I met Nik at a Tower Records in the mid 1990’s, the go to
place for a job for musicians, artists and those who loved the freedom of the
relaxed dress code. Tower was one of my all-time favourite places to work, a
haven or an enabler to those of us who collecting toys, magazines and obscure
music were a part of our daily life. He was a coworker of my best friend and
spiritual muse Heather Oswald in which the 3 of us had many fun adventures. Foggy beaches and cemeteries come to mind. I remember visiting Nik when he lived in Colma, a city just north of San Francisco, that was literally a city of Dead. It boasted more graves then living people and in fact is where most of San Francisco was re-buried when developers moved many of the original cemeteries in the city itself.
He
is funny and fascinating and I am so excited that he took me up on offering his
works and words for my blog. I still have all the little wacky and weird gifts
he would always bring me when we’d hang out, lunch boxes full of spooky
ephemera and vintage findings that still make it into my pieces today. I am
over the moon at his success which I find most inspiring, a true story of
artistic success that is so rare these days.
How do you describe what you do?
I'm a fulltime artist and illustrator; I've done over 250 shows
and have sold over 3,000 pieces of art. My web comic Mosquito and Spider (http://www.scary-art.com/Mosquitoandspider.htm)
was featured in the Cartoon Museum's Monsters of Webcomics show. I also work on
movies, I won an audition to be Milla Jovovich's sketch artist for a film
called Clocktower and you can see my Scream Serpent in Scream 4. I produce art
books, zines and graphic novels (http://www.scary-art.com/scaryartpublishing.htm)
and am a regular contributor to WordPlayThursday, Save the Bedbugs and
Shlocksuckers. I've shown my work everywhere from adult boutiques to the Moss
Library in Norway to The Mutter Museum and you can catch me regularly every 3rd
Tuesday at Kaleid Gallery's Two Buck Tuesday in Downtown San Jose.
How do you receive your inspirations?
When I was growing up in the Bay Area I watched a TV show
called Creature Features with Bob Wilkins religiously. I was always interested
in monsters, dragons and haunted houses and the movies screened on Creature
Features only cemented that there was something else. Monsters existed in a
broken reality. They were the things that shouldn't be there but they were. And
so my inspiration comes from speculating what could be there in the dark.
When did you first notice your connection to the Spirit
World?
My family was never religious so I sought out spirituality,
even joined a punk rock church. I knew there was something out there, something
undefined but I could never put my finger on it. I was even a tour guide at the
Winchester Mystery House just trying to get close to them. There were little
omens that came out of gumball machine prizes, there was always a safety net
under me in life. There have been so many times I could have been homeless or
dead yet after losing everything again and again somehow everything became
right. I was very good about making bad decisions but in the end there was
always an invisible wall to myself destruction. I studied the new age, quantum
physics, and philosophies only to come to the conclusion that I'm no closer to
understanding it than anyone else. There are spirits and they speak in
subtlety. I've accepted that they're never going to pop out and go "Booga
booga!" but I know they're there every time I have a thought hammering at
me.
If you feel comfortable, can you share your faith or path
with us?
I think we exist so that god is consciously aware of itself.
Imagine if god was glass and we shattered it into a million pieces, each piece
is a part of god and the physical world. One of the reasons we're always aware
of a spiritual side is because we're enveloped in it. And it's legion. It's
peace. It's unfathomable filled with spirits both holding on and letting go of
their egos.
How does this faith/path express itself through your art?
You know those movies about the psychic shouting at the
dead, telling them one at a time? In my head, in my soul they're all talking at
once and they don't shut up unless I push them all out in canvas, even
cartoonish. It's kind of a reluctant symbiotic relationship. I think creativity
is the other side trying to get through, even just to say "It's going to
be ok"
How can you be contacted about your work from interested
collectors?
Anything you would like to add that perhaps I forgot?
nope :>
--
Nicolas Caesar was the curator and one of the artists for Scream 4. His webcomic Mosquito and Spider was a selection for the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. His work is collected internationally.
Shop now!
http://www.scary-art.com/nicolascaesarshop.htm
http://www.hyaenagallery.com/scaryart.htm
Mosquito and Spider - Daily
http://www.scary-art.com/Mosquitoandspider.htm
Danson with Wolves every Friday!
http://iwasmadeinkorea.com/danson-with-wolves/
Other places you can get my work:
http://scaryart.tumblr.com/
https://twitter.com/scaryart1973
http://www.zazzle.com/scaryart1973
http://www.gallerysevven.com
https://www.facebook.com/psychodonuts
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Funhouse-Gallery-Detroit/119535524795776
I thought that painting looked familiar!!
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