Dinosaurs Against Recession - John Brosio - VICE Italy

DINOSAURS AGAINST RECESSION Laura Spini, paintings by John Brosio

"Dinosaurs eating CEO" - 2013. Paintings for gentille grant of Arcadia Contemporary, New York.

John Brosio paints tornado. He paints people who are portrayed in front of the tornado. He paints women in front of dinosaur skulls, the descent of the UFO in the middle of a pasture, fish heads with cigarettes in their mouths, cephalopods huge enveloping suburban homes. Portrays the provincial America, tiny and inert in front of the inexorable advance of the disaster. Agrees to be identified as a "romantic", has been defined by ' Huffington Post a Corot modern, is collected (among others) by JJ Abrams, Norman Lear, Dave Grohl. The rest of the time, taught in schools and colleges. Of Italian origin, it is not related to Paul (Brosio). He gave us a preview of some paintings and an interview.

VICE: What drew you to art, initially?

Brosio John: It is manifested in various forms, but my interest in art has always accompanied me.When I was little I always put in the corner because I drew abstract shapes on any flat surface was. I was compulsive. But there have been moments that have marked me. I remember, as a child, I saw The Wizard of Oz on TV, and once finished the film was taken from a tangible feeling of sadness. It was just me, sitting on the couch next to me was asleep a parent, maybe both. My brother and sister had gone to play elsewhere. And I was sitting there, shocked by the experience that I had just experienced. Why did you choose the painting? Ironically, at first aspired to a career in film. Like many kids of my generation, Star Wars I sparked the imagination. I took all around because I liked Star Wars , but it was the film that drew me to the cinema. Years later I worked for Industrial Light and Magic, the post-production company of George Lucas. In the meantime I studied art in college, and my teachers (figures such as Wayne Thiebaud, David Hollowell, Robert Arneson, Roy DeForest, Mike Henderson, Wally Hedrick - of the luminaries in itself, besides being wonderful teachers), I constantly put to the test. I graduated bringing back a huge inner conflict. The irony lies in the fact that, in the end, many of the images and feelings that

belong to the movies and have influenced me are very present in my work. But it is the paint you have chosen me. It was something I always did. What gave rise to your-pardon the termapproximate "obsessions", the themes that have explored over and over again, from the artistic point of view? The question reminds me of a quote by Picasso, who He said that as a boy he could draw like Raphael, but "we had spent all his life, to learn to draw like a child. 'As children, we draw for ourselves alone. As we grow, the social norm pigeonhole us into prescribed roles. The artists asked to paint what it is expected that an "artist" picture, and so we lose touch with our original intentions, we lose trust in what they had pushed us to do what we do. That's what happened to me after college: a career in film was a suffocating prospect, paint was perhaps worse, since I started doing it on commission. I stopped doing it for a while ', and began to paint only things that interested me, in spite of the career. And that was, of course, the key not only for me but for everyone. "Breaking News" - 2013. Which were the first work of this new course?

With the idea that they could be of interest to anyone, I started to make paintings with bizarre dead fish. Some had lit cigarettes in his mouth, while others were simply isolated, glistening wet. The bigger picture, in terms of size, it was that of a tornado. Why a tornado? 've always been intrigued by the things that I call "really interesting," and tornadoes are part of it. For this painting in particular, I had no bases that inspire me, beyond a series of films of the newscast recorded on a videotape.The success of this first picture gave me a little 'courage, so I went with my girlfriend at the Natural History Museum and asked her to pose in front of the huge skull of a dinosaur. She was standing there, and he smiled at me, and I asked her to turn around to look at the dinosaur. The obsession has always been there, and it is still there, has not abandoned me. I just had to learn to fidarmene.I'm still learning.

Many of your paintings are extremely funny, but never give the idea to derive from a detached curiosity. You always seem very fond of your subject (which is derived from the attachment is affected by a certain hatred). What are the aspects that appeal to you enough to cause you to dwell on your subject at least to the time of the painting?

