Throw Shapes :: Sydney » Matt Huynh

Matt Huynh :: Asperatus

amelia — Mon, 31 May 2010 06:45:34 +0000

Matt Huynh is a Sydney-based artist and illustrator, graphic novelist and all around amazing and innovative person. I first saw his work in a strange show at a university where his animation about a fox blew my face off my head with amazingness, and have since come across his work here, there and everywhere. Strangely, he’s not so keen on solo shows so I always wondered when he would do one, to showcase his beautiful design and illustration skills to the art- and talent-hungry masses. Finally that day has come, and Matt is putting on his first solo show in three years, Asperatus, at the Skeleton Gallery at the Australian Museum. Yes, that is correct. With all the bones and stuff. Yes, the one with the skeleton on the rocking chair and stuff.

I interviewed him about his current work and life. It’s nice to speak to intelligent, articulate artists who are passionate about their work. The exhibition opening is tomorrow, June 1st, so read quickly.

+ What does the title ‘Asperatus’ mean? Ok, I’ll be fair, I googled it and it’s about cloud formations with a ‘wavy undersurface’ – but why did you choose it for the exhibition? What does it mean to you? What does it mean in terms of the exhibition? How did you choose it – where did you learn about it?
> I wanted something that captured this moment in time, both personally and as a visual metaphor for the zeitgeist. From where I am, the time and experiences I am surrounded by are very much of a ‘wavy undersurface.’ We are beginning to deal with consequences of actions long disconnected – global warming from consumer and lifestyle decisions over decades; homeowners affected by the global financial crisis and the bankers dealing with pixels instead of faces; even the modern form of terrorism and warfare. Our problems are abstract and their solutions demand a lateral thinking we are developing that is foreign to our history of zebra and monkey-mind thinking.

These clouds appear as though the sky will collapse over you – they’re dark and overbearing – and yet they often disperse without storming at all. These confusing signals and appearances disconnected from their meanings are a sign of the times.

For my exhibition, and myself personally, it is a marker for a distinct illustration series atmospherically and visually definable from the rest of my body of work. My process, choice of venue, distribution of the work, engagement with the audience and intentions all have a sense of something being ‘roughened’ or ‘agitated’, as its Latin translation suggests.

As for where I learnt about it, I have a keen interest in just about everything and think I read about it first in a science magazine. It’s something that I started exploring in my writing and I was drawn to illustrating them literally in my sketchbook before thinking about them symbolically for this series.

+ The show features 14 prints that have never been shown before. How old are these works, and what themes do they cover?
> These works were developed especially for this show; or rather this show was organised specifically to show this body of work. I laid down the first mark onto paper in March and have been working on the rest of the series consistently since, with the last image completed in May – so they’re all brand new and until this show have never been seen before.

This series was developed out of subconscious and unconscious stimuli – intuition, instinct, dreams, hallucinations (or rather stuttering of the eye?) and chance – rather than the deliberate and conscious scheming that goes into working towards a predetermined outcome, as is often the case with commercial illustration. This series is as much about the audience as myself. I wanted to leave a welcoming mat for the viewer’s input into the meaning and interpretation of the work. This was one of the motivations for showing my work to a select group of diverse people – a doctor, festival director, screen printer, parker artist, illustrator and copywriter – and filming their responses. I wanted to explore how their backgrounds and perspectives enriched the work and to open up a dialogue that usually is hidden inside someone’s head in a gallery.

+ Why have you chosen to hold the show in the Australian Museum’s Skeleton Gallery? It seems like an amazing space but I didn’t even know they did art shows there…
> You are right though, they do not hold art shows there! I had to really reach for it and make it happen. There’s a vast amount of organisation and customisation I had to do, but fortunately I had a lot of support and enthusiasm behind me for this project and we won against all odds. The museum itself had been fantastically supportive and nurturing, fostering this event through to its execution.

It would certainly have been easier to hold this show in a gallery, where the room is set up for exhibition display and lighting, where there is an infrastructure for these types of events and an established audience. However, I wanted an environment that could enrich the themes and tones within the work, carry them across the gulf between the easels and engulf the air surrounding the guests. Rather than a blank wall, they will see from their periphery symbols, lights and customised decor that will hopefully take the single notes my marks and lines make within the frames and send them roaring like a major chord or a choir reverberating throughout the gallery’s two storey above.

+ Is it important to you to find new and interesting and maybe even surprising places to put art in?
> Absolutely, it is a benefit to all. It helps my own work for it to be seen afresh, to be reinvigorated with new context. It love reaching for new audiences, surprising all manner of people with a comic or illustration series that I think is beautiful – that crosses all cliques and environments. Finally, it is important for the medium itself – comics may not be expected to be seen at the front of a fashion boutique; or a museum; a cafe, but each time it appears in this unexpected context, it proves its own resilience.

