Tell me about yourself, where you live and your background/lifestyle.
I'm an Irish citizen, born in South Africa and presently residing in Sydney,
Australia. I live in an apartment where I paint. When the mood takes me I
sculpt but recently a shortage of storage space has slowed that side of my
work. I think of myself as a figurative artist and hesitate to call myself
a painter as I've always associated that term with people who are happy to
churn out work easily and in great quantity, with little thought for
meaning. I do battle with every painting as if it were a fight for survival
and, being self-taught, I have had to developed my own way of doing things.
It's hard to achieve the results I want. I work purely from imagination.
Putting in regular hours each day helps and I draw a lot on my experience of
growing up in Africa.
Who first influenced you artistically?
Growing up in Africa, I was always aware of African art and I think that was
my first influence. I remember stumbling across Vincent van Gogh's work in
a book I was reading when I was a kid and the claims of his madness
intrigued me. His work was very beautiful to me. It didn't look like the
work of a madman at all.
What first attracted you to the Internet?
It was around the time I was trying to get my work shown locally and had
finally given up on the idea. I knew I was ready to make a break and I was
convinced that the only way to be seen was to go overseas. Somehow, I had
to get some meaningful exposure. Then someone told me I could get my work
onto the Internet as a way of bypassing the galleries and get my work seen
by more people than I could imagine and I jumped at the chance. The
response so far has been overwhelming. I think it's great that artists can
bypass all that nationalistic mumbo-jumbo art that galleries insist on
showing nowadays. It makes me wonder if they are capable of assessing art
at all. My impression is that they stick to nationalistic art because it's
easy to sell to an uninformed and passionately patriotic public. Then there
are those galleries where only 'safe art' is sold - you know what I mean,
all the big names like Matisse, Monet, Pollock, Turner, Picasso, and the
other greats. Let's face it, it's easy to sell the big names - the
galleries don't have to put any effort into it and there's no risk.
Does the Internet allow you to show your work as you would like: How
could it be improved to suit you?
I think the Internet has some very good qualities. Like a work of art it
should be simple in design, focused on the issues and, if very lucky, it
will generate a life-force of its own. On my website I have tried to keep
the design simple and with little fuss so that my work is presented as if in
a gallery situation with nothing to distract the viewer.
http://www.zip.com.au/~tokolosh
To suggest improvements to the Internet is a tough call. The only shortfall
might be the problem of getting to be seen. There's so much stuff out
there. If the individual sitting at a computer, who does not have to be
responsible for his actions, seeks you out and hits on your site, then you
should try to draw that person in with something that might be interesting
and hopefully leave them with a sense of having acquired some meaningful
information. People like to hunt and the Internet is the ideal place for
this. I enjoy finding interesting sites. Artists can bypass all that
snobbery you get from the larger galleries. In the end, nothing compares
with the real thing. Seeing that original work of art can blow your mind
(that may be the only saving grace for the galleries out there). The
Internet is the next best thing. Buying a work of art off the Internet
still presents a problem, I think.
What kind of artwork do you expect to be doing in the next 12 months
or so?
I can't plan that far ahead. I don't know what I'll be doing tomorrow, let
alone next year. If I knew, then I'd be trying to do it now.
Have you found other artists on the Internet like yourself?
No, not as yet. I haven't come across any artist who uses forms in their
work the way I do.
Is there anything about the way you produce your work that you
believe to be unique or unusual?
It's difficult to be unique nowadays. My work has often been compared to
Bacon (which is a compliment of course), but if you are objective about it
and compare the paintings side by side, there's no real similarity. It's
more an impression than anything else. My work is figurative with forms
penetrating one another in both my paintings and sculptures and that sort of
imagery in itself is quite unique. I try to put interlocking forms into all
my work. Think of all the emotion attached to the act of one object
piercing another. It suggests so many things to me. It can be conceived as
violent and it can be most tender. It suggests death, like when a lion's
tooth penetrates the flesh on a buffalo's neck before he rips it's throat
out. Or it could suggest life as in the birth of a baby. My aim is to show
all that - the reality coupled with the sensation of that moment of intense
emotion.
In my experience people don't really want anything new in art today. That's
what I think anyway. If by chance something unique should come along, I
don't think anybody would give a damn about it. I'm quite happy just to
paint to please myself. People who are afraid of new art don't want to
confront it and try to tear it to pieces, to find an influence and to link
it to something safe and familiar. I know my work is unique and hopefully
it is dangerous because of that fact.