Featured artist: Tesla

The next interview in the series is with Tesla, another contributing artist in the Inaugural Instagram Paste Up Biennial in Broken Hill Australia. A commentary on the world ....whether its politics or just mankinds attitude to the world a paste up can say a thousand words...........

 

Q1: Who are you, what do you do and where are you based?

 

It is paradoxical to ask someone who hides behind a name who he is, so I will only say that I am Tesla; under that name there are some ideals squeezed out of the social context, of dialectical materialism, and mixed with painting. I am dedicated to subversive art, rescuing people from Plato's cave, becoming a person of integrity and showing a lie that brings us closer to the truth. I do not have a fixed location, I am anywhere.

 

 

Q2: As a paste up artist your work is seen by many people going about their daily business; in that context do you feel that art can change the world?

 

First of all, I don't consider myself an "artist". Second: changing the world is too ambitious, haughty, and surely wrong. The world is an infinite puzzle of elements and because there are individuals who are uncomfortable with it, modifying it is not my goal. My intention is to change the system, capitalism. Most injustices come from the system: the destruction of the environment, labor exploitation, values such as individualism, patriarchy, racism or consumption.

 

 

Q3: What/who inspired you and influenced your style?

 

Who I am sure that they have not inspired me are the vast majority of those so-called "artists" whose works do not tell me anything. In the world there are many poets but little poetry, as Bukowski said. There are plenty of mercenaries looking for money, hypocrites and accomplices of the system. Those who have inspired me have been those who work 16 hours a day, young people without access to decent housing, prostituted girls in Thailand, those killed for their ideals...

 

 

Q4: What advice do you have for artists wishing to pursue a life of art and was there any advice you given that you wish you had listened to or wish you ignored?

 

A life of art? For many it is a simple phase that will not reach 10 years. As Bertolt Brecht said, there are those who fight for many years, and they are very good; but those who fight all their lives are the indispensable ones. Culture and commitment are required. A sense of historical responsibility is necessary. Know that we have an obligation to speak for those who have no voice; that it is a privilege to be able to travel, create, draw or use the internet when other people don't have food.

 

 

Q5: Whats in store for the future? Do you have any future projects you can share with us today?

 

The general future if nothing changes is terrifying, an increase in inequality due to cyclical economic crises. Also a human void of reason, frustrated by not reaching higher consumption levels or a slave to the system. In the short term I will pay tributes to painters I respect or heroes of the working class. In the long term, my project includes destroying such anachronistic elements as monarchies or religions, as well as confronting capital.

Peace and paint ;)