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Home FEATURES  Damon Soule Interview
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Written by Trippe
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Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 3:18am
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 We catch up with the Portland based artist as he prepares for Same Loud No opening May 7th at Fecal Face Dot Gallery.
We welcome this San Francisco legend back after some time spent in NYC and Portland. His show Amused Loon ran at Joshua Liner in NYC last October and since has been working towards Same Loud No which opens May 7th at Fecal Face Dot Gallery. Damon hasn't shown in San Francisco for a few years... We catch up with the cofounder of the now defunct FIT skateboards and sample the upcoming show.
So first off you're about to open "Same Loud No" at Fecal Face Dot Gallery on May 7th. Tell us a bit about the show.
Yeah... ummm. There seem to be a lot of squares. There is a piece about prime numbers and one about the golden ratio as it relates to nocturnal birds of prey. to be honest I'm not quite sure why. I was having these crazy dreams. it's kind of hard to explain but I was having multiple dreams at the same time but they were contained in these boxes and I was moving from dream to dream or box to box. It was very strange.
You lived in San Francisco for a long time before moving to NYC and then to Portland. When was the last time you showed in San Francisco...? Or shit, when was the last time you were even here?
I was in SF for new years a year and a half ago. The last time I showed there was several years ago in a group show with Mars and Oliver Vernon at White Walls. So it's been a minute.
I know you've been in NYC for the last month working on the show at a friend's studio. How did that go for you? Isn't hard to stay focused in the Big Apple with so much going on... or does that help your work?
Yeah I'm still here in NY. It can be a little distracting at times but I get pretty focused when I'm in the groove. When I'm working I'm not that into socializing.
How is NYC these days? What were you getting into?
To be honest the last few weeks have been pretty rough. I have this weird thing called cluster headaches. They are excruciatingly painful headaches behind my right eye and temple. I get 1 to 3 of them every day and they last anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. Usually the same time each day. It will go on like that for a couple of months and than inexplicably disappear as suddenly as they appeared for as long as a year. It's very odd. It's been happening since my late teens. At any rate I'm right in the middle of a cycle now and it sucks. I'm hoping it goes away before I get out to SF for the show. I can't drink at all because it will trigger a headache.
Your previous work has some similar elements as your friends work Mars-1. How do you see your work aligning with his or not?
Yeah it's true there are definitely similar elements. I can remember one time we hadn't seen each others new work for over a year and we had this show together and when we were unpacking the work we had all these new things in our work that were really similar. We were just laughing like what the fuck, "Get outta my head"...
At the same time though I think we have very different ideas. Before we met we were both fans of each others stuff. At that time we were both doing a lot of robots and that kind of sci-fi figurative stuff so in a way we kind of started from the same place. We kind of have this little group that borrows from each other unashamedly. Me, Mario, Nome, David Lee, Oliver. I don't think it's a secret, it's clearly there but ultimately I think our work is unique and stands on its own.
We met like back in 1998 when you did all the graphics for FIT Skateboards and I was working on their video... Damn, that was a long time ago... Anyway, what was the SF art scene like back then? What were you getting into?
Yeah those were great times. I dropped out of SFAI to do that. Once FIT was over I decided to go full steam into doing my own shit. At that point there weren't a whole lot of galleries to show at, but there were more and more of us producing work and people interested in seeing it. It was pretty exciting seeing things grow organically.
What brought you to SF to begin with?
Well I grew up in New Orleans but when I was 16 I got into some trouble and went to live with my mom who had moved to Colorado Springs. There was a huge skate scene there and I just bummed around with my buddies there for a couple of years. A bunch of people I knew had moved to SF and the place just sounded exciting. One weekend a couple of my friends were back in Colorado visiting and I just asked if I could get a ride back with them. I left almost everything I had and came out there.
You mentioned in a previous interview that Yoko Ono is one of your top 5 favorite artists. Do you think her relationship with Lennon hurt or helped her art career?
The truth is I just said the first five names that came to mind. It's really hard to have a few favorites when you think of all the artists that have ever lived. But to answer your question, I think her association helped by giving her a lot more notoriety but at the same time it kind of turned her into a punch line. It's unfortunate because she has done some really interesting things.
There seems to be some time in your career where you weren't producing as much work after you left SF (or maybe you were and we missed it)... If you weren't, what were you up to?
I was definitely still working. I think I was just drawing more. Also when I was in SF I was doing like a new show every month for years and when I left I decided to slow it down a bit and spend more time on less work. I only do 1 or 2 shows a year instead of 12. If you miss one or two it would seem like I quit making stuff.
Most of my work was about emergent complexity, which is something I was reading as much about as I could find.
Favorite thing you came across this year?
Ohh, that's hard. Fried chicken in a soda cup.
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Damon Soule - Same Loud No
Opening: Thurs. May 7, '09 (6-9pm)
Fecal Face Dot Gallery
66 Gough St. @Market
{moscomment}
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| Further Collective Flagstaff Mural
The Further Collective: Mario Martinez (Mars-1), Damon Soule & Oliver Vernon were in Flagstaff last week collaborating on an outdoor mural at The Flagstaff Brewing Company located in the historical district of downtown Flagstaff, AZ.
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| INTERVIEW with Tristan Patterson
Director of the documentary film DRAGONSLAYER --> DRAGONSLAYER is a documentary about the skateboarder Josh "Skreech" Sandoval. He's a character and the film follows his many ups and downs dealing with young parenthood, competing, and relationships. However, rather then try and make some type of statement about him, it just presents him objectively in the way that he is through wonderful cinematography.
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| 2 New Zines by Pacolli & Mildred
Got two new zines from Mildred and Pacolli for us to share with you. Pacolli's The Last Chance Kids is published through Volcom's Artist Series and is 40 pages and sells for only $7 printed on thick quality heavy stock.
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| Logan Crable's Blow Jobs
Logan Crable emailed us the other day with an offer to view his Blow Job series. Normally we don't get offers to view someone's porn project, but we quickly learned that the blowing is more in the literal sense as opposed to the pleasuring form.
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| Michelle Ramin & SFAI Grad Show
Thanks to Michelle Ramin for emailing us some her recent paintings. Michelle will be displaying her work as part of SFAI's MFA graduate show running this weekend and opening Friday, May 11th at the Pheonix Hotel here in San Francisco.
 |

