Jon Beinart – "How would you describe your work Lukas?"
Lukas Kandl – "I would say that my work is inspired by fantastic and surrealistic art, with a classical Old Masters technique. I take my ideas from literature, poetry, and also biblical and esoteric subjects. I create very realistic but always a bit shift from the ordinary reality details. I think it is very important that everybody can recognize a reality with which he can deal, but I want my paintings to trigger a personal journey through the dream domain or an unusual situation."
Jon Beinart – "What do you find interesting about esoteric and biblical subjects?"
Lukas Kandl – "Biblical and esoteric subjects are eternal subjects, which have been used in the painting for centuries, in the whole world. Each artist has his own vision according to his culture, his own experiences and I am very interested by the comparison between all these visions. Biblical subjects are more concrete as they rely to rather understandable texts, more popularized than esoteric texts. I like esoteric subjects as they are full of mysteries, hidden information, opened only to initiates. My paintings often contain hidden messages, understandable only by people who have the knowledge to access them."
Jon Beinart – "Do you have a particular religious faith, or just a general interest in the myths, archetypes and symbols?"
Lukas Kandl – "I am especially interested in the myths, archetypes and symbols and in the general worldwide culture. This goes beyond a specific religion. I am interested in reading about the different religions and I respect them. What matters to me is the part of spirituality you find in the people, in the religion, in the situations, not the religion itself. I have difficulty to recognize the word God as it is used in so many different circumstances, and as an alibi to make so many horrors. I prefer to believe in a higher spirit. I find my subjects in the different religions when their contents interest me and respect the human being."
Jon Beinart – "When did you start painting Fantastic animals? Has this been a life long theme in your paintings?"
Lukas Kandl – "I always used fantastic animals in my paintings, but at the beginning they were more used as details accompanying other themes. 5 years ago, I decided to make a tribute to Audubon and I painted about 50 fantastic birds. This was the real start of my fantastic animals series."
"But I also work about many other themes. I specially like painting animals and humans for their glances, their presence and all the symbols you can attach to them. I don’t use still life, landscapes or seascapes themes."
Jon Beinart – "Are you able to support yourself financially with your paintings?"
Lukas Kandl – "At the beginning, no. Then about 20 years ago it was rather cyclical: some years yes, some years no. But the French economic situation was better than now."
"Now, even if the economic situation is worst and most of the French artists have real difficulties to sell a painting, I am doing better and better every year and support the family financially very well."
"But that means work a lot, travel a lot, seize the opportunities and also invest time and money to promote the fantastic, surreal international art not only my personal art but a group of artists art. This part is a long-term view."
Jon Beinart – "It is great that you promote the whole movement and other artists as well as your own work. Our movement benefits greatly with the efforts of artists like yourself. Who are some of your favorite contemporary artists within the movement?"
Lukas Kandl – "Some of my favorite contemporary artists are: Parkes, Verlinde, Hernandez, Aparin, Henricot, Arnas, Djurovic, Grasse, Merriam, Zademack, Schmid. This list is not exhaustive!"
Jon Beinart – "What are your thoughts on the contemporary 'high art' world? Do you think there is much hope for the future of Surreal and Fantastic art?"
Lukas Kandl – "I think that the contemporary "high art" world is a world built on a wrong spirit: work very quickly without technique, provoke without any content, no spirituality. It's at the image of our contemporary world. For me it's the MacDonalds of the art! I would make a comparison: let's suppose that the artists were surgeons instead of artists and work in this same spirit. You would have only corpses! I think and I feel that private collectors and the general public start to be tired of this. We have to innovate, even to provoke, but with elegance and panache. To do that we need to know the technique, we need to learn and work. The general public is fed up with all these works which need specialists' explanations for hours in order to try to understand what the artist meant. With the surreal and fantastic art, everybody can recognize the reality of the objects or the situations, even if they are a bit improbable but with technique and quality. From that every spectator can make his own travel through his own dreams because he feels like accompanied. I am quite optimist for these next years."
Jon Beinart – I find your optimism refreshing. Have you observed anything in particular that might indicate a positive change in the art world over the next few years?
Lukas Kandl – "Yes, a few signs:
- "First of all, the remarks I receive during my personal shows or our group shows from the general public. To summarize: “Finally a good painting! Painters who know to paint!…”"
- "During our last group show in Paris during a big “salon” where about 3000 artists were exhibiting, our stall was very much visited and most of the people told us that we had the better one."
- "More, the French TV came to make a short report, about 3mn, about the salon. They showed about 12 works, among them 5 were from our group. And that without any intervention from our part."
- "Last year we participated with our group to another salon in Sedan. This salon existed for a few years, but it was found so good with our participation that for the first time the Ministry of Culture gave a substantial subvention to the 2007 salon."
- "As we are looking for exhibition locations for our group project, it becomes a bit easier to find “official” locations. For 2007 we booked 5 exhibitions."
"Everything is not won, but I feel things are a bit quivering".
Jon Beinart – "Things do seem to be picking up for Fantastic Artists around the world. I'm so glad to hear more positive news. Thank you for your time and energy Lukas. Do you have any exciting news for our readers? Upcoming exhibitions, publications, etc?"
Lukas Kandl – "Regarding one man shows there is my exhibition in Montbard for Buffon tricentenary."
"I have also a one-man show in Arcachon (near Bordeaux) Droit de Regard Gallery during the whole year."
Regarding my group activities:
- Our “Ange exquis” ‘exquisite angel’, with 27 artists, will be shown in Sedan at the end of the year and 5 exhibitions are planned in 2008 in France and Germany.
- I am organizing a new group show of 15 artists in the Grand Palais in Paris during the “salon Comparaisons”: Aparin, Bailly, Comand, Coquelin, De Rosa, Djurovic, Ivanovic, Jontschewa, Kandl, Krejca, Mirkovic, Müller, Oscity, Ravski, Tiunine. Theme and special format will be kept secret until the show, but I have received some of the painting and I can tell you it will be great!
All my activities can be found on my website www.kandl.net
Lukas Kandl is one of 50 Artists featured in our first publication: Metamorphosis.
Lukas Kandl's Gallery.
Vereschagin is a Russian born artist whose primary medium is painting and print making through the various techniques of etching. Much of his work falls into the Ex Libris category of illustration. His imagery explores a surreal fantasy world of unusual creatures and characters. The scene of the hot air balloon with the human headed basket to the right is one I found most interesting from the gallery.
Once a fringe figure of a very conservative Australia society, Rosaleen Norton since her death in 1979, has become cult figure in esoteric circles for her visionary artwork. In her time she was portrayed as the epitome of wickedness. This was a facade she was quite happy to flaunt to the public and media, loving to shock conservative minds.
In 1935 she met and married Beresford Lionel Conroy, and the pair spent some time hitchhiking around the country from Brisbane to Melbourne. The marriage lasted until after WWII when they divorced.
A brave soul named Walter Glover, saw merit in Rosaleen's works and put his own finances into publishing a book, "The Art Of Rosaleen Norton", a collection of her illustrations accompanied by poems by her young boyfriend, Gavin Greenlees. The book like the Melbourne exhibition attracted controversy, and landed Walter in court on obscenity charges. The magistrate fined Glover five pounds and ordered that two pictures, including one of "Fohat", a cheeky looking demon with a snake for a penis, be obliterated from unsold copies of the book. Because of this copies of the book were confiscated and burnt by the US customs. The whole affair bankrupted Walter. He was however never to loose faith in Rosaleen, and would years later when his bankruptcy was lifted, went on to republish the book, this time in a much changed Australia, causing no stir. Both editions are now collectors items.
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