An Interview With Sean Chao
Inerview: Monica Magtoto
ABC: Tell us a little bit about what you do
SC: I draw, I paint and I create sculptures that make people smile.
ABC: What was the worst critique/review/feedback you were ever given and how did it make you feel?
SC: Back in college, I was trying to develop an unique personality to my drawing. I began researching and examining artworks from various publications and exhibitions. Unconsciously I started to draw like one of the popular illustrators at the time. My instructor wasn’t happy about my drawing and gave me a harsh critique because my work wasn’t original. It was an embarrassing moment, but it struck me and woke me up.
ABC: How did that experience change or not change the way you feel/felt about your work?
SC: After the critique I understood the differences between inspiration and mere imitation of other people’s work.
ABC: What did you do about it?
SC: I started to draw freely; I looked for things that have truly interested me in my life to inspire myself. I want my work to represent me, and to represent the person I want to become.
ABC: Where do you draw inspiration from for your work?
SC: When I work, I often doodle with a pencil, drawing lines and shapes without having a definite idea in mind. There was this one time, when I saw a silly smiley face in a few randomly placed lines. I liked the smile and I imitated and modified the smile over and over until it became a personality within the world I created.
My works are inspired from a variety of things I have learned to appreciate over the years. One of my inspirations is to observe people and animals. In their movements and body language, I found resemblance to my characters. A simple pose portrays an action. From the expressions I observe, I can create exhilarated scenery as if it is coming from a stop motion picture.
ABC: There seems to be a good sense of humor about your work. Where does it come from? Where do you get ideas for works like “Ear Drum” and “Mouth Watering”?
Most of my works involve bizarre and odd humor. I enjoy planting comedy within art. Happiness is an essential emotion to people, and comedy helps create happiness. People suffer from depression everyday, especially in the society we live in today. It is crucial to find humor and add some comedy into our life.
I grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. The culture is highly influenced by Japan. One of my favorite comedians is from Shimura Ken from Japan. He is a wonderful performer. He can create comedy in an instant, simply with a little twitch of facial muscles. Most of his humor is bizarre and unusual, and I think that’s the earliest influences for my sense of humor.
I grew up in a city with a very high population density. We were surrounded by so many different noises we couldn’t escape from. I believe that was one of the earliest influences and reasons most of my characters have no ears. However, besides the junk we are forced to listen to everyday, there are also beautiful melodies and touching words we sometimes forget to appreciate. Therefore, I created a character out of an ear just to emphasize the good of listening by adding humor into the character. The rest of the facial feature characters emerged from my mind one after another and became the series.
ABC: How long does it take you to make a piece such as “You Are Not Alone”?
SC: It took me few days to brainstorm the idea. The actual time I spent to create the piece is about one to two weeks, approximately about 4 to 5 hours a day.
ABC: Where do you hope to take your work? Will your pieces always be individually made or do you someday want to mass-produce them?
SC: I like the idea of hand sculpting my art individually. The concept of individuality and originality are essential to my work. Therefore if I someday have the opportunity to mass-produce my work as a toy or an art display, I will still continue to create hand-made artworks.
ABC: Do you have any new projects up your sleeve?
SC: I am starting to work on some new pieces for a show in October at Tinlark Gallery in Hollywood. It will be a two-person show with a wonderful artist James Ulmer. I will keep updating new pieces on my blog.
ABC: What would you like to say to all the other underdog artists out there?
SC: No matter what reason you decide to pursue a career as an artist, keep it going and keep it original! I am still working toward my goals too. Don’t give up your dream.
You can see more of Sean’s work at: http://www.seanchao.com
