Today we’d like to introduce you to Patrick Lavey.
Hi Patrick, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m what I like to call a “grandchild” of the 80’s. My parents were both children of the 80’s, and I took after their interests. I was homeschooled as a kid, so I really only got to consume what we had in the house, or what my parents were willing to let me get from Blockbuster or the Library. And that was Back to the Future, The Terminator, The Breakfast Club, Mad Max, The Princess Bride, Total Recall, and the entire discography of Van Halen. Not to mention the HUNDREDS of comics me and my brothers either stole from friends or found at the Library. X-Men, Batman, Spiderman, Hellboy, Savage Dragon, Spawn, Watchmen, you name it, I found it.
The 80’s was time of excess, of shock, of postmodernism and consumerism.
MTV gave people a medium for wild creative expression, and strange visual identity.
The blending of high and low art, rendering renaissance style paintings for a fucking Pepsi ad.
Heavy Metal magazine brought wild, fantastical stories and legendary illustrations by masters to your local comic store.
But as a kid, all you really glean is the bright colors, soft lighting, and surreal worlds.
And the last one was what truly inspired me to create.
As a sheltered kid with vivid dreams, and and extremely overactive imagination, surrealism was my transport to worlds unknown, to allow me to see things like I saw in my head.
The airbrush style of the 80’s always stood out to me, and the airbrush it’s self was always fascinating as a medium. When I first saw Ridley Scott’s original 1979 Alien, I became fascinated with work of H.R. Giger, his strange, haunting, and unknown blend of human and machine.
When I got to college, I studied the work of surrealist masters like Salvador Dali, and Max Ernst, as well as more modern Surrealists like Zdzisław Beksiński, and David Lynch.
But while I love, and cherish these artists, they always were too dark. They didn’t have nearly enough color.
So I studied print ads. Cigarettes, Tic Tacs, Pepsi, McDonalds, anything that was DESIGNED to catch people’s eyes. And from doing that, I began to understand not just how color shapes a form, but how it shapes peoples thoughts.
What is advertising? How do you grab someone’s attention, and make them feel like they need something? What visual ideas stick with people long after they’ve looked away? That’s what I explore in my work.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No. Never. I always wanted to create, but there was one thing stopping me:
I didn’t know how to freaking draw.
And so I sat in front of Photoshop for hundreds and hundreds of hours as a kid, trying to piece together interesting pieces from whatever photos I had.
There were no massive stock libraries at this point, and social media and YouTube barely existed, so there were no tutorials, assets, or free brushes and courses. It was just me, my little camera, and my brain.
I didn’t know anything about composition, form, color theory, or visual hierarchy.
I just knew I wanted to make a picture of me and my brothers with lightsabers and explosions.
So I would sit at google images for HOURS trying to comb through stuff.
I learned more as I went to highschool, as Youtube tutorials became more available,
but I didn’t really understand what I was trying to make.
So when I got to college, I realized that I needed to focus on my actual art skills, and that was a NIGHTMARE.
I have pretty severe ADHD, so when I try something, and I’m not immediately good at it? I’m pissed.
And that’s how traditional art and drawing went for me.
I would try to draw Batman. It would look terrible. I would give up.
It took the biggest viral outbreak in 100 years in 2020 for me to have the drive to just create, and create for the sake of LEARNING, instead of making final products.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I make what I’ve always just simplified to “digital art”, but I often use the word “creations”.
The creations I make are very interdisciplinary, blending traditional art, digital painting, compositing, animation, 3d modeling, and music. I’ve always just told myself to let my brain run loose, and see what I get at the end, and I think that’s helped me develop a style.
Most of my work is inspired by print media, so I tend to embrace that and give it lots of imperfections.
Working digitally allows for things to be perfect, but I think it’s the imperfection of traditional media that makes things feel real. Grain, texture, the distortion of a VHS tape. These are the things that remind us of our limitations, where we have been, how we got to where we are now.
My work also almost ALWAYS features bright colors. I feel like art should be shocking. It should force you to look. Because when it’s subtle, it’s only appreciated by a mind that’s looking. Not many people slow down to look at a mountain scene on the freeway. Everyone slows down to look at a car crash.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Steal. Not plagiarism, not copying, but educated stealing.
Do you like those colors? Use the exact ones he used.
Is that shape interesting? Steal the shape and use it in your own work.
Do you like the look of a certain font? Steal that font for your own use.
There’s a quote by T.S. Elliot that says
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
So I’ve always felt that the best, most original pieces aren’t original at all, but collections of stolen ideas, concepts and themes. And it’s freeing to know that you don’t have to just sit there and hope something amazing pops into your head.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.patricklavey.com
- Instagram: @patricklaveycreations
