Artist of the Week: Daniel Maw

We are constantly flooded with images, from television, the internet, while we drive and work, we rarely get a break from the visual stimulation. As an artist, these images are bound to slip into the subconscious and eventually your art. Some artists temper these influences and other embrace them, but Daniel Maw chosen to make these images into a much grander statement.

Call them simple, clean or comical, but these images represent a specific time and understanding of illustration. By utilizing images that draw on a familiarity, Daniel is able to make subtle adjustments and statements about society. There is an initial playfulness in his work, but upon closer examination there is an uncertainty or unrest in the expressions that he captures. His prints are vibrant and range in size, but I have seen the amazement to turn wonder and then to near shock while paging through his work.

Recently, Daniel was kind enough to answer a few of my questions.

Orange Alert (OA): Since I first saw your work at a printmaking conference, I'll start by asking you thoughts on printmaking as an art. There is a technical element to it, but the artistic process took place before the print was made. Do you consider printmaking an art form?
Daniel Maw (DM): Quite simply: yes.

Printmaking is how people see the world – whether people really are aware of it or not. This happens mostly at a less refined level – newspapers, books, magazines, billboards, signage, etc. Furthermore, if one is to consider the fundamental nature of printmaking (ie – the “multiple”) one can make connections with modern technological concepts like the internet and how websites are reproduced on millions of individual computer screen simultaneously across the world. Printmaking is a democratic medium. As a living, thinking visual artist, I find printmaking to be ripe with potential to explore these real world connections. I can adopt the full range of visual vernacular through the technical capabilities unique to printmaking, whether they be drawn, photochemical, rubbed, scraped, transferred, or whatever. Printmaking provides a matrix to produce a large quantity of imagery to cut, collage, sculpt, and otherwise arrange. One can even pursue it from an installation or performance perspective. No other medium aside from video or similar time based media really comes close to offering that.

OA: Your work combines childhood images with an element of shock or over stimulation. It's a subtle juxtaposition, but an important statement about society in general. Would you say as a culture we are over stimulated?
DM: To respond to those initial two observations, I would say my interest is very much in the subversion of expectations. It is interesting to consider how palatable a deviant or disturbing idea/image can be for people who would normally be repulsed, if said idea/image is presented in the right context. This speaks to human psyche and sociological codes of conduct. As for your question, it might be too easy to say that our culture is over stimulated. Perhaps we might be over stimulated by the wrong things – or at least things that don’t exactly contribute to health and happiness. There are a lot of tranquilizers in place to sort of quiet the sensors in our guts that tell us when we are sad, lonely, or marginalized. I am not talking about anything that surprising here – television, internet, drugs, sex, etc. And I love these things too (at least in the right doses) – I just think we need to retain our humanity. Certainly technology has only revealed to us more and more our appetite for instant gratification – for better and worse. And I, of course, am implicated in all of this as well.

OA: One of your more well-known images is the donkey, and in a more recently display you had a bunch of donkey cut out clustered on the floor. What was the inspiration for creating the donkey and what does it mean to you today?
DM: It’s funny to me how I end up investing myself in a show like that – it could have just as easily not happened at all. The impetus was simply being given the opportunity to show at a unique space – not even a gallery really. Anyway, I have a personal interest in the aesthetics of very specific decades of American cartoons and I was basically ripping off Otto Mesmer’s (Felix the Cat) generic and beautiful way of drawing everything. I was interested in bringing that into a contemporary setting, as much of my work deals with banality and mundane aspects of life. So I decided I would make a banal spectacle. After drawing, printing, and lasercutting about one hundred of those donkey, I began to develop the event. I wanted the breadth and scope to extend to lots of aspects of consumer culture – the promotion, the instillation of need, the packaging, the sale, and ultimately the let down. So I set the donkey up behind a curtain out of sight from the audience. I was then able to control when and for how long the donkey could be viewed. At the top of every hour I got everyone’s attention by shouting out to the crowd and playing a toy accordion. After getting their enthusiasm, we would hit the lights behind the curtain and open it up to much applause. Fifteen minutes later, I would come back out and play sad accordion music and everyone would say goodbye and close the curtain - which would be opened in the same way fifteen minutes later. It continued like this for four hours. So people would see the exact same show a half dozen times or more, delivered with the same amount of enthusiasm each time. I integrated a commercial component by encouraging patrons to select the choicest of donkey, bring it to the business counter, allow me to package it (complete with a signed certificate of authenticity), and make the transaction. That show was a microcosm of our culture.

