Can You Tell Me How to Get to ChickenVille?: 25 Questions for Brandon Hill

When I walked into Lamont Bishop Gallery, a packet of Kleenex in hand as I battled a nasty head cold, Brandon Hill warmly greeted me with paint splotches lining his legs and face. Just a day before his first solo show in the District, not a single work of art was mounted on the walls, but the lighthearted artist didn’t seem anxious. Instead, he sat with me on the gallery floor for a casual chat. The self-proclaimed noisy night owl offered me insight into his own road to ChickenVille, Hill’s upcoming exhibition, which opens tonight. With a junior high teacher for a mother and a carpenter father, Hill referred to his family as “cool” and creative, but struggled to explain in depth his creative process and define his aesthetic. But, what the West Baltimore native lacks in specificity, he makes up for in his extroverted, cheery demeanor. Although he hinted at issues of class and articulated a nostalgic take on his hometown, the naive emerging artist also claimed to “love all culture” and get along with everyone he’s ever met. The same artist once turned down acceptance into the Baltimore School for the Arts because, in his own words, “It didn’t seem like a fun place to go. [The students] we just weird for no reason!”

Hill shared with the Pinkline Project his favorite innovators--Demon, Ceelo and Spike Lee, among others--and although he identifies as loud and live, I found him to be thoughtful, even a bit nervous during our interview. We discussed the idealism of the fictitious Lego Town (the exhibit at Lamont Bishop features some of Hill’s ironic interpretations of Lego figurines), his three favorite places to see art--The American Visionary Museum in Baltimore, the National Portrait Gallery and the Air and Space Museum--and why he finds rust stains on the street just as inspiring, if not more exciting, as a trip to any of the above.

Who are you, how old are you and what do you do?

Brandon Hill, 27, full-time visual artist.

How long have you been an artist full-time?

A year and a half, two years, I’d say.

How long have you been doing art?

Out of the womb. I’d say, like, age zero [laughs]. But the funny thing is that I didn’t really look at it as art until I got older ... I know this sounds dumb, but my interpretation of art was what your average 16 year-old, sports playing kid is ... just like a guy, in a gallery with a beret, sounding strange, acting weird, whatever. But, when I was younger, what I interpreted as engineering was just anything that I saw that was cool ... concept cars, even people doing infomercials ‘cause I thought people were actually making those gadgets, I didn’t think that they were just selling it. So, I wanted to do that. You know, I had the ability to draw, so me becoming a detailed illustrator and building things had more to do with wanting to make what I interpreted as schematics or blueprints at the time and less to do with a skill like painting. So, by the time I got to school and realized just how large the field of art was, I was kind of arrogantly thinking, you know, I wouldn’t go to school for art ‘cause I can draw. I’m a really good illustrator, I have no illustration in here to show you, but when I actually started getting into art I realized that it’s not art meaning the dogma of art, it’s really just any creative format. There’s very little that we interact with that wasn’t built on purpose.

Did you study art in school?

Yeah, I graduated with a degree in Art, but I went in with a degree in Biology so there was a gap. On paper, yes, I have an art degree. But, I did a lot of learning out of school. I wish I had done a lot more learning before that, but this is my path.

What was your first creative act that you remember?

Creative act? [Long pause ...] Uhhmm, I may have to come back to this question. I don’t remember ever not doing something. [Interviewer stumps artist ...] Tell you what, come to the show and ask my mom that question. She constantly reminds me that I did things differently.

What’s your mom’s favorite story to tell about you?

[He laughs] She, um, I guess got me tested to see where I stood or whatever and like a lot of the questions they were asking, I was disagreeing with the interviewer. Apparently, I got the wrong answer to the test or something like that, but I disagreed with the format of how it was asked and she told me that the test administer, in all of his 20 years, had never had a kid disagree with the actual format of why you would even ask a question like that. Apparently, that was every day with me.

How old were you?

Five or six.

How and where did you grow up?

West Baltimore area. I got a cool family. Two brothers, one sister, a zillion cousins. I got a really cool mom, a really cool dad. We lived in a big a** row house, it was really unfinished. It was kind of like ... you ever heard the expression “The shoemaker’s kids have no shoes?” My dad’s a carpenter. He’s dope, he’s amazing, one of the best. But, it just made the house a work in progress all the time. For me, as a kid, I didn’t notice those things. There were definitely holes in places and I had tools at an age kids shouldn’t be playing with power tools. No, they just shouldn’t be playing with power tools. Period. I was always breaking stuff apart, putting it back together. Even though it’s not art-specific, my brain thinks exactly the way it did when I was two years old. A lot of that has to do with my family. My dad’s really creative. My mom’s stupid creative. If you were in an interview with my mom, she’d tell you about being creative with the Baltimore school system. But, they don’t touch her ‘cause she gets results.

