Each painting is its own world, but a lot of times I do see the paintings as one page from a story. You can imagine what has happened before or after. Sometimes they are worded as being a part of a story, especially the paintings where characters are in conversation.
I remember the university as being very encouraging, especially to experimentation. I think you always get a lot of musicians in any art community, and it seemed like a lot of people I knew worked on films that got made locally.
I had so many ideas that I wanted to get out at once that it led to simple little drawings and paintings.
I loved surrealism and abstract painting, and anything related to those. I always thought painting was the highest form of art. What led me to drawing was seeing so much self-important, pretentious, conceptual-type art in university. I wanted to reject that by making quick, fun art.
I grew up on a farm with only two TV channels. I didn't grow up around much culture. When I got excited about painting, I never really got further than what would have been in a modern art history textbook.
I didn't really get into underground comics, though I've liked some of what I've seen. Dame Darcy was very impressive to meet, really talented. In general, I've always been more interested in searching out music, so I think I miss out on a lot of underground art.
I'm always happy when I see something written on an album that wasn't just typed on a computer.
The Winnipeg Art Gallery has a good collection of Inuit art, and most of what I've seen I've seen there or in the few books I have. I should spend more time researching.
I love Inuit art, and most anything you would find in a folk art museum, as well as children's art or children's book illustrators or illustrators in general - all the kinds of work that my paintings would draw comparisons to.
I think the overall mood of the music informs the artwork, but I've found that good lyrics can be inspirational, too.
To me, art and music inform each other continually, and when I was making more music there was an overall aesthetic that was shared by both mediums. Now I always listen to music when I work, so when I am working a lot, that is when I start searching out new music and finding new things to get excited about.
I don't teach. I don't think I could. I also don't really do anything else artistically, locally.
Taboos are always going to be interesting.Our [ with Michael Dumontier] style has its range and there is room for explicitness in violence, but not at the expense of our classy, highbrow image.
