In the Studio with Alex McLeod
INTERVIEW
Alex McLeod, BLUE MOON 1/1, 2019, C-print, 48 x 96 in
You tend to play with a cross section of urban and rural imagery, is there a specific attempt at escapism either from or to these places?
Escapism for sure, I grew up, and still spend a lot of time in world building video games. I love where I live and that the woods are as easy to get to as the city, but being able to traverse time and place through digital environments is just another layer to reality.
Building on the last question, are any of the settings we see based on real locations or memories?
Not particularly, I could start with a memory but how things turn out, in the end, are totally new, memories that I've never had.
You create a lot of landscapes in your art. Do you consider your work as building upon or pushing against the traditions of landscape painting?
Traditional landscape painting formed a lot of our understanding of place, some of those techniques are used in gaming and film, so maybe it's not a push back but rather a sympathetic frequency.
You were recently invited to create a music video for an album called Away is Mine released by the late Gord Downie. Can you tell us about your experience working on this project and what the music video meant to you?
I love to collaborate with musicians' work, this was a very special project. You can never get in the mind of the creator but using what they make as a starting point becomes a kind of broken telephone, sometimes it turns out well.
When you’re world building do you ever imagine more than what we, as the viewer, can see?
Yup, there is sometimes a complete environment that affects the lighting and textures in the scene that are not visible because they are out of the field of view.
Are there any new projects you are working on or looking forward to?
Yes, I recently did a project with Tafelmusik that's coming out this month or next, and I'm just about to start a project with a group that I adore, but it's so super new I can't talk about it yet. Stay tuned! I feel very lucky and grateful to be where I am doing what I do.