Interview with Mike Bertino

q)Name?

a)Mike Bertino

q)Location?

a)Los Angeles, CA

q)Contact info...?

a)mikebertino.com
mikebertino.wordpress.com

q)How did you get started making art?

a)As long as I can remember I've been drawing and making art, so it's hard to say what got me started... I guess most of my earliest memories involved tracing newspaper comics like Peanuts and Garfield.

q)How would you describe your art?

a)My work is about exploration and therapy basically.I generally find myself attracted to ideas that I feel puzzled, uncomfortable, or confused about, and then I try to figure out why I feel the way I do about the given topic by looking at the issue from as many different angles as possible. In the end, what comes from the process are images that kind of mash those different angles together and force them to talk to each other.

q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

a)From everywhere. I like to try to keep that door open, and use art as a way of basically exploring and digesting the world. Also, I should admit that aesthetically my roots come from growing up drawing and reading comics.

q)What other artists inspire you?

a)Pavement, Henry Darger, Peter Doig, J.R.R. Tolkien, David Hockney, Herzog, Will Oldhamn, C.F., John Kennedy Toole, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Degas, Gauguin, Bill Callahan, Chester Brown, Hal Hartley, Daniel Clowes, Chan Marshal, Goddard, I could go on for ever...

q)Where can someone purchase your works?

a)Paintings and drawings can be purchased through art shows, when I have them, or through me directly via email. I also have a comic out at the moment called Pinwheel, and that can be purchased as tenderlovingempire.com in the art section.

q)What is your main medium of choice?

a)Ink and/or gouache on paper.

q)What are you working on now?

a)A series for a show at The Drawing Club here in LA on Jan 26. The show is essentially about people who view themselves as protagonists in society, rather than members of the culture. Something that I think everyone is guilty of to some extent.

q)What advice could you give to someone who wants to be an artist?

a)The best advice I can give at this point is probably just: get to work and don't be in a hurry to be a great artist. The biggest obstacle for any artists is laziness, neglect, and impatience. I think everyone suffers over this issue from time to time, but the only cure is time and hard work.

q) What are you doing when you are not creating art?

a)Playing video games, camping, going to shows, eating, walking, sleeping... I watch a lot of movies, and spend a lot of time horsing around with my girlfriend. I love not working. It's actually a really important part of my creative process.

q) What does music, in its entirety, mean to you?

a)Music is the sound of never being alone, even when you are.

q) What does art, in its entirety, mean to you?

a)I'm not exactly sure how to answer that question. Art seems to me to be part journey, part hard work, and part searching for question rather than answers.

q) Are there some web sites that You would like to recomend? Artists, art communities, xxx,...!?

a) http://youtube.com/watch?v=FZdY6DGpSp8
http://www.retardriot.com/
http://www.ruby-mag.com.ar/home.htm
http://www.paperrad.org/
http://www.pictureboxinc.com/
http://www.buenaventurapress.com/