Bryan Schnelle was born in 1980 in southern California. His work is a reaction to and assessment of the values and ideals of the false world that Capitalism and consumer culture has created. Pulling directly from the source, he appropriates imagery from gossip, fashion, pop culture, and current events magazines to “include some element of reality”. By lifting the veil on what our society deems valuable and markets as important, he exposes the emptiness underneath. He has exhibited in Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Francisco, Portland and Arlington. Bryan currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Bryan Schnelle

Age: 31
Website: www.bryanschnelle.com
Medium: Mixed.
Location: Los Angeles.
Influences: Steve Reich, Mogwai, Ingmar Bergman, John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Richard Heinberg as of late.
Education: Self-taught.

• • •

EVANICE HOLZ: A Rembrandt piece is surely art, though it looks nothing like Warhol's Campbell's Soup piece- which is also considered art. The broad description of art allows us to speak about it in the way we do. In this modern age do you see the necessity to define art, and why?

BRYAN SCHNELLE: If you mean to try to narrow something down definitively until it fits nicely into the closest pre-existing category of art, no, not really. Art is art, and though it no doubt helps us when talking about art history to be able to anchor it to a certain place or time, I don’t find it absolutely necessary to try to simplify or label every contemporary artist or contemporary artist’s work, future art historians will do that for us. For all you know you may be lumping an Artist in with a group or movement for which he or she feels no connection at all.

EH: What emotion inspires you most when creating a new piece? How does that process flow?

BS: I don’t really know how to try to put into words what I feel when creating a new piece. I guess you could say a kind of open-minded excitement or passionate curiosity. I try to just sort of listen.

EH: How do you deem having formal art education in contrast to being a self- taught artist in the creative industry? Through what medium do you think it affects the artist?

BS: Though I think education is great (in general, as well as in art), I know that an academic education isn’t for everyone. A certain type of person may feel more comfortable with self-education, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I definitely don’t ascribe to the belief that Art schools “produce” good artists, I don’t think I need to go into much detail here, I think we’ve all seen the over-confident artist with the amazing (and colossally expensive) education whose work is absolutely terrible. It doesn’t guarantee anything other than a few connections, though I’m sure it’s great for a lot of people. I’m simply saying that I don’t agree with the way the system is set up, and would like to encourage people to look at an artist’s art in a pure, unbiased, focused manner, independent of his or her CV.

EH: You have a show titled Fear and Consumption opening July 9th at Phone Booth Gallery (which I am thrilled about experiencing). What can we as spectators expect of your new work?

BS: For one thing I’ve incorporated a bit more color into this body of work, whereas in the past my work has been largely black and white. I wanted to create work that reflects the happy-delusional flashiness of advertising and the sort of brainwashing effect it seems to have on our distorted values and grip on reality.

EH: What is your most prodigious ambition as an artist?

BS: I guess I would have to say getting to a point where I have a big enough audience to take on bigger or more elaborate projects and feel like I’m communicating with enough people to really make a difference.

EH: We are abounded myriad of times a day with empty advertisements and false notions in magazines and that of the like. Describe the process of how you straighten those notions into something more tangible and real in your work.

BS: I just simply dissect the advertisement in my head; try to determine the target demographic, objectives (Obvious and underlying), the way it makes me feel (or the way it “works” on me) personally. I think about these things and then try to make an “honest” version.

EH: What fetched you into collaging as an artist?

BS: I have quite a background in drawing and painting. I possess the ability to sit down in front of an object and render a pretty accurate representation of it. This is not something that can be taught or learned (for the most part, anyway), I just happen to be among those born with that particular ability. I drew endlessly as a kid and then got into photo-realism in high school. I was surrounded by people who thought that that’s what good art is. And it can be good, of course (I still have a soft spot for it, and though I personally haven’t drawn in that way in a very long time, I’m a huge fan of Robert Longo, Eric Yahnker, Aurel Schmidt, and Derek Albeck), but I guess I just sort of outgrew it. Or maybe I just don’t have the patience for it anymore, I like working fast. I started to get into collage shortly after high school and went through a lot of different phases with it over the course of the past ten years before landing here.

But to answer your question a little better, I think I liked in some way that it was an abandonment of where I came from and of the notions that were instilled in me in my early artistic development.

EH: Any last words?

BS: Don’t do drugs.

Tweet

© Copyright 2011, 2012 by EYE SEE HUE Magazine. All image and media rights are reserved by the artist.