Gerhard Human Interview

October 2, 2013 9:06 am Published by weareverb

Gerhard Human is an artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. He is also one of the artists who did a deck graphic for the new Verb Artists Series 2013 range, which will be here soon. We caught up with him to chat about his graphic and what went into it…

What made you decide to take on this project?

Why not? Get my own personal deck AND exhibit with some rad people!

Name 1 thing you’ve lost and 1 thing you’ve found, worth mentioning.

I lost a Traser watch in Montagu 3 years ago. It was black and had orange bits on the numbers, in case if anyone finds it… I found R20 in my back pocket a while ago! That was great.

Tell us more about your artwork. Why did you decide to do what you did? What is the story behind it?

I wanted to do a design that you can spend time looking at; something that takes you away from the surroundings you’re used to and add a sense of adventure.

You do understand that, through the execution of your artwork onto the bottom of a skateboard deck, most of the replicas of your artwork will be thrown around, and get scratched and broken in the street right? How does that make you feel?

Well, nothing stays beautiful forever. That’s the nature of life. Things deteriorate and from that comes new ideas. There’s a Buddhist practice of crafting an intricate mandala out of coloured sand, which takes hours, even days to complete. After it’s finished they destroy it and start all over again. It’s supposed to teach you about the impermanence of material things… I guess in that same way letting go of precious material things is therapeutic.

Doing a graphic to be applied onto a skateboard deck is essentially just creating an artwork for a different size and shape canvas than normal. What excites you about the idea that your artwork is going to feature on a deck as opposed to doing a regular print?

The exciting thing is the audience it will be exposed to. Doing a painting that hangs in a gallery is great but is often only seen by upperclass people who’re in the habit of buying art. Whereas, a skateboard will be used by people like me. People who LIVE a creative life.

Name 5 verbs that describe your process when you were creating your graphic.

Explore. Trance. Capture. Fixate. Trust.