Gawker Artists Interview: Nicholas Bohac

What is your relationship to nature, and what inspires you to make work about man's relationship to it?
I live in the natural world. San Francisco and the Bay Area are a deeply
packed urban area, sure, but they exist within the framework of nature.
Maybe it's a little easier to see the natural in a place like San
Francisco because there are so many areas that still appear natural.
Golden Gate Park is a huge natural feeling space, despite the fact that
the Park looks nothing like it's "natural" state. Other places, like the
beaches, or the hills and mountains in the city that are too steep to
build on, make the city as a whole feel natural.
When I was in grad school and trying to figure out what some of the
themes in my work would be, I never set out to make work asking
questions about humanity's relationship with the natural world. A lot of
it just came out of experiencing San Francisco and the surrounding
area. I was reading so many articles about technology, climate change,
agriculture, it just lead to me asking a lot of questions, and
eventually working through it in my paintings.

Do you feel part of a generation? If so, how would you describe it?
Maybe? It's really hard to gauge what this means anymore. In a lot of
media, there always seems to be this very strict cutoff between older
generations and the new generations. I really like to think that I get
along with older people and younger people, be they artist or not. Most
of my friends and people who I identify with are around my age, give or
take a few years, but some of my best friends are ten, twenty or thirty
years older than I am. Artistically, I feel attached to a lot of
movements and people and "scenes". It helps that a lot of things that
weren't taken seriously before are now taken very seriously. The
low-brow art scene is embraced today and is a major component of the Bay
Area scene. I don't feel like I'm fully a part of that, but I
incorporate elements of that in my work. More than anything, I feel like
maybe we're at a crossroads as far as generational things go. We don't
need to solely define ourselves as one thing or the other, and I would
say that's where I sit.
I re-appropriate elements from a lot of different styles of works,
different art movements and time periods, and juxtapose them all
together. That also happens to be what I think a lot of people working
in art & entertainment are doing right now, so in that regard, I
suppose that I do feel like a part of "THIS" generation. The generation
of musicians who are sampling and borrowing from each other, where
authors are mashing their words up with the classics, and where artists
are trying to blend everything together that they can.
How do you evaluate what you do?
I'm not sure if I ever really do fully evaluate what I do. A lot of
times, it's hard to even walk away from a painting and say "it's done".
In the past, I've been working toward a show, making a lot of work at
once, and thought I finished a painting up. I start working on another,
and a couple weeks later, I might end up going back into the "finished"
painting and working more. Other times, I feel like I look at the point
and just hit this point of clarity, where the painting just feels done
and like there's absolutely nothing else that can be done. The problem
is that I don't know how I hit the point. Sometimes I go back and look
at a painting a year or two after it's been finished, and I still love
everything about it. Other times, I look at something that I remember
feeling so proud about, and I think "Why the hell didn't I think to do
this, in this spot?" I see my work posted somewhere, and I think "Why
did somebody else like THAT painting over one of my other paintings".
More than anything, I just see things that instantly don't mesh well, or
things that seem to just work. I can't always explain why something
does or does not work, and a lot of times it's just aesthetics.

Would you consider yourself a "California artist"?
Of course! I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska and lived there for 24 years,
but I feel like my "career" really grew into something when I came to
San Francisco. At least for the foreseeable future, I plan to stay in
California, and I feel connected to what's happening out here. I love
San Francisco and California and everything that's going on out here.
Also, I vote here. That has to count for something, right?

A Google search for your name turns up a lot of results from
blogs, as well as content you've generated through your own site,
Twitter, Facebook, etc. How are you thinking about your internet
presence? What do you see as the value of joining a community like
Gawker Artists?
This is something I think about constantly. Like, to the point of
ridiculousness. I have the luxury of not having to "self edit" in the
same way that people in other fields have to, but I still find myself
thinking about what I'm writing and presenting online. For example, I
have my Twitter account linked to my website and blog, and I post images
on there fairly often of works in progress. But I post a lot of other
things, as well. Do people reading my Twitter feed really care about the
San Francisco Giants, the new episode of "Fringe" or Nirvana? I'm not
really sure.
I tried to approach Facebook by setting up a page where people who
like my work can just be a "fan", or whatever Facebook is calling it
these days. It's kind of worked, but I still get random friend requests
from people who are obviously finding me through a Google search. Which
is fine, I guess, if people don't mind seeing a lot of pointless things
showing up in their feeds. My Facebook page about my work is probably
more enjoyable for people who like what I do, as an artist at least,
because it's just about art. I post updates to work, articles, blog
highlights, things like that.
Over the last couple of years, since graduate school, I've been very
fortunate that people are paying attention to what I'm doing. My work
gets featured on a lot of really awesome blogs, and it's astounding to
me that people around the world have seen my work and wanted to feature
it on their space on the internet. The value of joining something like
Gawker Artists is that it's visible. If your work isn't being seen, it
really does not have much of a chance at all. You could be making the
greatest work in the world, but if nobody sees it, where do you go from
there? If people are seeing your work online, and then they're reposting
it somewhere, be it Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Wordpress, Blogger or
anywhere else, then you're creating something that's resonating with
people.
The fundamental concept behind the Web 2.0 movement is that we all
control the internet through social networking. As a massive aggregator,
we all have ability to push something through to the top or let it sink
to the bottom. Gawker Artists is part of a large media community, so
there's a lot of potential for people to see what I do. As a still
emerging artist, that's one of the most important things I can work for.
Just to be seen.
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