I had the pleasure of interviewing artist Joseph “2H” McSween. You can view his feature on The Flying Fruit Bowl here.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself…

Joseph McSween (2H) is a Seattle based Fine artist/Illustrator/Graphic Designer. His fine art falls under a mixture of contemporary genres including lowbrow, street art, graffiti , surrealism , and impressionism. His work explores a love for the female figure juxtaposed with rich textured layers seeking to reflect the emotion and inspiration found in the urban environment of modern society. His current work is rapidly evolving with new realistic dimension and an expanding use of bright colors and oils. Being a color blind artist might be considered a disadvantage by many, but he chooses to see this as an important advantage to his developmental process. “Most of my earlier works were primarily in black and white focusing on the form in beautiful compositions between positive and negative space. Now that I have a greater knowledge over the years it has helped me gain a higher understanding of using color in conjunction with my balanced compositions to accentuate my painting process as a whole.”His work has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. with 50+ exhibitions including L.A. Hawaii and NYC and also abroad in Australia, Belgium, Philipinnes and the U.K. He was a founding member of Pocket Full of Monsters international artist collective. A member of Artsprojekt founded by Andy Howell and has been featured by such publications as Black Book, WILD Magazine NYC, Juxtapoz, Honolulu Advertiser, Arkitip, NotCot, I.S.M., Arrested Motion, Vinyl Pulse, Slam Hype, Daily DuJour, Fecal Face, Design you Trust, and on the Wurth Global Style Network. His work is held in private collections and by corporations such as Amazon.

2. Did you study art or are you self-taught?

I’m self-taught although both of my parents are amazing artists so they passed down the good genes. I constantly study art history and techniques of the old masters.

3. Who or what inspires you and who is your favourite artist?
I’m inspired by daily life from the city to more natural landscapes and nature in the countryside. I’m inspired by babes and more recently mostly by my beautiful girlfriend. I’m constantly inspired by other artists. There’s so many though, I learned a lot about oil painting from master painter David Leffel. As far as inspiring street artists I’d say my friend Angry Woebots and other guys like Aryz and Nychos as far as getting up and doing it big. I really wanna travel around the world this year and paint huge murals.

4. You don’t just create paintings and drawings but you also do murals and design work. Do you think that an artist has to be versatile with their work and experiment with different mediums?

For me it’s always just been another way of getting myself out there and expressing myself in other ways. Design work also offers different ways of bringing in some cash to pay bills and for personal projects. It’s fun to see your work on a variety of surfaces like big walls, clothing, skateboards, toys etc.

5. Is there a particular reason that your work focuses on the female form as opposed to the male form?

I just paint what I love to look at. I don’t really want to sit for 15 hours straight staring at a dude on my easel.  Although recently I did do some commission pieces of Albert Einstein and Bill Murray that helped expand my painting abilities and were actually alot of fun. The layers of paint used to express wrinkles on a male face are time consuming. I already know mentally that I can paint anything I want so I try and just stick to the female form and work on different ways of abstraction from that base process.

6. Do you look at what others artists are doing within art or do you just focus on producing your own work?

I keep an eye on what’s going on in the art world. I used to try and be heavily involved in that whole scene but I took a step out so I could focus strictly on painting and my own direction. At one point I was so busy doing shows that I wasn’t evolving enough within my work to stay happy so I stopped to get better at painting so I could raise the bar. Now I’m more interested in inspiring others and traveling to share my work with different people. There’s a limited amount of room in the art world for artists that are “hip” at the moment whether that be graffiti or big eyed Bratz cartoon girls.

7. Do you think that you have your own style? Is it important to have your own style?

I think that if someone were to look at my work from drawings to paintings they could tell that I created it. So yes I would say I have my own unique style. Alot of that just evolves from learning and applying different techniques over a long period of time. For me it’s important to have my own style not only for recognition but I want to push the boundaries of art constantly and explore the universe as projected around me.

8. How do your paintings differ from the murals you create? Do you try and explore different themes within both practices or are they both extensions of the same ideas?

