29818: Hermantin(News)Hollywood artist creates his own style (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Jan. 08, 2007


UNBUTTONED
Hollywood artist creates his own style




When Daniel Austin decided 15 years ago he'd resume the art career he started 
as a child in Haiti, he figured he'd have to set himself apart ''because I 
didn't want to copy anyone else's style,'' the 42-year-old Broward resident 
said. Today, Austin, sole artist and proprietor of the Sir Austin 
Interpressionism Art Gallery in downtown Hollywood, has successfully launched 
his own style, ''interpressionism,'' something he describes as more of a life 
philosophy than a type of art. This week David Austin gets Unbuttoned with 
James H. Burnett III.

JB: OK, we've all heard of impressionism. What exactly is interpressionism?

DA: It is the mentality that takes you back to the source of your artistic 
creativity. Many artists copy other's styles, and they do so quite well, 
because that is what they are skilled at. Interpressionist art is what you come 
up with when you close your eyes to outside influences, to the ''déj vu'' -- 
all the things that have shaped you as you've aged -- and go back to your 
childhood frame of mind where the art you created, even if it was a crayon 
drawing, was an original creation, an original image that came from nowhere but 
your heart. For children they call it the art of innocence. For adults I call 
it interpressionist.

JB: That's pretty deep. I notice in your gallery that you have a lot of simple 
paintings of people in various stages of life, and couples -- bold dark brush 
strokes over earth-toned and neutral backgrounds. Tell me about that.

DA: First, I think humans and our condition are the most interesting subjects 
-- our personal relationships with one another, too. You'll notice that there 
are a number of paintings of a child in the womb, a woman just before giving 
birth. I painted them in that simple outline because I knew a patron would have 
to study them and ''interpret'' them to get it.

JB: You weren't always an artist, or an interpressionist. What did you do 
before this?

DA: Well, I studied art in Haiti, but I quit after just a couple of months 
because I felt like they were just teaching me to copy. I later studied law and 
earned a degree in economics and actually worked as a personal banker for a 
number of years, before getting back to painting in 1989 and showing some of my 
art at a competition in Martinique.

JB: You are a pretty philosophical guy. It seems that your whole life, not just 
painting, is guided by your interpressionist theory. Are there noted 
philosophers who have influenced your thought?

DA: Yes, Plato, Socrates, Voltaire, even Shakespeare.

JB: But you don't consider yourself to be copying them -- why?

DA: Their philosophies helped me develop my own -- a guide, if you will -- 
whereas my painting really, truly comes from my head and my heart with no 
outside influences.

JB: Some people entertain themselves by looking at art. You create it. So how 
do you entertain yourself?

DA: I love good food and good wine. I love spending time with friends, with 
whom I can debate life and practice my French. And I love to read the 
philosophers -- and artists, I call them -- you asked me about before.

JB: You have one painting here that really jumps out at me -- a cross section 
of a human head, and there's a lot going on inside. Describe it, and it's 
meanings.

DA: I call it Cycle of Life. I painted it in 2000. You'll notice the point at 
the base of the skull is the start of a question mark. There is a scene of an 
embryo in development, and then birth woven into the fabric, next young life, 
and then two people who find each other and love. Then they have children, you 
can see. Then they culture the earth -- farm. They grow old. And the same 
church they entered -- for their wedding -- after finding one another, they 
exit in old age, in death.

JB: What's your next big project? I've seen firsthand some of your paintings 
sell and art patrons show interest in others. What's next?

DA: I am continuing my paintings of the life cycle, exploring more subjects in 
old age and trying to capture their spirits on campus as well as a physical 
image. Also, I have had visitors to my website (www.interpressionism.net) ask 
me to share with them the meaning of interpressionism. Maybe it will become a 
movement.

_________________________________________________________________
Dave vs. Carl: The Insignificant Championship Series.  Who will win? 
http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp0070000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://davevscarl.spaces.live.com/?icid=T001MSN38C07001