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| Interview with Jeff Depner
Whether conceptually motivated or intuitively created, the process of painting has been a main attribute in art for sometime now. Controlling the surface of a canvas is at the root of most contemporary painting. Vancouver native Jeff Depner's work creates avenues for visual discovery through a process based aesthetic. Layers upon layers of paint each relating to the next. Masking some, if not all, of the past creates a visual history within. The work ebbs and flows between graphic qualities and thick painterly styles with muted but contemporary feeling colors. The constant process of 'improvised moves' allows some of the work to be based in grid like structures. It allows some of the smaller paintings a chance for inquiry in constructive qualities and aspects of painting, inserting his work into the long history of painting.
 |

 |
| If Bill Murray was a Triple Bacon Cheeseburger
Bay Area artist Cahill Wessel emailed over a couple gems- food/human hybrids with wonderful titles. Made our morning.
 |

 |
| Michael Miller @Fifty24SF
On the way home from Fecal Face a couple Fridays back we swung through Fifty24SF to catch the two day show with the LA based hip-hop photographer Michael Miller in celebration of his new book. West coast hip-hop iconic early 1990's hip-hop photographs, including numerous photos of 2pac, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg, Warren G... the bonus: Eazy-E touting a skateboard and a gun?!
 |

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| Marissa Textor - Mini Interview
Marissa Textor and Ryan Travis Christian are currently showing together at Cooper Cole Gallery in Toronto. Gerald interviews the LA based Marissa Textor. Check out her detailed graphite drawings.
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 |
| Richmond Virginia Street Art Festival 2012
A couple weeks back Jeff Soto flew out to Richmond, VA for their street art festival to do some mural action. Artists included the likes of Hense, Richard Colman, Dalek, Hamilton Glass, and many more.
 |

 |
| Dave Kinsey @FFDG, May 18th
Mark your calendar: Dave Kinsey opens Lost For Words @FFDG in San Francisco on Friday, May 18th (6-9pm).
New mixed media paintings and installation. This will be his first show in San Francisco in 12 years and his first on the West Coast since 2007... We're very excited. Below is a lil' taste of what's to come.
 |

