For the release of “Clear Blue Water” and “Leave the Shame Behind”, we were able to send Chris a few questions for a mini interview, about his journey into the world of art as well as what inspires his work.

Hi Chris, Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started in art?

Chris: I’ve always been pretty visual and increasingly felt compelled to get something down, like it was something I really had to do. I worked up the courage to go to an art store one day and got enough stuff to get started. I did pretty well, but had the opportunity to attend the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, and I spend 3 years there learning everything I could. It was so much easier to paint after that, but dark skeleton paintings were spectacularly unsuccessful in Seattle. Later I moved to LA, where I met the amazing Chet Zar, LC Croskey, and Gary Pressman. Those guys gave me a chance and I will forever be grateful to them.

What are some of the things (music, movies, etc) that inspired your work?

Chris: I have several poems on my website, I think paintings are very much like poetry, you are trying to express a single thought or mood. I will sometimes be influenced by a fragment of a single song lyric or other random bits. I usually see the painting pretty much fully realized in my head before I start. Where that comes from I don’t want to know – sometimes I don’t know what my paintings are about and have to guess after they’re done – its more about just getting them out of my head.

Can you please Name and tell us a bit about the people that greatly influenced you as an artist.

Chris: I am constantly going to museums and buying art books to study – I think its important for every artist to do so. Probably the biggest influence are the Spanish baroque (1600) painters like Zurburan and Ribera, although lately I’ve been going in the completely opposite direction and studying the work of Thomas Dewing and James Whistler (Americans working around 1900).

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your paintings “Leave the Shame Behind” & “Clear Blue Water”.

Chris: Both of the titles come from song lyrics, “Leave The Shame Behind” was influenced mostly by Edward Hopper’s work (although a little darker!), and “Clear Blue Water” came from seeing a misty moon one night and I thought it would be cool to integrate it into a painting. What the meaning behind the paintings is less clear to me – I have my own thoughts, but the viewers interpretation is probably better.

You went to the Gage Academy of Art, can you tell us about your experience there and the path to painting in an academic fashion?

Chris: It was fantastic. There are plenty of ways to make great art (realism, non-objective, etc), but I really believe there is only one great way to teach art, and that’s with realism. I thought the stipulation in Andy Warhol’s will concerning teaching drawing was very funny and true. At the Gage Academy we were taught to mix the colors we intended and to put them down where we intended. It was 100% technical, with nothing fuzzy, we weren’t trying to find ourselves, we were trying to learn to paint. That knowledge is very liberating, it really frees you to paint anything you can imagine. It wasn’t all fun and games though, I remember one class I spend three hours drawing a part of a model’s ear! You really learn how to observe!

“Eyeball Jog” by Charlie Immer has recently been added the site. A very exciting limited edition print, by an amazing artist. We were able to steal a few minutes and get a small interview from Charlie about the print and art in general.

Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started in art?

Charlie: My name is Charlie Immer and I am a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. I have been making art since i was very young and I was taught to draw skeletons in pre-school. Which I ran with, picking up sinew, candy and toys all along the way.

What are some of the things (music, movies, etc) that inspired your work?

Charlie: A mix of Charles Callet’s Gobliins soundtrack, a lot of candy, a dash of Slapstick comedy, 80′s gore horror films (Return of the living Dead, Puppet Master), and the art that was produced due to early anatomical study.

Can you please Name and tell us a bit about the people that greatly influenced you as an artist.

Charlie: If you are referring to contemporary artists that I look up most then I would say Femka Hiemstra, Travis Lampe, and Chris Buzelli. Femke Hiemstra – I am in awe of her character design skills. Her use of color and composition is also very unique. Travis Lampe – Awesome sense of humor in his pieces and I can’t get enough of the way he paints his characters faces. Chris Buzelli – Amazing Illustrator and the teacher that pushed me the most while I was a student at RISD.

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your paintings, “Eyeball Jog” and “Tearing Up”?

Charlie: Eyeball Jog – My mischief piece. The great Eyeball robbery. The thrill of the chase. Inspired by my friends and I when we were younger pulling pranks. Though I guess we never ripped any ones eyeball out. Tearing Up – In this piece I imagine a world where violence has no consequences and blood and guts can be appreciated for the beauty and color they spray on the environments around them. The characters a essentially invincible.

Besides the world that you have created, the colors in your work are what really stand out when first looking at your art. Can you tell us a bit about how your style developed, and where those colors came from?

Charlie: I try to render my subjects to look like living candy. My pallet comes from the pastel and jewel colors you find when you study candy. If you couldn’t tell already I eat a lot of it and I imagine that my bone marrow is crystallized sugar at this point. When I am finished with a painting I want it to have a Willy Wonka wallpaper quality, in that the viewer would almost want to lick the piece.

Thanks for taking the time to answer these Charlie. Take a look at the edition page and see the releases being offered from Charlie Immer here at the Virtu Gallery.
Charlie Immer @ Virtu Gallery

Following the release of “The Making” limited edition print, we were able to send Brandi Milne a few questions in a mini-interview. We are able to take a look into what inspired her to create art, and the inspiration behind “The Making” limited edition.

Hi Brandi, Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started in art?

Brandi: Well, as a kid, I was always drawing and coloring. It just felt like me – I hoped I could be an artist when I grew up. I didn’t go to school for art when I got older, I just studied on my own with anything and everything that caught my eye. I developed my style over time, drawing things for friends or drawing for fun – and I didn’t really know where it would go, or even if it COULD go anywhere, I just did it because I loved it. Then in 2003 a friend of mine told me about some art shows and events where I was soon able to hang my work! It happened really naturally, and I’m very blessed to have been able to progress and to have the support of such wonderful people, galleries, companies and artists!

What are some of the things (music, movies, etc) that inspired your work?

Brandi: The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, Willy Wonka and The Devils Rejects are some of the movies and cartoons that play over and over in my head and have provided me with a lot of inspiration. And music just consumes my head and let’s my artwork flow naturally. It’s so important to my working and my inspiration – music from Muse, Mastodon, early Elton John, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin is something I couldn’t live (or create) without.

Can you please Name and tell us a bit about the people that greatly influenced you as an artist.

Brandi: Gosh, there are so many artists that have had such a strong influence on me through the years. When I was starting out (drawing & design) I studied Alphonse Mucha, when I started painting, I studied Camille Rose Garcia and Daniel Peacock. When I need a rush of inspiration I also look to the works of Travis Lampe – for silly freedom, Femke Heimstra – for composition, Ryan Heshka & Gary Taxali – for design and crazy goodness – to name a few. We’re so lucky to have such a wealth of access to inspiring art work from anywhere in the world!

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your piece “The Making?”

Brandi: I’m a big Halloween fanatic and I always get inspired during the Halloween season – this was certainly true for The Making. Vintage Halloween postcards and nostalgia are great and I wanted this piece to have a bit of that mysterious 1930′s feel. Halloween art pieces are rare – you can’t just bust out a big orange pumpkin all the time. They’re special, so I was really inspired to do this ONE blatant, sinister piece.

The colors in this work are simply amazing. How does your working process go, do you do color studies or sketches beforehand?

Brandi: Yes, I sketch out the image to get the composition and lay it out first. If I need, I’ll do a few more sketches for different areas in the piece, then I go straight to the wood panel and draw it all out in pencil before I start painting. I don’t do any color studies for the most part – but for this piece, I used the vintage Halloween posters for my color inspiration – basically, the work was already done!

Thanks for taking the time to answer these Brandi. Head on over to the print page an see the details about this amazing limited edition for yourself.
The Making by Brandi Milne