There’s similarities between both, like concepts and ideas. On the streets a lot has to do with that context, like the size of the wall, location, weather, time, is it a legal wall etc. So many factors to consider when on the streets. Or you can go the opposite and be completely free with no game plan and just paint random tags and quick funny throwup characters. My paintings also can be spontaneous or heavily technical in planning and detail. It’s all about the idea and feeling I’m trying to convey to the viewer. Interesting question I could probably go on forever on that one.

9. Do you draw and paint from photographs, stock images or your imagination?

All of the above. Just depends on the mood. I can take some photos of a babe, mash my photos up with a collage of other photos and use that as reference to do my painting. Or I can just use my imagination and draw some weird abstract patterns and shapes, letters cartoons. It’s infinite. It’s all just a mash up of my whole life and everything I’ve ever seen and learned applied to a surface.

10. I can see a lot of different influences within your work, the main one being graffiti. How much of an influence is graffiti to you and your work? Also, what are thoughts on the current graffiti scene and how it gained popularity in the last few years?

Graffiti has a huge part in who I have become as an artist. I learned most of painting skills from techniques I learned from writing graffiti and painting with other Graff artists I’ve met from around the world. Other influences would be old master painters, cartoons, comics, cultures, nature, life, love, music. As far as my thoughts on its popularity, I think anything that inspires others can and will be capitalized and sold as a commodity and exploited in our society. Unfortunately capitalism uses and abuses things and then discards them moving on to what’s the next hot sell. It is what it is.

11. What is your favourite image that you have created and why?

The last painting I have created is always my favourite because in each one I have progressed and learned something new.

12. How do you determine the value of your work?

The market determines the value of the work; I just sell it for what the Universe wants to provide me in return for creating it. I just put my heart into it and hope that resonates with others and they find it beautiful and can feel it. Whether or not it sells doesn’t really matter it’s just something I have to do as an artist.

13. Do you think that artists should produce work for themselves or for other people? Also, if an artist starts out creating images purely for themselves do you think that once they gain more exposure, that there attention shifts to creating images that impress other people?

I personally paint for myself and also to inspire others and hopefully this makes us both happy. Once you gain exposure there’s outside pressures from galleries and fans to provide more of what they like of course. What the galleries like is what sells of course because bottom line is there running a business and they have to pay their rent. So I think it’s important to just paint honestly and try and be the best you can for yourself and maybe people will see that with your work and like it enough to support you. Put yourself into it and the Universe will provide enough to keep you going and also test you to see if you’re true.

14. How do you market your work and do you think that the internet helps or hinders artists?

I market myself mostly by word of mouth, and posting new work on the internet or showing at Galleries the streets etc. The internet has helped me for sure. It has made the world a smaller place and connected artists. In the same thought it has disconnected us from the natural world around us and the people in our lives we should be face to face with.

15. Is there any aspect of art that you don’t like?

If art is a reflection of our society then it would be society and ignorance that I would have a problem with. I don’t like hatred, and evil people. I don’t like having to have things I don’t like.

16. What kind of music do you like to listen to and does it influence your work?

Music plays a huge part in my work, i have to hear new music all the time. It inspires emotion in my work and painting process. I listen to all kinds of music, it just depends on the mood I’m in. I don’t like commercial music produced with no soul for greed.

17. How important is it to collaborate with other artists and have you ever collaborated with another creative individual outside of art such as fashion or photography? Would it be something that you would consider?

I collaborate with people all the time artists, photographers, models, designers, curators, musicians, companies.

18. Have you ever had your work plagiarised? If so, what did you do to resolve the matter?

It doesn’t really bother me because if someone tries to copy me you can tell because it would lack emotion and any real depth.  My process is so technical now it would be hard to replicate exactly if anyone tried. If some person is inspired by my work and starts painting that’s awesome. We all have to start somewhere. I don’t agree with selling people’s work as your own though if you’re just ripping them off. That’s what broken bottles on heads are for.

19. Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?

Just be you and the rest will shine through.