Interview with artist Matt Houston 1) For...

Friday, August 10, 2012

Interview with artist Matt Houston

1) For those unfamiliar, please give us your entire life story in one
run-on sentence with no punctuation:

Born Matthew Houston in rural Missouri then I moved to Arizona where I spent my formative years going to church riding bikes shooting hoops playing Magic: The Gathering watching Rugrats and Doug and Salute Your Shorts and Legend of the Hidden Temple and playing Street Fighter 2 Turbo and Wiz n’ Liz and Twisted Metal 2 and Tony Hawk Pro Skater and Final Fantasies and doing poorly at math in school and being a slacker and then I was a Mormon missionary for a couple of years and then I lost my faith and moved around and went to community college and worked and met a nice girl and married her and moved to Columbus Ohio for art school where I currently live and make pictures. Whew.

2) Your artwork seems to have a fantasy element to it, were you an
avid AD&D player as a kid?

I wouldn’t say I was an avid player, but I did play sometimes. My older brother was/is really into D&D so I played with him sometimes and with my sisters too. My favorite was a Star Wars campaign we played and I hired bounty hunters to capture my sisters’ characters and they got mad and quit. I really liked creating the characters and I spent a lot of time drawing my characters and all of their equipment and stuff.

3) If I was giving an elevator pitch of your work, I would say “It’s
Hieronymous Bosch meets Moebius”…is this a fair assessment or mildly
insulting?

I’ve heard the Moebius comparison before (which may be insulting to Moebius) but never Bosch. I almost got kicked out of the Prado for trying to take a picture of The Garden of Earthly Delights a few summers back. I just remembered that…

4) Say you have an hour put aside to make art. What is your ritual?

If I had an hour to make art I would turn on some music and draw something in pencil and then ink it. Most of the things I make are done in one sitting. I’m kind of impatient and lazy and I’m sure it shows, but I usually try to get things down on the paper and scanned and colored as quickly as I can. It feels like a compulsion or something. Then when I’m done I go walk around for like 4 minutes and then do it again.

5) I love the idea behind http://universalcenturyart.blogspot.com/ and
even sent a drawing, but you never used it. Why do you hate me ?

Hey thanks I’m glad you like it, it was a collaboration with one of my all-time favorite art pals Donald Dixon, though I’m afraid right now it seems like it’s a bit on the wane. No! I just found your email with your drawing, sorry it must have gotten lost in the shuffle, I’ll remedy this situation post-haste! I’m embarrassed…

-el fin