Artist Interview: Martin Whatson

It’s amazing to see how much has changed since I first began! I mean, coming from Norway we are always a bit late to the party, so I have seen how it was like before it got embraced by the people. It’s becoming more and more easy to get permission to do walls, and internationally the exploding amount of street art festivals has been amazing to witness. Only in the last 3-5 years it seems every American city has got its own festival! Which in one way is great for the people, but I miss sone context. If it’s only a gathering of artist painting walls it’s not as interesting as if you attach something too it! NuArt has been great at involving the locals into the festival, arranging workshops, presentations, talks, debates education and walks. With this creating a link between the artists and the viewers on another level then just seeing a piece of art on a big wall! I see several other festival are aiming for the same which is great. I just hope it’s not getting to be too much!

Well, like every other populist movement you will have someone jumping the wagon to make a quick buck or to get attention. I still see great new artists coming up so thats really refreshing, although I believe its much harder to stand out from the crowd now then what it was 10 years ago.

Of course seeing someone’s great work pushes me into working harder. I’m trying to be open minded about where I get the influence from, the hardest part is distancing yourself far enough from your influence so it’s not just a blatant copy! I try to use other artists’ work to push my technique and quality of the work to a new level!

Mmm…this is an hard one, on two levels. One is that I really enjoy what I’m doing at the moment, and yes, maybe it’s repetitive, but in the end, the person I’m doing art for is myself. I would still be painting even if I could not live from it. So I try to use that as an inspiration to do what I like, not what I don’t but believe others like!

The other is that to be recognized, you need a certain direction. I think Instagram is a good way of showing it. When watching an artists portfolio on Instagram you get about 9 photos on a phone screen, if those 9 photos does not have a thread going through them its very hard to stick out of the crowd. Look at the biggest artists in history. Everyone of them worked 30+ years in one direction, slowly developing their styles. I don’t mind being “the one who plays with color tags” as long as I’m comfortable doing it and enjoy the process and the end result. As long as I know I have a direction and a goal for the development in the future thats fine with me.

Well, I have a direction I want to be heading in a few years, but I’m still not ready to let anyone know what it is.

I’m still exploring the possibilities and want to keep it that way. Too many artists announce their doing a big change only to be running back to what they did before… I think introducing a change slowly both helps you as an artist to get comfortable with it and for the viewers to understand it better! My long term goal is to continue working full time and to explore the world painting walls.