Here we return to the discussion of the "really interesting" cosmology, for example. The role we play in the universe. My series "Edge of Town" is based largely on these concepts-those paintings, for me, are like terrariums which can encode the elements of a larger reality, and that is what keeps me going.

But also speaks of "hate", and it is interesting, because art inspired by anger is somewhat risky. At the moment I'm working on a canvas with two velociraptor devouring a banker. Sure, the TV provides us with an interpretation of "mature" of what this group of people did-it was legal? It was illegal? The whole picture. But we all know that a healthy beating would solve a lot of problems. The so-called "recession" is not something that just occurred. It was intentional. And these people are still doing damage. At this point, the dinosaurs may well represent one of the ways to tackle the problem. Dinosaurs are allegorical, symbolic, and equipped than necessary to solve the problem.As it happens, are also "really interesting." For the painting I wanted the velociraptor, but the creature that has been handed down from movies such as Jurassic Park is not exactly "accurate."

"Last taco stand" What kind of research did you do? 's not that I'm always interested in making things in an "accurate." I have another painted with grotesque monsters, but this required a more serious approach. So I bought a cast of the skull of a velociraptor, I began to analyze a series of scientific illustrations, I also went to closely observe an emu. But the problems do not end here! The paintings sometimes fail for various reasons, and that is why it is crucial, always do research. In this case I had prepared the whole painting, and then I threw it away and I started the velociraptor because they are much smaller than I thought. There are instances in which hinders the search for the initial instinct that I had approached a ' work? Even when it comes to image unreal, fantasy, you must have familiarity like something you see every day in the real world. And the research is both a pleasure and a grueling remix of

cards.Often I rely on the model. For the painting of octopus on the roof of a house, first I tried the type of home, I photographed the right time of day, and on the roof of the model that I created I put a dead octopus to study the same type of lighting. The painters are many, but I have learned from special effects experts at Industrial Light and Magic: realizzavano whole series of sculptures, proposed, and then ended up having to throw away all except one, the one that was chosen . speak of your most recent work. "Last Hot Dog" is almost metaphysical. "Last Hot Dog" is very similar to my paintings of tornadoes. Many of the buildings in these paintings appear flat and inconsistent, so I decided to take them to the extreme, with a fake tree and a house pretending. But for this painting I wanted two light sources, which has proved more difficult than I thought. The basic idea is that virtually everything - even the world - it ends when it ends its hot dogs. Maybe. All four of these new works have to do with food. Maybe I was just hungry.

"Last Hot Dog" - 2013. 'll happen is that your work had not only physical but also a psychological burden on you?

For more than a coincidence! Very often we get lost chasing work that, in one way or another, is doomed to failure. Sometimes it just means that I have to take a step back, detaching and start over, but it is difficult to realize in the first person. It's like being in Houston on the way to New York, and only then realize that you should have, from the beginning, go to Chicago. Even if it means returning to the point of origin. An example: One of my best paintings, which is a self-portrait titled "Harbinger" was a disaster to the last. At one point I detached from the stand and started to kick him to destroy it, but the surface was solid, and the canvas is like making a mockery of bounced off me. I did not know what to do, and they were weeks that I was trying to finish him off, but instead of kicking the resume I turned around and I leaned against the wall. Months after I picked it up, and I realized immediately that I just had to lower the horizon line and remove some telephone pole. In four hours I completed it. 've talked a lot about how the film has influenced you. Often, in the film, the filmmakers found a very different result from what they had thought-sometimes better. With painting you have a much better chance of having absolute control of the outcome. Is there anything that you still can entrust to chance? probably have a more

filmmakers from other painters. But it is not all that different. And though I have the "total control", I miss the external and objective opinion when I need it. And I always try to get it in some way-I am posting the canvas for a while 'time, I look at the reflection in the mirror, ask the opinion of friends.Have absolute control does not mean they are always right. That is a trap.