1 00:00:09,780 --> 00:00:13,840 [Marcel Dzama: Organizing Chaos] 2 00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:27,200 So these costumes are quite old. 3 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:27,940 [LAUGHS] 4 00:00:32,500 --> 00:00:34,640 This one was just a halloween costume. 5 00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:35,140 [LAUGHS] 6 00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:46,100 I guess I have a hoarder tendency. 7 00:00:47,460 --> 00:00:51,040 That was the one thing I didn’t adapt to in being a New Yorker, 8 00:00:51,050 --> 00:00:57,000 to get rid of things as quickly as your small apartment allows. 9 00:01:07,060 --> 00:01:09,540 I'm originally from Winnipeg, Canada. 10 00:01:10,020 --> 00:01:14,220 The winters are quite cold, and last for almost half the year. 11 00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:16,830 It’s hard to get together to socialize 12 00:01:16,830 --> 00:01:22,500 because there's this barrier of weather that keeps you isolated. 13 00:01:24,420 --> 00:01:27,380 I used to color a lot as a kid. 14 00:01:30,620 --> 00:01:33,520 I would draw a lot of Universal monsters. 15 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:36,540 Any of those characters like The Wolfman and Dracula. 16 00:01:41,220 --> 00:01:44,240 And then created my own world to have something to do. 17 00:01:53,460 --> 00:01:56,520 The thing with living in Winnipeg is, especially in the winter, 18 00:01:56,520 --> 00:01:59,990 the horizon and the land just kind of... they just dissolved into each other. 19 00:01:59,990 --> 00:02:03,190 So you would see this, almost like a blank page. 20 00:02:03,190 --> 00:02:07,871 And if someone would walk into it, it would look like a blank piece of paper 21 00:02:07,871 --> 00:02:08,871 with a figure. 22 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:13,760 And so I think that really subconsciously influenced my style. 23 00:02:19,310 --> 00:02:22,640 When I was in art school, I was still living in my parents' place. 24 00:02:22,650 --> 00:02:27,910 I did have quite a bit of larger works on board from my grandfather's farm. 25 00:02:27,910 --> 00:02:29,350 He took apart a barn 26 00:02:29,350 --> 00:02:33,800 and I used a lot of the panels from that and painted on it with house paint. 27 00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:37,100 Then there was a house fire. 28 00:02:39,580 --> 00:02:43,300 I basically lost all of my work from the past 29 00:02:43,300 --> 00:02:45,680 and most of my possessions. 30 00:02:46,940 --> 00:02:51,019 So, I started drawing on hotel stationery 31 00:02:51,019 --> 00:02:54,350 and that ended up being my thesis. 32 00:02:54,350 --> 00:02:56,380 ["The Royal Art Lodge" collaborative work] 33 00:03:00,900 --> 00:03:03,680 Those were the works that I would start to get known for, 34 00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:08,980 this isolated background with just a few figures. 35 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:16,560 After the house fire there was this real feeling of loss. 36 00:03:16,560 --> 00:03:19,940 But, on the other hand, there was also this possibility-- 37 00:03:19,940 --> 00:03:24,500 and, in some ways, also made it easier to move to New York. 38 00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:38,540 I used to have more of a red and brown palette. 39 00:03:38,540 --> 00:03:41,360 I'm definitely going through a blue period. 40 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:51,060 I did some political work in the Bush years, during the Iraq war. 41 00:03:51,060 --> 00:03:53,880 In Trump years, I kind of felt like, 42 00:03:53,880 --> 00:03:59,070 to go to sleep, I needed this exorcism of the news media that I had taken in that day. 43 00:03:59,070 --> 00:04:01,000 So I needed to get it out. 44 00:04:09,940 --> 00:04:16,940 --I included the Dada image because they had the disgust of World War I. 45 00:04:17,420 --> 00:04:23,260 --So I thought it was good timing for the disgust of what’s going on right now [LAUGHS] 46 00:04:23,260 --> 00:04:25,420 --in our political age. 47 00:04:26,140 --> 00:04:29,400 --I think it's gotten me in a bit of a downward spiral. 48 00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:35,300 After the Sandy Hook shooting, I stopped drawing guns. 49 00:04:35,300 --> 00:04:38,670 And then once Trump got in, I felt like it, 50 00:04:38,670 --> 00:04:43,680 as some sort of resistance symbol, I brought it back. 51 00:04:44,780 --> 00:04:47,000 The revolution is going to be female. 52 00:04:52,860 --> 00:04:53,820 --Switch it up. 53 00:05:02,620 --> 00:05:07,700 When I moved to New York, I found the work getting much more claustrophobic. 54 00:05:07,700 --> 00:05:10,160 I wanted to put some sort of order to it. 55 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:15,620 I found these old dance magazines and realized I should put them in dance positions. 56 00:05:16,980 --> 00:05:20,290 That's how I put some organization to the chaos 57 00:05:20,290 --> 00:05:22,060 of this claustrophobia. 58 00:05:28,540 --> 00:05:33,260 I even turned a lot of the creatures into costumes for humans. 59 00:05:33,260 --> 00:05:36,180 I thought of it more as a stage from that point. 60 00:05:37,580 --> 00:05:41,360 More of a dance element, kind of almost like a Broadway show. 61 00:05:51,780 --> 00:05:56,400 This has been a few artists that I like to reference in my work quite a bit. 62 00:05:56,400 --> 00:06:00,520 Duchamp, Goya, William Blake, Picabia-- definitely my heroes. 63 00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:01,520 [LAUGHS] 64 00:06:07,420 --> 00:06:11,300 Picabia, had done this ballet, where there was this polka-dotted character. 65 00:06:11,300 --> 00:06:15,580 That really inspired me to move into more of a polka-dotted direction. 66 00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:30,080 I did this just after the school shooting in Florida. 67 00:06:30,090 --> 00:06:33,330 Emma Gonzalez did this really powerful speech 68 00:06:33,330 --> 00:06:38,580 and Fox News was trying to bring her down with some sort of criticism. 69 00:06:38,580 --> 00:06:43,600 So, I drew this group of conspiracy theory people 70 00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:46,320 and this circus surrounding this young lady. 71 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:55,380 I start quite late in the studio. 72 00:06:57,340 --> 00:07:00,220 The more interesting ideas come out of my work 73 00:07:00,220 --> 00:07:01,490 in that witching hour. 74 00:07:01,490 --> 00:07:05,640 I feel that's where that world is set-- that I've created. 75 00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:10,320 There's more of a flow, 76 00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:16,100 because I have one foot in subconscious and one in reality. 77 00:07:17,060 --> 00:07:18,860 I try not to censor myself. 78 00:07:18,860 --> 00:07:22,700 So I just let whatever at the top of my head come out. 79 00:07:24,310 --> 00:07:26,700 Butterflies have come into the work. 80 00:07:26,700 --> 00:07:28,440 Moths and different insects. 81 00:07:30,140 --> 00:07:34,140 I always keep it open to whatever the mood is. 82 00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:39,680 There's this possibility of anything can happen.