Arts)

On process:

I saw a lot of my early work as internships – there wouldn’t be a lot of budget or pay, but what I did get was experience and a platform, so I saw those as my opportunities to go all out and take risks (I also chose projects that really inspired me, so it fueled me in other ways than just financial). For me, the extra time put into the work was worth it. I don’t know if it’s what I would recommend to others, but it’s what I did to get my career started.

Costumes designed by Sophie El Assaad for the show Jonathan Livingston: A Seagull Parable, (Surreal SoReal/ Geordie Theatre, photo by Marie Andrée Lemire)

“If I have an idea I think, ‘Can I do it? Maybe not, but why not try and see what happens?’”

Mask created by Sophie El Assaad for the band Fleece for album Stunning and Atrocious in 2021. Photograph by Cameron Mitchell, Styling by Kayleigh Choiniere, Clothes by Lucas Stowe and modeled by Owen.

“I would also love to make a play about pigeons. Write a play, or ask someone to write a play and just have giant pigeons having a conversation.”

My pigeon friends Pin Pin and Smithy (the ones that live on my building, that I feed) – they’ve started this repetitive occurrence. Every morning they have a choir session. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard pigeons but they gather so close to my windows and it’s a cacophony of chirps and bubbles. It is so beautiful.

I have a fascination with birds. I love seeing little sparrows in the winter when they’re in the bushes — because they look like leaves but then they move around — so it becomes a sort of like, magical and alive bush.

I think recording rehearsals can be useful in my future projects – seeing how accidents can become pieces in themselves. But I also see it as a way of approaching the process. For example, what would happen if you filmed something, like a small gesture, edited it on video to slow down or twitch it, then brought it back into rehearsal. Being influenced by the technology and what that offers and finding how it can bring meaning is something I want to experiment with. I think it could bring unexpected approaches to movement and performance. Video is like a second pair of eyes, noticing the little details you can’t capture during a rehearsal. 

“There is something about the early rehearsal process, the magic that comes during improv. Because it’s live and in the moment — it’s so raw and unrehearsed, completely reliant on intuition — it’s truly magic.”

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Sophie El Assaad

Holly Hilts is a core member of Also Cool. She is a maker of things: theatre sets, jewelry and websites, currently based in Montreal.

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Artist Spotlight: Henry Hu

whitesink by Henry Hu (inkjet print on cotton rag 24 x 16 cm) from passing parade, 2019 (10/10)

How do you decide to go from civil engineering to making a career for yourself as a visual artist? How do you know when it’s the right time to trust your intuition, and make that major life change that you need? For Henry Hu, these kinds of decisions have shaped his journey to becoming a full-time visual artist.

Exercising through various mediums, Henry Hu's (born 1995 Hong Kong) emerging practice commits to an infusion. An exchange. An immediacy. A link between the interior and the exterior — of a self, a being, an identity, a consciousness. 

Each individual series offers an overarching narrative, steps away from the present for a spell: tasked with casting new perspectives, fresh air to breathe, a spiritual relief. Often juxtaposing the past with the future, differing forms of surrealistic fantasies unfold across his works; along with a recurring structure, the heart of all series rests in harmony.

To be presented in dialogue with one another, all proposing works speak to the different natures of human existence, the quiet, the chaotic, those hushed periods, and at times the buzzing bangs.

Earlier this summer, we spoke to Henry about his work, travels, and how he decided to switch from civil engineering to visual art.

airydust by Henry Hu (inkjet print on cotton rag 24 x 16 cm) from passing parade, 2019 (4/10)

Malaika Astorga for Also Cool: Let's start at the beginning. Has your creative practice always been a part of your life? How has it changed over time?

Henry Hu: No, not at all -- growing up, on no occasion was I engaged in anything creative, I suppose I just didn't particularly care for it. Looking back, I was nonchalant. My younger self was rather indifferent; nothing at school piqued my interest, and I never really paid much attention or even had the ambition to achieve anything. Quite honestly, I was just sort of present, unoccupied, existing really, that's all. Not once did it cross my mind, the desire to devote myself. But I did enjoy movies; that was the one childhood obsession that persisted over the years. 

It wasn't until at university, shortly after I started a degree in civil engineering that it didn't seem worthwhile. Still, I didn't dare to picture a future in a creative line of work. Then, it all came about ... a realization. I acted on an impulse, and from there, my inclination to pursue arts and film quickly hardened into determination. 

I began doing small series of digital arts, both static and motion works. It made sense for me spatially, didn't cost a lot, only a computer was needed. Meanwhile, I buried myself in films, day in, day out, revisiting different eras of past cinema. Eventually, the works from directors like Antonioni, Éric Rohmer, Víctor Erice, Edward Yang, Kieślowski, Woody Allen stood out and entirely broadened, reshaped my perception of films. It was then when I started to write. Straightway I recognized the familiarity; it was comfortable. I was at ease and was confident that films would be my primary outlet. I also registered that it would be a long road ahead before I could actualize my screenplays. 

Anyhow, I kept on with the visual works, trying out various mediums. Graphics, art books, photographs, and a little later, mixed media initiated the urge to coexist physical and digital arts. Until then, I had been utilizing solely digital tools, so it was essentially the desire to do something concrete, dynamic, and perhaps on a larger scale. With that in mind, I made new sets of digital artworks, specifically for print, onto numerous fabrics, surfaces -- eager to see how they would interact with raw materials: acrylics, spray paints, threads, modelling doughs. Trials and errors charted the progress, noting the little details. The end result was a plunge into maximalism, a playful flux of colour. But still, traces of everything pre-existed. 

It is merely fortuitous that this new direction, quite the polar opposite, from the films I have envisioned, which are all very hushed and quiet, muted tones. Nonetheless, it is a nice balance, separating the two mediums.

Selected work from night dot surrender by Henry Hu (2020)

Also Cool: You've lived in so many incredible cultural hubs. Can you tell us a bit about each one and what your experience was like there?

Henry: I was raised in Hong Kong, up north. I had a pleasant childhood and had many uneventful years of growth. I wouldn't have appreciated it then, but it is a time now I feel very fond of. My parents took us hiking quite often, surprisingly. For such a small city, Hong Kong has a wide-ranging of walking trails and mountains. Nature, I think, the fields, the woods, spring, winter, the clouds overhead, the streams beneath, they are gifts for a child. 

At fourteen, I started attending a boarding school in Queensland, Australia. There was a drastic shift in environment, to say the least, but frankly, there wasn't much to take away; they were good years. And the changes were all surface level, however significant they might seem first. 

Following high school, I moved to Sydney for university, and, well, that's that. To be fair, I never did feel deeply rooted in any particular place, culture -- but I am awfully glad for the experiences. It is what it is.

Selected work from night dot surrender by Henry Hu (2020)

AC: You switched out of a degree in civil engineering and instead developed your passion for art and film. What was that process like? How did you learn to trust your intuition in that way?

H: It was months of dissonance and dread. A turbulent time for me, so to speak. The loss of a dear friend. Riddled with unrest, unsettled. I turned inward. It wasn't very dramatic, and it didn't happen overnight. But once I went forward with the visual works and writings, I realized that I belonged. That was it. 

Strangely enough, it was then that I saw myself coming into being for the first time. I suppose you have to narrow yourself to a point, for better or worse. Staying truthful, being mindful, what to do, what not to do, within reason. The ring of authenticity. It is difficult to hold the line, and it is difficult to stay true, but it is very fulfilling to the spirit. Having reached an understanding, of sorts, to yourself. 

Now I tend to believe there wasn't actually any underlying cause -- obviously, the events that occurred factored in. Everything factored in. And yet, sometimes, it's just meant to be. When I discontinued the degree, it was liberating. I never gave it a thought other than to be sort of pleased. I wasn't at all seeking validation; I just got on with it. So it was, more or less, the willingness to accept, to really heed your own thoughts and feelings. They can be very telling. All things considered, I am grateful, at that very moment, the external circumstances allowed me to proceed, to an extent. I was granted the privilege to move forward, so it was fortunate for me, I guess. 

In the end, it also just boils down, instead of letting the decisions be governed by fear -- simply, a leap of faith. Not necessarily any grand expectations. More so, a belief, the self-assurance that it was the right path -- I, myself, made the conscious decision to commit, with that, whatever happens, happens … and, that's okay.

motor by Henry Hu (inkjet print on cotton rag 24 x 16 cm) from passing parade, 2019 (5/10)

AC: What's the creative scene like where you are right now? What do you like about it, and what do you wish there was more of?

