VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Jimmy Law is interviewed by Robin Spring Wallpaper.
“Thanks for having us over Jimmy, nice to see you again.”
“Thank you Robin. We thought we’d take the chance to come visit you again and have a catch-up and see how things are going.”
“It’s always great to meet up with you, wish we could do it more often.”
“Me too, happy to have you guys here, thanks, man.”
“So, Jimmy we’re just going to ask you a few questions, see how things are going and find out a little bit more about Jimmy Law and what you’re all about and how you got into what you’re doing.”
“Firstly, how did you get into art? What inspired you to take this journey?”
“I’ve always been an artist my entire life. “Everything that I tried in life has had a creative element to it”
“Tell me a little bit about your art journey. What is your favorite type of art? What is your narrative?”
“I love really strong statement Art, whatever makes a statement. I believe art needs to evoke something if it lacks that then it’s a little soft for me”.
“And I believe that’s why it does so well as a wallpaper”. ’I usually work on quite a large format when I do my originals because I want my art to make a statement, and to have your work blown up 3, 4, 5, 10 meters makes a massive statement.
“Jimmy, I’m very interested to know, when you come up with an art piece you come up with ideas and then you come up with the vision of what you’re going to paint and what theme you’re going to work with for a while and I see that through your art I see the portraits that you’ve done I see the astronaut theme and I think you’ve told us a little bit about that but I’m quite interested to know like the physical part of your artwork tell us a little bit about the process of how you do the the physical part.”
“Sure Robin. You know, creating art has so many processes that it goes through. It starts with an idea obviously, you got to have an idea of what you want to do right? You’ve got to have a concept, and then there’s a lot of thinking that goes into finding a final concept that you feel will show what you have in mind. I try to think what kind of elements I want to add in that piece to bring across the message that I want. But lately, I’ve been focusing more on creating pieces with a lot more mood and atmosphere so I’m kind of moving away from those previous elements and creating work that’s maybe got a slightly more serious feel and mood to them. That all starts with that idea, that I basically I draw onto a canvas. Most of my canvases are quite large, they started at about 1.2×1.2 meters, goes up to 2 meters and some 2×2 meters. And then there is what we call underpainting. It’s two or three layers of paint that kind of sets the tone for the piece. If I’m doing a piece that has a lot of contrast in it then I’ll start with a fairly dark tone and just work with lighter layers on top of that. But that’s not always the case, sometimes pieces doesn’t contain that much contrast, so I’ll start with a medium tone underpainting. And then it’s just continuous layering, you know? I work in oil paint so it’s also a medium that allows you to really blend colors and tones very well. You’ve got to be patient with the process though oil paint takes longer to dry than acrylic. And that is it. It just becomes a multitude of layers until you finally do your highlights, and those will be the last layers of your piece. And then after that, varnishing.”
“Tell us a little bit about the sculptures that you’re doing.”
“I’m not a sculptor I’m actually teaching myself, but I love the idea of taking something and creating something three-dimensional. With a painting, you have only one surface. But with a sculpture, you can walk around something and every angle is different. So it’s almost like you’re really exploring. And that, for me, is very interesting, its very dynamic. It has its own challenges, it’s completely different from trying to paint something. But yeah, I’ve definitely fallen in love with it. I realized that I actually have a good understanding of form. I work in a clay called plasteline, which is an oil and wax-based clay, what’s great about it, is it doesn’t dry out, so it allows me a lot of time to work on a piece. And an astronaut being so intriguing…I find it a fascinating subject matter to sculpt. That it’s not something that I think is maybe popular, a lot of sculptors do maybe wildlife or figurative pieces, nudes or, you know? But for me, because I’m so fascinated with painting the astronauts, I find that it’s a nice subject matter to sculpt as well.”
“I think the astronauts are a subject that right now makes a lot of sense to us. I think it’s something that we can really understand in the sense of isolation, which is what we’ve been through.
Your art has been amazing, Jimmy, I’ve really enjoyed working with you with the wallpapers.
Yes, I think that we can we can take this to a completely new level where we create pieces that are evoking, we create pieces that are going into people’s homes that are going to really be the masterpiece of the home.”
“That’s right, so it also makes your work a lot more accessible.
Yes, and how does that work with your whole vision of yourself as an artist?”
“You know, as an artist, you want your work to be seen. And the whole idea of having my work cover a wall for me, it is just an amazing sense of achievement in a way. It’s super impressive, you know? I’ve seen some of the work that you guys do, and to see people’s homes with beautifully covered wall wallpaper of my work, for me, that is just an amazing sense of satisfaction. And it, it really makes a massive statement in whatever space you put it. It’s just got an amazing presence.”
“Jimmy, the other thing I want you to talk about is, tell us a little bit about your gallery, it’s a very interesting space. I know you opened it earlier last year and you put a lot of energy and effort into it. Tell us a little bit about your gallery.”
“The whole idea with the gallery, is I wanted a space where I can meet clients. Up until now, I’ve been meeting clients at my home, at my studio, and it’s sometimes a little invasive. A lot of people love to meet at the studio and see where I actually work, and I get that. And we still do that, I still meet clients here at my home, but to have a dedicated space where you have a lot of work that you can show is, I found was a big plus”
“Cool, well, we’re going to go through to the gallery just now, we’re going to take a look.”
“Okay Jimmy, thanks for taking this time to chat with us, I really appreciate working with you and I look forward to big growth and success.”
Yes I’m excited, we’ve been working together for quite a while and it’s been going well, I’m really enjoying it.
“Me too, thanks a lot Jimmy”.
Visit Robin Sprong Wallpaper.
