AN ARTIST INTERVIEW WITH REDGRITS
Director & Photographer: @Redgrits www.redgrits.com
Model: Stephenie Opene
Interviewed by Ben Dniprowskij
OPALUS : You have to explain to someone who hasn’t seen your work what your style as an artist is like.. What do you say to them?
REDGRITS : My style is an amalgamation of things that are living and non living. Finding connections between dichotomies in the aspects of our life and our social structure, showing that we, despite the complexities in the differences of our human nature and in our physicality, we are interconnected to the inanimate aspects and objects in our street - in ways ranging from the dynamism in our physical structure to city routes and road maps - how that objective physicality of our body relates to our subjective thought patterns and the non living aspects we see in our day to day lives.
OPALUS : Your work is distinctively stylized.. Has this always been the way or was there a moment in time or inspiration that lead you to this point?
REDGRITS : For when I began my work 3 years ago, I was influenced and inspired by the raw saturated technicolor-esq cinematic imagery in films. Through photographing streets and people, I would transcribe my vision into cinematic based directed outputs with the aim of telling stories. After then I went through a process of developing a unique method by fusing contrasting themes, as the movement in ballet to the movement of patterns in clothing design, finger prints to city structures, the shape of an ear to the shape of a fetus. By exercising this process of visually transcribing "Figures of Speech" and finding relations between contrasting themes through visual outputs, I was able to develop a distinctive style.
OPALUS : As a motif of this series what do multiple eyes mean to you?
REDGRITS : The human eye has always been an interest to me. I always considered it as an integral part of our human body. The eyes help us visualize and develop context, it gives us structure in the way we perceive, to then we could build our subjective guidelines of the world. Now that this is subjective, it also lies, it is biased through our own opinions, it is unfair to the objective world. It can and also can't be trusted. Just like the eye, we live our lives, in between the certain and uncertain, we create structure around uncertainty. We make mistakes and learn from chaotic mishaps. And the repeated imagery of the eye following the structure of the face is a visual expression of this saturated imperfection that maps our identity, this imperfection that we possess and also require to make mistakes and to learn how the world works, by walking between subjective and objective perception.
OPALUS : What are your opinions on popular and trending beauty imagery and where your work fits into the scope of beauty today?
REDGRITS : The beauty imagery in the current times is still in process of raw expression. Unlike, in the past and in the present where the raw was covered up and manipulated through the exploitation of digital mediums. With the recent style of fusing art with make up to convey social issues and other aspects of life through the ideas of creative artists online, we are able to have a more unique, raw and inclusive style of what Beauty is and that there is no fixed standard for it. It is everything that manifests from authenticity and truth. With the coming of digital age and the invention of face filters, we have reached a very interesting moment through which identity and beauty is explored, although the theme of face filters is controversial, it is still at the stage of conception, with the fusion of such mediums, we are able to creatively explore and question the meaning of identity and beauty through virtual reality, augmented reality and various forms of digital culture. My work leans towards conceptual than commercialized outputs - where the exploration of conceptual beauty has only recently begun and is continuing to grow with the birth of social media and freedom for creative expression and quick publication.
OPALUS : Lets say I’m a new artist starting out and I am asking you this question, ‘How do I get to a place with my artwork that is completely unique and stylistically stands alone like yours does?’ What is your advice ?…
REDGRITS : Finding a unique style could be a strenuous process with a rewarding result. Especially in these times where the accessibility of art is easily available through social media, we see artworks that are easily mimicked and/or influenced by Mood-boards, and various sites like Instagram, Pinterest etc. Although these social mediums are important to have to stay in touch with information, you have to - as much as you can - try to numb out the temptation of looking or getting influenced by work online. By simply staying in a room alone with no distractions, you could write/sketch or visually work out whatever comes to your mind on paper. By practicing this you can emit Your style of imagery, 'Your' being what influences You as a person, Your culture, where You come from, what You have gone through, Your experiences and how You can tie aspects of Your subjective style to the new external world, and develop interesting outputs through this exercise. It is a process that rewards authenticity through the cost of time, being alone and figuring out who You are and how You relate to Your world.