+ This is your first solo show in three years. Why haven’t you done shows over that time?
> I am quite particular about my shows, although I sometimes contribute to select charity or group shows for friends and my own interests and passions. My solo shows have in the past always doubled as launches for my books and comics, with my last major show being a combined show with illustrators and designers Wil Loeng and Haline Ly to launch our art book, Midnight Morning.

I love going to exhibitions and shows, I follow other creators quite closely and would love to see more in Sydney! However, I come from a different background and ethic than the exhibiting artist. Illustration is art for reproduction. Comics are made for publication – in this one sense, more akin to literature than visual art. Coming from this background and working in these disciplines, I don’t feel a particular loyalty or affinity to the idea of fetishised limited art runs or one-off pieces to be owned by a single gallery or home. If I could, I would rather have the same artwork on a billboard, a magazine, a jacket, in your pocket, on your mobile phone’s wallpaper. When work is intended to be loud and free, embrace prevails against entitlement.

+ You’ve used a variety of media to create these works, but you also do animation and probably many other things. How do you choose what medium in which to create a work?
> Conscience and content take precedent over technique, and the medium is a servant to the communication. I try to find the environment that’s most nurturing and features the least friction for the ideas to reach the audience – there are enough to get in the way and obscure intentions without a choice of a difficult medium!

+ What are some of the symbols and symbolic codes you are fond of, or that you find recurring in your work?
> I have an instinct for animals; and a repressed instinct to draw structures – whether it’s the skull beneath the skin, the scaffolding under a building or the stitching behind a jacket sleeve. I have long resisted featuring easily/highly charged symbols like suns, moons, flowers, clocks…but I’ve put that aside for this series…big symbols of time, nature and the universe – nets and threads, eggs and trees, fruit, hourglasses, the elements, shadows and movement.

+ You’re working on your graphic novel – what’s it about? Who are some of your big influences in terms of comics and graphic novels? Do you feel like there is a lot of pressure on you to be a writer as well as an artist in this project? Have you been dying to write this for a while?
> The graphic novel I’m working on is very Australian, fictional, quite fantastic…it’s about the ‘tyranny of distance’ – spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and physically. I think it is concerned with quite modern themes and ideas.

I love Paul Pope, Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell, Marjane Satrapi, David B, Daniel Clowes, Rutu Modan, Art Spiegelman, Jillian Tamaki, R. Kikuo Johnson, Craig Thompson, GB Tran, Jeff Smith, Gipi, Moebius, Frank Miller, Peter Blegvad, Jessica Abel, Matt Madden, it goes on!

The roles of the writer and artist are inevitably intertwined in comics. Or more accurately, comics are its own visual language of symbols – almost a language before language. It is both non-illustration and illustration times a thousand. The writing is narrative driven, yet must have the economy of poetry. It is completely its own form!

I have been developing this for a long time, but the writing is only one challenge – there is a wonderful world of sequence and juxtaposition, careful composition that I’m trying to wrap my head around and make some sense out of. But you’re right, I am very hungry.

+ You were involved in Creative Sydney 2009 – or at least they named you as influential – are you involved at all this year?
> I am a very enthusiastic audience member this year! It looks fantastic, there are certainly talks I’ve dog eared to attend – the illustration agency and representation talk in particular. From the top of my head the creative sessions and the block party sound really fun too.

+ Who are some other local artists who you support, respect or are inspired by?
> Ben Constantine, Pat Grant, Mandy Ord, Leigh Rigozzi, Sonny Day, Biddy Maroney, Mel Stringer, Garry Trinh, Kevin Tran, Wil Loeng, James Jirat Patradoon, Adam Paquette, Tony Curran, Sonya Gee, Scribla, Craig Phillips, Lee Tran Lam, Chris Wahl, Marcelo Baez, Jonathan Zawada, Kate Banazi, Marcela Restrepo, Mitchel Spider, Morten Rowley. So many. I know I’m forgetting a million wonderful people.

+ What about gallery spaces?
> MOP, Firstdraft, Chalkhorse, Knot, Horus & Deloris, China Heights, Monster Children, Monstrosity, White Rabbit…these are a few of my favourite places.

+ Would you say your work is changing or developing in a certain direction? Where do you think you’ll go next?
> There is plenty that I love, I try not to think about directions or change, I think it is ever-changing, as am I. I just try to be as clear a vessel for the work as possible at any one snapshot in my life. I am certainly interested in more writing, poetry and narrative particularly. I am working on more comics in unusual contexts. I like the idea of illustration and comics of performance. I have dipped my toe into film and sound and love it, I would love to play with it some more.

Matt Huynh’s solo exhibition ‘Asperatus‘ opens tomorrow, Tuesday the 1st of June, in the Skeleton Gallery at the Australian Musuem.

Your Face :: Our Party

amelia and steph — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:45:30 +0000

We were basically 85% sure that no-one was going to come to our party. We figured that everyone had said yes just to be polite but were actually going to go do more important things, like knit a tiny jumper for the tiny cat they knitted for their real cat. So when we got numbers the next day of the ridiculously large amount of people who came, we were pretty surprised. And hugely delighted.

