Interview with Eddie Botha

+Melbourne Art Review: Tell me a little bit about your practice, Eddie. Eddie Botha: “I primarily use markers. It’s like a felt tip pen. I love the crispness of pens, such a definite line. The forefront of the drawing, done with markers represent our everyday life. Characters, actors, friends, nature, machines, conflict and love. The background, consists of media imprints and collages. It’s a bit chaotic, as our living environment is, especially in the urban environment. The media plays such a prominent roles in our lives, labels, instructions and signage everywhere. Therefore people are the main subject matter. Life revolves around people. Even when we care about nature, we inherently do it because we want to preserve it for ourselves or future generations of people. There is this love / hate relationship I have with cities. Love the people, but the city itself usually drive me crazy after 3 hours, then I got to get back to nature again. I first prepare the board or canvas, usually with 4-5 layers until it gives me the right feel. The base then in a way determines what I should be doing with the foreground. I draw from photos I take in the city or nature. There will be a message that I want to portray, and sometimes I have a clear idea that I feel might be catchy. Mostly I let the artwork dictate itself and I go with the flow, Like coming up with a story as you go along. My artworks are allegorical of nature. It’s finished when it feels right. I feel that the sooner I can stop, the better. It’s usually a stronger expression when you can communicate an idea with less clutter. Perhaps this comes from my days as Landscape Architect where the primary concern was to communicate a design in most cases, and you do so with the lease coloring and detail.” +mar: You have been a landscape architect, but how did you start creating? EB: “I came from a house where my parent really encouraged creativity, my mom being a physiologist, and started drawing at the age of 3. When I went to primary school, my teacher got me to do illustrations for the school newspaper and people refused to believe that I did it. It became what I do, when I had spare time, I would draw. I didn’t really have a choice, it is just running in my blood and I just can’t stop doing it. It’s my way of expressing myself. Having Tourette syndrome I used to stutter really badly when I was young, and art was my outlet.” +mar: How do you keep your practice sustainable? EB: “Having ample assets providing returns and savings in the bank.” +mar: Ah, yes - that’s always a solid way too keep your practice afloat (...) EB: “Honestly I feel that the arts industry is funded by artists, and not by end buyers, not in Australia at least. How many people do you know that buy original artworks, at least every 6 months? Mostly it’s artists who do that. There are very few Artists making an actual profit. Australians are only starting to realize the value of original art, and we got a long way to go. Once you give a gallery their 50% and you minus off expenses you might pocket 30% of the sales value. I’m doing comparatively well, but I hardly make money out of it. It’s not all doom and gloom though. I do whatever I can, charities, group shows, events, festivals. I even teach art at a local school one day a week. Luckily I managed to stop doing markets, but it was a very valuable device for feedback early in my career. I’m certainly not doing art for the sake of money, but I believe that it’s a worthwhile investment. In the short term it makes no financial sense.” +mar: Who (or what) is your biggest inspiration at the moment? Do you have a favorite local artist? What music inspires you? EB: “I really admire street artists and would love to get into the street art scene, simply to have more people seeing my work. I’m sentimental about my art, and that has been holding me back. It will be a revelation for me to let it go and just get it out there. I have many artists I admire, hundreds. I choose my influences carefully and look at a lot of art. I’m a born African at heart and I just love a music style called Kwaito. It’s like modern African dance music. An artist that I grew up with is Dr. Alban, hello Africa. I was in Primary school when I discovered him. In the ‘Apartheid’ days it was weird for a white kid to listen to a black artist but I often felt more drawn to black cultures than white. Black cultures are much more diverse and socially driven, with strong connections to ancestry and nature. White cultures drives onto itself. So, Dr. Alban. Brothers of Peace, TKZ, Trompies and Mandoza are more example of Kwaito.” +mar: What would you say is one of the biggest challenges being a creative in Melbourne and trying to exhibit and produce art? EB: “Making sales. I want people to have my artworks. If I can sell them, that would justify my time making them, covering costs. If people don’t buy them, then I end up with a storage problem and feel reluctant to make new/ large works. But as I said, I will do it anyway. If only people can adopt a culture of investing in the arts as an exciting and worthwhile investment. I know times are tough, but often people would just rather buy a bigger car or go on expensive holidays.” +mar: What are you working on? EB: “Taking part in ‘ART not APART’ in Canberra in March. I haven’t drawn yet this year as we just got back from holidays and just been busy. I’m hoping for bigger things to come up. There will be some large scale past-ups in Noble Park later this year. The street art venture is certainly in the pipeline. I bought 100 A4 sheets of sticker paper to draw on and will start to do that next week and stick it up around the CBD.” +mar: “Do you have a show on at the moment?” EB: “Yes, there are 8 artworks up at Blender as part of Midsumma at the moment until 7 Feb. (+mar: which we shot the opening of here.) I am actually installing a show later today, opening on Thursday (5 Feb 6-8pm) at Walker street Gallery in Dandenong. We live in Noble Park so it’s my hood. There are 2 performances incorporated into the opening night, dancers, disco lights, a vegetable seller and some installation art. The show is called ‘Befuddled’, also meaning confused. It relates to my cultural identity in Australia. Having only lived here for 5 years, my identity is in question as I’m trying hard to be an Australian. I became a proud citizen in December 2014. That brings up the question; ‘What is Australian’? It seems that the only true fact about Australia is that it’s amazingly culturally diverse and accepting of each other, and that is beautiful. Ultimately, there seems to be a lot of people questioning their identities as Australians, especially in an area such as Dandenong with 68% of people with a first language other than English. There will be another show in June at Off the Kerb.” +mar: Crazy busy! We love it! Thanks so much for chatting with us.