Interview | Matt Huynh.

Left – ‘Fool’ cafe banner for Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Design 09. Top Right – ‘Reflection’ from ‘Asperatus’ illustration series launched in winter 2010. Bottom Right – ‘Peel’ also from ‘Asperatus’ series.

‘Conquer’ from ‘Asperatus’ illustration series.

The man himself – Matt Huyhn.

I received a little e-mail from Matt Huyhn early last week inviting me to his upcoming exhibition in Sydney. I must admit that I hadn’t been aware of Matt’s work up until then, so my curiosity got the better of me and I jumped on his site to discover an intriguing world created by this clever young Sydney based comic creator, illustrator and artist. It didn’t take me very long to decide that Matt’s work deserved a spot amongst those I regard very highly, so I suggested that I would like to interview him. And here’s the thing – Matt now holds an official record for the fastest ever interview turnaround time. That’s ten yellowtrace stars, and in case you are not familiar with this brand-new-just-made-up rating system, that’s the highest possible mark! Not only was Matt super speedy with his responses, he answered all the questions with care and in a lot of depth. It seems to me that this young man is not just a talented illustrator, but also a very interesting thinker with depth and maturity beyond his years.

The moment I landed on Matt’s site, I felt intrigued and drawn to his moody and surreal comic-style art, ranging from lose style lead pencil drawings, water colour and colour pencils, to highly intricate ink illustrations. Matt was recently shortlisted for the 2010 Qantas Spirit of Youth Awards in the Visual Arts category, and he was also a finalist in the Berlin’s Young Illustrator’s Award. The 2009 Creative Sydney Festival named him one of the most innovative contributors to Sydney’s culture and he was awarded the Design NSW Travelling Scholarship. You lil’ ripper!

‘Sun Collector’ from the latest illustration series ‘Alluvia’. Love!

Matt’s latest exhibition of new work opens on Wednesday 3rd November at The Paper Mill Gallery in Sydney [more details below]. By the way, Matt is represented by the fabulous Jacky Winter creative agency [see Matt’s profile here], where he is in fine company of some truly incredible local talent. Make sure to also check out Matt’s website and his blog, and you can also follow him on twitter.

Thank you Matt for being a part of yellowtrace, and for sharing your work and your thoughts with us. I have no doubt that a bright future lies ahead of you and congratulations on your upcoming show.

x dana

Alluvia

Opening night 3rd November, 6-8pm.
Show continues until 13th November.
Workshop on 11th November, 6-8pm.
The Paper Mill | 1 Angel Place | Ash Street | Sydney

Invitation for Matt’s upcoming show ‘Alluvia’.

Hello Matt, welcome to yellowtrace and thank you for taking the time to e-chat. Could you please give us a quick introduction on yourself?

Hi Dana! I’m a Sydney based comic creator, illustrator and artist. I started drawing characters from my comic books to keep the world alive after the last page. I created my own comics to see more of the kind of stories and pictures I wanted to find on the racks and self-published these as minicomics, later moving into a graphic novel style format. This self-motivated initiative attracted my first illustration opportunities, which has become its own distinct discipline and passion for me after learning much more about it over the years. Alongside this, I’ve continued to work in arts and exhibited my own drawings and painting series.

Top Left – ‘Constellation’. Top Right – ‘Raven Mind’. Bottom – ‘Mountain’. All from ‘Asperatus’ illustration series launched in winter 2010.

When did you first decide that you wanted to become an artist? Do you remember your very first piece or your first commission?

Strangely, I don’t remember my first commission! It was quite organic for me and the opportunities grew from my own passion and compulsion to explore my personal curiosities and to create or express. I had always been drawing and I self-published my books whilst working and studying, freelanced and eventually the balance tipped over to the point where I believed I could make a good go at drawing and writing and creating all day long if I devoted all my time and energy. My experience has been one where an attention and obedience to my personal passion has attracted support for its continued practice. Rather than pursuing all the notches on a professional illustrator/artist’s belt to fulfill some tick-box definition (studio, agent, paid work, clientele, accolades etc), I’ve been fortunate enough to have a strong enough sense of my own direction and even more fortunate to have people recognize it in the work. It might take awhile, sometimes! I guess as a kid I just did a thing and stuck to it, I very much hesitate to attribute an external quality or circumstance as a measure of my qualification as an artist, or conversely my failure. This is something that affects your every day decisions as an artist. I began creating art completely self-motivated so would loathe to think an external event or achievement or lack thereof would provide any validation or influence.

