Interview: Multimedia Artist JD Walsh
JD Walsh’s multimedia artwork is a combination of seemingly disparate elements, often combining audio, video, and everyday objects in unexpected ways. He was recently featured in shows at Galerie Steinek in Vienna, Austria, Cleopatra’s in Brooklyn, and the “Physical Center” group show in Williamsburg in November. He was kind enough to connect with us for a quick conversation.
stated: Thanks for joining us. A question we often like to start off with is simply how did you get started with your art? Did you always want to be an artist?
JD WALSH: I’ve always made art but I didn’t think seriously about being an artist until I was in my early twenties. Even beyond visual art, music has been part of my creative life since I was very young.
stated: If you had to describe your work in one sentence, what would it be?
JD WALSH: My work is sort of like looking at a frame through a mirror while listening to a radio tuned between two stations.
stated: Interesting you describe it that way. Music–and musical appliances, for lack of a better word (speakers, keyboards)–are frequent features of your work and you mentioned its importance to you early on. Are you a musician yourself? Did music somehow lead you to visual art?
JD WALSH: I am a musician myself and have played in bands for half of my life. I wouldn’t say that music led me to visual art, but music is a creative outlet that anyone at any age can engage in. So it was something that as a young person I could get into without having to go to school, and before I knew much about visual art. Once I was exposed to visual art, though, I came to see the two as being very similar, just two different forms of expression and communication.
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JD WALSH: Oh, absolutely. I feel very lucky to have a strong group of artist friends who do all sorts of things and this feedback is invaluable to me. I sometimes think about what this person or that person will say about a work before it’s finished. Art school provides this built-in community, but I do feel it’s important to find that community afterward.
stated: What are you working on now?
JD WALSH: This summer I was in a show called “Lapsed Cinematic” at Galerie Steinek in Vienna, Austria, and I did a collaborative installation with Patrick Brennan at Cleopatra’s in Brooklyn called “The Stranger.” I’m in a group show in Williamsburg called “Physical Center” on November 20. It’s at the Convent of Saint Cecilia, which is an incredible space, and it should prove to be a great show and a lot of fun. I’ll have a couple of small video works there. I’m also working on a collection of audio works.
ELIZABETH ASKED JD…
Elizabeth Lucas, another featured stated artist and stage and film director, asked JD…
ELIZABETH: It would seem that much of your work is designed to provoke an intellectual, non-narrative response, the absolute opposite of what I do. Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not? Do you see a potential narrative application of your work?
JD: That’s a great observation, and I think it’s right-on. I think the work is designed to start a conversation, or to try to be poetic in it’s looseness. If there is a narrative involved, it’s what happens in real life surrounding the work, as opposed to within the work. I’m a huge fan of narrative film and fiction but I feel that my work functions in a different space, although there is some shared language involved.
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JD ASKED JIMMY…
JD asked Jimmy Aquino, fellow stated creative and podcaster, about his work.
JD: Jimmy, I really enjoyed looking at your blog as it seems to cover a breadth of info, not just regarding comics but other cultural aspects (tv, movies, music). How would you characterize what this corner of culture is that you’re interested in? How has the world of all things comics changed (if at all) and what do you think the future holds for it?
Jimmy’s reply coming soon on stated…
View JD’s work at:
www.jdwalsh.com
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Ryan Swearingen
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