Justin Bua
Interview by Black Dog Bone
Continued from Murder Dog vol 16 #1
What I really like about your art is those warped long faced, skinny
figures. The people you draw look weird and distorted.
You’re probably looking at the drawings? That’s like me now. The drawings
are very recent. 
Those are more like my characters that I grew up with,
like the real people that I lived with. That was kind of like my world.
Is that the direction you’re heading in now?
I think so. A lot of my stuff is like that.
Do you still pay attention to what’s going on in the world of Hip Hop?
I’m still in that world. I like a lot the stuff that’s goin on. But to
me I’ll always love the classics. I’m into like Fearless Four and Fantastic
Five MC’s and Grandmaster Flash, the Furious Five. I also like Tribe
Called Quest, and I listen to the catchy new shit. Even if the shit is
whack you gotta listen to it. I like all that stuff. Music, it doesn’t
matter as long as I feel it.
When you were doing skateboards were you working independently?
No, I would do one painting and the skateboard company would mass produce
it. I was working with a skateboard company.
All of the art you did back then, do you still have copies of it?
I do. I have all of that stuff recorded. A lot of those skate decks I
gave away. I have the original artwork.
What were some of the record covers that you did artwork for?
I did Quad City DJ’s. They did “Come On Ride The Train”. And I did Saafir
“Hobo Junction” Saafir’s from Oakland. He’s got a tattoo of the album
cover on his chest. And a lot of compilation stuff.
What made you decide to move to LA?
I got into the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and it was a
really good school. Then with the weather in California and it’s so nice
and beautiful and so different from New York.
Sometimes when a creative person goes to school they lose their originality.
How did art school affect you as an artist?
For a while I did, but after awhile the real me started to come out.
It just had to happen because I had so much to say, so I took a lot of
time off after school and I really started to cultivate my style. At
first when I came out, it’s true I was just copying what was goin on
at the time. I was really influenced by illustrators like Matt Mahurin
and Larry Carrol.
I know Matt Mahurin’s work. I love his photography.
He was a really big illustrator when I was in school. Everything I did
looked like Matt Mahurin. Brad Holland also influenced. Brad Holland
was cool.
What was it you liked about his work?
It was just very timely. Now it’s pretty outdated I think. I loved how
Brad Holland drew and I love the emotional quality in Matt Mahurin’s
work. Matt Mahurin kind of reminded me of my favorite artist, Katte Kollwitz,
the German expressionist.
I love Katte Kollwitz. Do you know Sue Coe?
Sue Coe is great. I’m a vegan so that’s another reason I like Sue Coe’s
work. I agree with her message. Her art is very disturbing. I’m into
Sue Coe. Every once in a while I see a painting of hers in a magazine.
You never see her in the mainstream, but you see her in weird stuff.
She’s cool. All of those people like Matt Mahurin and Sue Coe were influenced
by Katte Kollwitz. Even the graffiti writer Swoon. She basically takes
Katte Kollwitz’s style and incorporates it into her work. That’s the
way I feel too.
Do you get a lot of work as an artist in LA?
A lot of my clients are in New York or London or Paris, in LA too.
Would you say your artwork reflects your experience growing up in New
York?
Definitely. It came from living in New York during the 70’s, during Reganomics
and all of the poverty and destitution that was going on. Living in my
neighborhood with the welfare hotels and a lot of drugs and crime, those
experiences came into my art.
What about the art you’re doing now? Is it changing?
It’s a little bit brighter, I’d say. Not much, but a little bit.
I like the darker stuff anyway.
Most artists, the great artists like Katte Kollwitz and Vermeer and Brad
Holland and Bosch and Charles Bragg, a lot of people don’t look at their
work. You have to look back at the masters. David Levine is good too.
Ralph Steadman is amazing. I’ve become friends with him over the last
couple of years. He’s really cool.
As an artist it’s good to be influenced and inspired by other artists,
without imitating their styles. I feel like you have your own style.
Your art doesn’t look like the work of any of these artists you’ve been
influenced by.
Exactly. I love what they do. Katte Kollwitz lost two sons in the war
and she lived through the Holocaust and all the insanity of that time.
I lived through all the insanity in my fucked up world. I’m painting
my world. It’s a real expression. There are people who just copycat.
Like there’s a guy named David Garibaldi who basically copies my stuff
but does a really shitty job. He doesn’t have his own experiences so
he’s painting someone else’s experiences. You have to draw from your
own experiences.
You can copy all day long, but if you don’t have your own spirit in the
work, there’s no power in it.
That art doesn’t stand the test of time. If I die poor, at least what
I’m doin is real.
What are some other current artists that you feel are doing interesting
work?
There’s a German artist, Sebastian Kruger, who is a caricature artist.
David Levine is good. A lot of guys I like are dead. Like Al Herschfeld
is dead. He did a lot of characters. I like people, so all my work goes
back to people. I like characters, people and emotion. I like people
who’s work makes me feel emotion. There’s this really young talented
painter named Ruby Roth that I love. She’s working on a children’s book
and her style is really cool. She’s from LA. I like her work a lot.
Do you feel the situation in LA is good for artists, better than New
York?
I don’t know. I haven’t lived in New York for so long, I couldn’t say.
But I like it in LA. It’s easier, an easier way of life. It’s chill.
Do you feel that you are changing as an artist?
I don’t know. You should check out my show at Limited Addiction Gallery.
It’s online at limitedaddictiongallery.com. It’s a gallery in Denver
and they’re showing a lot of my new work. It’s called Musicology, all
music related stuff.
How big are these paintings originally?
A lot of these are really big. I’m trying to paint bigger and bigger.
I work only on canvas now.
There’s a poet named Li Young Lee who said in an interview about artists;
“they’re not witnessing the invisible, they’re witnessing the visible.”
What do you see in that?
That’s a deeper level. That’s like reaching a level of consciousness
that you have to go deep into to have the insight for. The visible is
obvious. You have to reach to get to that other level, to the unseen
world.
In Rap music people talk a lot about murder and crime and what is going
on in the visible world. As an artist do you feel the need to go beyond
the visible?
Of course. What I’m trying to do is reach an emotional level. I’m tryin
to do something real and keep it real, and a lot of people relate to
my work. I’m not sending a particular message out, so people can equate
it to their own experiences. People have so many different messages that
if I put one out there it would be ruining their experience.
That’s what I see. You just do your art and don’t think too much about
a message. Then some magic happens. When you do art it captures something
of the invisible.
Exactly. It’s the beauty in the ugliness. It’s the mystery of the unknown.
A lot of people don’t see that. It’s deeper than the surface.
That’s true. Everything in existence is beautiful.
Beauty and love. 100%.
Do you look at primitive art or rock paintings and does that influence
your paintings?
I like rock paintings, but you can’t say that that influences me. I like
African sculpture, that probably influences me more than anything. Those
distorted figures, all warped.
Do you look at models when you draw?
I draw from my head. It’s totally from my imagination.
Do you work at day or night? And do you play music while you work?
I work in the daytime. I used to only draw at night, but now it’s in
the day. I listen to music, sometimes in silence. It just depends.
Are you still pretty involved in Hip Hop, the music and the whole culture?
I’m still into it. Every day, I still dance. I live it.
