South Jersey Artist Studio Tour - Bryan Warner
Can you talk about your practice?
Warner: So a lot of my, I guess a lot of my work is kind of like based in found imagery, so I collect a lot of images. I try to use that to, it's basically like a starting point. Kind of like mix and match or juxtapose imagery. The work typically centers around like American culture and Japanese culture. Yokai are something that I find really interesting. They're kind of like regular things that have been turned horrific. I find that kind of interesting or they're turned strange. So I feel like that's kind of like a starting point for my work. Like, how do I take something that's, you know, we see every day and then like, make it unusual or make it different.
And there's this thing called the Yokai Parade, which I really find interesting. So that is something I aspire to, this kind of like parade of strangeness or kind of these odd little creatures that are sort of spawned from everyday objects. So that is like a inspiration for me. I have Japanese and I grew up in South Jersey. I grew up in Vineland. Um, so a lot of my work is like taking things from American culture and then taking things from Japanese culture and then trying to make them kind of like just make a world, like some kind of strange world. Um, like what would that look like? Or how does that fit together? Some of my work is based on comic book or coloring books. I have these like 1950s coloring books. These I find really interesting, just like the idea of like, picturing American life or what, you know, what's all American.
You know, there's something weird about Japanese culture filtering American culture. I find that kind of interesting how they kind of like take it to the extreme. Um, so that is a lot of like the for inspiration for my work. And then typically what I do is I start with a drawing. So I'll make some kind of drawing and then paint into it. And I like to kind of paint it to like, get rid of the image or kind of dissolve the image and then try to bring the image back. It seems like right now I'm doing a lot of perspective drawing. I'm still trying to figure out why I am drawing with perspective. I think one of the things that I'm doing or trying to do or get at is like trying to like take an object and then make it into a place. I almost feel like it's thinking about like when I was a kid, there would be like a toy and I could create a world around the toy. And so I feel like I'm trying to do that with these perspective drawings in some way. Um, but I'm not completely sure. Like it's, these are pretty new. Like, I'm just kind of starting that a couple months, so I haven't completely, uh, I don't understand why I'm doing it right now.
Can you talk about your journey into art?
Warner: I guess that it depends on like what that means as art. I feel like I always was somebody that drew a lot, like I drew school and like my teachers would, they’d say, please don't draw in school. You know, don't draw or during math or something. I didn't necessarily think of art as like a thing to like do as a serious thing until probably college. Like I started to take art classes in college and I can remember like feeling more excited about learning that than I felt about learning most other things. And then the more I took, the more I felt like, oh, well this, maybe this is like a real thing that I could do. I will say though, that I feel like, um, I don't feel like I ever felt like an artist for a long time.
I probably within the last five years I've started to feel like I'm an artist. I tell people like, I'm an artist. Um, 'cause most time I felt like it was like I wasn't good enough or I I always had like an imposter syndrome for a long time. And it's been probably within the last five years or so that I started to feel like no, no. Like I do this. Like this is a real part of my life.
What are you currently working on?
Warner: So I've been working on these perspective drawings and they're kind of just starting out
as these perspective drawings and I'm planning to paint them. I feel like I'm trying to take an object and then make it into a place. A lot of my work is either kind of like channeling childhood or nostalgia or I want to feel like I used to feel playing as a child when I make the work. So I think one of the things I'm trying to do is like, feel or make the drawing feel like a kid feels when they have a toy that they can create their own world around. So I don't know if that will translate to the viewer, but like, that's the feeling that I want to get when I'm making it. That it's like a complete world through this one thing. Like the object becomes a portal.
I don't know that it's like a geographical place. I think it's more of a mental, like a place of the imagination. I think of it like you get into a place of focus that the world kind of like disappears.
Why is art important to you?
Warner: I think art is important because it allows me to reflect on the world, like to process the world and to process life and experience and kind of like take a break from everything that's going on and just allows me time to think about what's happening or to think of it in a different way. When I'm making it, it's like a way to decompress and like, okay, let's stop thinking about all that stuff that's going on. Or if I'm watching a movie or looking at a book or looking at art, I see the world through someone else's eyes and then I say it's like, oh, I hadn't thought of that.