H: Earlier in the year, I had the opportunity to assist with indie films around Sydney. It was educative to spend time on set, to be observant. All around, it was delightful. As far as visual arts, well, in truth, I don't really know … Everybody does it differently. There are no rules. I had always intended to make some things on my own before branching out, connecting, and sharing. And so I did; I stayed underground, gave myself the time and space to work. But I am sure it's a very interesting scene out there, and now I look forward to getting more involved.

it hangs by Henry Hu (inkjet print on cotton rag 24 x 16 cm) from passing parade, 2019 (8/10)

AC: I'm interested in how you incorporate sequencing into your work. Can you expand on this?

H: From the beginning, my approach was to develop full bodies of work, no matter the medium. For the most part, especially with the photographs and digital stuff, once I feel I have enough materials. I take a few days, occasionally a few weeks off, a clearing. Afterwards, I come back, work on the sequencing, and finish off. This was a process that emerged incidentally. Now I do it on purpose. 

With the mixed media works, it was somewhat different. I had all the pieces visualized, sketched out before getting hands-on with the paints. I was attentive, more meticulous, and deliberate with the materials and structures -- how this particular piece should close out the series or how this colour won't work unless applied to that specific texture. I did put in extra precision and clarity -- constructing, rearranging, bits here, pieces there. It was a new thing for me; I had no prior knowledge of paints. I thought if I were to do this, I might as well do it the way that felt most organic. I listen to music when I work. My mind would have been filled with second-hand rhythms and tempos, ingrained with a given flow, pacing of things. After all, it is instinctive. Now and then, things naturally align. They seem genuine and sincere. I will just leave it at that. It would be very unwise to fight against it.

let in by Henry Hu (inkjet print on cotton rag 24 x 16 cm) from passing parade, 2019 (6/10)

AC: Who are some artists/creatives that are really inspiring you right now? (feel free to shout out friends)

H: I have been reading, re-reading a bunch lately. Sylvia Plath, her journals are something I return to regularly. Anne Truitt, who was known for her sculptures, but her writings are very stimulating to me. They are well worth the read. 

With films, this young Chinese writer-director Bi Gan, his works are precious, I highly await whatever he does next. 

Current music excites me a great deal. Mount Eerie, Julia Holter, Beach House, Weyes Blood, Florist, Perfume Genius, Car Seat Headrest, Let's Eat Grandma, James Blake, Tomberlin, Jockstrap, Laura Marling, Snail Mail. This year only, new records from Dry Cleaning, Vince Staples, Wolf Alice, Black Country New Road, Julien Baker. It's just joyful to have so much I could anticipate all the time. It's a good feeling. And also, Helena Deland, I came across her debut last year, been playing it ever since. (A nice surprise to see there's an interview piece with her on Also Cool!)

AC: What are you hoping to do more of in 2021, both creatively and career-wise?

H: Sydney is in lockdown at the moment. A chance to entertain new ideas. It's been productive. Did some digital art stuff. Continuing with the screenplays, visual references and research, all that. Just getting on, really -- I don't know how it's all going to pan out, but I am satisfied, the journey so far, I guess we will see.

Henry Hu

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Malaika Astorga is the co-founder of Also Cool. She is a Mexican-Canadian visual artist, writer, and social media strategist currently based in Montreal.

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Artist Spotlight: Camila Gaza Manly / @lysvonasta

Camila Gaza Manly. Photo courtesy of Kitty Evans, styling by Céline Blais.

Looking for an extra touch of magic to brighten up your home – literally? Montreal-based lighting designer Camila Gaza Manly has made it her mission to blend artistry with functionality through her lighting collection known as Lys von Asta. Her craftsmanship maintains a strong sense of curiosity, producing ethereal light sculptures that truly shine.

Through comforting clouds of meringue and cheeky expressions of novelty, Camila’s work proves that it is possible to add whimsy to everyday needs and spaces. In exploring her work, I realize the deep symbolism of lamps in the home. Our spaces can be a reflection of ourselves, offering representations of our tastes and values. While lighting may be broadly used to reveal other decor, lamps themselves can – and should – be works of art.

Scroll on to read my delightful conversation with Camila, peppered with creative influences and reflections on her artistic growth. Take a look around your space, and imagine what more it could be.

The lamps of Lys von Asta. Photo courtesy of Kitty Evans.

Rebecca L. Judd for Also Cool: Hi there Camila, thank you for taking the time to speak with me! I’m so curious about you and your art, and I know our readers are too.

To get started, I would love to know more about your creative background. How did you first emerge as an artist, and as a lighting designer more specifically?

Camila Gaza Manly: I would say both go back pretty far in my life. I grew up on Vancouver Island in BC, so I had a very rural upbringing – surrounded by nature, going to the ocean and camping…  I also went to Waldorf school, which was a big early influence on my development artistically. So when it comes to my artistic style and early background, [those things] are a strong foundation that I still draw from a lot now. 

Both sides of my family are very artistic – my mom’s side is German, and she’s an artist. Both her parents were artists. My whole family [were] painters and sculptors, it’s probably in my blood or something (laughs). My dad's side is half Danish with lots of wood workers, and he's a musician. [His family] had farms and were always working with their hands and being artistic.

I came up with the name for my project during lockdown when I was thinking about my family a lot. ‘Lys’ is the general word for ‘light’ in Danish. It can also be used to mean ‘lamp’ and ‘candle’. ‘von’ means ‘from’ in German, and is part of my mother’s maiden name that I didn’t receive. And ‘Asta’ was my great grandmother's name on my Danish side. I never met her, but have always felt very connected to her. We share petite stature and certain characteristics. She raised twelve children on a farm and lived until the age of 96. She has always been a great source of strength for me. ‘Light from Asta’ is where my heritage and aspirations meet.

When it comes to [transitioning into] lamps, that also started around the same time [in life]. At Waldorf school, my teacher really didn’t like the overhead fluorescent lighting in our classroom. She would turn them off and bring in her own lamps – I think we had about 12 different lamps in the classroom instead of the overhead lighting. I got used to that softer light work environment – I think it might make a lot of people feel less motivated, but I work well in comforting lighting. [Our class] would also do lantern walks, which were outside in the autumn, and we would make our own lanterns. That would be my earliest lamp-making experience. 

I was also lucky enough to work on large-scale lantern festivals with my mom's sister, which is something she did regularly during her illustrious career. My favourite [festival] was the Dark Sky Festival in Jasper. It was an astronomy-based festival, as [Jasper] does not have a lot of light pollution. They had Chris Hadfield talk, and kids could come and see the night sky from cool places. We did a nature walk and we had giant mushroom lamps and little dioramas with space scene backgrounds. It was so magical to create that little walk through the forest.

Also Cool: That's such a tender memory to hold close. [Lamp making] becomes a testament to your growth as a person. It [must be] a really nice constant to have in your life. 

Camila Gaza Manly: I think that’s a good way to put it! It has felt a lot like a constant. My family always had nice lamps, my school always had nice lamps, [and then] transitioning to high school and university was quite different – partly just because of the lighting. 

AC: Right, there are so many reasons why you’d want to create art that’s not only beautiful to look at, but very livable. 
What does it mean to you to produce art through this specific medium? Why does lamp artistry feel like the right outlet for you?

CGM: It kind of feels like it’s my own canvas. I’ve always painted and drawn and worked in wood and sculpted a little bit, but creating something that’s more of a functional sculpture… somehow, it feels more true to who I am. If I just have a canvas or a piece of paper… it’s two-dimensional. I would say the three-dimensional aspect is very big for me right now. 

I finished my degree last year, during the pandemic, in linguistics and philosophy. So [another] part of it too is just that I have been burnt out since finishing school, [but] returning to earlier influences and inspirations has been really inspiring. [These influences] keep feeding off of each other – when I was doing my [100 Days of Creative Prototyping] project, I had all these ideas to begin with, but the more that I would do them, the more they would come, tenfold, all the time. I think it was that daily practice, where even when I didn’t want to do it, I forced myself to do it.

AC: You briefly mentioned your background in linguistics and philosophy. To be in the arts community and not enter it by way of [formal university] training … I’m curious to know how you think that affects or enhances your art.

CGM: On the business side, it gives me a strong foundation to organize things. I was really involved in the linguistics community, so I got a lot of experience managing and organizing events. 

I feel really happy that I did the degree I did, even though right now I’m pursuing something totally different. Before I studied linguistics, I was studying French – just to live in [Montreal] – and that’s how I found out about the linguistics program. [Even] before that, my plan was to go to school and study industrial design, because I wanted to make lamps.

But had I done that, I wouldn’t be making the lamps I’m making now. I'm sure I would be making cool stuff, but I feel glad that it happened the way it did – now I'm making things that are completely out of my own head and sometimes they're pretty funky and weird.