‘Legal Affairs’ for Business Week.

I should say though that I’m not sure it’s accurate to say one ‘becomes’ an artist. I do believe artistic ability, creative and expressive ability, is something that sits within all of us and something that we can demonstrate in how we make our dinner or speak to strangers as well as strumming on our guitars. I think it is closer to a way we frame our values, behaviour and our perspective on the world, it is so closely embedded to character and identity that even if I were never to draw another picture and work in the post office, I should still consider myself an artist. I wonder if possibly an engineer or scientist or martial artist’s discipline shapes their view of the world likewise in such a dramatic manner, if this is something that reflects the profession we explore just by virtue of the great investment in a particular set of unique behaviours and thoughts and feelings each of our disciplines demand of us.

Face studies from Matt’s sketch book.

What are you seeking to portray in your work? What is fundamental to your practice – your philosophy and your process?

Wow, so many things! I will just speak here about one idea in my recent illustration or we may be here for forever and a day. I completed an illustration series called ‘Asperatus’ and exhibited it last Winter where I was interested in exploring our present. There was a bit in there about the abstraction of our actions for their consequences, as we’ve found ourselves, for example, with our consumption habits and global warming; with modern warfare; with the development of the global financial crisis; and with our reliance on digital information space in the modern workplace. There was generally a feeling of being overwhelmed, confusion and chaos about how to deal with problems when you’re in the eye of the tornado and unable to view yourself and your situation holistically to be able to make any good decision.

‘Born Dancer’ from the latest series ‘Alluvia’.

My newest series, ‘Alluvia’, responds to these concerns with a focus on our future; that is, how do we navigate the disorientating problems of the present whilst we find ourselves in the moment, particularly at a time when increasingly abstracted challenges demand lateral solutions. It’s much more an affirmation of emotional, moral and spiritual values in a very physical and intellectual time. The work in the series advocates the development of a more sophisticated emotional, moral and spiritual consideration in our decisions and actions, often calling for holistic, long-term thinking.We find ourselves in a time akin to the turn of the industrial revolution, when our physical needs are overindulged, although our indulgences now are with information.We consume ravenously, like consumer goods in decades past, with an ethic of more is better. We have admittedly seen a recent shift to improved ‘filtering’, but the kaleidoscopic strobe light pace of diverse information means we might consume an intellectual ginger tonic at the same time as switching over to a plate of gravy. We’re presented with boring, stimulating, toxic and irrelevant fragments of ideas all on the same buffet for us today and we consume with little regard for ‘health’ and certainly rarely holistically, shaping a system of values and behaviours that demonstrates itself in the solutions we pursue to modern problems, grow our food or consume our entertainment. Like the industrial revolution of past, this most recent technological and economic shift threatens social dislocation. I do not consider myself a Romantic (in the capital ‘R’ sense) and would not even place them high on my list of influences, it is not a position I would ever guess I would find myself in even a couple years back, but I find myself agreeing with their response to this sort of challenge – a return to heart and spirit offers an opportunity to ameliorate our clumsy technological advance without allowing it to pose an obstacle to the rest of our progress.

‘Deliverer’ from ‘Asperatus’ series.

What was one of your biggest lessons learned since starting out?

Being able to love myself, or trust myself- my decisions, my results, my practice, and perhaps most importantly having confidence and faith in my process.

What are some of your methods to staying motivated, focused, and expressive?

This isn’t something I consciously turn my mind to often, I find motivation. Focus and articulate expression are a result of good health and so long as I take care of myself I haven’t had too much trouble with blocks. Continuing from the last question, I’ve learnt to better navigate fear and self-destructive behaviour as I’ve matured.

