Shea Hembrey
Shea Hembrey
Shea Hembreyis an American conceptual artist. He received national attention in 2011 with the release of "SEEK", a biennial of art showcasing the work of 100 artists—all of whom he invented and created the artwork for himself. Before entering the art world, he worked as licensed breeder of migratory waterfowl with the U.S. Department of the Interior. He also spent a year studying Maori art in New Zealand and, in 2007, he received Master of Fine Arts from Cornell University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArtist
CountryUnited States of America
For me, art is make-believe. It's enchantment. It's a fable. I'm enjoying that and playing with it. Of course it's serious, and art is serious, but I'm not going to rarefy it.
I thought, 'A biennial needs artists. I'm going to do an international biennial; I need artists from all around the world.' So what I did was I invented a hundred artists from around the world. I figured out their bios, their passions in life and their art styles, and I started making their work.
I like the idea that paintings are not representations of an artist's psyche. Making the paintings is what gives the artist her psyche in the first place.
Great art would have 'head': it would have interesting intellectual ideas and concepts. It would have 'heart' in that it would have passion and heart and soul. And it would have 'hand' in that it would be greatly crafted.
I imagine explaining a work of art to my grandmother in five minutes, and if I can't explain it in five minutes, then it's too obtuse or esoteric.
I'm a contemporary artist with a bit of an unexpected background. I was in my 20s before I ever went to an art museum. I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road in rural Arkansas, an hour from the nearest movie theater.
The way I grew up, everyone knew how to cook, sew... carpentry.
My childhood is more hick than I could ever possibly relate to you, and also more intellectual than you would ever expect. For instance, me and my sister, when we were little, we would compete to see who could eat the most squirrel brains.
My grandfather was a healer, and he used matches often. Once, he burnt a wart off my finger and then rubbed the ash deep into it, and it never did come back. When he worked at a factory, people would line up next to his truck to be healed. He died before he could teach us any of his secrets.
It's an audacious thing to build a model of the cosmos. It's exciting how little we know.
Where I grew up, there was a mysticism and creativity to everything. Everyone made things with their hands.
I think that an artist should be a skilled craftsman.
How do you show what's not there? How do you show energy?
I'm interested in the essence of things. If you pare things down, what's left? It's like I'm trying to describe the soul to an alien.