I’ve had friends who’ve gone to art school and sometimes I was envious of the ability to just go to a studio and take that time off of thinking and writing papers. I wanted to take some elective classes but it’s hard to do that. But seeing my friends go through formal art training, I feel like it’s really limiting in a lot of ways. You learn a lot, but I think some people lose their personal creative [touch]. 

AC: You need to think about it, too, through a lens of “transferable skills” and thinking about what it is you bring to the table. It's intimidating to consider the inaccessibility of certain resources, by virtue of not studying [your craft]. But it's also really exciting to think about “okay, how can I turn it around?”

CGM: I think it also created a necessity for me to return to making things with my hands. I love academics, but I’ve always needed that balance. It’s so refreshing to engross myself in a project where I don’t need to go “X, Y, Z…”

The lamps of Lys von Asta. Photo courtesy of Kitty Evans, styling by Céline Blais.

AC: Looking at lamp artistry as its own specific field within fine arts and design, what does the arts community for this kind of creativity look like, and how have you participated or interacted with it?

CGM: [I interact] definitely through inspiration and influences… like Isamu Noguchi, who made the Akari light sculptures in the same timeline as mid-century modern furniture. He modernized a traditional approach – he [used] a lot of traditional Japanese craftsmanship to make them. I think I love [his designs] because they are such a beautiful mix between the old and the new. I am attracted to where those [styles] meet – there’s a lot of lighting nowadays that is very cold and corporate-feeling, so I have a desire to see more soft and organic lighting on the market.

Besides Noguchi, I am also inspired by Danish mid-century style... Mads Caprani and Le Klint. There’s a traditional blend of a wood frame within a pleated paper lampshade. Those are also influences.

When I first started making [my lamps] during my project, I kept feeling like I needed to search out other small lighting companies. It is great to connect with them – I have found some cool accounts on Instagram and Pinterest or different places on the Internet. But I think it’s also just been refreshing to connect with artists from all different disciplines who are taking their craftsmanship and putting a personal twist on it. It feels really welcoming to connect with people like that, even if we are not making the same thing.

AC: That’s awesome – and going back to what we were talking about with versatility, it’s this thought of “perhaps I specialize in this one thing, but that doesn't mean I can't connect with other fields and other ways of doing and thinking”. It’s also good to get in touch with nostalgia and connect with fundamental creators.

CGM: I think, because I'm making the prototypes completely by hand, I feel more inspired by other people who are also making everything by hand… whereas a lot of lighting nowadays is industrial and mass-produced, and I feel that there are some pretty cool designs, but there’s something lost between creating a prototype and getting a factory to make it.

AC: Are there any creative influences that you have held close over time?

CGM: Yes! There’s a hat designer based in Berlin – Maryam Keyhani. Her Instagram, her whole website and business just looks like a dream.  I feel like there’s this connection between hats and lamps – there’s a similarity in shape and form. I love seeing how [Keyhani] creates, it’s so influenced by play and experimentation and feels very free.

I am also inspired by architects and sculptors from the mid-century era, like Charles and Ray Eames. I actually made a little model of the [Eames house] during my project and put a light inside. And [Alexander] Calder – I made quite a few lamps that were inspired by his mobile sculptures, where there’s wire connectors and parts that hang and turn.

With [the artist] Yayoi Kusama and her polka dots, I love the idea of getting wrapped up in something you love and it consumes your life in a good way. Lastly, there’s Masha Reva who lives in Ukraine – she does these cool sculptures made out of vegetables, and does large-scale drawings and paintings as well. With artists like that, working in several different mediums, I’m always really inspired.

Camila Gaza Manly surrounded by Lys von Asta lamps. Photo courtesy of Kitty Evans, styling by Céline Blais.

AC: Congratulations on completing your 100 Days of Creative Prototyping project! It seems like the process was rather fruitful for you, and there were so many goodies to come out of it (I’m partial to the open-faced lamp with the pearl, so divine.) Could you elaborate on your intentions for this project, and how it served your creative growth to finish it?

CGM: The intentions of this project were to create a practice for what I wanted to commit to. At the beginning, it literally was practice – I was practicing folding, putting different shapes together and working with different kinds of papers and materials. 

In early January, I was just making paper lampshades because I wanted to start learning how to make them. Then I heard about the 100 Day Project as a thing that anyone can do, at any time. I think [the challenge] was more popular in the winter, we were still in the middle of lockdown and curfew in Montreal. When I heard about the 100 Day Project, I was also terrified, because most people do a little drawing or a little dance, and I'm going to make a hundred lamps (laughs).

I was partially inspired to do something so ambitious by this ceramic artist in the States, Lolly Lolly Ceramics. She previously did this project and had 100 black mugs with a different kind of handle on each one. That had me thinking what a challenge it would be, but also how creative it forces you to be. 

I was also able to work on my tendencies towards perfectionism. I always wanted everything to be perfect, and that’s quite hindering when you want to move forward and get new ideas. I thought this project was a good way to move away from that. Every night, whether I loved it or hated it, I forced myself to post it on Instagram – which was really hard because sometimes I wasn’t happy with them. Now, as I’m on the other end of it, and I’m taking all the inspiration from the project, it’s really great to look back [at] that time and remember all the ups and downs experienced, and to have a controlled view of that.  I can pick and choose which parts I want to take and which parts I want to leave behind, because as much as I was prototyping designs, I was also prototyping techniques – and I think that’s the biggest takeaway for me going forward. There are still some designs that I am tweaking to make and sell, and others where I just made them purely for fun and to experiment.

AC: At the end of the day, if you’re completing the assignment then you’re completing the assignment. That exercise in self-accountability must have been so rewarding.

CGM: Yes! The process also made me analyze it in different ways. At one point in the project, I thought “Oh, I should be alternating… so one day, I’ll make a hanging lamp, and one day I’ll make a standing lamp”. But some days I wasn’t inspired to make a hanging lamp, I wanted to do something else. I had to find that balance of what’s actually important here and then move forward with that. 

Camila Gaza Manly surrounded by Lys von Asta lamps. Photo courtesy of Kitty Evans, styling by Céline Blais.

AC: Are there any major lessons that your creative journey has taught you? What do you feel that you have yet to learn?

CGM: Something that I felt I learned through the [100 Days of Creative Prototyping] process was what can be done in a certain amount of time and what can’t. As much as [the project] fed my inspiration and kept me going – the medium I was working in, paper, was really accessible for that process – I was still really curious to add other materials. With the project, I kept feeling the limit of the time constraint and how I couldn’t go further. I want to work with wood eventually, like a wooden base with a paper lampshade. I’m also interested in clay, and ways to make a stronger structure for some of them, especially the standing ones – I didn’t make any floor lamps because of that reason, but I would love to in the future.

There’s also a lesson I’ve learned from the artists in my life. When you think you make a mistake, it's often the best part of what comes out of it, even if it’s really frustrating in the moment. I definitely had a lot of those moments during the project where something went wrong and I was like “This is not what I wanted!”, but at the end of it, it was better than I could have imagined. So I think when you plan something, you can only plan it so far until you actually do it. With the project, what was really cool is I didn’t have time to plan. I didn’t have time to get these perfect images in my head and then try to execute them. I was taking this lesson and putting it into action.

In terms of what I have yet to learn, I definitely want to explore different folding techniques moving forward, because I learned quite a few in the beginning, but I would then keep using the same ones in different ways with patterns or colours or a picture depicted on [the folding]. I want to practice more with creating sculptural shapes. There are a million possibilities. For me, it's partly a challenge because I was never good at math, and there's quite a bit of math involved with the types of folding that I've been doing. It can be quite technical. 

AC: Thank you so much for your time, Camila. What can we expect from you next, and how can we support your work?

CGM: Right now, I’m working on my website. I will be offering an online web shop, and I’m going to have a drop of lamps when I launch. I’m still tweaking some things, but I want to have some made-to-order lamps available as well as [opportunities for] commissions. [Note: Camila’s site is now live - check it out here!]

I also want to have [my lamps] accessible for other opportunities – months ago, I was part of a music video for a local musician. [Félix Dyotte]. I brought my lamps there to be part of the set. It would be great, moving forward, to offer [my lamps] if someone wanted them for wedding photographs or something else. I would love to collaborate with people in the future, because I feel like it’s such a special opportunity to create warm, intimate environments.

[Finally], I will be joining a Chicago-based online platform called Bird & Tale. It's run by husband-and-wife duo Brad Stumpf and Jeffly Gabriela Molina. He is a painter and works at a lighting company, and she is primarily a painter. They feature incredible emerging artists and designers through their online platform and their physical showroom in Chicago. My lamps will be showcased both online and in the showroom. I’m really looking forward to being in such wonderful artistic company!

