Artist of the Month

July 2008

Jeremy Couillard

Brooklyn, NY

From Detroit suburbs and now live in Brooklyn. Not really trained. I beat a lot of video games and I'm a vegetarian.

TAL: How and when did you start creating art?

JC : I can't answer this because i'm not really sure what art or creating means.

TAL: What media and genres do you work in?

JC : Oil and acrylic on canvas or panel or paper. Neo-baroque, neurotic, naive, narrative interior.

TAL: Who or what are your influences?

JC : Super mario bros., charles bukowski, matthias weischer,david schnell, neo rauch, dana schutz, all my homies, wu-tang clan, alejandro jorodowski, tripitaka, and so on and so on.

TAL: What was your inspiration for ""?

JC : Purple Slides - reading about Mithraic Mysteries and thinking hard about water parks and looking at pictures of water parks for hours on end on Google images.

TAL: Describe your creative process.

JC : First i build stretchers, put canvas on it, gesso, do my first layers in acrylic and graphite, build up the layers with thin oil, end with thicker oil and finally, usually, glazes. A lot of images i use are from Google some are things in my apartment. I've been just making stuff up more and more lately, though. One day I would like it all just to be made up.

TAL: What are you working on currently?

JC : Five four feet by two feet interiors of the 'little guy' series. Canvas mounted on panel. Lots of patterning. Starting with abstract under paintings and as I build the layers and as I start to see walls and couches and water slides and tigers I put them in.

TAL: What are your near/long term goals as an artist?

JC : To make the most badass painting that ever existed and maybe make a comic book about zombies.

TAL: Where can people view/purchase your work?

JC : My web site: www.jeremycouillard.com or Bright Rain gallery in Albuquerque: http://www.artscrawlabq.org/html/bright_rain_gallery.html