We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Eric Beal a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Eric, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Finding a community of supportive artists unlocked my confidence as a painter. Since I never went to art school, I felt like I was years behind every other artist and would never catch up. Not that I was trying to compare my work with anyone else’s, but there is a natural tendency to recognize confidence in others and feel that you lack your own sense of self. So being able to find support from really good artists helped me tremendously.
So, how did I do that? I’ve never been afraid of just cold-emailing or DMing artists that I respect, because the worst that will happen is you don’t hear back from them. After a while of trying, I was able to meet some really friendly artists that were happy to share opportunities with me, and I tried to do the same for them. Pretty soon, I was invited to group shows with those artists and I started becoming friends with many of them.
It’s only been a few years since that breakthrough and now it feels like we’re all just trying to boost each other up as best we can. It’s amazing to not only get invited into a community but to then see its members thrive is inspiring.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’m a muralist and artist. It’s wild that I now get to add “muralist” in there, so I’ll say it one more time: muralist. I’ve been making canvas paintings even before I was a professional but really wanted to get into murals. Since the beginning of last year, I’ve been lucky enough to find large mural projects at restaurants, galleries, and most recently my favorite store Art Supply Warehouse down in Westminster, CA. Being able to show work on a large scale for the public is unbelievable because you get immediate feedback from people that might not always walk into a gallery that’s up 6 flights of stairs and around a blind corner. Hearing positivity from unsuspecting passers-by is a thrill.
In all my work I use spray paint and usually stencils, which I love because stencils allow me to decide exactly where the paint does and doesn’t go before caps go on cans. The thing I love about my style is that up close the image is just a mess of shapes and colors. Only once you step back can you see the whole picture for what it is. I like to think that it’s contemporary impressionism, because it captures the essence of a scene with bold lights and darks while centering around politics and our collective struggle. The style works hand in hand with my themes.
I also co-founded The Artscene with my friend Lisa Marc. It’s a journal of the contemporary art world, where we discover new artists and cultures by sharing their stories in LA, Paris, and Tokyo. It’s been amazing being able to tie in my own art career journey through The Artscene, because I know first hand how exciting it is to hear from someone that wants to interview you. So it’s great that we can highlight artists we respect and introduce them to a new audience in a different language.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Make art. It’s extremely cliché, but you have to make art if you want to be an artist. It’s literally the bare minimum requirement. The only requirement, really. And I’m guilty of not following this at the beginning of my career. I used to look at murals and honestly think, “I could do that.” The difference between then and now is I DO do that. I do paint on walls, I do paint on canvas, I do art! Once you start making things, you realize that’s all it took.
Talk art (well). You’re going to need to explain what your work means and how you’ve developed your perspective. Even greats like Frida Kahlo and Nina Simone needed to explain their craft at the time, even though it’s glaringly obvious to many of us now. This skill takes a little bit more time to develop. The most important thing is to start talking about other people’s art with different audiences. You will eventually stumble upon phrases that also describe your own work.
Provide consistency in both time and support. Firstly, time. I’m a very punctual person. When I show up on time, I often hear how rare that is for artists. It’s the easiest way to impress someone and the quickest way to lose an opportunity. Secondly, provide consistent support for your community. The more help you give to others, and the more you delight in their successes, the more joy you will find in your own life. That positivity reverberates.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
A real inspiration for my work is the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. In it, Freire describes his own journey to developing a theory of education alongside oppressed people in Brazil, Chile, and broader South and Central America. The book is a critique on modern teaching models that create an adversarial relationship between teacher and student, where the teacher doles out knowledge the student must not question.
Since my work is focused on the politics of how all our ills in society – racism, xenophobia, homophobia, climate change, poverty, war – affect each of us on an individual level, Pedagogy of the Oppressed speaks directly to how I must translate these problems for an audience. The main theme I borrow from Freire is the understanding that my art is not an edict or commandment, but rather a dialogue with the audience. I want the ideas in my paintings to be questioned, because then I can grow alongside everyone else in understanding our place as the subjects of history.
Secondly, I often employ the use of dialectical contradictions, which is the same practice Freire developed to teach literacy. This technique means that I depict two ideas in opposition of one another within my work. By showing that our world experiences heightened contradictions – nature and pollution – I am hopefully entering into a dialogue with the observer to ask how we can resolve the problems together in a very distilled form.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ericbealart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericbealart/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@theartscene9901
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericbealart
Image Credits
disintegrate pool photo cred: Hagop Najarian