So these are drawings I made. made them during the lockdown. So it was in 2020 and it was in the month of May. So I just kind of created a project for myself where I was drawing, trying to make a drawing every day. I was doing drawings of just random things like looking at the Library of Congress website and they have an image archive. And then I stumbled across images that Ansel Adams took in the Manzanar Internment camp. I had remembered reading a book in high school. It was like a Farewell to Manzanar, which is an account of a woman that grew up in the Manzanar relocation camp. So I started drawing one portrait from that series, and I did it for the whole month of May. So when I was drawing them, I, you know, wanted to finish one each day. I would typically paint on the surface and then draw into it with a pen. I wanted it to be something where the mistakes became part of the work. So I think part of the reason to draw one each day was to kind of like, help me just do the drawing and accept it for what it was. Um, but because the mistakes became part of the work. I was able to not worry about
them being perfect and then they might be a little more expressive. Or the mistakes sometimes became part of the expression. I was drawing them because I wasn't worrying about
the technique as much, I felt like I started to think about the person and what, you know, like what information were we getting through that portrait? Like what were they feeling or were they experiencing? It's kind of interesting 'cause it's a portrait of these people, but it's also like a free Caucasian man's view of that person. So I thought, you know, like, I thought about like, you know, how much of it is propaganda, how much of it is what was his take on it? I did a little bit of research on Ansel Adams and he did get, um, negative criticism for making this series. Those were the things that I found compelling while I was drawing them thinking about how much do we know of these people? Like this was their record of that time. They didn't really get to have a voice.
I guess, gracious of him to do that. Um, but also it seemed kind of unfair that was their voice was through someone else. So there's actually a portrait that was really interesting. There was a man who was a photographer, this fellow, Sotoyo Miaka. He was a photographer and he was in the camp. I think if I remember correctly, he actually smuggled a camera into the camp but I think it got taken away after, it was confiscated in the camp. But that was, I was thinking that was kind of interesting that he, like what if he would have been able to keep that camera?
There's little stories of how people dealt with their time in the camps. Like, they would actually take wood from the cabins that they were living in, and they would carve the wood into sculptures. And apparently, I think it was like plum blossoms or hummingbirds were like a theme that they used. And I think part of that was because it had a connotation of freedom. This was actually a gift by some of my friends when I was in grad school. I collected Hello Kitty imagery, and I was painting Hello Kitty stuff. And then they gave me this clock as like a joke. And then I started painting this. It just became like a recurring character. Then the daruma, this was also a gift. So this is like a traditional gift that a friend or a parent or someone that cares about you will give you an, or you could buy yourself, I guess. But you paint one of the eyes and then you try to reach a goal. And so when you finish the goal, you paint the other eye. So this one was trying to get my teaching certificate for public school. So I completed that goal. My wife is not Japanese and she always talked about how they're so menacing. Like, it's like staring you down the goal, the object of your desire. It's like glaring at you. Which I'd never noticed, but it does seem kind of.
I find them and collect them. This one I actually, this is just a clay sculpture that I made of a daruma. A lot of the objects in my paintings I think that I collect just 'cause I think they're funny. Or they seem connected to like Japanese culture or Asian culture. And then I want to figure out why I think they're interesting. I do have one other object. This was like 15 years ago maybe longer than that. But I would collect toys and things like that and then try to cover them. I did like things with like, sequins and then these were googly eyes.
So this was a character, I think it's called Puka. I don't even know what his or her ethnicity is, but it felt very stereotypical outside. Like the chopsticks and it has very narrow eyes, and I was like, oh, what if I just covered it with googly eyes, which seemed very opposite of that. And then, you know, what would, what would that look like or what would that, um, what would happen? So I, I did that and then I was just taking things that are kind of like throwaway things and trying to like bedazzle them and make them seem like more important. So that was like a soda can, and then these are, I stopped doing this, but I think I need to finish these. I was thinking about like Michael Jackson's glove and like taking Timberland boots and then trying to make that kind of blue collar thing more sparkly. That's unfinished work is a big part of my life. Like things I have a, I get distracted very easily distracted, so that's a common theme in my process, I guess. But yeah, I love that. I think.
South Jersey Artist Studio Tour (SJAST) is a pilot project created by the South Jersey Cultural Alliance and funded by the Humanities Lab Project through the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. The South Jersey Cultural Alliance would like to thank the artist, Bryan Warner.
