Gary Baseman illustrator, fine art painter, toy designer and creator of the award winning animated series and Disney film “Teachers Pet”

Everytime I opened an art magazine I saw these beautiful Gary Baseman paintings which reminded me of the classic early cartoons in style, but they were more crazy looking in vivid colours. They were totally unconventional with themes which shocked and made me laugh at the same time. This was an artist with something interesting to say and I couldn’t wait to ask him about Urban Vinyl.

Do you think Urban Vinyl will ever be accepted in the art world as sculpture?
I do believe the “established” art world will accept Urban Vinyl as sculpture. Some have already been accepted. But like any new medium, it is just the vessel for art expression.

I was first introduced to Kaws’s Companion when I walked by the window of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in NY in Soho. I am starting to have many conversations on possibility putting together a Vinyl show in some Contemporary Art museums around the world.

I don’t make a determination if something is art by the media that they are created. I judge things between what I find as good and bad art. Some vinyl is great. Some suck shit.

How do you think it differs from normal toy manufacturing?
Much of “normal” toy manufacturing is based on a licenesed property and are developed and designed for mass sales. People who are buying Urban Vinyl or Designer Toys are buying them based on the “artist” and not the property. The artists designing the vinyl are designing small sculptures that compliment their artist themes and point of view.

What do you think art is in our society today, what does it mean? how has it changed?
I have always felt good art should capture the zeitgeist of our times. Of course, art has to change. Society keeps changing. Our choice of media is exploding. Our heads are exploding. From too much opportunity of information to so many porn sites, all our heads are exploding.

The way we react to others have changed. Now we don’t ever digest information. We react immediately. Everyone and their dog has a cell phone. A computer. A blackberry. We have access to everyone at every second. We don’t have time to think things through. We vomit our emotions immediately. We are also bombarded by all media all the time. Not just TV and a million channels of cable and a zillion webpages. Twenty katrillion songs on our ipods. We have so many choices for better and worse.

The artists that will be king are those that have strong iconic images who can blow away the clutter. That is why so many great painters have been coming from commercial art. We practiced being master visual message makers. But now we use our skill to tell our own stories and create a body of work from our own themes.

I cut my teeth working for the New York Times and Time magazine when they needed sketchs and sometimes finished art in one day. One learned to work fast and direct. We had to become visual marksman.

Who do you aim your figures at?
I aim my figures at the same audience as my paintings. Myself. But not in a selfish masturbatory way. More of an insightful way to create work that is appropriate and challenging that speaks in my voice about the times we live in.

What or who inspires you?
Desire. Mortality. Control.

Name your favourite Urban Vinyl character?
Kaw’s Companion (the original)

What other 3D designers do you admire?
Tim Biskup. Friends with You. Pete Fowler.

How would you describe your artwork?
Where the line between genius and stupidity has been smudged beyond recognition.

What countries is your work most popular?
Heaven and Hell. The great state of New Jersey. My hometown of Hollywood, CA. I am also as big as David Hasselhoff in Germany. I can’t walk down the streets in Taiwan without someone trying to rip off my clothes. But Iran seems a little sour about my work.

What are your future plans?
My Hotchachacha will be coming out this fall finally,and my new website will be out by the end of September, finally too.

Check out more of Gary’s work;
www.Garybaseman.com

This entry was posted on Monday, June 19th, 2006 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Fine Art, Illustration, Urban Vinyl, Character design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.