May 2008

Interview with Michalopoulos

Art Voices Magazine
by: Robin Durand

Robin Durand: I've seen your work around the city since I arrived in the New Orleans area about ten years ago. I've noticed that you're prominent all over the city - a very successful artist, apparently - but I've never really known much about where you're from or what you do. So, I want to start by asking how you got into painting, and what kind of training you received?

Michalopoulos: Basically, I worked my way into painting very slowly I was trained in other subjects, and basically worked as a community organizer in a cooperative movement for a number of years, in Boston, before getting into art. At some point along the way, I decided to draw, more or less as a pastime. I began drawing and sketching, and gradually I graduated on to more demanding mediums, like pastel and watercolor. Then I worked my way into acrylics, and finally into oils on canvas. I took some courses after a number of years of being involved as an artist. When I came to New Orleans, I worked on the street for a long time - various places like the Square and around the French Quarter. I was very influenced by the artistic culture of New Orleans, and finally, at some point, took a course or two at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art with Dell Weller, who was an artist at the Square, also. I later took a drawing course and maybe a couple of other courses at UNO. So, I am largely self-taught, but very influenced by many artists in New Orleans.

RD: I'm interested in the style, or the motif, that probably propelled your career in art. That would be the large French Quarter house. I've heard so much hearsay, and so many urban myths about how that developed. It would be nice to get it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

M: Basically, I'd been painting for a long time, and I painted a lot of different things. At some point along the way, I decided that I didn't want to paint any more portraits. So, I began to concentrate on the architecture. I used to do a lot of plein air painting, and I began to actively experiment with my style. I think I had a bit of an epiphany somewhere along the way. I was in a period of great experimentation -feeling a need to express myself better, grow, and trying out a bunch of things. I felt very influenced by the music of the city, and I frequently worked by music, and I do feel very impacted by that aspect of the culture. I think it's fair to say that many people have commented that there is a musical quality to the work, and that I paint, more or less, what I consider to be the spirit of a building. I have what may be called a musical interpretation of something.

RD: Are these building site-specific? Are they actual buildings in all cases?

M: No. In some cases, they are. There are times when I paint, literally, what's in front of me. Well, I paint what's in front of me. I don't literally paint it, but a lot of times I make them up. They are composites. I take any liberty I like with it. Basically, I get a take on something that excites me visually, and let myself go with it.

RD: I think you've touched on some of this, but that particular motif resonates with the community. Why do you think this profoundly interests people and draws them in?

M: I think that there is a certain novelty to it, in that there is a whimsical nature to it. There's a certain mystery, I hope, in some of them. I think I've been through a lot of phases. People who look at my work from twenty years ago - people who either bought my work or saw it then - would recognize in my work now a lot of changes, which I continue to go through. I think people respond to a lot of different things. The more novel are some of the graphic elements - the liberties that I take with the buildings, in terms of presenting them in a way that is poetic, rather than literal. So, I feel free to almost break the building up, to express it as if it were moving or dancing, and I allow it to take its own form. I'm looking for a kind of essential presentation. In a way, you could say that, though it's a familiar subject matter, I'm using the buildings as a way of being a certain way. And that's really the essence of what my style is. It's that my style is a representation of what the city is. It's musical, it's playful, it's lyrical and it's a little drunk. I'm having fun, and I think people can see that in the paintings. It is an invocation of some of the cultural elements of the city, which you can feel when you look at it. It's not so much what it is, literally, but more a matter of the way that it's done.

RD: There are many who take the superficial aspects of your work and mass-produce it, sometimes with no heart or feeling - piggy backing on your success. There are hundreds of these that you can see throughout the Quarter. I'm wondering, first of all, if this disturbs you and what do you think sets your work apart? What do you think makes it more authentic and valuable than theirs?

M: Well, it is, from time to time, disturbing to me. There are times when I feel upset by it. There are other times when I try to contextualize it. Sometimes, it's a growth stage of somebody, and I think there is a key distinction there. There are a lot of people who have copied my work over the years and finally come into their own style, but they move on. They've been influenced by it, but they're not making a slavish copy of it. I think what is bothersome to me, and many other people, is that there are a lot of other people who have mimicked my style and portrayed it as their own. They continue to, and there is an essential falseness in that. There is hollowness in being a copyist. It's an expedient move as a way capitalizing on some aliveness that's in my work. It's a failed strategy in a certain way and it's lamentable. It's hard to believe that somebody would spend as much of their time and their life doing what they do. But, for a lot of people, I guess they have no other recourse but to make copies of something that they might have some luck selling. I feel essentially sorry for them, and at times, I feel upset about it.

RD: I feel the same way. You can tell that they are making it for one purpose only, and that's to make money. Their heart is not there.

M: I agree with that, too. Also, there are many people outside the city who are copying this work - people around the country and even Europe. People write to me about this all the time. People are even making copies of New Orleans work, specifically, and selling them in Amsterdam and other cities, such as Los Angeles, etc. It's sort of something that comes with the territory, but it's also a kind of commentary on the times. There's a lack of integrity and inventiveness. People feel a lack of resolve to create on their own. More than just copying, they present it as if it's an original creative endeavor that they had something to do with.

RD: I look around the studio here, and I've also seen in other places, that you're painting more than French Quarter architecture. Are you feeling compelled to go in the direction of other subjects or have you always been doing that?

M: I've always painted many different things, and I don't just show in the French Quarter or New Orleans. I have an active show schedule around the country and in Europe. Typically, I modulate what I show in different places. I never found it to be perfectly appropriate to show a lot of New Orleans architecture in San Francisco or France for that matter. For me, it's fun to change subject matter. I'm painting a lot of landscapes. I think you've probably seen a few of them. I do figurative works, and I sculpt a fair amount of the time, also.

RD: What medium are you using?

M: In sculpture I typically work in steel reinforced concrete, and I do a lot of work in glass and plain, out and out, steel, some work in plastics; it's a bit varied, depending on what I'm working on.

RD: Obviously, you love this city like I do. Has Katrina influenced your art?

M: I haven't felt particularly influenced by Katrina. I'm upset by it. I personally, like a lot of people, have had to deal with a lot of difficult things as a result of the storm, but I never felt the need or desire to memorialize the storm. I felt, looking at the situation, the best thing I could do, personally, is to stay concentrated and focused on the celebration of the city and what I consider to be it's exciting and great aspects, and to rock on with that.