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Camila Gaza Manly / Lys Von Asta

Instagram | Website

Rebecca L. Judd (she/they) is the features editor of Also Cool Mag. She writes and creates out of a studio apartment in Ottawa, kept company by vivid dreams and a cuddly grey kitty named Dora.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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Louise Campion Challenges Corporate Power Dynamics With Her Colourful Paintings

Painting by Louise Campion

We’re all for artists who challenge the patriarchal structures of the corporate world, and Louise Campion is doing just that. She’s a Montreal-based French painter, who’s series "Wondering if men in suits turn me on or piss me off" really struck a chord.

If you’re frustrated with your 9-5, and love bright, bold, colours, you’ll love Louise’s work. We got to chat over email about the series, allyship, and more.

Painting by Louise Campion

Malaika Astorga for Also Cool: When did you get into painting? Has your creative practice always been centred in painting, or has it evolved over time?

Louise Campion: I started painting classes at six years old. Around 15, I got more and more into art history and contemporary art. Eventually, I started learning about conceptual art and would choose my mediums depending on the idea I wanted to focus on. But as stimulating as this journey was, I came to realize that I am, first and foremost, a painter. Centring my practice around painting is the most natural way for me to research and create. I am still open to other mediums, but I just know that painting makes the most sense when it comes to my own sensibility.

Also Cool: I love any art form that plays with the absurdity of office culture. What do you think you've learned about yourself by existing in relation to these men in suits and also through making paintings about them?

Louise: To clarify, I am not currently working in an office environment. My dad has worked in an office all of his life and growing up, I was surrounded by a lot of people who did or were aspiring to. I found ways to avoid office jobs, except for that one summer, which was very alienating for me. My observations of the corporate world are made through personal experience, discussions, readings, and research. I keep learning and adjusting my views every day.

I am trying to create an environment for myself that is as free as possible from the corporate mindset, which is, consciously or not, based on an oppressive system. However, I do think we always exist in relation to these "men in suits," whether we admit it or not. In a capitalist society, anything you do or buy would have been in some way regulated by someone behind a desk taking decisions based on a profit. The very mere fact that this is the social structure we've been raised in makes it very difficult to completely detached oneself from it. My sense of safety, comfort, pleasure were programmed to find themselves in the idea that money is central. 

Thus, my answer is that I am on a journey to deconstruct these presets, but it takes time and as important as it is, it is not very comfortable.

Painting by Louise Campion

AC: You often speak of how success and hard work only matter if they are free of oppression and yet are fascinated with white male office culture. Can you break down some of the ways that someone in an office environment can fight against the barriers of oppression that often exist in these spaces?

LC: This is the million-dollar question, right?!

When I talk about contemporary western oppression, I refer to the different systemic issues standing in the way of climate and social justice. It includes white supremacy, patriarchy, classism, heteronormativity, ecocide & pollution, among others… Obviously, most of those issues are deeply engraved in our system. They're tough to counter since they are extremely beneficial to the 1% who are economically governing us right now. How do you stand in the way of the wealthiest people on the planet when said planet functions under capitalism? All the more when you happen to work for these people?

Realize that it is a lot of work: Current systems are profiting from current oppression and won't show you how to fight it. They actually make it very easy to ignore it, even as an oppressed person. You have to go out of your way to teach yourself and make changes happen. I know you and your colleagues are comfortable right now, but others aren't, and you can help with that. This will be a never-ending journey. We're in it for the long run.

Educate yourself to educate others: Through the infinity of resources available out there for free! Books, videos, podcasts, articles, illustrations, graphics, Instagram accounts, TV shows, blogs… Whatever speaks best to your learning mechanisms: it is already there; just look for it and share the knowledge!

Get trained: Attend anti-oppression training. Organize one in your workplace. Professionals will give you and your coworkers concrete tools to implement in your work environment. Ideas to discuss. Changes to make. In Montreal, I know that CoCO (the Centre for Community Organization) offers various workshops on anti-oppression and conflict resolution, and they're very good. I am sure you can find other similar resources.

Implement anti-oppression policies: Make it mandatory to be inclusive. Make it punishable to be oppressive. On the professional level. (CoCO can help to write the policies).

Pay attention to who you give your money, time and energy to (which are all the same things under capitalism): Who do you work for? What do you buy? Where do you spend your weekends? What do you watch on YouTube and Netflix? Where do you get your nails done? Who do you play basketball with? Where do you volunteer?

The corporations that are oppressing people and killing the planet gain their power from money. Money that you can decide not to automatically give them, as a first step towards not condoning oppression. In many instances, your money could go to people and things that are undermined by the current system, hence encouraging a more ethical, kinder economy. Slowly but surely, start paying attention to things like who you buy from, what it's made of, who the money is going to, and more.

Although there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, there are multiple ways to get closer. Do some research. Make it exciting. Love spending the money you gave your time and energy for in the right places.

Learn to differentiate performative allyship from genuine effort: Whatever you do, make sure you're actually helping and not just making yourself feel better. Check yourself. Google things instead of taking an underprivileged person's time to answer your questions. See if you can help an initiative that is already there, instead of creating your own. Question your reflexes because they're based on entitlements and privileges, and it takes time to deconstruct them.

Vote for someone who cares: This one seems a bit obvious, but voting for people (at any scale) who will work towards fighting for those issues might be an idea to consider, haha.

It doesn't have to be perfect, and it doesn't have to be all at once: I once read that it takes around three months for a new habit to become automatic to the human brain. I have started tackling my "bad" habits half a decade ago. I didn't change everything in one day. I implemented a small change, and when it became normal to me, I started tackling another. Five years later, my lifestyle has drastically changed, and I'm excited about improving more and seeing where I'm at in another five years. Improving gradually is better than changing everything and then giving up. One small change is better than none.

Last but not least, you're gonna fuck up: As established earlier, this is a long learning process, and we're all making mistakes. There is so much material to integrate into the journey of inclusivity: Don't give up. When you fuck up, don't beat yourself up forever. Don't apologize endlessly. Just learn your lesson, research a bit more, and move on.

Painting by Louise Campion

AC: How do you balance your practice IRL with your online presence? Does social media affect your creative practice at all?

LC: I am still figuring it out, evolving, adjusting the way I present myself online, as well as the way I use the platform to learn about my peers and field.

On one side, social media (especially Instagram) shows me a lot of art, news from galleries, museums, collectives, artists I follow, critics etc. It keeps me on track with what's happening in the art world and gives me clues on where to look for more. It also allows me to display my practice easily, to reach an audience from my own bed! So it's a very useful tool. Sometimes this idea that I need to stay active online to show that I am productive and professional to my "following" forces me to go to the studio and paint on days that I had trouble finding the motivation.

On the other hand, it can be overwhelming and anxiety-provoking. Seeing what everyone is doing (/only seeing their success) can be very tough because I tend to compare myself a lot. But when I mainly produce from home and rarely have IRL contact with my art community, it's easy to fall into a vicious circle of insecurity towards my own practice.

Ultimately, I am getting better at finding the balance. I have started to see Instagram only as an optional tool that I can use, or not, depending on my energy level and needs. My mindset is now to see others' successes as inspiration instead of paralyzing competition. I've stopped following accounts that bring me down. If it makes me nervous instead of motivated, I'll unfollow or hide their content. It's nothing personal. Art memes pages also help a lot in keeping things real, bring a lot of fun and comfort to the artistic Instagram experience.

Painting by Louise Campion

AC: This is the mandatory quarantine question, but I am actually really interested in how your creative practice has been affected throughout the pandemic.

LC: The beginning of quarantine last year was very beneficial to me. Fall 2019 was right after my graduation. When you've spent the first 20 years of your life in school, it is quite an adjustment to find purpose without academic demands. March to June 2020 gave me space, lowered the pressure. Everyone was stuck at home, so suddenly, it was okay if I was too. I was so lucky I had a studio at home, a close friend as a roommate and an adorable cat. I rested, cleaned, thought about a lot of things, and started producing and applying to things again.

After last summer, my mental and physical health started deteriorating. Lots of projects got cancelled or postponed again. Lockdown got stricter. All of this free time stuck at home became somehow exhausting. Yes, I was still lucky, but expectations were back. I am expected to produce because I am an artist and have nothing else to do, right? But my bubble is so small. I don't see anyone, I don't talk to anyone, galleries were closed again, curfew happened. I miss human contact, miss the energy of a crowd, miss my family, my friends from home, and miss Montreal even though I haven't left it in a year.

It all comes in waves; I see this whole situation as an ocean. Sometimes I feel like I am drowning, but other times I keep myself afloat. Museums reopening was truly the highlight of my winter. I am not as productive as I'd like to be, but still, we are in a global pandemic, so I try to be kind to myself. I always have projects ongoing. Nowadays, I am trying to achieve at least three "productive" things a day so I don't get stuck in a depressive episode but don't overwhelm myself with pressure.

