A Dye Hard Interview: Armando Fragale: Completely autonomous

Armando Fragale is a multifaceted artist born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1985. He is a painter, illustrator, filmmaker, actor, musician, writer, poet, designer, and producer who works in various mediums. He developed the artistic technique called Drivage and founded the art movement Openism. He has shown his work all over the world and has also collaborated with a wide array of artists in various art forms. Notable exhibitions he has been involved in have been Cosmic Unity: Occult Art and Music in Latin America in New York, International Surrealism Exhibition in Cairo/Saint-Cirq-Lapopie and The Cabinet of the Solar Plexus: The Liminal and the Marvellous, in Dublin. He also runs a record label Wraith Productions, which he started in 2005. 

DH: I believe you were already drawing when you were a child. Do you remember when you first started? Have you had any formal art training? 

 AF: It all came about so early on as a child, and it all started with drawing from the moment I picked up a pencil. I’ve had formal art training at university, but I chose my own path in all of this with what I do, so I consider myself a self-taught artist. Read more. 

A Dye Hard Interview: Michael Wilson: Putting the work together

Photo: Susan Christine Spencer

                                                   

Michael Wilson is an assemblage artist who has always been heavy on techniques using artifacts and disassembled objects from an era long gone. He avoids plastics to make his assemblages look as though they were antiques themselves. Stuff from the dustbin, collected up and transformed. A solid piece needs to have electricity and some of them literally do. That's when a viewer’s responses can be very strong. Once in a while he puts away an art piece until he finds the right part or found object to give the assemblage that edge and  an 'outside the box' feel. He also makes castings of old parts of statues and adds them into the cohesion. The ultimate goal is to have depth and flow, which he oftentimes does, in hitting the 'mark' . He and his wife, artist Susan Spencer, open up their studios on occasion, so when in Northern California ring them up.

DH: How did you come to be an artist? How did you come to work in assemblage, and where do you find your materials?

MW: Growing up in the 1960s I was influenced by my father's art and love of jazz. He was a well- known animator and artist, so I grew up in an environment that proved a lifelong influence. Another big influence was André Breton. I took art classes at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and we got to display our work at the college art gallery. I was also in a graphic arts class and made my first billboard ‒ a double-sided sign reading ‘Ground Floor Gallery’‒ for a space I rented in Old Towne Pasadena, California. We sold few works, but soon found out we weren't salespeople. At that time, before gentrification, there were 400 artists living in a four-block area of Old Towne, in 1977.  

With my training and family background in art I was handed a baton to carry forward a never-ending art project that allowed creative ideas to flourish. Through my collecting junk and antiques I found it inspiring to give old objects a 'new life'. What may look like a series of broken pieces in front of you would ultimately grow to become an assemblage...More

Putting the work together: an interview with Michael Wilson

Michael Wilson is an assemblage artist who has always been heavy on technique using artifacts and disassembled objects from an era long gone. He avoids plastics to make his assemblages look as though they were antiques themselves. Stuff from the dustbin, collected up and transformed. A solid piece needs to have electricity and some of them literally do. That's when a viewer’s responses can be very strong. 

How did you come to be an artist? How did you come to work in assemblage, and where do you find your materials?

Growing up In the 1960s I was influenced by my father's art and love of jazz. He was a well-known animator and artist, so I grew up in an environment that proved a lifelong Influence. Another big influence was André Breton.  More

A Dye Hard Interview: Lee Beckworth: Poetry should be a way of avoiding commodification and superficiality

Lee Beckworth aka Lee Kwo was born in Geelong, Australia, in 1952/He started writing at 17 and completed a Degree at Deakin University in creative writing and Journalism in 1974/After travels in Europe he moved to Melbourne and completed a Bachelor of Letters in literature and psychology at Melbourne University/ He has published five works of fiction and two books of poetry/ His interests in music and photography have been expressed through the band Kicks and an exhibition of collages and photography in 2016/

You are an artist, a writer and musician, but which medium do you consider the most important, or do they each carry the same weight?

Well for me they all contribute to each other and each has a period of time where my lifestyle is dominated by one or other of them respectively/I have made performance videos using original music and photo images and I have used art works as covers  for published books and collages/I wrote lyrics for bands I was playing with and usually remained active in all creative areas including sculpture and photography ...Read more

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