Andres Bedoya

Andres Bedoya pisses rainbows, wraps women with fishing line, and hangs mice from his ears (obviously).  Other than that, he draws, takes photos, and makes scultpures.  And he does a damn fine job at all of it.


Chief Magazine: So, what were you like as a kid? Where did you grow up?

Andres Bedoya: I grew up in Bolivia. I was very imaginative and a loner, but well-liked somehow. Also, a bit abstract as a kid.

How many different mediums do you work in now?

I work in every possible medium – whatever seems interesting at the time. But right now I’m concentrating on drawing – so, works on paper. And photography. But I also do sculpture and video.

Tell me about the photos of models with fishing line around their legs. What exactly was that on their legs? Was that floss?

It’s a very thin fishing line. It was just about highlighting the fleshiness of it all and just the quality of the flesh. Not necessarily the skin but just the softness of the body. And it was a bit tongue in cheek because she’s a sexy girl, but we made her a little grotesque.

It’s a weird effect.

Yeah, it is. It’s painful, apparently, too.

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I was going to ask how models react to having thin fishing line on their legs.

Well, this is a good friend of mine, Caroline, and she’s a trooper. She’s rather fearless. I mean, she was in pain, but she did it anyway.

Wow. How have viewers responded to those particular photos?

I don’t know. “Eww,” I guess, is the general consensus. But it’s not necessarily intended that way. It’s intended to be interesting, but not necessarily gimmicky.

You’re focusing more on drawing now?

Yes, I was for a while because I was trained to draw like a machine, basically, so I had to take that back and forget how to draw that way and make it very loose. It takes a bit of courage not to draw perfectly.

Did you study art in Bolivia? When did you move to the States?

I moved when I was 19; I’m 28 now. I actually studied design theory. Or something like that. I don’t even know. [Laughs] I studied design – a very impractical, academic, conceptual program.

Heady.

Very heady. Then I got to New York and really hated the way it’s applied professionally.

Were you making art in Bolivia?

Yes, I’ve made it all my life, to some extent. It’s essential.

Is there a scene there?

When I was, maybe, 17, this woman initiated the one and only youth culture that there’s been there, but it was comprised of a few Brazilian immigrants, some prostitutes, a few homosexuals, and well-to-do kids that were gouging their eyes out from boredom. Yeah, it was incredible.

That’s motley.

Yeah. Unfortunately, it all disintegrated because it’s kind of desperate down there. It sort of disintegrated into a mess, but a lot of people were, I think, saved by that movement, which lasted a few years.

Maybe that begs the question, but do you like the New York scene?

I think there’s an incredible amount of creativity, but I also think that there is a lot of play-acting. Everyone’s playing a role in New York, and I accept that, but sometimes it kills spontaneity.

Which artists are you really digging right now?

[Pause.] I don’t know. I don’t really have favorites with artists in that sense, to be honest. I like a lot of art, but I can’t say that there’s anyone in particular that I’m really into right now.

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When I look at a piece of yours like “the babies,” with two dismembered figures in the foreground, I’m reminded of what I like about Francis Bacon, and some of your drawings in general remind me of Yves Tanguy. Are there certain artists who influence you?

I’m not sure. I can tell you that, definitely, Japanese contemporary art interests me because it’s adorable, but it comes from a really tortured place, I feel. Telling something harsh in a tongue in cheek, dark-humored way really softens the blow. I like to add humor into something that might be a little grotesque. But to be honest with you, it’s really spontaneous. I don’t really go in with a preconceived idea.

Is there something that led to the old men who are pissing into each other’s mouths?

[Laughs] Well, it’s a rainbow, actually.

Right.

It came from another drawing that was a cloud puking into a man’s mouth, and he was then pissing it onto the
ground, and that evolved into…

It’s like the circle of life.

See, but that’s what I’m referring to. Nobody likes the body of an old man; nobody’s attracted to the softness of the flesh and the aging of the flesh and what not. And certainly nobody’s attracted to male sexuality after age 35, so it’s a way of talking about that. Actually, I made a life-size one of that.

The one that’s on the subway.

And I realized it’s actually a self-portrait, but of me in the future. I think it’s me in 20 years or so. I never conceived it that way, but I think that’s what it is. [Laughs]

A self-portrait of you in twenty years, peeing in your mouth.

Weirder things have happened.

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What do you see yourself working on in the future?

I want to improve my photography. And improve my drawing, but for a while I was taking it to a place where it was dangerously close to becoming Never-Ending Story. I was developing characters, but it was very fantasy, and I’m stepping back from that and dealing more with people… and aging perverts.

Do you focus in on aging as a motif?

I think so. I’m as scared as anyone else of growing old. I think that’s why I draw it - as a confrontation of that. Also, there is a lot of repetition in the work I do; my mind process is very repetitive. And if you hang out with me enough, I repeat myself all the time.

[Laughs] Nothing wrong with that. Do you have plans for the holidays? Do you go back to Bolivia still?

I went back three months ago, but no, I don’t have plans for the holidays. I mean, Christmas - I’m indifferent to it. Halloween, I like.

You’re a Halloween guy?

Definitely.

What did you dress up as this year?

[Pause.]

Or do you not usually dress up?

I do. Of course, I do. But I’ve devoted my efforts to helping other people have amazing costumes, and then I sort of forget about mine, so I wasn’t very interesting this year.

Oh, okay. What’s been your best costume, you think?

I was a murdered office worker. I was working at a place, and I was very miserable, so it was expressing that. And it was fantastic because it was very subtle, and it was incredibly frightening.

I bet. Do you still work in an office?

No, no.

Congratulations.

[Laughs] I work wherever I can at this point.

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Tell me a quick story about a time when you thought you were going to be killed or you pulled off some crazy shit that you think people should know about.

I’ve thought I was going to get killed many times. Every time I get in an airplane, for example, I’m terrified.

Are you afraid of flying?

I’m beyond disgustingly terrified of airplanes. It’s tragic. I think I’m going to go to hypnosis.

Has anything ever happened on a plane?

I was in really bad turbulence once where we all thought we were going to die, but it lasted only a few seconds. But there was screaming and the whole thing.

Did the masks come down?

No. It wasn’t that bad, honestly, but I just remember it. I’ve been in airplanes where they have dropped twice, and people started screaming. But I hate them anyway.

I’ve almost died once for real, though. It was in Bolivia. It was this famous soap star who was doing a signing in a mall on the third floor, and I was with this American exchange student. I thought it’d be the best thing on earth for her to check out this incredibly plastic but super-famous soap star. But crowd control in Bolivia’s not exactly up-to-code, so we all got shoved into an escalator, with a glass handrail. It was maybe 40, 50 people on one of these and the rail sort of exploded, and a bunch of us nearly fell over, but the crowd pulled us back. I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes, but I saw newspaper headlines.

Wow.

Yeah. It was really horrible. I mean, it was for real. I really thought that time was it. But it’s funny – dying for such a banal reason.

I don’t know if that’s the way you want to go: dying for a soap star.

No, absolutely not. If we both fell to our deaths together, maybe, but no. Not alone.

So, are you still a soap watcher?

No, I don’t really watch soaps, but everyone knows who the soap stars are in Bolivia. We’re very under-entertained people, so we get all the has-beens. They get arrested all the time - celebrities - so they don’t come to Bolivia.

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They get arrested because…?

Because people make things up and they wind up getting arrested. I would give you names, but they’re all Latin-American pop stars, so…

So we’ll have to save the dish session for another time.

Yeah.

Website

www.ohnosir.blogspot.com

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