Who or what are your major creative influences?

I try to explain that, even to myself, but it’s really just daily interactions. Most of my topics, not most, they’re all human related. It’s not about cosmic energy or whatever, it’s all people stories. Even if it’s not centered around a person, it’s a human idea or social concept that appeals to me. My inspiration comes from stuff I’m interested in outside of art.

Any direct inspirations from other artists?

I’m up to date with what’s happening in art, but I don’t involve myself too much in it because sometimes you get too influenced. By getting inspiration from places outside of the art world, you’re guaranteed to come up with something new.

There’s obviously a really strong element of construction and design from your father, the carpenter, in your work. What’s your process like? How do you work?

Rarely am I working on just one piece. I’m not scatter-brained, though. Every time I’ve ever made a piece, it’s always been as part of a set. That created a problem, though, when I was a younger artist. I mean, I’m a young artist now, but I’m saying when I was just starting ‘cause I didn’t have that much material to keep creating triptychs. For me, it’s sequential. I didn’t want to pack all my ideas in one. I go two different ways. I’m really big on concept pieces. But, I am bothered that sometimes in the art world, concept pieces lack a really good construction. If you don’t have a strong academic background in art, you can’t explain it to someone. At the same time, I don’t think there’s a problem with something that looks cool or is cool, and that’s it. I know that’s an anti-art idea. But, sometimes there really isn’t an explanation. That’s just it.

I’m basically trying to get out of you how you work. How does something go from idea to completion. This is a very specific medium. The bulk of this work is based on skateboards. How do you go from a skateboard to a skate canvas?

The show is specifically about decks, but that’s not a main medium of mine. I basically took four different concepts and merged them into one show. With the “Wood” series, I was trying to figure out a way to take basically like 19 different ideas in my head and make it work.

Is “Wood” a made-up art brand for your decks?

It’s a brand just for decks. It’s not copy written or anything, but it’s my brand. Yeah, an art brand.

How many skateboards did you have to take apart and put back together to figure out their construction?

I have boxes and boxes of decks. I over-think things in the normal world, but in the art world that means you’re doing something right. When it comes down to the deck, it’s the cool thing to use nowadays. It’s just now becoming popular in terms of art contemporary/pop world. I don’t think it’s a respected medium off the break. But, me, I paint on canvas, I paint on wood, I paint on anything I can get my hands on. Anyone who knows me, knows I know the technical side of painting, drawing and sculpture work. A deck is really just seven pieces of wood, criss-crossed, that they press into a shape. So, if it wasn’t pressed, you would know that as plywood. For me the challenge was: is there another direction I can take this in that I haven’t seen before that’s more like fine art? The series “Wood” is a streamlined look, a little bit clean, a little bit dirty, that looks like it’s literally ripped from another environment. I have this piece at G-40 now that’s made of tile. It looks like someone ripped a tile deck out of someone’s bathroom. See what I mean? It’s not about decoupage and pasting things on. I’m gonna work it until it looks like it was taken directly from the tree.

How important is it to your creative vision to use found objects? Is it necessity or intention?

I do like being different, but honestly, I like working with anything I can get my hands on. Plaza and Utrecht art store just don’t interest me. I build my own canvases. Sometimes you don’t need the best, you just need what’s the best for you. I like broken decks. You have to search for broken decks. Not a lot of people have them.

How does your dad feel about your approach to construction?

I think he gets a kick out of it. Part of my brain is still sort of no-nonsense construction. Sometimes, my art is unnecessarily strong. A painting’s job is to sit on a wall. It’s a docile, static object. It can only fail if it falls off. When you’re building a frame to a house, it has to resist lows. When I’m on a job with my dad, even though we’re speaking the same language it’s nonsensical because it’s not purposeful. He does think it’s cool, I know he loves what I do. He will say things like, “This is well built. I don’t know what it is, but I like it.” Is any of this making sense, by the way?

It’s a little coded, but I’m gonna push you to be clear. So ... ChickenVille? Where did that come from and why are you calling it ChickenVille?

