Damian Loeb
How do you feel about creating art during the coronavirus outbreak?
Clarity of any kind is difficult in the midst of a traumatic life-changing event, and some kind of clarity is necessary in the responsible act of artistic creation. To be able to relax the necessary amount to be singularly focused in my creative bubble is very difficult right now. Though with the emotional impulses, luck, and support I have been given, it is my obligation to persevere with my work and see these ideas through.
Additionally, there is now the growing bonus that the current works have gained an additional depth of meaning to me in quarantine right now. These new insights and revelations are definite fodder for the future, but finding the good in all this will take time. All of this painful experience will indelibly affect my observations, choices, and every brushstroke from these moments forward.
Has your process changed since the outbreak?
I have always appreciated and thrived in a smaller and more intimate live-slash-work studio setup. I have so much work I've already chosen and prepared for upcoming exhibitions. Hopefully, I can weather the drought for a bit, just painting with my head down in my basement bunker. After all, these are the very moments artists were built for; to assimilate and translate into human terms these events and experiences that can only be communicated through intimate and personally crafted images of emotions in action. I am on it already, I swear.