Interview with Harma Heikens

q)Name?

a)Harma Heikens

q)Location?

a)Groningen, the Netherlands

q)Contact info...?

a) http://www.harmaheikens.nl/
http://www.hamzine.nl/
info@harmaheikens.nl
info@witzenhausengallery.nl

q)How did you get started making art?

a)I've been making things as long as I remember, but didn't think that had anything to do with "art". I always wanted to be an artist, though; I imagined that I would be painting large abstract canvasses when I grew up.

q)How would you describe your art?

a)Don't know.Conceptual cartoonism? I hope it's sort of direct.

q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

a)The newspapers, b-movies, t.v.commercials and everyday life.

q)What other artists inspire you?

a)Writers like for instance Elfride Jelinek, Michel Houllebecq and Douglas Coupland, grafic novelists like Charles Burnes and Daniel Clowes, film directors like Lucas Moodysson and Tim Burton and a lot of other visual artists, too many to mention, not always the ones that make work simular to mine, it is more about an attitude.

q)Where can someone purchase your works?

a)One can contact Witzenhausen Gallery in Amsterdam, however, there is not a lot available. The process of making these things is rather time-consuming, I do four or five pieces a year.

q)What is your main medium of choice?

a)Sculpture and installation. The sculpture is mostly made of light-weight synthetics (all water-based and friendly to the environnement).

q)What are you working on now?

a)An installation in collaboration with a poet. It is about consumerism and child-prostitution.

q)What advice could you give to someone who wants to be an artist?

a)Learn as much from other artists as you can, be open-minded. Even go to artschool if you get the chance and let go of everything you thought about art.But after that, forget about the whole thing again and return to the things you loved before, however stupid they may seem, because they are likely to be you true source of inspiration. q)What are you doing when you are not creating art?

a)Sleeping mostly, and watching movies.

q)What does music, in its entirety, mean to you?

a)A lot. And as long as there is music being made that I can relate to, it makes me feel like I'm part of a movement. I find that inspiring.

q)What does art, in its entirety, mean to you?

a)Pretty much everything, I guess. (That it, when you include all: movies, cartoons, literature,music....)

q)Are there some web sites that You would like to recomend? Artists, art communities

a)Lisa Yuskavage
Anya Janssen
Folkert de Jong
http://www.epker.nl/
http://www.martenwinters.nl/
http://www.romasteel.com/
http://www.bezembinder.nl/ (illustrated links)
and the Junxtapoz -magazine website, http://www.juxtapoz.com/, always provides a lot of nice stuff and an enourmous amount of interesting links.