What I'm saying is that it varies a lot, and I'm just trying to keep swimming, haha.

AC: Switching gears, who are some people or artists who have inspired you this year?

LC: My art partner, ex-quarantine mate, and very close friend Tatianna has been huge support this year in various ways. She is a great artist who inspires me daily. My friends Joyce, Akira, and Francois are also strong sources of growth, purpose or just by being themselves. They constantly challenge my views and keep me in check. Chloë and Nina have been important parts of my Montreal support system through COVID. I'm thinking about my friends Chris and Devon, who have been going through challenging situations this past year and are still fighting to become the best version of themselves.

Otherwise, Inès Longevial and Chloe Wise are two women figurative painters I look up to a lot and am inspired by.

Louise in her studio

AC: What are you looking forward to developing with your art this year?

LC: I am excited to change the scale in my paintings. I'll make a bunch of smaller ones and lower the figures' scale simultaneously, which is a challenge to me. I would like to start using more white and skin tones colours in my compositions, but we'll see how I feel when it's actually time to choose the pigments!

I also want to draw more. I am excited about this series finally growing because I started it knowing it would gain its power through numbers. 

AC: Finally, do you have any upcoming projects we can look forward to? If not, is there anything/anyone you want to shout out?

LC: I've been selected for a solo show at the CCGV for the 2021/2022 programming, so I'm looking forward to that. We still don't know about the exact dates since it depends a lot on how the government measures will evolve but keep your eyes on my socials, and I'll let you know as soon as possible!

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Louise Campion

Website I Instagram

Malaika Astorga is the co-founder of Also Cool. She is a Mexican-Canadian visual artist, writer, and social media specialist, currently based in Montreal.

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Artist Spotlight: Gabriella Scali

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Sorry Girls by Gabriella Scali

Get to know Montreal-based photographer Gabriella Scali, whose photos initially caught our eye with with their attention to texture and muted colour schemes. Read and experience Scali’s reflections on following the band Sorry Girls on their past North American tour in her photo essay below. Within, Scali shares the charming, intimate moments of touring with a band through a gentle lens, and discusses how her relationship with her work transformed through reminiscing these nostalgic moments a year later.

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One year ago, I left Montreal to follow Sorry Girls on their tour across North America. My boyfriend is one of the musicians in the group, and as a photographer sensing a great opportunity, I immediately bugged him to have me tag along. I knew I had to document the band and their adventures on the road, in motel rooms and behind stage curtains. 

Only packing a handful of film stock with me, I had to be very meticulous about what I wanted to capture. This is one of the reasons I always prepare my ideas in advance by sketching scenes and images: It calms my anxiety before the actual shoots. But on tour, it was creatively difficult. I couldn’t easily have control over the scenes and create images following my drafted ideas like I usually do. Being shy to approach the subjects fully and the quick pace of the tour schedule made it difficult for me to take pictures I enjoyed. 

At this point in time, I wasn't very well acquainted with the other musicians in the band, and the process of following and documenting people that I barely knew was unsettling. I feared that the results might be overly-reserved and inauthentic. When my photos came out of the lab, a sinking feeling of disappointment came over me. I realized I had kept a deliberate safe distance from the subjects, in order to disturb their experience as little as possible. I tossed my photos aside. It wasn't until later that I was able to find beauty in my polite, introverted approach. The artists’ faces were often obscured by flares and reflections, creating an effect as if they are in a different realm, like light peeking through a translucent curtain. I noticed, however, that in time this shy obfuscation, approached with a cautious veil towards the beginning of the journey, began to lift. The warmth of the California sunshine began to seep in, illuminating the subjects' faces and the shadows between us.

Now one year later, when I look at my photographs I am faced with nostalgia and a bittersweet sensation. I feel the desert wind on my legs, the yellow sun warming my arms, and I smell the sweet scent of gasoline as I picture the mountains swiftly passing by. I also recall the cramped 15 hour drives, the unhealthy road-meals and the poor sleeping habits. I see my personal transformation in these photos. I see the time it took me to reach my comfort level, and how I was eventually able to let go of my expectations and preconceived results and to instead embrace the music scene’s vibrant and spontaneous energy. Spirited, suddenly full of power and brightness. This trip was like a flare you had to quickly grasp, otherwise it is lost. I wonder if I will ever experience this feeling again.

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Gabriella Scali is a Montreal-based photographer who started taking pictures as a young teenager, always dreaming of travelling to quiet places and capturing people by creating mood and settings around them. In 2016, she received her BFA in Photography at Concordia University. She also found inspiration in new surroundings, studying design at Bauhaus University in Germany, where she travelled across Europe and displayed her work in exhibitions. She now works as a graphic designer for a non-profit organization and works on her photography projects on the weekend.

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Gabriella Scali, photo courtesy of the artist

Gabriella Scali

Instagram | Website

Sorry Girls

Instagram | Website | Facebook | Spotify | Bandcamp

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Artist Spotlight: Caitlin Prince

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Caitlin Prince is a Vancouver-based artist and ceramicist making functional and sculptural work in clay. We had the chance to visit her studio this summer and get a glimpse of her instantly-recognizable, naturally-hued cups and vases. We also tested out those iconic dimple cups to see if they live up to all the Instagram hype - they do, and the morning coffee routine hasn’t been the same since. We caught up with Caitlin and her art school BFF, Liv, over Zoom to talk shop, the value of functional art during COVID, and getting ripped off by one of the Real Housewives of Vancouver.

Maya Hassa for Also Cool: What does your work look like and how do you approach your art practice versus making pieces for production? Does your attitude change for those different types of work?

Caitlin Prince: Because it's consistent work, it's a privilege to actually be producing art that you enjoy making - and have people be receptive to it and want to buy it. My vases are definitely my main creative outlet. Cups are just production work, but there's been a lot more interest in that lately, so my policy is to make everything one-of-a-kind. They're all uniquely marbled and the dimple or shape is always slightly different.

I don't ever want to be a production potter that's making a thousand of the exact same piece. I don't want to be a factory - you can have ceramics produced in a factory pretty easily. Even the stuff that I make could be manipulated [for mass production].

MH: That's part of the value of what you're making as well - that it's one-of-a-kind, that it's only been produced in small batches.

CP: With the vases, it's exciting to be able to make each one different, but then people are like, "Oh, I saw this one here - can you reproduce this for me?" I don't even think I have the skill to make something identical!

There's a lot of other stuff that I’d rather do. I've been really interested in collaborating with different artists - people who do painting or metal work, putting different crafts together.

I would actively like to do it, but I just feel like I don't have the time now during COVID. It's even harder to coordinate than usual - everyone's kind of scattered. Some people are hyper-productive, but most of the time , if you ask someone to do something, they'll get back to you in three months. I can't even respond to an email for work!

It has definitely affected my ceramics practice because I don't feel like I'm really making art anymore. I'm making consumable goods. Its weird because sometimes I feel like I'm compromising of my artistic integrity.

Olivia Meek: Do you find that there are other ways to make the production work more creative? What methods can you use as a creative outlet? I imagine you'd have different glazes and things, but is that the only way to spice it up?

CP: In terms of spicing things up, there are other objects that I want to make. I want to make really big pieces. I like pushing the limits when I'm making a big pot - like a powerhouse pot.

OM: What about miniatures?

CP: Miniatures are fun too - those are more when I'm trying to flex, or when I'm procrastinating, I like to make like really tiny things.

OM: You could could break into the dollhouse market…You could carve out a whole new market for influencers who are downsizing.

CP: The miniature scene is actually huge!

CP: There are actually a lot of people who have tiny [pottery] wheels the size of a dollar and throw on them. It's total TikTok content, but I'm here for it.

Going back to the topic of COVID, I don't know how it's affected me as far as production goes, but I feel less motivated than before. It's like that doom where you think, "What am I even doing? I'm just making things." Thankfully people get a lot of joy out of my work - and that recognition feels so amazing.

I've met so many kind and wonderful people throughout this, too. Meeting with my clients and hearing how much they appreciate not only supporting a small artist, but also the actual pieces themselves, I realized that maybe I'm not even looking at my work as much of an art practice right now. The people who receive it really seem to appreciate it as such, though.

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Credit: Briggs Ogloff

MH: Now especially, people are turning to art - consuming it almost as a coping mechanism.

OM: Living through COVID really opened people's eyes to the importance of supporting artists - realizing, "Oh, if we don't support artists, they can't actually do anything!" When people are spending so much time alone in their homes, having objects that bring them happiness and make their living space tolerable is important.

