Julian Mckinnon

Ten Questions for Julian Mckinnon

Articulate man of talent and modesty, Julian Mckinnon is a visual artist with large amounts of drive and passion. Spending his days in the sweet sonorous embrace of Patti Smith, dreaming about building an artistic utopian metropolis on Mars, and creating artwork of a mathematical bent, Julian proves to be an intriguing mixture of idealism and reality. His thoughts throughout this delightful Ten Questions segment are ever pithy and issue forth from his mouth as perfectly formed vignettes. Yes, you really must read on…

In terms of your accomplishments, which do you consider to be most significant?

To be honest I think my accomplishments as an artist are fairly modest at this point. There’s a lot of room to move forward. That said I’ve managed to sustain an art practice and actively engage in exhibiting and attending residencies here and (occasionally) abroad consistently for the past five years. Prior to that I was much more self-doubting and stop-start about it. I would say my most significant accomplishment is sustaining an art practice long enough to develop a sound platform to pursue a career as a professional artist.

How would you describe your practice? Is it a profession, a passion, a calling?

Somewhat contrary to the answer I just gave, I think profession is the wrong word; it’s always a bun-fight to make a crust as an artist. Better just to eat the bun you might say. If I wanted a profession I would have been much better off becoming a lawyer or an accountant. It’s not really a passion either as there can be a surprising degree of grind and studio-slavery in reading enough and making enough work to keep fresh ideas and inspirations moving. A calling then – Yes, it’s that. But it’s the kind of calling you can’t ignore even though it makes you groan inwardly a little. Philip Clairmont (who was a brilliant and precocious genius, and far too short-lived) once had a show called “Art is my Life” but the word life was crossed out and replaced with wife. I think of it like that. I’m married to art for better or worse. Art is the one I really love, but can sometimes despise. Sometimes I want a divorce, but I know I’ll never find anyone that can hold a candle to art. And after the arguing is done and the tears are shed we’ll make up and things will be peachy. For a time.

What are the resources, and who is it that keeps you supported?

Financially I’ve been sustained by working whatever jobs I can with an occasional modest boost from selling a work or two. In my time I’ve been panel-beater, house-painter, gardener, teacher, writer, video-editor, camera operator, set-runner, extra, barista, cook, waiter, receptionist, salesman (though I only lasted 4 hours before quitting), labourer, driver… you get my point. Who? The people who come to my shows and say “good effort”, offer constructive criticism, and encourage me to persevere when it all seems like folly. Current The Depot manager Justin Morgan and his partner Katrina have been hugely supportive over the past three or four years, always encouraging me to raise the bar and move forward.

How do you find the art scene in NZ, what are its strengths and weaknesses?

I think the strengths and weaknesses of the NZ art-scene are intermeshed in those two inescapable and presiding cultural factors: we are small and far away. Our smallness makes the art-scene village-like and friendly. Though it also makes it cliquey or in-crowdy (is that even a word?). It’s smallness means that you can make a splash and be visible, but it also limits the scope and depth of what can be done here, as there are very finite resources available. Our remoteness makes us in one sense invisible or irrelevant, in another exotic or unusual. By and large though, I think the NZ art scene punches way above its weight. For a small far away country we have a terrific, rich, and multi-faceted art-scene.

What is your vision for your career?

The scale and scope of my ambition fluctuate in direct proportion to my caffeine intake and general state of mind. I have days when it’s Venice, Basel, Miami, Berlin, Sydney… MOMA or Tate Turbine Hall epic, then days when I think it’d be great to have a moderately successful exhibiting career supplemented by teaching in art schools. I had a great time in Europe in 2010 and got do my thing a bit; it was really exciting and encouraging. Definitely the vision, however modest or immodest it may be on a given day, is bigger than the fair shores of Aotearoa.

What inspires you?

All kinds of things. Books, music, art, beaches… J.L. Borges blows my mind every time I read his stuff – just read a text of his called A New Refutation of Time, an intentionally anachronistic, self-contradicting paradox, but utterly brilliant. It’s 15 or so pages contain mind-bending multitudes. Patti Smith’s album Horses… Actually, all of Patti Smith’s albums, Grace Jones and Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed and David Byrne, The film Moon, Sci-Fi and social media, Caravaggio and Classical antiquity, Golden Brown by The Stranglers, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, Lee Bontecou, Olaffur Eliasson. Richard Strauss… I could go on and on…

If there were no obstacles of any kind, financial, relational, practical etc what would you do/begin to do tomorrow?

I would start designing and building an incredible artistic utopian metropolis on Mars. Seriously.

What is/are your favorite media to work with and on currently?

I am a painter and I love paint. When I’m painting I’m intoxicated, lost in time, endlessly hungry for the next step, mentally illuminated, stimulated, euphoric… So I’m working in sculpture at the moment - which is completely challenging and hard. Is that self-defeating or contradictory? I don’t think it is… I’m learning a lot from sculpting, and it keeps posing new questions that I can’t ignore. Also I recently got into acid etching, though I’m doing this for the metal plates themselves rather than to make prints. Etched steel is cool.

You began your tertiary education in physics and calculus; your current works have strong elements of symbolism from these disciplines, can you tell us a bit about your thinking behind what you’re currently creating?

Einstein was an artist (though he was pretty good at physics and math too). Maybe deep down I’m a frustrated physicist and would really rather be at CERN colliding neutrons and looking for Higgs-Boson particles… Actually, no. Science is really interesting but I’m too restless to play by its rules. Proper scientific enquiry sounds to me like a really boring art project. I like tapping into physics as a field of knowledge, though really my engagement with it is very liberal and loose. I’m kind of doing to physics what a maniac street preacher does to verse: garbling it, espousing it as prophecy, revering it somehow whilst fudging the bits that I don’t understand. Rather than reading it on a street corner I’m forcing it through artistic media and watching it fall to pieces, quite literally in the case of my most recent show: Superluminal at Snake Pit.

Where can we see more of your work?

www.julianmckinnon.net or in the flesh (though more likely concrete and steel) at Satellite in August!