OBEY curated artist series
Featuring Martine Johanna
2013
Interview:
What initially spurred your interest in art?
I think I was born with it, as soon as I could I was preoccupied with anything creative; drawing, storytelling, painting, watching strange movies, making clothes collecting odd stuff from flea markets and trinkets from nature. At 19 I was accepted into the academy of arts in Arnhem, Holland, at the Fashion department. It’s the same school where Viktor & Rolf studied. I enjoyed it immensely, although I loved designing I never fully could let go making drawings or huge paper works. I once did a 2 meter high collage of Michelle Peiffer as cat woman. After graduation, I worked as a all-over pattern designer and later as a womenswear designer for Dutch rebellious street style brand, Gsus-sindustries. But something inside me was aching to get out, in Amsterdam I started to paint big murals on the street and met the most wonderful people that are still close friends. I quit my job and could instantly live of my art. Eventually drawing and making paintings on wood and canvas appealed to me more. I like to nest myself, surrounded by all my inspiration, my own little world.
How does fashion play a part in your artwork?
I am in love with fashion, not the fast fashion, but handmade things, high-end, intricate constructions, bold patterns, high quality and historical pieces. But mostly how fashion can carry you as a person, it shows who you are, it can reflect your mood and it slowly changes with you over time. It’s a life long companion and addiction. But fashion is also a state of mind, its an attitude, a look, a movement an abstraction and a search for perfection. I think my work is drenched in that feeling, however vague that sounds, its the truth.
What themes and ideas generally inspire your art?
It's all those stories in my head, love, lust, death, decay, the endlessness of life cycles, hurt, nature and man kinds struggle to make a mark. I'm no different; I also want to echo trough time. It sounds all quite loaded, but my mind works like that, I can endlessly deconstruct and reconstruct personalities and stories. What I make is just a small glimmer of that universe in my head. More practically, I listen to a lot of music and watch a lot of movies while working. Most of the styles of music are underground or small labels and the films are from blockbusters, to horror, cult, to straight-out bizarre.
Which specific themes inspired the artwork you used for the Obey collection?
I worked closely with the Obey design crew, I always dive deep into a subject and translate it into my own visual language. A big part of the theme is American culture. I love America; I love its history and the bizarreness of its bubble development. It has the best cult origin, urban legends, extremities but also gorgeous landscapes and extreme nature. It's a country that triggers the imagination. I made the 2-headed Eagle as a translation for the duality and balance within the American culture. The flower girl is a reminiscence of the period before the Manson killings made an end to the innocence of the 60's. The all Seeing Eye is of course Obey, but it also reoccurs in my own work, as a sign for seeing and learning. The Pro art piece is more of a (very tiny) kick in the face for those who are afraid of the artistic adaptation of cult and occult signs and do not recognize that art is a non-damaging expression. For example; I find it still shocking that nakedness is considered as an offense, but weapons and violence are not.
How do the pieces for OBEY differ from pieces you've done in the past?
They are a little less disturbing ;)