“I go to the other place”

“i  go to the other place”

Lawrence Pierce-Galloway  interviews Napo B/ Dec 20th, 2012

“Naga in the Studio”, detail from Recovery Book. Guache on paper

LPG- WHY DO YOU MAKE ART?

NB – I make art to escape the daily humdrum, to move into an alternative space and time, I go to the other place and it enables me to open up dimension of experience, be vulnerable, childlike without pre conceived ideas or agendas, possibly smiling looking down at the corpse of the internal critic. Be more open to whatever might come through that fissure in the mundane, reborn from a new mother, to be astounded or surprised by my previous conception that I was creative. Exposing the limits of my imagination and pushing my pre conceptions further a field. Collapsing to a meditative sublimating state of mind. I adore new materials and pushing their limits, using non-traditional art materials to bring them into the pantheon of visual expression.

WHAT INSPIRES YOU TO  WORK ?

NB – I use art as a way to step out of my daily experience and open up to a something I can only explain as a higher self.  In my heightened state of inspiration it is as if I am opening a Pandora’s box, astonished opening a gift from a stranger. When I work I prepare the space, the studio, where I will be operating. I time my creative moments, especially when I paint, I clean the space, prepare the materials, smudge the space and leave. I go camping, take a drive somewhere, take a train, and visit a friend in another city, something out of the usual day to day to day to day. I leave my current sphere of influence, unhook from the daily grind. I connect to my ancestors and subtle energies, I pray, recite my Dem Chogue Mantra, contemplate death, sex, joy, dream. I position my intent towards being the intermediary, a shaman operating the elevator in the museum of human experience. I call into existence an object that will do for the viewer what it has done for me. I liberate and open up to a new view and experience of the world.

LPG – WHAT DOES IT SIGNIFY OR REPRESENT  ?

NB – My art is the ticket to my survival and health of mind.  While I work I avoid judging or being apprehensive about what is being manifested.

LPG – WHEN DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOUR WORK IS COMPLETED ?

NB – I find that when a work of art creates a silence in me I consider I am close to an end with my interaction. There might be a few minor pops, just to ensure it’s survival, morsels for the eye of the viewer.

LPG – HOW YOU MAKE IT?

By any mean necessary. I do not use conventional art materials. This is something that I began doing at an early age, I remember seeing the price of formal art materials and how it kept many people outside of the creative loop. I learned from an early age how to transform everyday materials into unique experiences. I spend allot of my time searching for new materials, my criteria over the years has focused on materials of minimal environmental impact, I started recycling materials long before it was fashionable. This gives me the opportunity to continually create and express new ideas and experiences regardless of my economic situation at the time.

LPG – WHAT IT’S MADE OUT OF?

NB – Over the years I have worked with, bark, tar, crystals, sand, mud, flowers, insects, house paints, found wood, clothing, human skin, animal pelts, charcoal, found metal objects, hay, mattresses, potatoes, money, tarps, shoe polish, lipstick, makeup, ice, salt, chocolate, curry, fat, chlorophyll, and recycled, donated, found art materials.

LPG – WHAT IS ART FOR YOU?

NB- Art is a shared humanity, a timeless heart connection with painters since Neolithic times. All art requires some attention, and people create much of it with little experience, this has lead to a hierarchy within the art world.

It’s unfortunate but maybe fortuitous that we live in a culture that thrives on the exploitation of the competitive state of mind. It creates all the Demons and Angels in the world, the etheric influencers of humankind.

For me it is important to share my experience of making with younger artists or curious people who have never considered making anything “Artistic”,  I am always ready to share my findings with people who are interested. Keeping secret methods is counter productive I make point of inviting people to ask questions it is important to me. I have found through my experience, that at the fundamental base of creating, all art needs a mechanism to get started… a moment of raising the vibration or awareness.  This heightened awareness is based on inclusion of others, making art transform the creators hopefully opens the viewer inner emotive space.