Door Twitter twijfel ik over het plaatsen van dit soort postings op MonoBrow. Maar holy crap! Zei je iets over je lievelings arcadegames van toen je dag gemaakt kon worden door een Mc Donald's milkshake?

En had je het nu over de classics van Sega, en dat die apparaten dan verkleind zijn zodat je ze mooi op je bureau of op je nachtkastje kunt zetten, voor het betere wegdroomwerk? Oh, zeg dat dan. PRE-ORDER:

Sega Arcade - mini machines

James Quigley droomt niet vaak over vreemdgaan met het Albert Heijn-meisje van de kaasafdeling. Wel over monsters met barstende puspuisten, ingewanden die niet begrijpen dat ze binnen moeten blijven en andere nastiness. Gelukkig voor jou tekent hij die ellende van zich af.

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Is all your work hand drawn?
"Yes, all of my work is hand-drawn. I do use the computer for coloring my work."

What does your mother say when you show her your monsters?
"I've been drawing demons and mutants my entire life so at this point my mother isn't surprised by the sorts of things I draw now."

Do you make up stories when drawing?
"That depends on the piece. Currently the Demonology series that I'm working from is inspired by an old occult text known at the Goetia. As far as my other work is concerned, I do imagine the characters as having particular personalities and I put in subtle details that I'd like to think might lead a viewer to see some of the secret things that I see in my work."

Your work reminds me of Jim Phillips and a friend said he thought of Pushead. What's so appealing about drawing freaks and beasts?
"Jim Phillips is obviously a big influence on my work. I've had a lot of people mention Pushead when describing my work. I'm a big fan of Pushead. Like a lot of other artists, I think that what I do is a more refined extension of what I've done since I was a kid."



Which is?
"My childhood and teenage years were spent obsessing over comic books, toys, horror movies, and punk and metal record covers and posters. There's a particular dark current of irreverence and malignant visuals that I've always been drawn to and I imagine that similar artists past and present have found their place in the grotesque. Drawing monsters and freaks is simply more interesting to me than producing typically beautiful art."

Do you ever dream about your creatures?
"My dreams are a very fertile source of inspiration for a lot of my visuals. I draw a lot from my subconscious when I'm sketching."

Brrr. Do you like to draw other stuff too?
"I don't draw much else besides freaks and monsters but in my sketchbooks I do a lot of simple classic cartooning and spend a lot of time creating characters."

What are you working on now?
"I'm making monsters and gore for horror films. I'm also in the early stages of producing a few different toy lines for a new toy company called Playge, making strange stuffed animals and action figures that are in line with my aesthetic- disgusting vile stuff hopefully."

Nice
"As well, I'm producing shirt designs for a great company in LA called Lore Clothing, continuing to do work for Transworld Skateboarding and a few other publications, skateboard art for Heroin skateboards, artwork for my own apparel company Dead Druid, and a few other projects including writing and making the art for a role-playing game that I've been working on for 10 years."

What scares you the most?
"Large bugs."

Dan Witz woonde al in New York toen de enige erkenning voor kunstenaars die de straat als canvas gebruikten, bestond uit kaakcrunchende klappen door de knuppels van New York's finest.

Deze gast weet what up. Dat kun je vanaf donderdag zien in de gallerie van Sid Lee. Maar je mag pas kijken als je m'n interviewtje gelezen hebt.

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Did you read a book during your flight to Amsterdam?
"I caught up on back issues of The New Yorker, my main culture connection. Bedside reading these days is art critic Peter Schjeldahl’s “Let’s See”, a collection of writings on art from the New Yorker."

Are you an avid online reader? Or is it just print for you?
"I follow the Wooster Collective blog. It’s like a daily tonic: it keeps me energized and connected to what’s going on in street art - especially internationally."

You once said that you like it when paintings have a certain ambivalent quality which makes them live a bit longer in your brain when you see them in a museum. Is that a condition for you to consider something as art?
"Not at all. For me art can be many things and found many places. As a painter I paint the type of paintings I’d want to see. Duration is one of those ineffable miracles about old master paintings that I’d like to manifest in my own stuff."

There's a lot of incomprehension between scenes: platforms like Juxtapoz look down upon highbrow art and the traditional art scene doesn't know what to make of people who create Spongebob paintings. Bit tiresome isn't it?
"Not really for me. I keep a heavy filter on what aesthetic battles I get involved in. The type of work I make takes a tremendous amount of energy and focus; anything that supports it makes it through the filter, anything distracting gets rejected. It’s kind of brutal and I’m sure I’m missing out on a lot, but that’s the way it’s got to be."

Sounds good
"As far as the aesthetic turf wars, I’ve cycled through enough art trends by now to understand that everything’s always changing and that this current bubble the urban artists are enjoying will soon be over. Being in fashion, by definition, means it will go out of fashion."

I've been told that current New York doesn't compare to the period you first lived there. Too clean and gentrified. But what's still good about it?
"Utter despair and hopelessness for the human condition isn’t staring you in the face everday like it used to be. To survive here you don’t need to have such a hard shell as back then."

Ok
"And generally the hipsters seem healthier and less angry than when I was a kid. Granted, the rage and chaos was artistically productive, but in the end that kind of world is a bad dog—it will bite you if you get too close—and I don’t really miss it."

What's your latest NYC discovery?
"I've lived here for the last 30 years and it’s only recently I became interested in the waterways surrounding us. Lately I’ve been out exploring (on an old wooden boat I’ve been restoring) and it’s amazing how many strange and forgotten things I’ve seen from the water."

When are you truly happy and at peace?
"Never. My life is a constant emergency."

Hou op schei uit.

Dit weekend heb je echt niet meer nodig dan deze 12 minuten mix van Machines Don't Care.

Die klapt namelijk als een happy slapper met een eelt-afwijking.

Machines Don't Care - Mini Mix

Jaja, echt muziek om rustig op te ballen. En over fysieke toestanden gesproken: wel lief zijn voor je meisje vanavond. Morgen ook trouwens. Da's belangrijk.

(Weer via Discodust.)