Any side project bigger than a loose set of thoughts, I somehow relate it to chickens. It’s like an inside joke with me and my friends. So, like, a small painting will be a chicken tender. It means nothing. But, ChickenVille is a mixture of my specific past, which includes Baltimore, how I remember and view it. That includes my family and the neighborhood of West Baltimore I grew up in, and it’s kind of interchangeable with another rust belt-ish, blue collar town ... Philly, Pittsburgh ... So ChickenVille, to me, is you know, big, old rusty sign next to like a motel. It’s not dilapidated because people still frequent it and everyone has a great memory of it.

So, ChickenVille is sort of your affectionate nickname for West Baltimore?

Yeah, I guess so. But, I’m not gonna lie. It’s specific to my memories and that makes it a whole different place. The elements that appeal to me there appeal to me anywhere. It has a lot to do with home. I’m not so picky about DC or Baltimore. We’re so close it’s easy to compare. But if we were separated by more miles, there’d be no conversation of that. For me, DC is another extreme in the other direction. As I started to travel ... Tucson, Seattle ... I started to realize how cool or whack where you’re from is. And mine was the former. I started to realize how cool the town of Baltimore was. ChickenVille is a mixture of my ideas about art mixed with the past.

Earlier, you were saying ChickenVille is also representative of where you want to go. Where are you hoping to go in your career?

There’s not a specific location. Not like New York or LA. I’d like to continue to be in a place where I can have a comfortable living and continue to create new. When you make it, are you still creative or are you just pumping out the same thing they know you for? I’d like to be recognized for continuing to create new and not being held to what your fan base expects of you. There are very few people who have been able to nail that.

What are some examples of people who have “nailed that”?

Ceelo from Gnarls Barkley. He’s now working on three different projects and no one holds it against him. He himself is one project, Gnarls Barkley is one project, Goodie Mob is one project, and nobody hates on any of those projects, even his hardcore fans understand that. I’m not even a super Jay-Z fan, and his rhyme style hasn’t changed, but there’s an obvious evolution. Maybe that’s not the best example ‘cause he’s at the top and it’s easy to say the person at the top is doing great. Spike Lee. You can really see how the director thinks as opposed to like Tim Burton. Tim Burton makes Tim Burton films. They almost seem like sequels.

Who are some of the women you respect and admire?

Lady Claw or Claw Money on the graffiti tip. I think what she’s doing is pretty unique. She’s really not doing anything different than she’s been doing for the last 10-15 [years]. You know, the fashion, the attitude that comes with it in an extremely male-dominated field. Her bear claw was a character that wasn’t a popular thing to do. Jamel Shabazz ... that’s a man. But, that’s a name that pops up in the art world. Rothko, I’m not sure why I like his stuff.

The saturated colors, perhaps?

Yeah, I mean, I don’t even like when other people do that. But, the way he did it was just cool. I see it as a really cool backdrop. I know that sounds terrible. Rothko’s makin’ beats and I wanna put the lyrics to it.

Besides Rothko, who are some [living] artists you’d like to collaborate with?

Locally, my man James Walker. Hopefully, if he reads this, he’ll give me a shout! Aniekan [Udofia] is great. He’s definitely one of my faves. Someone I haven’t painted with? Drew Storm Graham, he’s got work up at G-40 now.

Who absolutely has to see this show? If you could send three VIP invitations and you knew they would attend, who would they go to?

[He laughs]. John Waters, the director of Pink Flamingos and Hairspray. That’s Mr. Baltimore! He’s a weird dude and I feel like there are certain aspects of the show he’d relate to. [He pauses] Are you gonna invite him? I’m sorry, I’m still thinking about that ... My mom. She better be there! My middle school art teacher, Ms. Edna Emmett. She’s famous, she just doesn’t know it yet. Peter Weller, the dude who played Robocop. I watched that movie 8 zillion times at my aunt and uncle’s house where I did a lot of drawing. Without him knowing, he definitely had an influence on my life.

In the words of the Last Poets, “Who will survive in America?”

The creative. Whomever that may be, not specific to art. That might even surpass the boundaries of America. That’s just who will survive. That’s not answered in a social Darwinism type way, I just mean whomever is creative and can do something in a different way. Not necessarily easier or cheaper, that’s Capitalism. But just ... yeah, the creative.

ChickenVille opens tonight, May 21, 7-11pm at Lamont Bishop Gallery, 1314 9th St. NW DC, and runs through June 11. For more information, visit http://lamontbishop.com