OA: With all of the images of childlike figures and cartoon you were bound to make toys and comics, but one thing I found interesting was your board game, Circumstantial Scene. I know you made it a few years ago, but tell us about your game and if you ever plan to take it further?
DM: At some point in art school, I found myself burnt out and frustrated with the thought that my art was not communicating with people outside the art world. This intensified my interest in illustration, comics, animation, etc., because I found these to be venues to reach normal people. Another adjustment I made was the manner in which I would engage an audience. I sought active participation in my art – and began concocting scenarios, installations, and performances that got that kind of participation. So the game you refer to was one of my first steps toward that. It was supposed to be a mundane game that made a player reflect on his/her life. What this led to was a carnival I organized last December. I wanted to create an event that took on the traditional aesthetics of a colorful, popular, exciting event (in this case the carnival) and subvert those expectations. Therefore I took as many bureaucracies, frustrations, and disappointments I associate with modern life and integrated them into the carnival. It was an existential carnival of sorts in which there was a lot of hype but equal amounts of letdown. There was a waiting room, confusing waiver forms, social stratification, long lines, fake concessions, sponsors, merchandise, out of order attractions – the Associated Press even stopped by to interview carnival patrons. I constructed a team of ten or so “carnies” and everyone had their own instructions for how to act and interact with everyone else. I spent most of the time running around shouting at people with my megaphone, making sure everything was going smoothly. It was beautiful. It was also expensive, exhausting, and took five full van loads to fill up the gallery. I just about had a nervous breakdown on the inside, even as I kept my composure on the outside. It was great but I don’t know if it is feasible or sustainable for me right now. Phew.

OA: What has your experience at Univ of Tenn been like? What do you feel you will take away from you time there?
DM: It has been incredibly positive. I am learning how to be an artist. I mean that in the full scope of that word - artist. I am learning what role an artist plays in society and how I can function within that role. Obviously, there is extensive instruction about how to investigate a given concept. This includes a lot of reading and writing well before developing a course of action. Then there are technical issues to address and tackle. In the course of artistic projects I develop, I frequently encounter points where it simply gets too big. Then I have to give up, make compromises, or grow to meet the challenge. Beyond these things – the things that being an artist is REALLY about – there is the issue of surviving as an artist. As with any discipline there are many professional development skills one has to acquire and employ to be successful. You cannot rely solely on making work – you have to sell yourself. You have to teach, you have to be published, you have to lecture, you have to build a website, you have to apply for shows, you have to collaborate, etc, etc, etc. In essence, you have to be the complete package - or as complete as you can be for the time. It is just so competitive. Regardless of what I end up doing, the most profound things I will learn from grad school is survival.

OA: What's next for Daniel Maw?
DM: That reminds me of a question I fielded when applying to grad schools a couple years ago – why do you want to go to grad school? Why is grad school the next thing? I think it comes down to one simple idea. I am pursuing a lifestyle in which it is necessary for me to be creative. I want to find something that allows me to spend as much time sitting in my underwear at my drawing desk, sipping chocolate milk, and drawing pictures. Grad school seemed to be the answer back then and I am feeling out opportunities now. Academia is one obvious (although competitive) option. But my interests are broad – fine art, drawing, printmaking, comics, illustration, design, animation, etc. I imagine it will have to be a combination of some or all of those things.

Bonus Questions:

OA: If you could sit down to coffee with anyone (alive or dear) who would it be?
DM: You know that is challenging. I would choose my Dad because he is the one person who knows me in a way few possibly could and I love him so much. But if I were to pick someone I had not sat down with before I might say George Herriman, Charlie Chaplin, or Jacques Tati – and all for just about the same reason. I believe those three people were all very much in touch with what it means to be human. They know what people respond to and how to make them laugh. That is such a beautiful thing.

OA: What type of music do you enjoy and who a few of your favorites?
DM: To be honest, I am not as actively engaged with music as I once was. I lost interest at the fast pace I was consuming music – it made me sick to be into and out of bands so fast. I can, however, break music down into having two entirely different but equally important purposes for me. One is to create a backdrop for my concentration – you know, something to ignore. That sounds harsh but it is actually quite lovely. I have sort of settled into established music – that way I am not burning myself out flying through new music. A quick top five might be Al Bowlly, Andres Segovia, Django Reinhardt, Miles Davis, and Billie Holiday. But I also like hip hop, jazz, ragtime, blues, classic soul, psyche, folk, noise, etc. – even some contemporary stuff. The other reason I use music is for dancing. I have got to get my demons out somehow and there is no better way for me to do that than with some old soul music.

For more information on Daniel Maw please visit his website.