Anthony Ausgang is one of the original godfathers of Low Brow art. Most of you will recognize his recent painting for MGMT’s record cover Congratulations. He is a master of painting psychedelic cats, and was a trailblazer in artistic method - he was doing improved art (painting over already famous paintings) well before Banksy and his reworking of Monet.

Interview by Daniel Rolnik

I prefer to own cats since they use a litter box, unlike dogs that need to go out on “walks”, a process that should be more accurately termed “shits”… Nevertheless, I appreciate dogs and enjoy their idiotic enthusiasms.

I mostly listen to different online stations so the mixes are always different. These days I have been listening to Sir Coxson Sound, Twilight Circus, BLOOD, Alien Dread, Yabby You, Sound Ministry, Mentor Kolectiv, Dublab, just a whole mess of weird stuff. There are a few strange stations that play “Ethnodub”, a hybrid dub from India and other off beat places featuring Jahtari Riddum Force, ah Seal, Zomby, Jah Batta & Bullwackies All Stars, Ustad Sultan Khan & Sunidhi Ch, Kid Gusto, Sanchez Dub and Phat Boy Singh.

First off I just wanna say that I seldom try out color combinations on the computer, I prefer to work with “real” colors in “real” light. Anyway, I print out the line drawing then project it onto the canvas with a large opaque projector. I use Photoshop CS5 or CS2 depending on what computer I’m using.

I once worked as a color mixer and production painter for a company that made hand painted fabric for furniture. I had unlimited amounts of paint to use so I would often mix together all kinds of weird color combinations to see what would happen. I learned a lot about color and ways to make them appear really bright. One trick that still use is to take the complimentary color of something in the foreground and mix it into the background. The human eye is much more color sensitive than people realize…

I use Nova Color acrylic paints; they are sold out of their factory here in Los Angeles. I like to use the “liquid” colors and not paint out of a tube. It’s much easier to blend paint if it’s already nice and smooth.

When I am modeling an object I generally mix up at least three values of its color so I have the light, medium and dark tones ready to go. I make sure that they are all the same consistency and then strain them through a window screen to get out any lumps. I lay the colors down by each other in the correct order and then blend them together using either a fan brush or a splayed, fucked up round; I never use flats.

I feel that making a painting is like a mounting a military campaign and there are strategies that must be worked out in advance. Continuing with this analogy, I believe that the viewers of the painting also deserve an award for allowing my aesthetic to subvert their own. Plus, I collect WW2 German Iron Crosses and I just wanted to design my own medal; anyway, I like to have offbeat items for sale. Toys are all right but I think picture disk records are better because they actually have a use.

In the early 80s I was one of the few artists doing paintings that eschewed the human figure in favor of cartoon characters and I really felt I was doing something that would measurably improve the world if it were broadcast to a larger audience. Also, I was too young and dumb and full of cum to realize that the gallery directors thought that my work was garbage. One guy told me that he would give me a show in exchange for a blowjob; I never showed there…

I did “vast” quantities of psychedelics when I was young and still living in Texas; in all those miles and miles of Texas it was easy to find some beautiful spot where no one would disrupt the trip. The last time I took mushrooms was a year ago in Joshua Tree but I still like to regularly experience DMT and occasionally Ecstasy.

I learned a lot of painting techniques when I worked as a fabric painter for an interior design company. Although the results were mostly for decorative effects, I eventually figured out ways to apply the methods to a representational end. Being a painter requires conceptual as well as technical expertise and I’m not sure that one can develop those disciplines in a vacuum. If one wants to foreswear the rigors of an academic environment the best replacement for that is having a group of friends that are willing to share information and mess around together. There are things that have to be learned and cannot appear from instinct alone.

Labyrinths, by Jorge Luis Borges, The Kindly Ones, by Jonathan Littell and Underworld by Don Delillo

I did a painting of a friend’s dog for a “pet art” show. She brought the pooch to the opening reception and it took a crap on the floor right in front of my painting. The critic has spoken...

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Interview with Anthony Ausgang
By: Daniel Rolnik
danielrolnik[at]gmail.com

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