Mark Goss Interview:
Global Location: Antwerp, Belgium.
URL: http://markgoss.com
MG: Mark Goss is a freelance illustrator and designer who graduated form design collage in 2009. He’s now living and working in Antwerp.
AP: What plays a bigger role in your artwork, where you live now? or where you were raised as a child?
MG: I think where I live now is more of an influence on my artwork, because I prefer to take inspiration and imagery from my immediate environment in order to make my work. I was brought up in a fairly boring suburb which I don’t think played much of a role, I have always found the need to explore other routes and places for inspiration.
AP: What inspires your art?
MG: My environment inspires me, at the moment I’m using a lot of religious and historical sculpture images to form my work. I’m inspired a lot style wise by tattooing, graffiti to a certain degree and other artists. Every time I see a rad piece of work; from someone I know or otherwise it makes me want to work harder to be better, pretty much as soon as I finish a new piece I’m sick of it.
AP: Do you remember your first experience of making art?
MG: I remember when I was quite young drawing a picture of my Granddad sleeping with his mouth wide open and thinking at the time that it was really good and that it looked just like him, I can’t imagine how bad it probably was!
AP: What was your most recent experience of making art.
MG: I’m working on a series of pieces for a new show using just black and one color, I’ve also been playing with some digital illustrations which I have made for tee designs.
AP: Who’s art are you digging right now? Who do you want to give a shout out to?
MG: There are countless artists that I’m feeling right now; Mike Giant is a major inspiration and has always been a favorite, his line work is second to none. Audrey Kawasaki paints the most ridiculously hot girls and James Jean is sickeningly good, also Thomas Hooper is pretty much my favorite tattooist and definitely influences me.
AP: What are some art related things that you cant live without?
MG: Black ink: I pretty much rely on it to form the basis of my work and can’t think of a nicer medium to work with.
AP: What motivates you to get out of bed every day and create art?
MG: A healthy obsession, I feel slightly guilty when I’m not working so it’s rare that I don’t feel motivated to produce new work.
AP: Do you listen to music when you work? If so, name a few of the tunes you rock out to.
MG: I like to listen to music all the time, I don’t deal very well with silence. I have a really varied musical taste so could be listening to anything from Seasick Steve to Tribe called Quest, as well as music I listen to stand up comedy a lot, Bill Bailey is on heavy rotation at the moment.
AP: When you aren’t making art, what do you like to do?; What are some of your obsessions or hobbies?
MG: I cycle pretty regularly but more often than not if I’m not working I just like to hang out, eat good food and enjoy a drink. I don’t get much time for a hobby but I recently received a harmonica so want to learn to play it!
AP: As an artist what are your thoughts on social media and the internet?
MG: Nowadays it’s impossible to ignore the benefits of social media and the internet, I try not to get too drawn into it though. I can’t stand pointless tweets and status updates and use it simply for updates on my work and events, I just hope that they aren’t too pointless. I think Blogs are great though and if I do have an obsession aside from art then it’s definitely reading blogs an unhealthy amount.
AP: If you had the ability to time travel, what advice would you have for the artists of the future?
MG: Probably to just stick to your guns and work as much as you can, it’s not an easy choice to want to be an artist or illustrator and I’m still figuring it out myself.
AP: Tell us something about yourself that Google doesn’t know about (yet).
MG: I make a mean omelet !…
AP: Thank you for taking the time to share with us the insight into your world.
