I imagine I’m not the first person to compare your work to Alice in Wonderland – nature scenes with fantastical animals, women in Victorian dresses, a turn-of-the-century feel to the artwork, and rabbits!  So many rabbits! Is this intentional?  Are you flattered or annoyed by this comparison?

I am flattered, and yes, I do get compared to Alice in Wonderland a lot. The funny thing is that I don’t even really like the story, but I do see the comparison in my work and it doesn’t bother me at all to be compared. In fact, I think it helps my work a bit in that people already have this sort of familiarity with my work which in turn I think helps people relate to it.

Eventually all artists come to a point where they have found a style that works for them.  How did you find your style?  What do you think pushed you in the direction of collage and illustrative work rather than more abstract art, or pencil drawing, etc.?

I began working in collage partially as a necessity. In undergraduate school I was a painter and during my final semester, I begun developing pain in both of my hands and wrists which left me unable to paint. I had this problem for almost seven years. About just as quickly as the pain begun, it disappeared. I found myself tentatively starting to be creative again by trying collage as my medium. I began with small collage note cards and eventually progressed to larger scale works.

The pain has never returned, but it is always in the back of my mind. Being creative and being an artist is so much a part of who I am, that part of me is afraid to paint again for fear that the pain will come back. Which is all fine; I actually quite enjoy collage as a medium and it has served me quite well I think.

As far as choosing the subject matter for my work, I think I always had a sort of dreamy-surrealistic-style which can be seen in my early paintings, but the whole rabbit-rich imagery of my current work didn’t occur until after I completed the Counseling portion of my life and I begun to look more into what I wanted my art to mean.

I have always identified with rabbits on some level. They have this innocence about them and they almost always represent that part of my self in my work.

Do you have a special process in your work?  How do you generally go about getting from an idea to a finished piece, for example, in your three dimensional projects?

In recent years I have begun keeping a journal of my thoughts, things people say to me, or events that have had some sort of impact on my life. They are usually only a few sentences, but I use these sentences as inspiration for future work. From there I develop an idea in my head and let the process and images I find, lead me the rest of the way. I’m not much of a pre-planner. Rather, I enjoy the serendipitous process of creating this way. My three dimensional works are then usually born from the collage pieces that I have already created.

I’m very interested in the link between your counseling work and your art.  You’ve said that through counseling you have discovered how rich and different everyone’s secret worlds are and that it influences your artwork.  I imagine there must be some very difficult moments in counseling, and it makes me wonder why your art does not have a darker feel to it.  Is this a conscious choice?

I definitely think it is a conscious choice. Yes, it is true that there are many dark moments in counseling and in life, and many painful and horrible things happen that are out of our control. But what we do have control over is what we learn from those moments and how we let those moments effect the rest of our life. So I choose to focus on the more positive aspects in my work, because really there can always be something positive found in even our darkest moments.

I really love the nature themes in your work.  What compels you to set your scenes out of doors?

Nature has always been a huge part of my life. I spent my childhood in the woods and have always had a deep respect for nature and animals. They also provide, I think, a wonderful vessel on which to show human experience because they are seen as “real” and unthreatening. They sometimes even act as a mirror for our own experience. It somehow becomes easier to see ourselves in an anthropomorphized rabbit than it is in an image of a human figure.

What would you like people to take away from your work?  If you overheard someone say something about your art, what would you like to hear?

I think the best compliment that I could ever get is that someone is inspired by my work. It can be inspired to create their own art or inspired to look at the world a little differently or inspired to make some sort of change. Inspiration means that I have somehow been able to reach the viewer in a way that causes some sort of shift. To me, that is what art is about; it’s about creating change or sharing a different way of seeing the world.

What are five tools in your work (or in your life!) that you would be lost without?

My computer. I honestly don’t know how I ever got along without it.

Lip gloss. Yes, I am an addict and can’t do much of anything without it seems.

Matte Medium. It’s the best glue that I have found for collage.

Really good, sharp, scissors.

My collection of antique photographs which provide me with so much inspiration.

http://sarahogren.blogspot.com/

Harmony Korine’s latest non-blockbuster that’s been touring the country arrived for a special screening at Wolstenholme Creative Space in Liverpool.

As I entered the gallery I was met by a dimly lit space, partially illuminated by a few candles and scattered, mismatched lamps. Crowded in by about 40 others, we each found our own little spot amongst the eclectic mix of debris; furniture that probably wouldn’t be out of place in your nan’s living room. Several lo-fi TVs, ready for the dump (god knows how they were working) looked as if they were set to show CCTV surveillance videos, but these acted as a collective cinema screen. At least the derelict ambiance was in perfect keeping with the events ahead of us. The screens flickered as the film was introduced personally by the director himself onscreen, “This is for the skanks of Liverpool” Korine introduced brazenly, and the film began.

Instantly, this film produced exactly what the title had suggested. Disfigured beings, reminiscent of the cast of ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ humped trash, accompanied by a soundtrack of squawking and singing. Particularly disturbing scenes included “the Humpers” smashing old electricals in a parking lot… the inanimate objects, which previously served as outlets for their sexual desires, were now being abused and demolished, soulless exgirlfriends being taken advantage of. The scene brutally explored the theme of domestic violence and instantly made a few of the punters uneasy in their straight-out-of-a-skip seats. The video ploughed on, playing with obvious taboo subjects such as death, sex, fetishism and coerced its “naughtiness” with symbols often found in contemporary art that often cause uproar; tortured child-like dolls, prostitution and nudity. Anyone for a slice of rotting Bellmer?

In places the film was deceptively funny. Explaining the concept to people who hadn’t seen it afterward always produced a laugh. But after 30 minutes of little variation since it began, the laughter in the audience was soon replaced with uncomfortable seat shuffling and whispered questions of, “what time it is?”. The film seemed to be on a 15min loop, scene after scene of repetitive yet dissimilar actions. Certainly no one in the room expected it to go on for the whole 78minutes that it did. Scenes changed so rapidly you felt as though the film depicted a TV series of short horror-stories that followed unsavory boogeymen around lifeless suburban America.

Korine’s choice of filming via a grainy VHS added to the sinister aspect of the ‘story’. TRASH HUMPERS is daring and relentless with no care for narrative or plot. This film deliberately shits all over the essence of Hollywood with no product placement in sight. It’s pretentious, provocative, fake and reckless, and it cries for attention like an abandoned baby on a stoop. When the film eventually ended, I felt sick and uncomfortable. A guy beside me instantly cried out with a demonizing accusation. He said, “it was shockingly awful, shallow and lazy, they actually could have called it ‘Bo Selecta: The Pantomime’.” Others simply just didn’t know what to say, white with shock and confused rage. Sometimes, but not often, their response was a gleeful mouth of praise.

Despite this review sounding, at least overtly negative, TRASH HUMPERS had its moments. There were a few laughs in the whole procession of grotesque perambulations, but to be honest I’ve been left in a void, not knowing really how to feel about it. Is Korine trying to show us something, that we’re living life already in this complete emptiness? Is there a lesson to be extracted or was the film… just plain fucked up? I’ll leave it up to you.

TRASH HUMPERS DVD due for release on 20th September.

Visit http://www.trashhumpers.com/

Nicole Frye! Amazing work Nicole, check your email! Here are the rest of the awesome submissions! Great work to all of you.

Cris Rivera

Line Maria Grunert

David Diaz

Jessica Herbele

Mamen Pradel

http://www.myspace.com/oldarc

http://www.flickr.com/photos/braukis/