beinArt Interview With Greg Craola Simkins

beinArt interview with Greg ‘Craola’ Simkins by Elspeth McIntosh.

Elspeth McIntosh- Greg, it’s great to have the opportunity to interview you and extend on your artist’s statement here on Beinart.org and reveal to the readers more about your art-making processes. It is wonderful to see an artist who is crossing disciplines and not sticking to just painting and drawing – and yet there is a strong consistency in your aesthetic flowing from one form to another which is a great achievement.

Firstly, your current show ‘The Pearl Thief’ is exquisite. What particular advancements do you feel you have made with this show?

Greg Simkins- There were some glazing tasks I gave myself with this show that were very rewarding. Especially on ‘Mary Becoming Annette’ (right). I experimented with mixing my transparent paints and applying them over rendered grounds. I also worked on trying to make things look transparent, and play around with some new textures. There was a lot of experimenting going on and I think it opened some new doors for me. Each show is a chance to grow and I tend to give myself things to aim for with my painting.

EM- Some images are quite nightmarish – are you inspired by horror culture or is that the natural edge of child-like wonder in the realm of ‘forgotten lands’?

GS- I wouldn’t say I was inspired by horror culture and don’t watch too many horror movies. I would say that my paintings just dance the line between dreams and nightmares.

EM- Do you have a method to accessing the ‘forgotten lands’ via particular stimuli or ritual? How might you describe this process in the most organic fashion?

GS- I just go through the images and notes in my journals and it reminds me of those places when I paint. I keep them open on the ground around me and pull from them as I paint.

EM- Do you have a particular reoccurring dream or event from your childhood which serves as a canon of inspiration?

GS- There were a number of dreams that kept me sleeping my parents room as a little kid, the most memorable was of a werewolf with ant-like mouth parts eating my stomach. I still haven’t painted it, but may draw it. That one reoccurred too much. But I feel the clouds with things popping in an out of them have happened a bunch.

EM- Do you think you have been putting off painting the werewolf? Do you worry about potentially invoking it back into your dreams?

GS- Yeah, I wouldn’t want to do that. No need to give him more care than he deserves, he ruined me as a kid.

EM- Are there other particular pieces of imagery or semiotics that have carried through from your childhood? I notice you use a lot of deers, moths and elephants – have they always been with you?

GS- All of the animals and insects are directly from an obsession with animal and nature shows as a kid. Besides cartoons, that’s all I would watch. I am still enthralled with all the creatures we share the earth with. For some reason I just got really into sea slugs – they are incredible. There is so much to explore with animals and because of my artistic sensibilities, I always find myself studying the textures, colours, and strange forms in the animal kingdom which are so diverse. I never feel like I am creating anything new in my paintings entirely, just reapplying what we already see into new juxtapositions.

EM- Do the particular creatures and they way they are juxtaposed form a narrative of your life? Are you able to see the relevance of their presence after you have created them? Personally, I look back at a work about four months after it is complete and only then can see how it portrays that epoch of my life in an allegorical way. Do you think that every kind of creature in your pieces represents an altered state?

GS- I always enjoy how the story seems to reveal itself to me as I paint it, even tying in more as time goes on and more paintings come out of it. Looking back over my pieces remind me of different stages of my life, what music I was listening to at the time, my mindset and mood, stuff like that.

EM- You have so many paintings, which are all so beautifully finished. How many might you produce a year?

GS- I have never counted. It is hard to say, maybe 60? The number is going down though each year, mainly because I am painting larger and spending more and more time experimenting with my technique trying to reach that unreachable perfection.

EM- Can there be the same perfection in art as what we can find in nature? Is the truly sublime unattainable via art?

GS- I haven’t been able to achieve it if there is. I simply admire and do my best to emulate the aspects of it that excite me the most. Sometimes it feels necessary to point out these wonders of nature and the best way I know how is by painting them.

EM- What is the ideal mood for creating street art? I saw an image of you working during the day, isn’t working at night time an important part of the rebellious ritual, or are you able to comfortably create during the day without interruptions?

GS- Sure working during the night makes more sense if you are painting walls illegally, but those days are, for the most part, behind me. When I paint walls these days (as was true in my active years doing graffiti), we generally get permission so we can paint some more detailed stuff. A lot of guys are pulling off some intensely detailed illegal work in the night these days, but I was always a lot looser (and messier) with that kind of stuff. When I get a chance to paint walls these days, it’s for different reasons. I enjoy getting out of the studio, working on a wall with friends and the activity of it.

EM- Who is your most recent favourite contemporary artist?

GS- Man that’s a tough question. It changes so much, but I would have to say either Joe Sorren or Mars-1. I’ll keep the list to two right now but there are too many to choose from.

EM- As a full time artist, what advice would you give to those aspiring to take on the full time vocation?

GS- Don’t do it to become rich. Do it because you love it and are obsessed with it. There are a lot of hours required and a lot of sacrifices socially to make, but the pay off is great. Nothing feels better than signing a finished piece and sitting back and staring at it. Also if you have a family, make sure to balance work and home life. It is beneficial to do so.

EM- Excellent advice: love your art but do not let it consume you.

And to finish off: you’ve had such an extensive career from street art to gaming design, t-shirt and album cover design. Are there aspirations for approaching another form of media in the near future?

GS- These days I just want to improve my craft whilst maintaining myself in my art. I still love doing t-shirts graphics and even have my own online merchandise called “IMSCARED”. It is a good way to showcase a different element of what I do and love. As far as painting goes, my desires are to paint large museum-sized paintings. Painting big canvases gives me that thrill of painting walls mixed with the fulfilment of working with acrylics. I would like to do some more mix media projects as well as work some oils into the mix in the future.

Greg ‘Craola’ Simkins is one of 50 Artists featured in our second publication entitled Metamorphosis 2.