I did an earlier interview with Marcus van Soest last month Hymn to Insanity with Marcus van Soest and we’ve chatted several times since - found out a lot about life in the Hague and European art as it’s happening now.  Here’s part of the conversations I’ve had with Marcus.  Also, Marcus van Soest has placed a YouTube Video on his site that focuses on the topic of this interview - located here.

Marcus van Soest - 2006

Marshall: Marcus, you actually appear to have your own “broadcast” channel for your art (powerpainter.org). I see you have a community of users, including some in Brooklyn, NY, that use PowerPainter.org. How many users to you have?

Marcus: We have around 50 artists currently (there was some technical issues with powerpainter.org over the last couple of months - hopefully resolved now).

Marshall: Do you use Powerpainter to coordinate any activities between the members? Talk a little more about what a fully functional Powerpainter.org allows the artist to do? And why is Powerpainter.org site nicknamed “Square Wheels Drive Better!”?

Marcus:  Why wouldn’t a writer work with a painter? or a cook with a writer to create a cooking book or something.  That’s the idea behind it, we want Powerpainter.org to become a platform for intercultural and interdisciplinary cross-breeding..There’s no such thing as concurrence on PP.

In the new version we want artists to start weblogs on sites like Blogger or any other side which has RSS feeds we can implement, my main technical man Rein Velt will install the Flickr module so we can easily produce galleries for the members. Getting to why Powerpainter.org is nicknamed “Square Wheels Drive Better!” -Why should wheels be round.

.. Imagine a Ferrari Testarossa with square wheels for the most rich and decadent amongst us, how could you show your wealth better? They don’t in 3 D but they do in 6D and

Marshall: How has running Powerpainter.org affected your painting?

Marcus: Well first it ate a lot of my time, but that is what it is with ideals, one should sacrifice some time once in a while… a couple of features include a blog anyone member can post to and  there’s the possibility to link posts to geographical positions -  this it can become a great tool for travel weblogs or moving projects…when the person has a blog somewhere else we syndicate it and that gives traffic to members who post and Powerpainter.org.

The geographical module runs on Google Maps, it would be possible to create regional Art news and gives direction where to find an exhibition…

Marshall: Interesting - so artists will be able to use your platform to create journals of their travels, communicate with other member artists and aggregated feeds? Is Powerpainter.org a support group for other artists and can you give me an example of when it’s been that for someone else?

Marcus: The idea came from being lonely, as a painter you are alone in your studio, you won’t want others to be there when you work, it’s pure solo, but half of me is artist, but human too with human needs, like having a social life and being able to meet people who know what they’re talking about….

We are Art-lovers and an Artists 4 Artists network PP is a web-based musketeer organisation, for those with one thing in common: Love for Art and appreciation for those who struggle to master their Art and believe in their talents even in times when nobody else does, for those who make a difference and follow their own course in the process of creation.

Working on Powerpainter.org and my painting - it’s a complementation, two hands are washing each other, it’s fun to do and like this it’s possible to help others too and by forming this network attracting enough traffic to personal stuff too…the more people cooperate the more traffic we generate and that’s cumulative I think..

Marshall: I’m just curious if yours is the only service of it’s kind - unique - or is it modeled after something that already existed?

Marcus: I don’t say we are an unique service, in fact it’s a free service and run by enthusiasts.

Marshall: What are you working on right now? What is the longest time you have spent on a painting?

Marcus: I am busy on an assignment for a lawyer from Antwerp/ Belgium, a one meter by one meter piece which deals with the complexity of the World of Fiscal Justice, I know that sounds difficult, but I feel the guy came to the right person for this one… Five smaller works and two big ones …

I always work on more paintings… I take all time needed to get to what we call “high definition”.  I have spent a year or two on some paintings, i think the ones I am working at right now come close… This one took me 8 months it’s two by two meters and it’s called “The Quest for the golden Egg” (see below)

 

Marshall: I noticed you reference your Chelsea Gallery in the YouTube video you posted about instant communication between artists.

Marcus: Well I had these two shows at Monkdogz Urban Art in March / April and in September, i like their initiative a lot, they’re approach is different than other galleries. And they gave me a chance to explore New York , to me a great adventure that I embrace with all I got…

END of Interview with Marcus van Soest.

In Summary - Marcus has a  YouTube Video about how he use PowerPainter.org as a communications method posted at his site and has a lot of information about Art in the Hague that I think a lot of art enthusiasts would like to know about

.. I hope he writes more about the King Kong Gallery and all the goings on the Hague with the underground Art Movement there … I will certainly encourage him to do so.