Question
Hello my name is Ryan Hawkins; I am studying BTEC
art in Middlesbrough in England. I have chosen you as one of my artists that I am studying because
I think that your work is very original and creative. If it is not to much trouble I would like to
know why you paint all of your buildings so that they are bent and why you paint your buildings in
such strange colours. I like the way you change the mood of your paintings, on one painting the
mood is very troubled and dark and in another it looks peaceful and still if you wouldn’t mind I
would like to know why you do this.
Yours faithfully Ryan.
Answer
The Bendy Building series was born in 1997 out of
a commission by a Bar in downtown Ottawa
called the Downstairs club which engaged my services to paint a mural. The Bar’s décor had
all sorts of wonky doors and walls and thus the idea of having bendy buildings seemed to fit.
The colours inside the bar were also bright primary colours thus leading to the use of the same
type of colours used in the mural. The mural was a hit and led to subsequent commissions of
similar paintings.
The first Batman films were also popular at this
point and the paintings seem to reflect Gotham City style buildings, thus leading to the dark mood
of the paintings. Gotham City certainly had a dark quality to it which many of my paintings seem to
emulate. Not all are so dark, however, simply because they are day time pictures. The presence of
the sun can really brighten up the mood of a painting. The mood of the painting can also be affected
by the mood of the painter or by the mood of the subject matter; for instance if the subject
buildings are dark looking, then the painting should reflect this quality.
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