Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Paul Leibow. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Paul, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
This reminds me of the term: finding meaning, I like the term purpose over the vast expanse of the meaning because life feels meaningless, yet not hopeless. Purpose, however, feels more kin to motivation, self-worth, and exploration of one’s world. When something sparks an idea, I write prose-related connections or draw nonlinguistic thoughts, or when spending time in front of the female figure live, this act of energy capturing a moment in time on paper expends or reveals something that offers a sense of purpose enriching lives and that of mine. Creating work in sculpture, mixed media, or paintings, I transform a little more of myself, soul, or whatever, around historical-based culture in nuances, which might not have been explored much by other artists before, something rarely attempted that even in doing so if it holds the risk of a derivative style, it still can become otherworldly. George Condo’s paintings are derivative of Picasso’s style. However, he digested it differently to evolve more awkwardly into a new form. To find your purpose can mean so many things, I feel that the work I do, which empowers me, becomes my purpose, such as swimming and surfing waves, digging deeper in conversations with people I meet, and creating new work in areas most won’t consider works of art, because none has ever experienced it before.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a showing artist, I am coming off a solo show at the Monmouth Museum in 2024 and a solo show at the PCAC. I work with mix-media including vintage characters, vinyl, and turntables, some I carve into or on other surfaces such as steel pots, and my motorcycle helmet. These alternative materials such as record players were not exactly sculptures, because they hang on the wall, and are not technically paintings, because they’re three-dimensional. They are closer to a Marcel Duchamp readymade, that includes exaggerated, painterly lines, full of pathos and darker humor around depictions of the public citizenry. Some of the minimal figures in the work may be interpreted as an alter ego. The characters seem employed to act out critical observations on contemporary life, in absurd renditions of imagery that strain at the edges of my disciplines. I like to write prose which often finds its way into the work graphically.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Keep doing what you love, I know this sounds like a troupe we all know. We are not supposed to be great at something when working out issues on projects at the start. Visual arts is more about the process, figuring out new ideas in a series of attempts, and being open to different directions while in a constant flux of successes and failures which is all part of it. By working on inclination, you will find the kinks that need tweaking, you will find that in a sea of No’s, a Yes will come by to get you to the next step to your goals. I constantly re-focus on why I’m doing what I do and fight doubts in my search for new challenges, that are not only about earning a living. I’m doing this for the long term as a choice of how I want to live my life as a creative individual. I always felt, that if you do what you love eventually the money will follow. While working for the recording artist Bruce Springsteen, helped me get into other areas I liked, the same way developing animation for Disney. Even though I was most interested in fine art, working with a rock star’s concert tour with my artwork, or animation to help with publishing, also helped my art in mixed media work.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
As an artist, there is a long list of obstacles that cloud your way. The pecking order of other artists can better guide and help if we avoid the jealous negative town traps of basic human behavior. Every step I take that leads to a positive outcome seems difficult to achieve where exactly I’m heading, and finding that motivational key to what I should be doing is still actually heading in the right direction. I want the work in a museum, yet after I get my body of work into a museum solo show, it feels like in some mind-bending futile attempt in self-doubt or something, that my work now deserves to be shown at an even more prestigious museum, and after selling a painting I feel like it should have sold for more or more art should have sold, and so on. It is this constant wrestling with my success and future direction or supposed failings in some diaphanous race against time to get to a fictional place I think I’m supposed to be, that I deal with. Yet my coping mechanism kicks in then, I listen to my inner whispers, then veer away into a more zen achievement of other ways such as surfing, building a stone wall in the garden to level part of my property, or sharing a mini vacation with my friends and family that feels more important than creating a new work of art. I realized that focusing on my balance of lifestyle, and accepting that I cannot control how everything will turn out from my desires or agony in developing my skill and craft always requires constant attention.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://paulleibow.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulleibow/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul.leibow
Image Credits
My portrait photography, shot by Matt Dine.
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My Artwork credits- (Check on the order if any questions)
Untitled (Blue 45 Biscuits)
Mix media of vinyl 45’s and spray paint
2024
26.5 x 17” x 17”
Untitled (Broken Record) 2023
Mix media of vinyl, acrylic paint, and vintage turntable
16.5” x 12” x 10.5”
Untitled (Disco-Pooh Inferno) 2023
Mix media of vinyl, Disco mirror ball, lights, turntable
17.5” x 17” x 10.5”
Untitled (Holly-Rock) 2024
Mix media of Turntable, slate acrylic, and coconut shell
15 x 16.5” x 13”
Untitled (Grand Master Flash) 2024
Helicopter mix media LP sculpture
72″ x 117” x 96”
Untitled (RED 45 Headdress)
Mix media of vinyl,
2024
7” x 12” 15”
Untitled (Tower of Song) 2024
Mix media of vinyl and spray paint with turntable and steel
54.5” x 16.5” x 13.5”
Untitled (Bull-Vinyl)
Mix media of wood and vinyl 2024
18” x 16” x 14”
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
