Interview with Tony Philippou

q)Please introduce yourself.

a)Tony Philippou

q)Where do you live and work?

a)The Bronx, NY q)How would you describe your work to
someone who has never seen it? a)It’s what gets the people going.

q)How did you start in the arts? How/when
did you realize you were an artist?

a)Drawing… it always remained a constant
in my life. I was probably as young as 5 when
I started and really came into my own when
I went to High School. I was fortunate to have
a great group of peers that really inspired me
creatively.

q)What are your favorite art materials and why?

a)The brush that I do my line work with. I take a
#1 brush and slice off some of the bristles so I can
get a really nice hair like type line.

q)What/who influences you most?

a)Listening to some good music, reading a
good book, Photography, writing, and film
are all crucial influences on my creative process.

q)Describe a typical day of art making for you.

a)Usually once I have a theme I start to collect
references for images. That I will follow up
with a quick thumbnail of what I want to
accomplish visually with my design. From
there I get my wood ready to paint on and
apply my finished sketch. Once that’s in
place I can start laying down some base
colours and get busy.

q)Do you have goals, specific things you
want to achieve with your art or in your
career as an artist?

a)The only goal I have is to be able to afford
to paint and inspire for the rest of my career.

q)How long does it typically take you to finish a piece?

a)Could take a couple of weeks or a couple of months.
Depends on the size and how much is going on in the
composition.

q)Do you enjoy selling your pieces, or are
you emotionally attached to them?

a)It’s a beautiful thing to be able to create
something that people enjoy enough to own.
It’s definitely a pleasure. As far as emotional attachment I would say
I’m probably more humbled and grateful
than anything else.

q)Is music important to you? If so, what are
some things you're listening to now?

a)Absolutely. Right now its been Heartless
Bastards, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Metallica, Lil Wayne,
Lupe Fiasco, Diamond Nights, She Wants Revenge,
The Bravery, Portishead, Gun’s N Roses, Brad Sucks,
Raekwon and many more other jams that keep
me rocking into the wee hours of the night.

q)Books?

a)Just finished reading Tripwire by Lee Childs…
great story, cool characters. Now I’m reading
Emperor by Conn Iggulden about the rise of
two young roman soldiers…very compelling.

q)What theories or beliefs do you have regarding
creativity or the creative process?

a)It’s all comes down to how much you put into it.
There’s fundamental ways to inspire creativity
and it requires what most successful skills need
and that’s a strong work ethic, being organized,
and prepared to work in a comfortable environment
with music and good lighting.

q)What do you do (or what do you enjoy doing)
when you're not creating?

a)I partake in the greatest gift man has given
to humanity. My very own PS3 which gets daily
burn and is no stranger to FIFA 09.

q)Do you have any projects or shows coming up
that you are particularly excited about?

a)This Oct.9th I will have be having a solo
show in the Project Room of Thinkspace Gallery
along side Esao Andrews in the Main Room.

q)Do you follow contemporary art scenes?
If so, how? What websites, magazines,
galleries do you prefer?

a)I check anything that crosses my path. I check
out Juxtapoz magazine and their website from
time to time to see what’s going on in the east
and west coasts over here.

q)Any advice for aspiring artists?

a)Make sure work is quality and push it hard.
Be patient but with some time the results should come.

q)Where can we see more of your work online?

a) tonyphilippou.com

myspace.com/tonyphilippou

Interview with Vivek aka UBIK

q)Please introduce yourself. 

a)My name Vivek aka UBIK. And

I'm an Artist

/ Graphic Designer and also a

very random person.

q)Where do you live and work? 

a)Dubai. The desert turned

Construction

city turned Chaos

( at present )

q)How would you describe your work

to someone who has never seen it?

a)Surreal pattern based deconstruction

of perspectives and decorations.

q)How did you start in the arts?

How/when did you realize you were

an artist?

a)After I dropped out of fashion school,

I realized I had to do

something to make a living and keep

it going. So after a lot of

experimentation in fashion , styling

and design, I ended up eventually

coming back to art. Drawing to be

more specific. I was around 18 or 19

when I seriously started to dedicated

long hours just doodling and

drawing on everything and anything

I could find. I was living in India

during this period, so a local coffee

shop was my playground. I would

bump in to a lot of fellow artists ,

and they've all had some sort of

an influence and inspiration in the

early days. From there till now, a

lot of phases and face in my life has

managed to keep me going and

inspired to do what I do.

q)What are your favorite art

materials and why?

a)Pens and Markers. Simply because

they afford me the luxury to detail

my work to the best... I've done murals

just using markers..hehe.. I

guess I just find it very comfortable

to use. Though these days I'm

trying my hand at acrylic and spray paint...

eventually I'd like to

make the transitions to cans.

Surface wise, I love working on wood and

paper. I've tried work on canvas,

but somehow it doesn't go down well

with me. But I guess I'll eventually

try my hand at more new surface

and materials to work with.

q)What/who influences you most?

a)Pop cliches influence me a lot.

Life is and always has been a big huge

cliche. There's always some form of

inspiration happening around me,

some days I happen to catch them

soon enough and exploit it while I

can. Also works of existentialism

and deconstruction have a great

influence on my works. Death and

magic realism is a topic I keep

dealing with in my work a lot.

Other than that there's so much more

that inspires me. Basically anything

and everything that out there..

q)Describe a typical day of art

making for you ?

a)Well I wake up by around 10 or 11,

and usually get to work slowly by

around 2 or 3 in the afternoon ,

and end up working till like 4 or 5

in morning. In between I do manage to

laze around, chat online, etc.

