KENT WILLIAMS

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Kent Williams

Painter { www.kentwilliams.com }

You were born in 1962 in New Bern, NC, attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and graduated in 1984.
From that time on, you exhibit your wonderful paintings in a number of shows. Now, you also teach
figurative painting to your lucky students in Art College of Design, Pasadena. In what ways does
working as a teacher affect your artistic creations? Do you feel that it limits your freedom or widens
your point of view?

Limits my time, but certainly widens my perspective, and at the same time, sharpens and defines my
point of view. Having to put forth your take and feelings about art-matters into words, forces you to
hone these sometimes seemingly intangible feelings into an at least somewhat ordered fashion.

Could you please tell us about your workspace and working habits? Do you often use photographs or
do you prefer working with models?

Both really. I move back and forth from drawing from life to shooting and working from photographic
reference. And often within the same canvas. A typical scenario would be to have a model come into
the studio for a drawing session, and as I make my way through a series of drawings, if I feel I like a
particular drawing at the time, will have the model not break the pose at the end to allow time for me to
take a quick shot. Therefore, if say, the following day I still like the drawing and feel it will make for a
good painting, I'll have both the drawing and the reference to work with.

You came together with the renowned filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, who is especially known for his
award winning movies “Requiem for a Dream” and “Pi”, for a graphic novel, “The Fountain”, which is
also a great work by Mr. Aronofsky. You say “This is the largest book I’ve done” for that. Could you
please tell us about that experience? Do you find Darren Aronofsky’s cinematography close to yourself
in terms of visual comprehension?

Working with Aronofsky on the book was in fact a very rewarding experience and it seems what I did
in interpreting his screenplay fell directing in line with what he was wanting (thankfully). That being
said, it was important to me that the project was open to my interpretation. I didn't want to be 'art
directed'. I don't think I could have handled such a large project that took so long to do, if I had to
second guess every decision I made. Basically, in a sense, I became the director. On the other hand, this
was Darren's story, and I wanted him to be pleased and happy with it. Fortunately, we seemed pretty
much on the same page.

Now haven gotten to know not only his film but his person as well, I don't know that I can fully say
that mine and Darren's visual language is close. While there is surely mutual visual comprehension, our
visual aesthetic, I think, doesn't always pull from or fall in the same arenas.

You visited the set of “The Fountain” in Montreal and watched a small part of it. After that, did you
have the opportunity to see the whole movie? If so, what did it make you feel? What did you think
about the camera angles, colors and compositions?

Upon my visit to the set and seeing a teaser trailer they had put together for the press coming in, I have
to say I was initially overwhelmed and disheartened. I had just finished the art and was sort of high on
the response it was getting, and then after seeing the footage, felt it all paled in comparison. Not what I
had done as a graphic novel – but that it was only a graphic novel. Here was this thing that was if living
and breathing and moving around. It was film! It was a movie! How could it live up to that?!

That initial response quickly leveled out and all found it's proper space in my mind. They're two
different mediums with their own perimeters – strengths and weaknesses. But I have to say, it initially
took the wind out of my sails.

You have two little boys, Kerig and Ian. What kind of scene do you see when you imagine the future of
the world and your children? If you were Kerig or Ian, would you still choose to be a painter?

That's a hard question to answer, and I have caught myself doing just that – imagining them in their
future and have found myself with good thoughts and also being very afraid for them. I'm sure just as
most parents do. Would I choose for them to be painters? Yes, if I felt it was where their hearts were.
But certainly there are more safe assured careers to enter.

You presented your artworks at your last show, “In Animate: New Paintings” in The Merry Karnowsky
Gallery in Los Angeles between September 8 and October 6. What does the title “In Animate” mean?

It's a little play on the word 'inanimate'. By separating the first part of the word it changes the meaning
from not alive to "in" – expressing movement or towards – and "animate" – having life – thus: towards
life or in life.

At some point in this work, and some prior to this particular body of work, I realized I was including,
with the human figure, inanimate figures as well–all representing living forms of some sort. Mexican
dead dolls, manga-like characters, etc., and decided to run with it as a theme. I found it interesting
having these human forms (animate forms represented in paintings, thus now inanimate) co-mingling
with figures that are representations of living forms being presented in the painting as alive.

While keeping your very artistic and classic painting style, you are presenting very unique and
contemporary compositions. You achieved one of the most important states for an artist by creating
your very own style. It’s very easy to recognize Kent Williams’ artwork with his perfect distortions,
shocking surprises and artistic brush strokes. Which artists or art movements influenced you most? If
you had a chance to share your dinner table with the artists you choose from the art history, who would
you invite and what kind of meeting would you arrange?

Well let me just say something about style. Style (I hate the word really, used in the context of art) is
not something one chooses and places upon oneself. Style, or one's artistic language is something that
comes about as a by product of sincere effort and sweat equity in the pursuit of something better than
you are capable of doing. I hear so often from students about wanting to 'find a style'. But in so many
cases these students are not willing to put in what it takes for this to happen – to put in and discover the
passion for observation, for drawing, for looking outside of their insular world. To feed and nourish the
passion that will ultimately lead to a personal language. They think they can kind of just step in and
choose a 'style'. The pursuit shouldn't be to find a style, but to look, to discover, to soak in, and then to
transcribe as best you can. And through this most simple and complex WORK, one's look, or language,
or style will develop on it's own.

I'm an art history fan. I love work from all periods including contemporary. So to narrow my likes
down to a handful seems a bit misleading. I do however seem to favor as a whole works created from
say late 1800's up to early Modern; Manet, Gauguin, Schiele (of course), Klimt, and an unrelenting
passion for Rodin, Balthus, Bacon and De Kooning. That's a short list.

With the developments in digital visualization technologies, advertising agencies and other clients
began to choose digital illustration, which looks more affordable and easier to apply. Turkish illustrator
Sahin Karakoc says; “I find the superposed, digital graphic compositions on cinema posters and book
covers quite insincere.” What’s your opinion on that issue? How do you evaluate the future of
illustration?

Digital as another medium, in principle, I have no problem with. But, I have to say, I haven't as of yet
been able to feel any lasting emotional resonance from any of it. Don't get me wrong, in a few cases,
upon viewing an image, I've felt an initial impact but it never seems to last. I don't find myself wanting
to go back and visit at all. Too fleeting, I think. Maybe, whether in print or not, I know the thing doesn't
exist!

Do you listen to music while working? If so, what genres and which artists do you prefer nowadays?

I do often when I'm painting, but not when I draw. There's a certain and very particular type of
concentration that comes into play when drawing in which I need silence for. I have a very eclectic
range of music that I enjoy. It can be Beethoven one day and Johnny Cash, Nine Inch Nails, or Cake
the next.

Theme of Bak Magazine’s 10th issue is an abstract concept, this time: "Why?" What comes into your
mind first when you think about that word? Please feel free and use your imagination. Create your own
“why” and ask it to the world.

Why not?