MH: How did you find the role of social media playing out in this time?

CP: Most of the traction I've received with my work has been through certain influencers posting it on social media. Also through stores within my community, like one in Gas Town that did a wonderful job of putting a spotlight on the work of local artisans.

Online sharing is super beneficial, but I think it's funny too, because I am such an "un-aesthetic" person. I'm not posing with my minimalist little cup of coffee in my sparse home. I definitely have an aesthetic, but there's this whole culture that my work really fits into that I'm just the polar opposite of.

A lot of people expect that I'm going to be this quaint, linen-wearing, flower-picking person - whereas I'm actually just sitting here in my gym clothes, sweating at the studio. It's interesting how I can curate my style of work to a certain audience. I don't think people would necessarily connect my lifestyle and the way I present myself with the pieces I produce - I think that's pretty funny.

Curating an online presence isn't natural for me. I'm 29 years old - if I were three years younger, I would have had that [self-marketing] ability. Living through so many weird Internet times - like Myspace and Tumblr - I have no shortage of an internet persona. I have a presence, but it's just not necessarily one that would be appealing to the demographic buying my work.

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Credit: Briggs Ogloff

MH: Tell us about "The Peasant" - your current online persona. Where does that come from?

CP: I think it was just the toil of life and being constantly just like, "Oh, like, I can't..."

MH: Life led you to feudalism?

CP: Yeah...

MH: Does "The Peasant" serve as a contrast to that influencer lifestyle of the people you mentioned before?

CP: Probably - the peasant persona is just representative of the shitty side of me where I acknowledge that this is life, we're doing it, we're working for the man.

OM: Maybe "The Peasant" is Caitlin Prince - in the context that you're making goods for a demographic that you don't feel like you personally fit into. I mean, you could fit in if you wanted...

CP: I'm fitting in more now - at least no longer being a broke art student. Literally being so broke and spending outside of my means constantly - and not even having a studio for so many years. I was just working whack jobs to support having a practice and not wanting to give up on it. I'm actually surprised that I didn't! That's something that I'm ultimately proud of. You have to f*cking love art as a hobby to put in your extra time and money, to stick with it, but I'm glad I did.

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Credit: Briggs Ogloff

OM: Tell us a bit about your work during art school.

CP: A lot of my early work in university - especially with ceramics - was just testing the limits of the medium. I was interested in learning what was possible - like when I was making ceramic Jesus toasts. That was a play on existing Jesus figures, but also [the infamous Jesus toast relics] that you can purchase on eBay. I literally dipped pieces of bread in clay slip and fired them in the kiln so the bread would fire out. With every Jesus toast made (until I made a mold of it) bread was sacrificed.

OM: The toasts had Jesus decals because at the time there was a whole thing on the internet about a lady seeing Jesus in her toast.

CP: I made that mostly because I thought it was funny, but also just wanted to put clay-covered bread in the kiln.

OM: When did you realize that ceramics was your thing?

CP: Probably in my second or third year of university - that was when I really fell in love with clay. There are so many ways to manipulate it, and so many materials you can use to beat it, mold it, and make it into weird stuff. The experimental aspect is really exciting - and it's also a kind of escape.

MH: Do you have a preferred style of working with clay?

CP: I really enjoy throwing on the wheel and then adding hand-built elements. A lot of my pots are partially thrown and partially done with coil building. I like mixing both. I could throw the entire pot, but it would be too perfect-looking. I like when it appears more organic, and less like it's just been made on a production line.

There are many cool ways that you can manipulate clay, but glazing has never been my thing. I'm more into the clay bodies themselves. I use a clear glaze for food safety and water retention, but all the color variations you get are through the natural clay bodies themselves. I like to mix different brown and black clays, whites, speckles, grays - all that.

Another thing I like about ceramics is that you can work with the chemistry behind it - you can add different elements when you're firing it to produce new textures, colors, or different effects on the body. Then there are all the options for structure - mold-making, hand-building, and wheel throwing - and the surface design elements. It's this limitless medium. It's also cool to be able to work on something and then just reset and be like, "Oh, I'll just recycle it, use it next time."

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Credit: Briggs Ogloff

OM: Tell us about the Lohan plates!

CP: That was back in art school when we learned a new technique called the decal technique. I thought it would be so funny if I made a set of commemorative plates. I think Lindsay Lohan's fifth mugshot had just been released.

A commemorative plate as an object is so bizarre to me. It's pretty useless, yet there are so many of them celebrating royalty or celebrities. I wanted to commemorate someone very controversial - a mess.

OM: Lindsay Lohan was one of the biggest celebrities of our generation and then was just in jail constantly.

CP: Maybe there was something comforting about it - the buildup and beat-down of a celebrity. Now they don't get torn down the same way. The Kardashian-Jenners are loved and hated, but they're still so influential. Our generation had Paris Hilton getting built up, torn to shit, and then built up and torn to shit again. Amanda Bynes, too. We witnessed really weird demises of people.

The Lohan plates were really well-received, and funnily enough, led me to the Real Housewives of Vancouver. They were entered in a show at school and this woman who runs a gallery in Vancouver really liked them - she was working for one of the Housewives whose husband was a big art collector in Vancouver. The Housewife decided she wanted me to make commemorative plates of her, so I ended up making some 50 plates with pictures of her and her cat on them.

MH: Did she end up selling them?

CP: Yeah, so it didn't go as well as she thought it would. I went to the show - I was mostly there for the free wine and to see who was actually going to buy these plates - and at the end of it, they didn't even pay me! She was like, "Oh, we'll be in contact with you about payment," and literally avoided paying me for months.

That was my first commission and first experience being screwed over as an artist. When she finally came around to paying the last $50, she met up with me downtown pulled out her big designer purse, and actually tried to give the plates back - she was like, "We have some left over, would you want to be paid with those? Do you want these back?"

It was definitely a wacky experience, but also an interesting first foray into life as an artist showing and selling my work. She works at a car dealership now.

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Credit: Briggs Ogloff

OM: Decorative arts and ceramics have always been pushed to the side, where it's like, "Oh no, that's not art, it's craft." That was one really annoying thing about going to art school - the idea that there are two types of people - the "crafts" people and the "artists". The fine art and design programs were so elevated, while ceramics fell through the cracks. Ceramicists were made fun of constantly - it was actually crazy.

CP: I have this internalized self-loathing for production pottery that is rooted in that schooling experience and having to put meaning to work . Not everything has to have a "concept" behind it. Some things can just purely be enjoyed.

MH: Do you think that what you're doing now, working with boutiques, is a result of being taught to make technically perfect pieces for commercial success? Or is it the other way around - do you attribute your popularity to the unique imperfections of your work?

CP: At Emily Carr, there was no emphasis on being commercially successful. We didn't learn how to market ourselves as a business. We didn't learn any of those skills. I would have probably benefited more from going to a business school and just pursuing ceramics as a hobby, if that was my goal, but I also like making work that people can afford and own. Work that isn't completely unattainable. I don't need to have my pottery on a pedestal.

I think that art should be accessible. Especially now, creating affordable art that you can get out to people - there's something to be said for that.

https://www.caitlinprinceceramics.com/

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Credit: Briggs Ogloff

Artist Spotlight: BestWorld

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“Dreamscapes” by BestWorld

BestWorld is the moniker Ottawa-based surrealist collage artist Sierra, who is the latest artist in our series of spotlights. We first came across her psychedelic collages on Instagram, and wanted to know more her creative process and how she creates such unique and dreamlike images.

Malaika Astorga for Also Cool: Hi Sierra, tell us a bit about who you are and what you do.  

Sierra: Hey, I’m Sierra a surrealist artist. My days consist of drinking lots of coffee and hanging out with my baby kitten, Zephyr. I just recently turned 24 and I’m in that stage of recognizing that time is passing by super quickly and I’d rather be putting my energy to things I love doing. It’s kinda as if I’m in a quarter life crisis, but in the best way possible. Most of my days are honestly spent daydreaming and envisioning the future. Naturally being this way has given me an edge on creating, but has definitely stunted me in other aspects of my life. I created BestWorld a few months ago honestly out of sheer boredom, working back to back government contracts in Ottawa and [discovering] it wasn’t for me. On my lunch breaks, I started to create vision boards and took up multiple courses in graphic design. I was also heavily obsessed with 70s concert posters at the time and was like, “Oh hey… turning my work into something tangible would be cool.” I also have a background in business which has helped me out a lot. 

AC: How did you first get into art? Has collage always been your primary medium?

