Interview by Jimon
1. One word to describe Daniel Yocum? Extraterrestrial.
2. When did you first realize you wanted to become an artist? I have always been expressing myself through creation for as long as I can remember. Being a useless employee at several jobs and a healthy dose of delusion helped corner me into pursuing painting professionally.
3. Did you attend any school for art, or is it all self-taught? I am fully self-taught.
4. What inspires your work the most—emotion, music, memories, something else? I collect art books. I love listening to music and writing lyrics. I am very inspired by abandoned houses and urban decay. A stain on the sidewalk could inspire a whole series. My erratic mood swings also help keep things fresh and exciting.
5. How do you start a new piece? Do you plan it out or let it unfold organically? I almost never have a plan. I work fast and dirty from the subconscious. My work is heavily driven by impulse and the incidental. I don’t believe in accidents. I believe in making a mark and responding to it. There’s a lot of addition and subtraction that occurs.
6. Do you ever begin with a specific meaning or message, or does that emerge later? My work doesn’t contain any intentional message. The meaning is usually very personal and is something that unfolds, or something I discover during the act of creation.
7. What role does intuition play in your process? Intuition leads, I follow.
8. How do you choose your color palette for a piece? I don’t consciously choose any particular color for a piece. The colors almost feel as if they reach for me.
9. Do you revisit and revise your paintings, or are they mostly completed in one flow? I almost never revisit a piece once it’s finished. I just send it out into the world and don’t look back.
10. How do you know when a painting of yours is done, especially when working in layers? I am waiting for a certain internal response when I step back to assess the overall piece while working. Once a work strikes the right emotional note within me, it’s done.
11. You use color in such bold, emotional ways—do certain colors carry personal meaning for you? They most certainly carry a personal meaning, but that meaning resonates on a frequency below my immediate understanding.
12. What’s your take on people projecting their own meaning onto your work—do you welcome it, or is it frustrating? I think that’s almost the goal. When a work can have an openness that invites the viewer to project their own personal experiences onto it, then it’s a success. If one work can mean several different things to several different people, that’s an exciting prospect to me.
13. If one of your pieces were a place, what kind of environment would it be—chaotic city, quiet forest, alien planet? The subjects in my paintings are usually set up in the corner of some dreamy room.
14. What do you feel when you’re deep in the painting process—are you escaping something or connecting to something? I am creating in an attempt to connect with something larger than myself. Painting can be a transcendent, almost religious experience on a good day.
15. Is there a piece you’ve made that you feel really captured something essential or unforgettable for you personally? The works with the flowers and clouds hold a special place in my heart. I feel like those capture a pure, expressive, visual representation of something happening deep within me.
16. If your art could talk back to you, what do you think it would say? Get a real job.
17. What’s a color you’d never use—unless you were feeling reckless? I’m pretty open to the whole spectrum of color.
18. If you had to swap your painting practice with a completely different creative outlet for a month, what would you try—music, dance, sculpture, something else? I have previously worked in film, music, sculpture, and washing dishes at various Italian restaurants. Maybe one of those.
19. What is the most challenging part of being an artist? Doing interviews for magazines.
20. What do you find most rewarding about being an artist? Doing interviews for magazines.
21. How do you measure success as an artist? Making lots of money and magazine fame.
22. How do you stay motivated over long periods, especially when not actively exhibiting or selling work? I keep a consistent routine of waking up early and getting to the studio every day.
23. How do you feel about the role of social media in showcasing art today? Instagram is how I got discovered by a major gallery, so it has its benefits, I suppose.
24. You have unlimited money to buy one piece of art—what would it be? I’d probably snag one of those giant Chris Martin pieces from his James Brown series.
25. Do you have a place/person/thing that you visit for inspiration? Going to visit the various locations of Casterline|Goodman Gallery in Aspen, Santa Fe, and Northern California can help knock off some neural cobwebs. Where I live in Naples, Florida has a lot of retirement homes, golf courses, millionaires, corporate chains, and dementia patients wandering the streets—and all of that is pretty inspiring.
26. How would someone find you on social media? Instagram @danyocum_