Spread

David Ellis


HS: How did you find painting as a medium? When did you realize it was something that you wanted to do?

DE: Painting started with me very young. It got serious in the early eighties when pieces on trains in New York caught my attention. I was hooked and started painting barns and warehouses in the countryside of N.C. where I grew up. That was the spark. As time goes on my goals with paint change. Today I'm less interested in static, finished paintings and more about capturing the multi layered actions of making things with paint over long periods of time and playing them back as motion paintings.

HS: Listening to hip-hop growing up, how did that change the way you approach your art and what were the key lessons learned during that period?

DE: From Spoonie Gee to PE, the eighties came full of possibility and the art was morphing into all types of new forms and moving in so many directions at once. I try to keep that kind of fire at the heart of what I do across disciplines but it's impossible.

HS: Who else has been an influence on your work?

DE: Kami, Swoon, Barnstormers, Roberto Lange, Christian Marclay...

HS: You helped design and curate a series of posters and an original logo for Spread. How did that collaboration come about? What made this project interesting to you?

DE: I was approached by Street Virus to create variations of my "flow" work, a form that shifts through space like a river. There was a connection with that language, the word spread, and the ideas in the film. I watched the film and improvised several variations that I though would fit. The design ideas were developed by David Weissberg who combined stills from the shoot with my ink drawings to produce the finals.

HS: How does working with Ashton Kutcher and the Spread crew compare to something like putting together motion painting events, do you view them differently, what are the challenges of each?

DE: Working with Ashton was a real pleasure. He has a good eye and a good sense of design. It came together quickly with only a few strokes of ink. Motion paintings take a lot of time and a lot of paint but when I'm in the middle of one it's bliss.

HS: What have you learned about audience as an exhibiting artist?

DE: The audience has grown with the emergence of blogs, flickr, youtube, vimeo, etc. We all follow a lot of things this way and that has affected the way we work. I see merits in all exhibition forms but the direct contact between a work and a person on their way to work is still a good one. Exhibiting in a gallery is, at it's root, often a commercial endeavor. I'm more interested in things that take place in and out of the gallery that are not.

HS: It is interesting to see street art cross over into Hollywood. Do you see yourself continuing with this type of work? Do you see potential for other artists to contribute in this way?

DE: I think there is a conversation between these mediums that has been happening for a long time and will continue. There's a shared language between the theatrical nature of a large work on the street and a projected image.

HS: You're known to combine ideas with collaborators. Who would you most like to work with?

DE: There are so many great artists coming up everyday. I've been lucky enough to work with many of my favorites and hope to continue for as long as I'm making things.