Sierra: I got into art at a very young age, in fact it was probably the only thing I was deemed “good” at up until my late-teens. I literally sucked at all sports and was terrible in school. I was a very stubborn child. My dad and I, when I was around 7 up until my late teens, would create these giant playlists and draw illustrations to the songs. I believe my love for art first started around this point because I was feeling things that I couldn’t really put into words for the first time. 

Sketching and painting were my primary mediums growing up. I still do draw a lot and paint sometimes. I do feel like the future of art is going to be very digitized with Procreate, so I’m starting to learn new mediums and formats as we speak.

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“Devyn’s Dream” by BestWorld

AC: What’s the creative scene like where you’re from? How do you think it’s influenced your work?

Sierra: The creative scene where I am from has definitely flourished in the last 5 years. I really do think Ottawa has a lot of potential and there are some extremely talented people here. A lot of my friends here are creatives and the community is pretty close knit, which is really warm and fuzzy. When you’re surrounded by talented individuals. it definitely pushes you to become the best version of yourself. This is my last year in Ottawa as I will be moving to Vancouver this summer, but I am extremely grateful for Ottawa’s creative collective. 

AC: Your work is super psychedelic and colourful, a nice break from the minimalist aesthetic we often see on Instagram. Where do you find your inspiration? Who are some other artists who have really influenced your work?

Sierra: Haha, thank you so much! I get my inspiration mostly from other surrealist artists and other visual artists, my own dreams and visions and of course, as well as music. My top three favourite artists are: Salvador Dali, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Victor Moscoso. Dali’s painting “The Elephants” is honestly probably where it all started for me. I saw the painting when I was around 10 and I was completely blown away by its otherworldliness. Basquiat was overall just such an interesting character, who was way ahead of his time. My favourite work of his is “Riding with Death,” which he painted right before he died. He was illustrating his opinions on the state of the world at the time and the racism he was experiencing. Victor Moscoso’s use of colour is what really intrigued me about him. It was just super unconventional; he made so many rock posters, advertisements and comics in the 60s and 70s. He was the first rock poster artist of the 60s and highlighted the entire psychedelic/hippie movement going on at the time. He also just seems like a super sweet lad. 

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“Kiss the Earth that Birthed You” by BestWorld

AC: Who do you usually listen to when you’re creating new work?

Sierra: I usually just put on a Spotify playlist I’ve created while making new designs. As of now I’m, really into 53 Thieves, Washed Out, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Japanese Breakfast, Frank Ocean, Weyes Blood, beabadoobee, Jay Som, Toro Y Moi, Litany, TENDER, The Strokes, RF Shannon, Crumb, Tame Impala, Jimi Hendrix, Andy Shauf, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Mazzy Star, Chloe x Halle… Honestly could add 10,000 more artists in there, I listen to music all day.

AC: You mentioned that you’re doing more commissioned work lately. How have you found the transition from making art for fun, to beginning to be able to monetize it? What are some tips/resources you could give to up and coming artists?

Sierra: As of now, I’ve been incredibly lucky. Everyone I’ve collaborated with has been amazing to work with and I’ve made some long lasting friends. My advice to up and coming artists is to honestly stick to your guns and don’t get pushed around by anyone. Believe in yourself, as scary as that sounds. You’re working for yourself and you can decide, pick and choose who you’re working with. Make sure they are good humans because your name and brand is on the line. Overall, you don’t want to be working with shitty people regardless, just know your worth. 

Especially when you’re first starting out, you might have imposter syndrome. Try to brush those feelings aside because it happens to the best of us and I believe every artist has these thoughts from time to time. Also, collaborate with other artists and learn from them. Don’t be afraid to direct message your favourite verified artist on Instagram; they may have some phenomenal advice for you. Don’t think you’re above or below anyone or anything and don’t be afraid to take risks. It’s only when we truly push ourselves out of our comfort zones… That’s when we grow as individuals and artists. 

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“Otherworldly Realms” by BestWorld

AC: What’s your creative process like? How do you usually find your images?

Sierra: My creative process can take up anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours depending on the piece I am creating. It takes a lot more for commissioned work as I am working with someone else's visions, whereas I kinda have mine already known in my mind (if that even makes sense haha). When I’m working on album artwork or single artwork, I listen to the song over and over again to pick up on sonic motifs and lyrics, and then incorporate them into the cover art. I find most of my images on vintage archived libraries. For my hand cuts, I go to thrift stores and buy their clothes and ask if they have any mags from the 70s I can use. 

AC: Finally, is there anything that you want to promote or mention? How can we best support you and your work?           

Sierra: Support local businesses and your pals. Keep your artistic friends close because trust me, I can tell you they work hard. The best way to support me would honestly just be to have some conversations with me, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram at anytime. I love humans so much haha. I also have a second shop launching shortly where I will be selling t-shirts, bags and a lot of other things. My Etsy will still be available to purchase prints, canvases and custom artwork. Thanks so much for your time!

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“I’ll Change” by BestWorld

BestWorld

Instagram | Etsy

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Artist Spotlight: Amanda Leigh Ponce

By Amanda Leigh Ponce

Amanda Leigh Ponce really does it all. As an actor, graphic designer, and illustrator, she’s a force to be reckoned with. Get to know Amanda and all of her creative endeavours below.

Malaika for Also Cool: How did you get into creative work? 

Amanda: I honestly can’t remember a time in my life where I wasn’t participating in something creative. I’ve been dancing since I was a kid and spent most of my childhood inside dance studios. After a back break right before college auditions, followed by illness, I switched gears. I focused on acting while I was recovering, and eventually ended up going to New York City for college to train to be a film actor. 

Throughout that entire time, I had been drawing and teaching myself how to use design programs just as a hobby. It wasn’t until I got to New York that I realized that art and design were things I could pursue as a career. A friend of mine had seen some of my work and mentioned that I should set up an online shop.

So I began reaching out to the network I had established as a performer. Many of the theatre companies I’d worked at gave me my very first opportunities as a graphic designer, and really gave me the confidence to begin freelancing. 

Amanda Leigh Ponce

Also Cool: Do you have a primary medium?

Amanda: Yeah, it’s definitely changed over the years. I started out trying to act full-time, but being in a smaller market wasn’t sustainable. So now, art and design are my primary mediums, and how I spend most of my day today! Pre-pandemic I was auditioning a lot and going to New York for shoots, but everything came to a halt. I had to pivot and sort of re-assess how I was going to be able to pay my rent, ya know?  

AC: I really enjoyed your blog post about the pressure to be productive as a creative during quarantine, and for your work to reflect the current times. Do you still feel that way now, and if so, how do you manage these expectations?

Amanda: Thank you. It was kind of cathartic to write, to be honest. I definitely still feel that pressure a little bit. I’m trying to learn how to give myself some grace and to not force myself to create out of an expectation. As a generally anxious person, I think I do that to myself a lot.

Since May, when I initially wrote that post, I’ve really been working on not stretching myself too thin. Setting actual work hours, allowing myself to pursue the projects and hobbies that bring me joy, scheduling out my social media weeks in advance so that it’s not even something I have to think about. Doing what I can to support and lift the voices of other Black and BIPOC artists who have the energy to create in that way has also been important to me. 

I’m very slowly beginning to realize that my productivity and output do not define my human worth. The more I lean into that, the better I feel all around. 

By Amanda Leigh Ponce

AC: Who are your creative inspirations?

Amanda: Oh gosh, there are so many different people, but some I can think of off of the top of my head are Hsiao-Ron Cheng, Corinna Dodenhoff, Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol, in particular, have had a significant impact on how I see colour and composition. 

AC: I love your fake film posters! What are some of your favourite films, and why?

Amanda: Thank you! I love working on alternate posters, it’s always a fun way to pay homage to movies that I love. Right now, I’m kind of obsessed with Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. I thought it was really thrilling and beautifully shot and I’ve watched it multiple times now and have noticed something new with each viewing, which I love. Another film that I think is just so visually stunning that I know a lot of people hated, lol, but that I will always have a soft spot for is Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. The soundtrack, the cinematography, the costume and makeup design, it’s really just a visual treat and I really love highly stylized pieces like that. 

By Amanda Leigh Ponce

AC: In your opinion, what makes a good poster? 

Amanda: Whether or not it grabs my attention. It’s a weirdly simple answer but that’s kind of the point, right? Movie key art exists to get audiences excited/intrigued about what’s to come. So if it makes me really stop to take it in, it’s done it’s job. I think a lot of posters sort of fall into the same basic composition/fonts/etc. and I definitely feel like those are less likely to catch my eye. 

AC: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned as a freelance artist? What would your advice be to others who are trying to figure out how the freelance world works?