As a younger artist, I would race furiously fueled by dissatisfaction with my ability, running away from my dreaded disappointment at my heavy handed ideas or anxious lines. It’s better instead to chase the fulfilling gift and surprise upon getting something right.

Top – ‘Chasing Blind’. Bottom left – ‘Nowhere Climb’. Bottom right – ‘Your Ghost today’. All from the latest series ‘Alluvia’.

Who or what are some of your influences? What other artists, peers and creatives in general do you admire? Other sources of inspiration?

I do keep relatively on top of contemporary illustration but there aren’t too many direct influences on my work from that world. I look everywhere, across disciplines, artistic mediums, and beyond the arts. Every now and then, there’s a piece that knocks the breath from my chest – I saw a Barron Storey editorial illustration for the New York Times recently that shook me up. Here are some names I like – Jillian Tamaki, Sam Weber, Yuko Shimizu, Marshall Arisman, Akino Kondoh, Paul Pope, Brad Holland, Craig Thompson, Jeff Smith, Vivienne Flesher, Kate Banazi, Marcela Restrepo, WeBuyYourKids, Kevin Tran, Wil Loeng, Moebius, Dash Shaw, Pat Grant, Jon J Muth, Josh Cochran, Andrei Tarkovsky, Akira Kurosawa.

What has been your favourite project so far?

I’m very proud of my Asperatus illustration series. It was launched with a one night only show at the Australian Museum’s Skeleton Gallery amongst the bones and two hundred wilted roses. Of all my shows, it is the exhibition from which I have the fondest memories of. I worked on an interview series to accompany it asking people their reactions to the work and I also developed a special set of folios for the prints.

You can find the entire series here.

‘Surveillance Spider’ for FBI Radio Magazine.

What’s next – can you share with us your vision and some of your goals?

I’m preparing for the November 3^rd launch of my new series, ‘Alluvia’. I promise that it is much more colourful than Asperatus! It will show at a fantastic new City of Sydney supported space at the bottom of Angel Place Recital Hall called ‘The Paper Mill’.  The show extends until November 13 with an intimate nighttime workshop in between and even a school group coming through for some close work. There will be a special print folio released of the series as well as a limited booklet. You can find out more here.

I’m also currently working on ‘Chinatown Comics’ for Sydney’s 4A Center for Contemporary Asian Art. I am collecting true stories about Sydney’s Chinatown to turn into a collection of short comics! It’s taken me into dance academies, martial arts gyms, following lion dancing parades, into Chinatown’s young shops and to dinner with visitors to Sydney. The idea is to give a narrative cross-section of the community history and experiences. I am still looking for stories, so please contact me if you have any! There are some progress updates here, with more to come soon.

November will also see the release of a mathematics book I illustrated for the Powerhouse Museum. It’s a very vibrant and series, so I’m quite looking forward to seeing the response to this work.

Check out this great little video showing Matt’s studio, his workbench, inspiration images, sketches, tools of the trade etc. Very cool. [E-mail subscribers click here to watch].

Let’s Get Personal.

What are the qualities you most like about yourself?

For an artsy dreamer, I still carry with me the working class temperament that I’ve been raised with– hard work, patience, ambition, loyalty, gratefulness. Also, my teeth.

What are the qualities you most like in others?

Generosity, kindness, selflessness. Impeccable dancing ability.

‘Super Hero’ wallet design.

Apart from your work, what other interests or hobbies do you have?

I tend to make my work my play and vice versa, but I also love guitar.

What is your most treasured belonging?

There are a small bunch of gifts I’ve received over the years that I can barely bring myself to be around, the mere thought brings me apart. Ugh I can’t even talk about them, but they’re mostly a collection of notes, sketches, books, that sort of thing.

‘Dancers’ sketch studies from ‘Chinatown Comics’ project.

It’s not very cool, but I really like…

Magicians.

Your favourite joke?

Getting paid for my doodles.

I kid, I KIIIDD!!!!!

What’s one thing other people may not know about you?

Excellent singing voice.
(not really, but who’s going to know?)

Sen Dog for Dazed + Confused Magazine.