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| ROA at Stolen Space, London
Massive show from this prolific Belgium based sreet artist.
 |

 |
| Hamishi in Melbourne
Hamishi emailed over some photos from his current show Nothing Special running at Melbourne's Paradise Hills through this Saturday, May 5th. If you're in Melbourne, view it in person as we're sure it looks even better in person.
Hamishi participated in last November's group show 11.11.11 @FFDG back in November with Mario Martinez showing a solo show... Man, that's was a nutty opening before the cops showed up.
 |

 |
| Opening Pics @FFDG for C.P.H.
Alex Uhrich & Gerald Anekwe got some photos from the recent group show at FFDG, Cigarettes, Phone Cards & Hip Hop Clothing.
 |

 |
| Spoke Art Thursday
Spoke Art here in SF opens the group show Synergy curated by LA's Thinkspace this Thursday, May 3rd (6-10pm) featuring works by a slew of artists that Thinkspace works with. Spoke Art sent us a taste for you to sample.
 |

 |
| Ludo's Palynology
Ludo who we've featured many times emailed over a recent piece from Katowice in Poland called "Palynology".
 |

 |
| Murals by Flavio Samelo (Brazil)
We had the pleasure of meeting Flavio Samelo when we were in Sao Paulo last summer (blog). He's a skateboarder/ photographer and talented artist. Here are some photos from some of his recent mural done in Rio de Janeiro, also in his words.
 |

 |
| Paintings by Corydon Cowansage
Recent RISD MFA painting alum Corydon Cowansage emailed over some paintings. Like them.
 |

 |
| McNett, Swoon, & Canilao
Dennis McNett just got back from Milan, Italy where he did a collaborative show with Swoon and Monica Canilao at the Patricia Armocida Gallery. Looks incredible and runs through July 20th.
 |

 |
| Pablo S. Herrero & David Delam in Uruguay
Flavio Samelo submits goodness from his native Sao Paulo, Brazil or from around all of South America. Today he sends over some recent mural work by Pablo S. Herrero and David Delam done in Montevideo, Uruguay.
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| Cigarettes, Phone Cards & Hip Hop Clothing
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Marc Jacobs vs. The Graffiti Artist
Tuesday, 15 May 2012, 1:40pm
Marc Jacobs vs. The Graffiti Artist, Round 2: When Jacobs Turns Vandalized Store Into $680 Shirt <-- Earlier this week, on the night of the Met Ball, the Marc Jacobs boutique in SoHo was hit by French graffiti artist Kidult, who has famously vandalized Supreme, Hermes, and Louis Vuitton, among others. The hit? Kidult took a fire extinguisher filled with pink paint, and sprayed the word ART over the front of the store (seen below). ~continue reading

To All The Graduates
Tuesday, 15 May 2012, 11:23am
Congrats to some of our friends who've just graduated from SFAI this past weekend. Henry Gunderson (below), Alex Ziv, Quinn Arneson and our intern Alex Uhrich among many more not only at SFAI but those at CCA and other schools across the country. May you all work hard and prosper in your future arting endeavors.
 Henry Gunderson all grown up, college graduated and bow-tied.

///
Wednesday, 25 April 2012, 11:56am

Phantoms of Asia Opening Thurs, 17th
Friday, 11 May 2012, 1:29pm
The Asian Art Museum here in San Francisco opens its first large-scale contemporary art exhibition Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past with a big old preview party on Thursday, May 17th complete w/ DJs VIN SOL and KING MOST. ~details
Curated by Mami Kataoka, chief curator of Tokyo's Mori Art Museum, in collaboration with Allison Harding, assistant curator of contemporary art at the Asian Art Museum, Phantoms of Asia features artworks by contemporary artists hailing from Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Tibet, and the U.S. Going to be a great show.
 Installation by Choi Jeong Hwa

