Interview with BRANDON JUHASZ

q)Walk us through an intimate day in your life

a)being an artist today especially an “emerging” artist is a juggled life. I work a full time job. When I get up I pretty much go to work. I work till early afternoon and then come home to my live/studio space and go about normally life with my family. I work mostly at night unless I have pressing deadlines in which I work whenever I have the free time/all the time. I marry my life and my practice so that whenever I have a moment or the quick need to make something or complete something my studio and work is only a room away. It works for me to integrate that way rather than having a separate studio to escape too and spend hours holed up.

q) Where did you grow up/where do you live now and how does that contribute to your art?

a)I live in Cleveland Ohio where I grew up. I recently had children and family is important to me so I moved back to my hometown. I like it. I find comfort in the history and the connection. My work is very humanistic and about the experience of life so participating in a relatively normal life only feeds to my inspiration and narratives.

q) What is your earliest memory that propelled you to create?

a)I always was a sketcher and people always responded to it. That attention sort of shapes you much the way a good athlete is promoted at a young age. You realize that something you like to do you are actually good at and it drives you to do it more. Although I doubt I could have stopped. Life throws curves at you all the time and art has at times stopped for me but like a boomerang it is the urge that never goes away. It is inside.

q) Tell us a little bit about your creative process.

a)I first started responding to the nature and power of photographs by making pictures from photographs I found online. Folded paper dioramas that I rephotographed to make a sort of simulacrum, a photograph of a photograph. I really tried to fool the viewer into thinking the subject was real. My take on the photo as truth debate or thinking about image as object. As I worked through my process I started liking the “crappy” aspect of my sculptures and how I really could tell a story through the paper pieces. Much like a painter would construct a painting I would make elaborate scenes out of paper/photographs and cardboard and then photograph them. The result was a strange awkward filtered reality. It played well into my thinking about the nature of photography and its ability to satisfy us as experience and memory. The filtering creates a strange world that we as a society have come to accept as standard. I really love the intersection of fantasy and reality. Recently I have been drawn to just using the sculptures and displaying them as a tableaux. I have become better at making them and they really stand on their own as powerful objects.

q) How do you wish for your art to be perceived?

a)I have a really good sense of humor. I feel humor is not silly it really is about sadness and duality. I want my work to be inviting but unsettling.

q) What do your internal dialogues sound like?

a)I doubt everything. Art school does that to you, forces you to be critical. I’ve learned lately though to trust myself and to know when something doesn’t work and to be okay with failure. But I am always asking myself “does this work”. Also I am always observing and participating in all life has to offer. It is were the inspirations come from. For me art has to come from life.

q) Do you feel that there are limitations to what you want to create?

a)Sure. I am limited to what I can make from the paper. But then often times I surprise myself with what I can make.

q) Do you feel art is vital to survival and if so, why?

a)Not really. I will always create and communication is vital but art plays a funny role these days. Life is so rich and textured, art is just a small piece of the grand view.

q) Describe a world without art.

a)Art is everywhere and not just the gallery high art, capital A art. It is so many things. I would imagine without art things would be pretty dull.

q) Tell us a secret, and obsession.

a)I love bad television and terrible pop music.

q) Where can people see more of your work on the internet?

a)Brandonjuhasz.com