A Yes or No Interview with Artist Matt Furie

Pequin: Sex is an obvious reoccurring theme in your work, such as this doggystyle mudman and leaflady, or this bear boy post coitally embracing the giant sunward soaring hummingbird. Finding more examples is no challenge. Have you ever become aroused by your own art and/or used it to, as it were, self satisfy?

Matt Furie: Yes.

P: Many of your characters, if not looking straight into the “camera,” seem to be engrossed by something off-screen. Would you say there is one thing they are all looking at?

MF: No.

P: Death appears variously, sometimes personified as the typical skeletal type, and other times as an elusively meaningful occasion, like this group circling a corpse (similarly this), or even the colorful head/chest explosions. There is this impaled cat with a holy glow, and this furry frog and owl which, because of their orientation, appear utterly rigor-mortified. In your latest, there is the immortal bird-son who pensively holds his eyeless father’s offered entrails (please refer to note re: this image), the bee carrying/eating/fucking the dead bird (black fun with “the birds and the bees”), and, of course, the ferocious tree monsters that eat off the heads of humanoids. Nature and death play together in your skeleton tree, while conversely nature and life resonate through your mudman/leaflady. A lot of your older work seems to aim at simple amusement through non sequiturs and irony (like this topless fish dreaming of pizza slices with eyes, or the retro exercise and bike-riding images), but would you say that particular images (namely the newer stuff) hope to leave viewers less amused and more existentially preoccupied and generally thoughtful?

MF: (?)

P: Was the illustration of the riding rubix woman blowing the colorful brains of some consensual cookie-monster look-alike inspired by a true event?

MF: Yes.

P: Various pieces feature a background that suggests a setting, others bright white nothing. Do you imagine there is a wild space in which all your characters mix and mingle?

MF: (?)

P: Sometimes the settings are the most “normal” aspect of the pieces, such as this roadside rabbit in a hoody holding a hamburger, or these photo-posing creature kids at a picnic table, or these bizarre ones on some regular old corner riding bikes, spray painting, and generally kicking it. Is there more to your work than strange creature creation, non sequitur juxtapositions, and irony?

MF: No.

P: Family comes up a lot. These bats are poignantly familiar. The hooded green skeleton and Father Freddy make convincing caretakers of infants. The long beaked, nailed, and tailed mother and child animals pluck strange notes on heartstrings. And this pink potbellied parent is never without his protective, urgent grip ’round the inheritor of his neon genes. And then, stepping back, there is of course the animal collective aspect of your work, a huge family of people and creatures and animated objects that congregate and copulate. A close relationship with your brother can be gleaned from your MySpace profile. Considering all this, would you agree with the tagline of Wes Anderson’s film The Royal Tenenbaums, “Family Isn’t A Word... It’s A Sentence”?

MF: No.

P: Is there anyone for whom you limit the accessibility of your artwork, such as parents, grandparents, etc?

MF: No.

P: Is there any work that you’ve kept private from all of us?

MF: Yes.

P: According to your MySpace profile, you would someday like to have children. Would you use your artwork to entertain your little Furie(s)?

MF: No.

P: Your latest series features your girlfriend enjoying a cold glass of milk on a tree branch with an oversized white mouse. She is dressed in bright colors and heels, and her blue and the mouse’s black eyes really pop. Does all this make her feel like your chosen one?

MF: Yes.

P: You’ve mailed us many original illustrations, which we’ve framed and placed on our walls, given away to appreciative friends, dispersed randomly, and kept leftover in a stack on a nearby shelf. At expositions, you sell originals. Also, you’ve expressed interest in archiving older work and, in some cases, just trashing it. Is this purging essential to the creative process for you?

MF: No.

P: Have you ever regretted letting go of an original?

MF: No.

P: You are extremely prolific, and your latest series is especially rich. The furry Furie logo on your website you popped out in what seemed to be a matter of minutes. Would it be reasonable to say that you work on your art on a daily basis?

MF: Yes.

P: Your latest stuff is bigger and meticulously detailed. We’ve seen pictures of some wall-size images (like this clutter). Is this indicative of anything in your life that has also become largely scaled, either map- or dragon-wise?

MF: (?)

P: Recently, you requested a change in style of your website, changing the pink/brown background to bright white and removing the silly star spacers which you said would make it more “slick and contemporary looking so people take [you] seriously as an artist (lol).” Do you always laugh out loud when referring to yourself as an artist?

MF: No.

P: Is this how you identify/respond, as an artist, when someone asks what you do/are?

MF: Yes.

P: Do you have a job other than doing the art we’ve seen?

MF: Yes.

P: Could this wide-eyed backpacked “kid” be inspired by Bruce McCulloch doing Gavin on Kids in the Hall?

MF: No.

P: Do ideas ever come to you in dreams?

MF: Yes.

P: Pequin is mostly a website for writerly things, but we thought it appropriate to interview you because your work has a closely contained and dense experiential quality that we look for when reviewing text (as well as photo) submissions. With this in mind, do you ever experience something similar to writer’s block, with nothing happening in your imagination, or with something there but no way of moving it from your brain to the page?

MF: No.

P: Is there anything that can’t be drawn?

MF: Yes.

P: Has it been frustrating only being able to answer yes or no to these questions?

MF: Yes.