Dave Kinsey @FFDG 5/18
Wednesday, 09 May 2012, 1:00pm
Thanks to Arrested Motion who posted some info on Dave Kinsey's solo show Lost For Words which opens at FFDG in San Francisco on Friday, May 18th (6-9pm). This will be his first show in San Francisco in 12 years. RSVP.
Founder of BLK/MRKT w/ Shepard Fairey in '97 (becoming sole owner in '03), lengedary street artist with his Unlearn campaign, and highly accomplished painter, it's with great honor that we welcome him back to San Francisco. New paintings, mixed media and installation, it should be one of our best shows to date and a lot of fun. -Complete Show Details
 Dave Kinsey opens Lost For Words at FFDG on Fri, May 18th.

The Slingluff Gallery
Thursday, 10 May 2012, 10:06am
Thanks to the Slingluff Gallery in Phildelphia for helping to support Fecal Face by buying a lil' ad which you can view by scrolling down here in the news section. Those lil' guys will only set you back $50 for the month as our special rates continue for the month of May. Get yours.
 Print by Ralph Stollenwerk from the LOST TREASURES collection. $21

CCA MFA Show Tonight, Thurs
Tuesday, 01 May 2012, 11:59am
One of the best art events worth checking out in San Francisco every year is the CCA MFA Exhibition which opens tonight Thursday, May 10 (6–10pm) at the San Francisco campus (1111 8th St). The show runs through May 19th and is open 10 a.m. - 7:30 p.m., daily.
Nearly 50 MFA students participating in the show, exhibiting work from a fascinating range of formats and subjects, with works addressing the space race, fame, identity, commodity culture, the masculine theater of television wrestling, and genre cinema.
-complete details

SF Crazy Rents
Wednesday, 09 May 2012, 10:16am
If you're an artist, you're better off moving to Manhattan as San Francisco rental prices have exceded that of the Big Apple as the Googlers, Facebookers, Twitters, and other well paid techies push everyone else out as they clammer for apartments close to the their shuttle buses which carry them up and down the peninsula... We've noticed a lot of artists moving to Oakland or down south to Los Angeles these days. Are you in a good rent controlled spot? As an artist or art fan, what effects does this have on our art scene?
Comments
San Francisco rents rose 15.8 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same time last year, to an average of $2,663 for all size units, according to RealFacts. Studio apartments average $2,075, up 16.5 percent in a year. The steepest rise came in one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartments, which are now $2,611 - up 19.9 percent in the past year and up 30 percent from just two years ago. -read on.
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Morning, San Francisco. -as of 11am

| Further Collective Flagstaff Mural
The Further Collective: Mario Martinez (Mars-1), Damon Soule & Oliver Vernon were in Flagstaff last week collaborating on an outdoor mural at The Flagstaff Brewing Company located in the historical district of downtown Flagstaff, AZ.
 |

 |
| INTERVIEW with Tristan Patterson
Director of the documentary film DRAGONSLAYER --> DRAGONSLAYER is a documentary about the skateboarder Josh "Skreech" Sandoval. He's a character and the film follows his many ups and downs dealing with young parenthood, competing, and relationships. However, rather then try and make some type of statement about him, it just presents him objectively in the way that he is through wonderful cinematography.
 |

 |
| 2 New Zines by Pacolli & Mildred
Got two new zines from Mildred and Pacolli for us to share with you. Pacolli's The Last Chance Kids is published through Volcom's Artist Series and is 40 pages and sells for only $7 printed on thick quality heavy stock.
 |

 |
| Logan Crable's Blow Jobs
Logan Crable emailed us the other day with an offer to view his Blow Job series. Normally we don't get offers to view someone's porn project, but we quickly learned that the blowing is more in the literal sense as opposed to the pleasuring form.
 |

 |
| Michelle Ramin & SFAI Grad Show
Thanks to Michelle Ramin for emailing us some her recent paintings. Michelle will be displaying her work as part of SFAI's MFA graduate show running this weekend and opening Friday, May 11th at the Pheonix Hotel here in San Francisco.
 |

