Dan Meth can be best described as a kid in a candy store who has run amok by sucking all the color out of Red Hots and Twizzlers and using his saliva to paint pictures on the walls. Though the bulk of his work is seen online (check any one of the Gawker sites), Meth's talent transcends codes, wires and dot coms and brings a little bit of smiles to everyone's hearts.
TOTALLY CRUSHED OUT: Can you briefly talk about some of your early dabbles in art?
DAN METH: The first artistic thing I ever did was a really swell birth-fluid fingerpainting on the doctors smock when I was born. Then i didn't do much for a year or two until I got really into crayons. From then on I pretty much was drawing nonstop. The progression of subject matters was roughly as such: monsters, dinosaurs, sharks, miners, spies, spaceships, knights, heavy metal dudes, superheroes, naked chicks, and now I'm back into monsters. The cycle begins again.
I watched your Influences video and there's so many such as Harryhausen and Henson and many more staples. Are there any newer artists that have wowed you?
My Influences from Dan Meth on Vimeo.
Some new artists that I really love are Tim & Eric, Brad Neely, Benjamin Marra, Marc Bell, Paper Rad, Matt Furie, Rad Rox.Based on your bio, it seems that you've been able to make a go with being an artist in several mediums on a platform that is pretty fickle (aka the Internets). How have you avoided that weird internet limbo that many memes and trends fall into?
Well, I have a sort of ADD about material and style. I find the idea of just doing cartoons about the same character in the same style for years and years would be really boring. I can't really even stick with one visual technique. Although it's more fun for me to switch it up all the time, it would probably be a better business method to just come with something marketable and milk it for decades like Garfield.
A good chunk of your work takes its cue from pop culture references and absurdity (one of my favorite examples are the Beach Boys shirts). When you're coming up with ideas, do you ever wonder if people will have some of the same reference points so it's not just something that visually interesting, but also something that engages the memory as well?Well you kinda have to have two categories for your work: The stuff that everyone will understand and the more esoteric stuff that you are really passionate about but few will understand. The best is when you hit that middle zone, where it's not embarrassingly broad but it's also not so obscure that it hits the audience like a dull thud. I get a real kick out of making many people laugh but I also have many interests that aren't exactly mainstream.
I realize that a majority of the work that people know you for is largely satirical, but when I saw the "Untitled" painting post recently, it was an image that struck me as being a little bit more personal and haunting. Are there any other experimental pieces that you'll want to share on your site as time passes?
Yeah, I think I will be posting more personal stuff occasionally dispersed with the "crowd-pleasers". Abstraction and experimental work is always kind of personal since it's rare to get a huge response from the audience with it (unless your name is Jackson Pollack and it's 1949). You aren't concerned with how many re-blogs it gets. Of course, my whole career is based on re-blogs so I'm not going to suddenly drop the humor anytime soon.
Is there a particular medium that you favor over another?
I guess my favorite medium will always be good old paper and pens. Its the purest for me to express myself. I have stacks of filled-up sketchbooks. Making animated videos is such a bulky process and it requires so much time, people, and software. There's nothing as free as doodling on paper.
In the past couple years I've gotten really into collage and drawing in collaged books. You get a lot of ideas when you find yourself drawing on any color but white blankness.
What are some of your plans for the near future?
Alot! Music videos, new animation techniques, an encyclopedic book about a country I created, a comic book about spies, some collage posters, more and more Tumblr hits, T-shirts, and more. Keep abreast of it at danmeth.com
No comments:
Post a Comment