Amanda: Honestly, that there’s enough work to go around for everyone. I’m so lucky to have a circle of incredibly creative friends and colleagues, and I find the more that you’re willing to support other artists (even if they’re your ‘competitors’) the more support that comes back your way, and then you’re really able to begin creating a community that you can lean on, which I think for me as a freelancer has been absolutely vital. 

The other major lesson that I think every freelancer has to learn in their own time, is to know what your art is worth, and not budge on it. Figuring out my rates (and not being bullied into changing them once they were established) was a huge game changer for me. 

As far as advice goes, I would just say don’t be afraid to shoot your shot. I’ve sent out countless numbers of ‘cold emails’ with my work to brands/companies that I would love to work with. And while most of the time it doesn’t work out, sometimes it does, and they wouldn’t have known me from any other artists out there if I hadn’t taken the time to do that. Of course with that being said, you need to make sure that you’re prepared and have a solid portfolio of work to show people, but ultimately I’ve found that most people are pretty open to this because artist and designers are problem solvers. 

Also - and this shouldn’t be that surprising but - be kind! Firm, but kind. It will help you to navigate all of the different types of personalities that you’ll come in contact with doing freelance work. 

By Amanda Leigh Ponce

AC: Finally, is there anything you want to promote or shout out right now? How can we can best support you?

Amanda: I would love if you checked out my website (amcoart.com) and gave me a follow on Instagram (instgram.com/leigh.corbett). For whatever reason, the amount of followers you have seems to “legitimize” artists in the eyes of some brands, so that’s super helpful for me as I continue trying to branch into the crazy world of brand partnerships. I also post cute cat pics! I’ve been selling prints of my work on Society6 for a long time and recently launched a store where I’m selling prints directly through my website, plus I have some tee-shirts available through Hot Topic! A visit through my website (to the ‘shop’ link) will direct you to all of those places! 

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Gabor Bata: Memories of Clown Exhibits, Wim Wenders, & Getting Over Art Blocks

Art by Gabor Bata

Known for his wavy characters and psychedelic range of texture and colour Gabor Bata is a Montreal-based illustrator, whose work will transport you to a whole other world. He does everything from comics to book design, and article illustrations as well.

We caught up with him about creative influences, strange art exhibits, and how to get over art block.

Art by Gabor Bata

Also Cool Mag: How did art first enter your life? Was it something that was always there, or did you find it later on? 

Gabor Bata: I was sort of in a special situation where my parents actually encouraged me to go into the arts, even at a young age, and continue to do so today. Art was always a big part of my life, and it was usually a very giving dynamic. 

My parents always had art books lying around the house or would take my brother and I to galleries. I remember one, in particular, was this show in Ottawa when I was about 9, called Portrait of the Artist as Clown. It was all these kitschy paintings, drawings, sculptures, photos, and videos of clowns. I feel like I must’ve made such a huff about not wanting to go because the last thing I think a 9-year-old wants is to be trapped in a museum full of clowns on a Saturday. Great idea for a horror movie, but ya know. My folks insisted. One installation in particular that has always stayed with me was this strange, very sensual video of this half-nude queer clown doing a trapeze act. 

While I’m sure it was all aggressively incomprehensible to me at the time, stuff like that opened me up pretty early on to how diverse and limitless art could be. I never would’ve thought of that as art until then. My scope had changed, and I think it’s important for any kid getting into art to have an experience like that. Preferably without the clowns, though. 

Art by Gabor Bata

AC: Your personal style is so unique and has a great variety of textures and colour. How did you find your style, and how has it evolved over the years? 

Gabor Bata: Comics and cartoons were as always the backbones of my work. I never really got over them or felt like once I was going into art school that I had to “grow up” and move on. I’ve become less interested in creating straightforward cartoons and comics in the last two years and more interested in exploring their abstraction: the shapes and the colours, the visual language. So much of those elements alone can tell a story. 

Those were what had always appealed to me, and made me feel so at home in those worlds. Removing a piece of dialogue, the linework from a drawing, letting forms breathe and bubble, and stretching across those familiar panel grids and geometric lines creates something more involved and emotional. It actually gives you a lot more through suggestion, instead of creating a full scene with fully formed characters and speech bubbles with dialogue that tells you these blobs are mad or depressed or haunted or heartbroken or whatever. The work would all be done then, and there’d be nothing left for the viewer to interpret for themselves. 

Art by Gabor Bata

AC: Where do you go for inspiration? Either online, or IRL? 

Gabor Bata: Movies are a big inspiration. Seeing all of these separate elements coming together, the images, the pacing, the music, combined to elevate and flesh out a singular statement is really magical. I’ve recently been on this Wim Wenders kick, and his films are like my new obsession. He finds a way of creating worlds you just sink into. I just rewatched Paris, Texas and am planning on catching Until The End Of The World, and wow, now does that film have a killer soundtrack. 

Julee Cruise, Nick Cave, Talking Heads, good grief! I haven’t watched it yet, maybe it’ll be terrible, and I’ll regret bringing it up here, but the music has already made me soar and brought me to another place. It just isn’t the same thing for me when I’m drawing or painting. 

When I’m creating, I have a pretty particular idea of the voices, the sounds and the music I associate with the image. Still, no one else will ever really know those things or have access to it the way you would with a movie. Some galleries and installations try doing that, with audio playing in the gallery, or the lights flickering or something to elevate the pieces, but it always just feels like you’re in a sad version of Disney Land. Some works really have the ability to transport you, though, and that’s something I always aspire to. 

Art by Gabor Bata

AC: What do you do when you hit an art block? What helps you get over it? 

Gabor Bata: If I need a boost, I’ll do things that I’m uncomfortable with or shitty at, or try something I can’t rely on my laurels to accomplish. 

Screenprinting was a big one, and actually ended up greatly influencing my interest in abstraction. Breaking my images down layer by layer made me see all the incidental work going on literally beneath the surface. I’m still a little lousy with printing, but that experience was so informative and helpful in regards to the work I create now. 

It’s really easy for me to start feeling trapped in my drawings or to get overwhelmed by the detail. It’s constantly a game for me to surprise myself or trick myself into doing something I wouldn’t have thought of before. It centres me a bit and reels me back into why I’m doing what I’m doing. 

Art by Gabor Bata

AC: Where did you grow up? How did your upbringing shape your ideas about art and design? 

Gabor Bata: I was born in Montreal but was raised an hour out in a couple different suburban towns until I was 15 (at which point I moved back here). I feel that was the right age to come back, and while I think I did most of my maturing and creative discovering in the city, I can’t say suburbia didn’t have some effect. 

Nature had always been a backdrop in my home life, trees especially. My interest in the shape of trees has translated into some of the organic shapes I toy around with in my art. And the strange things you find living in those trees! My brother would get these bugs biting him all the time, and he’d just balloon completely out of control. The way the body reacts, how little control we have over it, and how little understanding, especially as a kid, definitely must’ve played into me drawing these erratic, bulbous organic characters who can barely contain themselves. 

Art by Gabor Bata

AC: How do you feel about social media as a platform for what you make? 

Gabor Bata: Social media has its perks. It can be a beautiful way of connecting and discovering others, especially in the art world. However, as a means of consuming art and information, that’s a bit tricky. On Instagram, you’re swiping through image after image after image, and at a point, they don’t really have the impact or the ability to be enjoyed on their own. Is it the ideal way to consume a piece of art? 

In my case, there’s a lot that feels lost in the translation of my 3x5 foot drawings to my 5.5x2.5 inch iPhone. I dunno, I sound like dinosaur bones now. I follow plenty of artists who have mutated their output to fit within the square confines of an Instagram post, to the point where I can’t imagine it being presented anywhere else. To me, I use it more out of practicality, and I’m definitely intent on eventually creating my own website where it’s less about taking in as many different images as possible in 30 seconds and more about giving the work a proper platform to breathe. 

Art by Gabor Bata

AC: What does community mean to you, and how do you connect with it?

Gabor Bata: Look, I know I just wrote that grand anti-Instagram manifesto, but yeah, I’ll stand by the fact that I’ve connected with so many cool artists and friends through it. 

It’s important to surround yourself with other nut jobs who share the same wants and struggles as you. Working around like-minded folks can be inspiring and challenging. If they’re really good at what they do, I think getting a bit pissed at how good they are and trying to outdo them every once in a while is healthy. 

Here are just a few of the artists who piss me off on the regular: @jupescoops (Aaron Elvis Jupin), @alexahawksworth (Alexa Hawksworth), @mlarono (Mathieu Larone), @catherine_desroches (Catherine Desroches), @erynlou (Eryn Lougheed) @jasonmurphyart (Jason Murphy) @foreshortening (Graeme Shorten-Adams), @francismarcel_ (Francis Marcel Williams) @peiangelina (Angie Pei)

Gabor Bata

Instagram I Tumblr

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