 |
| Interview with Jeff Depner
Whether conceptually motivated or intuitively created, the process of painting has been a main attribute in art for sometime now. Controlling the surface of a canvas is at the root of most contemporary painting. Vancouver native Jeff Depner's work creates avenues for visual discovery through a process based aesthetic. Layers upon layers of paint each relating to the next. Masking some, if not all, of the past creates a visual history within. The work ebbs and flows between graphic qualities and thick painterly styles with muted but contemporary feeling colors. The constant process of 'improvised moves' allows some of the work to be based in grid like structures. It allows some of the smaller paintings a chance for inquiry in constructive qualities and aspects of painting, inserting his work into the long history of painting.
 |

 |
| If Bill Murray was a Triple Bacon Cheeseburger
Bay Area artist Cahill Wessel emailed over a couple gems- food/human hybrids with wonderful titles. Made our morning.
 |

 |
| Michael Miller @Fifty24SF
On the way home from Fecal Face a couple Fridays back we swung through Fifty24SF to catch the two day show with the LA based hip-hop photographer Michael Miller in celebration of his new book. West coast hip-hop iconic early 1990's hip-hop photographs, including numerous photos of 2pac, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg, Warren G... the bonus: Eazy-E touting a skateboard and a gun?!
 |

 |
| Marissa Textor - Mini Interview
Marissa Textor and Ryan Travis Christian are currently showing together at Cooper Cole Gallery in Toronto. Gerald interviews the LA based Marissa Textor. Check out her detailed graphite drawings.
 |

 |
| Richmond Virginia Street Art Festival 2012
A couple weeks back Jeff Soto flew out to Richmond, VA for their street art festival to do some mural action. Artists included the likes of Hense, Richard Colman, Dalek, Hamilton Glass, and many more.
 |

 |
| Dave Kinsey @FFDG, May 18th
Mark your calendar: Dave Kinsey opens Lost For Words @FFDG in San Francisco on Friday, May 18th (6-9pm).
New mixed media paintings and installation. This will be his first show in San Francisco in 12 years and his first on the West Coast since 2007... We're very excited. Below is a lil' taste of what's to come.
 |

 |
| ROA at Stolen Space, London
Massive show from this prolific Belgium based sreet artist.
 |

 |
| Hamishi in Melbourne
Hamishi emailed over some photos from his current show Nothing Special running at Melbourne's Paradise Hills through this Saturday, May 5th. If you're in Melbourne, view it in person as we're sure it looks even better in person.
Hamishi participated in last November's group show 11.11.11 @FFDG back in November with Mario Martinez showing a solo show... Man, that's was a nutty opening before the cops showed up.
 |

 |
| Opening Pics @FFDG for C.P.H.
Alex Uhrich & Gerald Anekwe got some photos from the recent group show at FFDG, Cigarettes, Phone Cards & Hip Hop Clothing.
 |

 |
| Spoke Art Thursday
Spoke Art here in SF opens the group show Synergy curated by LA's Thinkspace this Thursday, May 3rd (6-10pm) featuring works by a slew of artists that Thinkspace works with. Spoke Art sent us a taste for you to sample.
 |

 |
| Ludo's Palynology
Ludo who we've featured many times emailed over a recent piece from Katowice in Poland called "Palynology".
 |

 |
| Murals by Flavio Samelo (Brazil)
We had the pleasure of meeting Flavio Samelo when we were in Sao Paulo last summer (blog). He's a skateboarder/ photographer and talented artist. Here are some photos from some of his recent mural done in Rio de Janeiro, also in his words.
 |

 |
| Paintings by Corydon Cowansage
Recent RISD MFA painting alum Corydon Cowansage emailed over some paintings. Like them.
 |

 |
| McNett, Swoon, & Canilao
Dennis McNett just got back from Milan, Italy where he did a collaborative show with Swoon and Monica Canilao at the Patricia Armocida Gallery. Looks incredible and runs through July 20th.
 |

 |
| Pablo S. Herrero & David Delam in Uruguay
Flavio Samelo submits goodness from his native Sao Paulo, Brazil or from around all of South America. Today he sends over some recent mural work by Pablo S. Herrero and David Delam done in Montevideo, Uruguay.
 |

 |
| Cigarettes, Phone Cards & Hip Hop Clothing
 |

 |
 |