EnglishbeinArt Interview with Terrance Lindall
Jon Beinart - "What inspires you to paint Terrance?"
Terrance Lindall - "The question should be, what inspired (past tense) me to paint. I stopped painting about six years ago. The reasons for painting and the intensity levels of my devotion to painting have varied over the years. At first, when i was a teenager, it was a pleasure to render, to create three dimensionality in ideas from the science fiction and fantasy comics I read, i.e., Steve Ditko stories and the like. By the time i was in college my choice of subject became more philosophical. I liked to create a concrete philosophical point, as with my "Stone Eater." Always precise rendering was a pleasure. In doing covers for magazines, something else happened. I was in another state of consciousness. I would pick up my brush and start painting at 6 PM and when i next looked up it was 4 AM, and I did not realize time had passed to that extent. Inspiration is not "caused." Painting for me is a natural extension or expression of the self like talking is for most people. it is natural and there is no "work" to it. It just flows."
Jon - "I had no idea you stopped painting. Was there a reason for this Terrance? Since meeting you I have seen such a huge body of work and naturally assumed that you were still creating prolifically. What is your current creative outlet?"
Terrance - "I stopped painting partly because I have so many other activities in my life. Also, I am not as driven as i used to be. When I was in my early 20's, if I could not paint I would go crazy. I was desperate to paint and very upset if anything prevented me. Today it is very hard to sit down and paint. I have ideas I want to put down, but to do so I would need the time and so I never sit down to start. Our art center is a daily time consuming project. Even though we are closed for renovation, I had to get involved as President in overseeing the capital improvements, working with city officials, project managers, etc. Also, as you know I am making movies. I just wrote a grant for new equipment for that. I do not know if you saw the "rough cut" Paradise Lost project on Youtube.
I am also finishing up my personal project of my "Treasure Room." which contains important art & artifacts and which I am contributing to the Yuko Nii Foundation to preserve for future generations. Some of the objects in this room are furniture by Pierre Antoine Bellange’, a furniture maker in Paris. At the end of 1811, he became the Imperial Furniture Warehouse and in 1817 President James Monroe purchased a suite of furniture for the White House, which was made famous in Jacqueline Kennedy’s TV tour of the White House. Other French objects in the room are documents signed by Napoleon as emperor, Joseph Bonaparte as emperor and a letter signed by Marie Louise, Napoleon’s young wife
British historical objects include the last will and testament of Dowager Lady Strathmore, the mother of the beloved Queen Mother of England who died in 2002 at the age of 101. Also included are her marriage contract and the entire inventory of Glamis Castle where she grew up as a child. There is also a remarkable and lavish coat worn by the Royal Herald of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The treasure room contains several paintings dating from the 17th to the 19th centuries. From the studio of Titan there is the fortuneteller, and from the studio of Rembrandt by Govert Flinck is a portrait as beautiful as any Rembrandt. There is one beautiful Hudson River landscape by Asher Durand, similar to the one sold by the New York Public Library to the Heiress of the Walmart Stores recently. There is a large Spanish painting of the raising of Lazarus and various portraits that add to the splendor of the room bringing forth the lives of characters that may have lived there.
In many ways this treasure room project and the documentary movies satisfy my artistic cravings. But one more factor comes in. I am overwhelmed by the high quality of the artists of our surreal/visionary genre. I have done my work and it is for these superlative young masters to carry the movement forward. I expect to do more work as my life settles down. But i am satisfied with what i have done."
Jon - "It is great to hear that you still have an outlet for your creativity and I look forward to seeing the finished versions of Paradise Lost as well as your Brave Destiny documentary. As I have mentioned in previous conversations with you, I grew up on Creepy and Eerie comics (although they were before my time, i had access to my fathers collection). I was excited when I learned that you had painted the cover art for both Creepy and Eerie. Have you had much association with the 'Lowbrow' Comic Surrealist movement and the earlier efforts to get comic influenced art shown in serious galleries (which has obviously been quite successful, especially for artists like Robert Williams, Mark Ryden & Chris Mars). In your early career was it difficult find galleries that would show your paintings?"
Terrance - "'Lowbrow comic surrealism!' What an expression! Anyway, yes, I guess I was part of that with CREEPY, EERIE and HEAVY METAL. I guess that is what originally turned off the mainstream art world from our art, it's being lowbrow. But that is changing! Important art movements like Impressionism, Cubism, Ashcan School, etc, all spring from what, in their own time, was considered "lowbrow." or art not of current running pack of dogs and their adherents. The current running pack always attacks the newcomer. The newcomer continues, and as the saying goes, "what does not kill you makes you stronger." Eventually people get tired of the old pack and look for something fresh. Right now, the low brow comic art is something fresh to the "high brow" public. In fact, I was interviewed last year by Time Out Magazine in New York, a really big magazine, about Graffiti art. There was a large show at the Brooklyn Museum which included Michael Tracy ("Tracy 168"), Melvin Samuels, Jr. ("NOC 167"), Sandra Fabara ("Lady Pink"), Chris Ellis ("Daze"), and John Matos ("Crash"). Seems that my art as well as others from Heavy Metal and Creepy, etc. influenced them. A group of NYC famous young Graffiti artists here in Brooklyn stopped by our art center once a few years ago and we were rapping away. They asked me to join them in a project, which I kindly declined. High art or low art, there is no difference. Great art is great art!
Difficult to find galleries??? More like impossible. Mainstream was against it! But I stuck with my vision and i am reaping rewards greater now than I ever could have if I had followed the pack and painted shallow, acceptable 1960's post modern work. Sure I could have made it big in the gallery world with that acceptable style and content. As they say, "copy success to be successful." But I do not think it would have made me happy. Most important for any artists out there: follow your own unique vision…to thine own self be true! You will eventually reap the rewards! Today, people who would not have touched my art are begging for it. There is nothing available for them. You have to have the eye and the judgment to know what is important when you see it, no matter what others say. Ordinary art collectors cannot see it, so they follow. And they lose out."
Jon - "Yes, I did feel a little awkward when I used the word 'Lowbrow' (notice the inverted commas), but it has been used as a descriptive word for comic derived art since the publication of 'Lowbrow Art World of Robert Williams' (much to the regret of Williams himself). Words can be so limiting. I'm so glad you persevered and made a mark with your own personal style. You are right. If all artists adapted to the type of art that is fashionable then there would be no innovation or evolution in the art world. I wasn't aware that you had run out of available work. Lucky I was able to purchase one of your original oils from Damian Michaels' Art Visionary Collection some time ago. (one of my personal favorites in the beinArt Collection).
What exciting news do you have in stall for the future Terrance? Beyond the film projects you mentioned previously, do you plan to host a second Brave Destiny Show?"
Terrance - "My future projects are wrapped in a mystery known only to myself. I guarantee that within the next ten years something very remarkable will unfold. It expands perception. It brushes alternative realities. It uses technology in new ways. It has to do with wave technology in new applications. We will create closed system environments of sight, sound, smell, taste and feeling. It will engulf emotion, mood and attitude. No person experiencing it will walk away unmoved. It is truly the ultimate in surreal/visionary/fantastic! PREPARE! Good luck Jon. You are doing marvelous things. Keep it up!"
Terrance Lindall has also published two Essays on beinArt.org: Brave Destiny & A New International Surrealist’s Look at Progress, Overcoming and the Irreversibility of the Avante-garde, Massurrealism and The Death of Art.
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