ectoplasm

© ectoplasm

Today a little of post-modern stuff, I have for you works of ectoplasm, an artist from Montreal.
In his works you can find a strong, sometimes weird female sensuality, unusual positions of bodies, all the things that personally I love in visiual art.
Try it!

© ectoplasm

BR: In your works, do you refer to any kind of iconography?
e: My work is all about the body, and the flesh, the gore, sex, feminity... I'm trying to talk about the woman's body (it sounds shitty to say...) and the angst coming from that... The fear of desintegration, of beauty and ugliness... I am influenced by the image I see in nightmares, people eating me or drilling hole in my body, trying to rape me... I think maybe I speak about that strange relation we have with the inside and the outside, with the skin looking like rotting flesh and vagina coming on the outside. I draw my obsession, i try not to censure myself as I do in real life. I'm influenced by porn or horror iconography despite of me... But I am just as a child glad to transgress. I'm trying more and more to describe post-modern life and create icon of our century... I'm also really inspired by rock culture, I often write lyrics I have in my head and also female rock icons such as Courtney Love, Pj harvey or Amy Winehouse.

© ectoplasm

BR: What do you think about Schiele?
e: I obviously am a great sucker of schiele's art! I think it has inspired me in so many ways, especially for the drawing of the skin that looks like dead flesh and the tortured positions... I think he was ahead of his time in the despiction of the human anxiety in blank spaces.

© ectoplasm

BR: Did you choose nude for any particular reason?
e: I think it's more easy to draw nudes! And I love drawing boobs! And living the body is something I had trouble with for a long time. My last drawing was a dressed girl... I think I will try to integrate more clothes and how they interfere with the body in my futures drawings.

© ectoplasm

BR: Who/What influences/inspirates you?
e: Hole's lyrics... Nightmare visions... Everyday life... Binges... Rock'n'roll way of life... Fashions icons... What I'd like to be and what i fear the most... Artists that are better... Sex is a big inspiration too.

BR: Which elements of contemporary art are you interested in?
e: To be honest, I was attract by drawings but I like all mediums, even thought I'm more into installations and paintings, I prefer sensual works.


BR: What do you think about street art?
e: I used to think about a lot but now I think it's a medium like another... I liked the directness that brings art in the street and the rebellion against society rules it was linked to. The fact is that it works in the street where it surprise people and speaks directly about the envoronment we live in. So the mercantile infatuation the galleries and museums has for street artists, that take captive ephemere and spontanous art is pure bullshit! As soon as you stick art to something, there's codes and art market running after so I don't think there's a « street art .» Artists just do their art in the street because they have a concept, a thing to say about it, like Ernest Pignon-Ernest. I sticked some drawings of mine in the street but the meaning and act is just too easy, the presence of something unusual in urban environment obviously attract people.

© ectoplasm

BR: DAdA or Surrealism?
e: DADA! My adolescent love.

BR: Warhol or Banksy?
e: I used to love Banksy a long time ago when he wasn't bank(sy)able... I bought a little book where there is a lot of political drawings that are very good. He likes to look like the enfant terrible of street art but maybe he is better at promoting his art than doing art... Maybe just as Warhol, but the mystery of the Image (with a big I!) and presence of death in warhol's work moves me more.

© ectoplasm

BR: Does photography of Nan Goldin inspirates you?
e: Do you mean in my photos or drawings?
BR: Yes.
e: I don't think it was a direct influence but I admired for long time. I like how she turns private life and usual ugliness into raw beauty. Intimacy was a theme I wanted to work on. I'm above all looking for artworks seeking the struggle of human against death, in many ways. Her work is totally humanist, just as her « mother » Diane Arbus (I don't remember which one said photography was like caressing someone) but it is also very linked to death... I think I'm on the side of death, where I jiggle my little pencil to kill something and I don't know if something rise from that.

BR: Any other artist influences you?
e: They are so much! I can't make a list but I'll say Blanquet, for the monstruous theme, Munch, for the morbid Madonnas, recently Dawn Mellor... I often find my drawings look like something someone already did... But I keep on searching for the Inner, Intimate Image that will pierce a blind hole in my eye.

 

© ectoplasm