Everyone who came was supportive, attractive, witty, polite and dancefloor-friendly. At one stage we even saw a baby there and what she lacked in dancefloor-friendliness she totally made up for in being A REAL BABY.

And the art! Watch This Space had put together a huge group of talent, and a ridiculously high-tech sensory system. While it’s possible that the two didn’t work together exactly the way they were supposed to, we got treated to the best of both worlds in two different rooms. Win! The team also delighted Amelia right off the bat with conversation about how to turn a projector on (“Sweet talk it? Stroke it gently?”) Double win! The awesome interactive projection performance by Luke Tipene kept way more people upstairs for way longer than we anticipated, credit for which also goes to the fantastic DJ skillz of Greedy Hen and We Buy Your Kids. They kept everyone happily distracted while one of our projectors kind of exploded, and didn’t play a small amount of Paul Simon in the meantime.

And then came the bands. Steph’s totally amazing at booking bands. (Steph wrote that.) We were actually a little bit dorky and overwhelmed by Danimals, standing at the front and doing that look-around-at-everyone-like-”Woah-Are-These-Guys-For-Realz” kind of thing. Then we found out it was one of their first ever shows as a full band, and we almost started a label.

Megastick Fanfare were next. These guys are basically a consistent wow, but are actually somehow getting better and better every time we see them. So they’re playing tonight again, after midnight at a late night party called “Witching Hour” at OAF. We’ll be the ones right up the front with the happy dancey shoes on.

And unfortunately for him, Spod knows how to make a party that we don’t ever want to end. We secretly dragged the stage manager into a locked vault while Spod played, which (whoops!) trapped him in front of the decks for way longer than we agreed on. We wanted to keep dancing, and we’re sorry. (Not really sorry. It was worth it.)

Thanks so SO much to everyone who came, played, arted and danced. Thanks so much to the Wall and to the World Bar too. We love all of you. And your baby as well.

Ears Vs Eyes :: And You’re Invited Too

steph — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:41:14 +0000

We’re having a party this Wednesday night to launch this here blog. It’s another Ears Vs Eyes shindig – the first was a fundraiser art auction last year, where we nabbed $3000+ for Heaps Decent by selling art from people like EAMO, Beastman, We Buy Your Kids, Greedy Hen, and Simon Degroot. This one is a digital techy audiovisual extravaganza, because blogs are for nerds. That’s right, we’re calling you names already.

Anyway, the party is being held at our BFF’s house. Our BFF is The Wall, every Wednesday at the World Bar. For all you arty farty party types, the Wall let you exhibit your work for free in a delightful room upstairs, while a party happens around you and below you. They don’t take commission, they help you promote it, and goddamn do they know how to party.

But this Wednesday it’s all about us, because It’s Our Birthday – and you’re invited too.

For the EARS: Electronichaotic party band MEGASTICK FANFARE are headlining the night with the beeps and beats of super-hyped superman D’ANIMALS and his live band in support, and SPOD on the decks bringing us home. In a tag-team DJ battle fandango artist duos WE BUY YOUR KIDS Vs GREEDY HEN will show their ears work as well as their eyes, plus SLEATER BROCKMAN, the Gold Coasts’ walking house party THE SURECUT KIDS and all the Wall’s favourite regulars doing their party thing until the wee hours of the morn’.

For the EYES: Arts innovators WATCH THIS SPACE present INFORMAL DIALOGUE’s latest project “Pulse.” Supported by anarchi.org, Pulse will perform the atmosphere of the venue in an automated real-time digital projection. Works by local emerging artists like TONY CURRAN, SONYA GEE, MATT HUYNH, STEPHENIE KANHUKAMWE, LUCIA FISCHER, REBECCA MURPHY, LUKE TIPENE, MEL BLIGH, JAMES BROWN and more to be announced will reflect and re-shape the social landscape of the venue by communicating back to the audience atmospheric factors detected on the night by heat, humidity, noise and beat sensors.

And on top of all that, there’s no cover charge – although we will be jumping on the bandwagon and raising some funds for FBi radio – please bring along a gold coin to throw in a bucket.

Ears Vs Eyes. Who will win… Who will win……. (No one will win, it’s not actually a real battle. Settle down, you guys. Seriously. Settle down.)

Jacky Winter Group :: Just Having A Showreel

steph — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:28:09 +0000

The Jacky Winter Group is home to pretty much most of your favourite Australian illustrators; names like We Buy Your Kids, Rebecca Wetzler, Oslo Davis, Lilly Piri, James Gulliver Hancock, Eamo and Matt Huynh. And now they’re having a video about it.

Music by Qua. Art by everyone you love. Working-out-how-to-embed-Vimeo-in-a-brand-new-blog by Steph.

The Jacky Winter Group 2009 Showreel from Jacky Winter on Vimeo.