ESPVisuals is proud to present an Exclusive Interview with the incredible artist Nathan Spoor.
Give us a short introduction about yourself.
My name is Nathan Spoor. I spend my time being creative, painting, writing, and enjoying life each day I've got.
3 words to explain your work
Poetry
Discovery
Mystery
What is your outlook on reality?
I think reality is great for what it is. What's truly amazing is that we call it reality and yet know almost nothing about how it works.
Although your art is very "suggestive", what is the message your artwork portrays?
I think the message in my work is pretty adventuresome and curious about the mysteries of life. Each piece and portion of a painting addresses something different about situations, individuals and some pretty entertaining visual ideas. So perhaps the message is about furthered interest in exploring each moment of life and being.
Which other artists have had a considerable impact or influence on your life as an artist?
So many artists have really helped form my way of making and seeing things. All my teachers throughout schools and universities. I was introduced to surreal art as a glazed over section in art history classes and really couldn't get away from it. That was thankfully after I'd combed through so many earlier stages and could appreciate what art history is about. I'm really fascinated by the growth of the arts, and with artists and individual talents. Since everything affects something else in some manner, I'm curious about the effects of all of that on my work too.
Being from Los Angeles, how much would you say the art mecca influences your art?
Well I do live here, and have lived here for the last 8 and a half years. But I'm from Texas, so the influences I've noticed are pretty real. I think every place or city or situation really affects us whether we realize it or not. For me, moving from a place where there was plenty of space and not enough opportunity to a place with tons of people and all kinds of opportunity was a great move. I've seen LA and CA have an overall influence on my work. The skies, the clouds, the trees and architectural elements around CA have all influenced me and my work.
As far as living in an art mecca, that has many advantages also. When I moved here, there were all kinds of opportunities for young artists if you were dedicated and talented enough to find them. Now there are many more galleries created to service all levels of artists and collector needs. Living here provides a lot of convenience for the lifestyle as well. There's always something inspiring going on, and people really do appreciate art here on a wide variety of levels.
What are your current projects?At the moment I'm working on a bunch of new pieces. Last June I started working in a new process, concentrating only on the line and spatial elements of the work intensely before even starting in with color. At the moment I have about 20 in the works, with line underpaintings slowly reaching the next stage of the work, color.
I'm an Artist In Residence with Tonny Sørensen's artist development company, Planet Illogica. We've been working on several things, including clothing and book ideas. The Pi team has several exciting things coming up that I'm very excited about being involved in. Recently we've done the Manifest Equality event in LA, as well as the big upcoming book fair later this year.
I've also been doing quite a bit of writing, consistently being published in Hi Fructose, Juxtapoz and BL!SSS magazines. Embracing the written aspect of creativity has really opened up a lot of areas for me, both personally and professionally. It's an amazing aspect of communicating that can be very freeing that I can get lost in when not engaging the fine art side of things.
See more of Nathan's amazing work at nathanspoor.com
Prints, Books, Merchandise and more available from his store.
Or contact Nathan here.
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