Interview by Jimon

1-Where do you currently reside and work?  Los Angeles.

2-How would you describe Ammon Rost?  A hopeless romantic.

3-Did you attend an art school or is it inherent?  I got my BA from UCLA in Art. I studied under folks like Chris Burden, Charles Ray, Catherine Opie, Lari Pittman.

4-How long have you been making art and what lead you to start?  I was born and raised in Tokyo till the age of 11. I am half Japanese. The Manga comic book culture had so much great creative content growing up and the images were so well drawn! Specifically Dragon Ball had a highly developed style with story lines that encouraged personal empowerment through hard work and looking inwards. Zen and Buddhist ideas infused in the work. The exposure to such work led me to start copying and then drawing my own imagery.

5-How did you acquire your style?  In Middle School I began admiring Dali, his surrealist landscapes and figures, abstract narratives. My first paintings were trying to capture the elusive imagery in dreams. One of my first paintings  was a vivid dream I experienced of pack of Hump back whales in the black depth of the ocean being speared by very long poles.

6-Have you ever come across a piece of art that you could not or did not want to stop looking at?  Gustav Klimt did some pencil drawings on paper of women in loose dresses showing some figure. They are sketched with such elegance. It’s one of my favorite art works.

7-Tell us something about the art world that you want to see changed?  Diversity and balance of race and genders represented in galleries, museums and fairs.

8-Why make art?  It explains ideas other languages can’t.

9-The future is ________? Short.

10-What is your thought on the following statement; Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable!  Everyone’s coming to art with a different tune, so there is no singular “Art”.

11-Are the lines and colors in your paintings signify anything or totally random?  My paintings are poems built with a web of abstract language.  I like to create symbols that hold sentiment for me, and hold certain meanings and emotions. Like if I was thinking of someone special, I might scribble their name with crude lines of oil stick. By not revealing the name verbatim, there is a mystery in the image but the emotional residue remains.

12-What advice would you give putative collectors? Diversify.

13-What’s the best advice you’ve ever received in regards to your art?   The key to abstract painting is to play with scale, big strokes to tiny ones in one image.

14-How do you define success?  Learning as much as you can and then teaching and giving your time to younger generations.

15-Do you have a place/person/thing that you visit for inspiration?  Sometimes I get front row tickets to basketball or tennis matches to observe the best players in the world. Like Stephen Curry, Garbine Muguruza, Roger Federer. How they remain calm in stressful situations, to take in the sheer passion for performance in their eyes. Witnessing this kind of dedication and zone keeps me inspired to do the same in the art game.

16-If you could have dinner with 3 artists living/dead who would be at your table?  Hannah Wilke, Picasso, Bob Dylan.

17-Name three things you can’t live without in your studio?  Sad music, Oil Stick, Window.

18-How would someone find you on Social Media?  Instagram: ammonrost