But then there are somedays when I

don’t do any art at all. Those days

I just tend to laze around and doodle.

q)Do you have goals, specific things

you want to achieve with your art

or in your career as an artist?

a)I'd like to keep experimenting with

different mediums as much as I

can. Keep pushing my style to new

levels of visualization. Do more and

more works that are huge in terms of scale.

Basically just keep having

a lot of fu doing what I'm doing right now,

and hopefully get to

collaborate with more new people.

I'd also like to be part of group

shows and expose my work to a more

wider international audience I

guess. Basically just spread

the word about my work and connect with

more like minded people.

q)What contemporary artists or

developments in art interest you?

a)Oh! there are so many of them that

I trip on, though the works of Blu,

Nunca , Jeremy Fish , Anthony Lister ,

Herbert Baglione , Travis

Millard, Sixe, bruno9li, Faile ,

Herakut etc serve as a constant

source of interest and inspiration

for me. I pretty much tend to

follow every possible new age art

movement out there. There's always

something interesting being done by

someone random in some part of the

world. It's wonderful...I'm also am

a huge fan of classic artists like

Klimt , Bosch , Van Gogh , Dali ,

Escher, Magritte etc.

q)How long does it typically take

you to finish a piece?

a)Well it depends, but on an average it

takes me about 2 or three days

to finish a piece, depending on the

size of the work. I also tend to

work on two of three piece a one time,

that way it helps me spread my

idea on to different concepts.

Sometimes I end up finishing a piece in

like a day, but those are normally

stuff that I end not to put too

much detail or mind behind it.

Those are just doodle's I like doing in

between to refresh and recycle my mind.

q)Do you enjoy selling your pieces,

or are you emotionally attached to them?

a)Yes and No. Well I used to be

very attached to my works. But off late

I'm pretty much ok with selling them,

I figured if I have to make a

living out of this, I might as well

be ready to sell. But some of my

earlier pieces that I've done,

I doubt if I'll ever sell them. They

are pretty near and dear to me.

But I think nowadays when I sit down

to work on something, I think sub

consciously I end up preparing my

self to sell the piece off as soon

as I'm done with it. So when the

piece is done, I'm more excited to

find a buyer and pass the works on.

q)Is music important to you? If so,

what are some things you're

listening to now?

a)Oh! yes, music and sound is a very

important aspect of what I do. I

dont think I can ever work without

music in the background, I need

some sort of sound, even people

talking filtered through faint sounds

of music will also do. Well I'm a

huge Pink Floyd fan, so floyd is

like a staple OST to my life. But

these days I've been tripping on The

Roots, Portishead , Dining Rooms,

Herbaliser , Ramallah Underground,

Checkpoint303 , MF Doom , and some

random psy trance.

q)Books?

a)I love em!, But these days I hardly

dedicate time to read, but when I

do and can ,  I'm a huge fan of the

Beatniks, Rimbaud, Derrida, Sarte

Philip K dick , etc, And then a lot of

books on art and design in

general .

q)What theories or beliefs do you have

regarding creativity or the

creative process?

a)Well on a personal level, I find

creativity the best when I'm idle and

bored. But I think the creative process

is systematic and magical at

the same time, It's very auto pilot in

most cases, At-least for me,

when I'm working on a new piece,

in my mind's eye I know how the final

outcome will feel and look like,

but when I start out doing the piece,

I tend to keep drifting in and out

between different ideas and

concepts, adding in a lot of random

elements of visual distraction, to

distort the piece and eventually

come to the final look that I want to

achieve. I tend to treat my patterns

as texture of realism, and apply

that to my work. I get really

frustrated sometimes when I'm not able

to put my ideas down properly.

So sometimes I end up furiously

doodling away anything that comes to

my mind, it's like some weird

recycling process I go through.

q)What do you do (or what do you enjoy doing)

when you're not creating?

a)Well if I'm not working, then I'm mostly

online chatting or just

browsing through random sites...

Shopping for books...Irritating my

dogs..or just simply get drunk. hehe.

But yeah I'm always doodling,

there's not a single day that goes by

without me not drawing for like

at-least 5 mins. It's become a

very healthy addiction.

q)Do you have any projects or shows

coming up that you are

particularly excited about?

a)Well I'm part of a graphic design

group show during the Sharjah

Biennial. I also recently ended up

wining the Diesel art-space project

(Dubai edition ), so I'm kicked about

seeing my work being installed

on a long wall during another local

art fair. Both of these shows are

happening this month (March)...

I'm also planing to do a solo by the

mid of the year ( my first solo ) ,

and also possibly do a one night

only screen print  show by April mid.

I've also got some other stuff I

the pipeline that I'm really excited about...

over all this year

should be fun and interesting.

q)Do you follow contemporary art scenes?

If so, how? What websites,

magazines, galleries do you prefer? 

a)Yes, I usually get my art fix from

juxtapoz.com and fecalface.com. But I also

end up browsing a lot of

artist websites and read a lot of art/design blogs.

Like I said

before, there's so much happening around us..

it's just really a visual

overload at times. But a good one always.

q)Ask yourself a question you'd like to answer, and answer it. ?

a)Define Art ? Art is a Speculation!

q)Any advice for aspiring artists? 

a)Well drink lots of coffee. Stay

awake more. Meet new people, and in between all of this, just keep

drawing a lot. Keep creating. And yes don't let critics affect your

work. Do it for yourself and keep pushing yourself, but also know when

to back out of a trip and pause and take notice and observe your

journey. Also go back to the early days there will be so much you've

left behind for you to find again and trip on.

q)Where can we see more of your work online? 

a)Well I've been too lazy

to get a website up and running, but you can find my works here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ubik21/

I should have a website ready soon though. You can also find my group

(UBIK) in face-book and join it to be updated on all my activities.