I was interviewed by The Lighthouse Review!
Some excerpts from there:
Chris’ work focuses on the individual. Ranging from intimate portraits to theatrical compositions, a recurring theme is how one singular person interacts with the world – which might as well begin in their own mind. The people in Bazant-Hegemark’s works are mostly on their own: they sit and ponder, they wonder, they stare into their phones, they stay inactive while the world burns. There’s apathy and yet also empathy, which shines through his care for rendering people; with oil, ink or pencil – from detail to detail.
While many of Bazant-Hegemark’s earlier works can be interpreted as following erratic dream logics (where trees float upside-down, people levitate, etc.), the last years saw an increase of artworks focusing on social unrest: the individual in crisis – at a BLM demonstration, being teargassed, escaping a refugee camp, pointing their gun at protesters. These works blend the personal with the political, and offer a glimpse into the artist’s dissatisfaction with the state of things.”
Looking through the variety of works Christian has created, I asked if he could describe the basic creative process for his pieces. “I use different processes depending on the work series I’m currently focusing on; some pieces use my abstraction software to generate vector data, which can then be plotted onto paper or canvas by a drawing machine – for me to start working manually only after the initial pre-drawing has been done by the machine. For other pieces I develop a composition over time, by drawing or using image composition software – and then see where the analog process (in front of canvas or paper) leads to. Manual pixelations require the use of a digitizer tablet and pixel editing software, while working on a canvas really needs nothing else but colors, brushes and time. For all these different modes of interrogation, I can say that I love processes that take “too long”. To develop your own abstraction software, to paint leaves for a month or two, to draw glitches for weeks, to end up with one tight drawing: I don’t like things to take long, but I choose processes that do.”
Read the entire interview at www.thelighthousereview.com
=)
WRITTEN BY
Christian Bazant-Hegemark
I’m a visual storyteller who predominantly focuses on drawing, painting, and code.
Represented by Galerie Voss (Düsseldorf) and Untitled Projects (Vienna).