An interview with visual artist Paul Gamble

 Paul Gamble is an Australian painter who anonymously contributed some scanned images of his work to the Synchronized Chaos group on Facebook. We asked around and located him for an online interview.

You may friend Paul Gamble on Facebook and can probably contact him via one of the sites he mentions below where he features his work.

First of all – would you like to describe your process in creating one of your pictures? How does the image get from your head to the computer screen? What steps/media do you use?

Pictures usually come to me via creative imagination, by waking or lucid dreaming, day dreaming you could say. Some images are strong and immediate while other may rumage around in my head for years. All my art is based on drawing, either from my imagination, real objects and things or a combination of both. Sometimes I just copy a picture of something I like just as I did as a boy. It depends on the image.

I usually paint in either acrylics, oils, or synthetic polymer. Mostly on canvas.

Who are some of your favorite artists? Whose work do you admire and enjoy looking at, whether it has inspired you or not?

I admire any one who dares call themselves an artist and who struggles with the creative act on a regular basis.
Leonardo DaVinci, Salvador Dali, MC Escher, Albert Tucker, Brett Whitely, James Gleeson, Mirka Mora

Where do you find inspiration for your art? How do you get your ideas?

Pictures can come from a feeling, a thought, an experience, a word, a song, a sneeze.
Everything I can see, with my eyes, and mind, is art.

I am an artist, so the majority of my brainspace and time is consumed with art. The creation process not only manifests in a physical way via making art but also appears to me in the physical living universe as well.

How long have you been making these pictures? Has your style changed over time?

I have been drawing pictures and image making since childhood. Painting seriously for about twenty years now. My style hasn’t changed a great deal even though I continually change what and how I paint, from picture to picture. I am always searching for something new, that special thing, experimentation is never ending. Make as many mistakes as possible just to see what happens.

Some of your artwork seems to have a fanciful, almost whimsical tone (sorry if that’s not your intention!!) Is there a reason for the mood you’re trying to create? What are you trying to get across to viewers?

I hope my sense of humour comes through in a work, I also hope viewers are intigued and provoked enough to contemplate their own existence in the universe.

I think the whimsical thing comes from continually trying different things. NEXT! picture, lets go.

You use a lot of bright colors in your work that makes it stand out. How do you decide on a color scheme for a particular piece?

Colour scemes always are a self referral process that happens within a picture. I love colour so I always try to combine them to each others advantage. I want my pictures to stand out because I want people to look at them, I want them to be noticed. Bright colour is a good indication of mood.

What about your work, in your view, is different and distinct from that of other graphic artists? What have you innovated or done differently?

Things I do differently? I make paint into 3d objects. Paintsculptures, I call them. Still perfecting that experiment.

Also, my whole egg theory as a conceptual basis for my work. I am unsure if anyone else has or does that.

My inspiration and ideas come from the idea of the egg. Eggs as a universal symbol for creation, as a shape, as a concept, as math, as metaphor, as biology, as a belief system, as the sacred and the mundane, micro and macro. It is what relates us to all life. Everything comes from and is egg.

I notice a lot of anatomical detail in your work, especially the skulls and the birds in flight. Do you have a biology background? Do you work from live or actual animals as models?

I don’t have a biology background – the animal motif stems from my egg concept. Where I can, I use real objects, otherwise I use pictures as reference. Drawing from life is preferred but not always possible.

Where can people find your work online? Are you selling your work online? (We at Synchronized Chaos always encourage people to patronize our featured artists. However, not all of our readers have Facebook.)

I’m mainly on Facebook due to there being no art gallery where I live. My website is still under construction.

Editor’s note: You may also find Paul Gamble’s work on Zazzle.com and on the pictures section of Synchronized Chaos’ editorial and planning Facebook group – Chaos Theory (our former name) on Facebook.

http://apps.new.facebook.com/merchstore/store.php?ch=paulgamble&uid=1386737177

http://www.zazzle.com/pd/find?qs=paul+gamble

Hope that’s enough. If I think of more, I will update. Gotta let the brain soak for awhile 🙂