2501’s first solo show in the states, at Soze Gallery in Los Angeles, opened last week. While he was in LA, 2501 met up with Tim Hans for the latest in our continuing series of photo-portraits of artists by Tim Hans, and I asked 2501 a few question about his work.
RJ: How do your indoor and outdoor works relate to one another?
2501: My whole body of work is connected. That’s also one of the subjects of my first solo in USA “see you on the other side”. I see my work as a full circle where I’m trying to bring what I learn from muralism into the video or into the sculptures and vice versa. The connection from the inside and the outside is the way I approach problems. Art is definitely also problem solving. I think that art is all a matter of experimenting with new ways of saying things, new languages, research.
RJ: Why do you paint outside?
2501: I don’t know why I paint outside, it just happens and now it is too late. I can’t stop anymore. I come from scientific school and then film school so I learned to paint by doing graffiti outside. My mother use always to say that graffiti is a kind of sport and painting together… plus adventures I will say.. so the perfect mix body and mind.
RJ: How important is documentation for you? Would you be happy to just paint something and leave it, or is documentation part of your artistic process?
2501: Documentation is important. As a collector (I collect zines, comics, old strange stuff, etc) I was always involved in collecting pictures of what we did from film to digital. A lot of my friends ask me for picture from 10 years ago because they know I have them.
RJ: Can you talk about your thinking behind your Dynamic Influence wall from last fall?
2501: Dynamic Influence is a wall that change with the light. The all concept is about transformation. All the things that we look at are not the same twice. I’m preparing other work with the same or similar concept of changing.
RJ: Where does the number 2501 come from?
2501: 2501 is the number of my rebirth as an artist and also the date of founding of Sao Paulo in Brasil, my second hometown.
Photos by Tim Hans