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Name: Brett Hess
Place of birth: Michigan City, Indiana
Brett Hess: This is something I ask myself on a daily basis….hmm…I am a visual joymaker, a painter of mischievous mayhem, and quite the madcap.
B.H.: Picked up pencil at age 3 and started drawing, this is still ongoing, so I guess that is background and foreground. I took every art class I could throughout high school which made it almost tolerable. In 1992 I attended The American Academy of Art in Chicago. It was a totally old school way of teaching which is what I needed to define what I already knew. Basically I needed to learn all of the rules before I could start breaking them.I have been painting professionally since 1995.
B.C.: Can you tell us about your art work? Which medium do you use? ..and which technique?
B.H.: My paintings now are the perfect storm of everything I’ve learned in the last 15 years. I began my career using airbrush almost 100% which taught me about the immediacy of painting, the spontaneous throw down of paint, and mostly control. These days I can draw with an airbrush if I needed to. I only use the airbrush now for certain techniques that nothing else can come close to, usually something to do with atmosphere or the perfect shadow. I’ve always used acrylics mostly due to lack of patience. I’ve dabbled in oils, but there are too many headaches for me there. My paintings are layers and layers of paint, started with medium brushes and eventually using many a detail brush. I also use sponges and other techniques for texture. I’m a texture and detail freak!
Nestor Avalos is a Mexican artist, influenced by the occult and magick, characterized by a strong symbolism where the Spirits and the character of the Devil, tests our mind. Avalos gives us a series of representations of foreign deities. Entities that emerge from the darkness challenging the viewer.
With a clear influence of the works of the Sacred Art, the evocations of Nestor are within the actual movement of visual artists working in the dark and abject art, obscure emanations from the depths of the spirit, a work that manifests the crocked dialogues between him & the spirits that reside inside his mind.
Name: Aunia Kahn
Place of birth: Michigan, USA
Links: http://www.auniakahn.com
Black Cat: Hi Aunia, thanks for taking the time out for the interview…
I love your work and I know that you are self-taught artist that creates hybrid visual compositions that involve costumery, photography, painting and digital collage techniques. Can you tell me something more about your process of creation? ..and in which way did you improve your skills?
Aunia Kahn: You are welcome, thank you. Like many other artists, I had been doing some form of creation since I was very young. I loved to paint, write songs, make elaborate tree forts, etc. In the early part of 2000 I was writing music under the band name AfterChain, my solo music project and started dabbling in graphic design to create work for my CD, which was then melded with my photography and painting background to form a hybrid art form. It took some time to find a balance, but the creations really reflected my versatility and enjoyment for so many mediums.
Name: Jamie Baldridge
Place of birth: a small town in Louisiana
Contacts and links: http://www.jamiebaldridge.com/
Black Cat: Tell us a little about yourself and your passions…
Jamie Baldridge: I am 36 years old (young?) and currently a professor of fine art at the University of Louisiana. I'm also a writer of sorts and extremely hydrophobic. My passions are traveling, books, art, museums, writing, movies and vintage comic books :-)