A conversation with artist and filmmaker Jeff Nellans
Jeff and I meet for breakfast and it turns out to be less of an interview and more of a conversation between two people just starting out in the fine arts’ world. We come from different backgrounds and approach creating art differently. The enthusiasm and appreciation for the arts is quite the same.
How did you start creating art?
I work at a marketing company. It’s a small company just me and my boss. I wanted to get into the film business. His son’s actually a famous actor so his son had this whole film studio full of gear and everything so we have access to that. We thought we could make a movie for very little money because we don’t need to spend money on equipment. Either way it still requires a lot of coordination so I wrote a story for a film and my boss wrote it out into a screenplay and then we tried to put it into production but we just kept running into problems. No one’s schedules match up. We couldn’t do anything at that time and that’s when I got into making art. I just wanted to go and make brief projects and do it by myself. I just wanted to finish. I just started making painting.
At first, I was just doing a lot of them. One painting a day. I did that, like, for a year.
My real passion is movies. That’s why I moved down to Los Angeles to get into movies. Before I lived here I didn’t really make the connections—of movies to art, actually. I didn’t really think of them like art. I wasn’t really interested in art when I lived up in Seattle at all. Like I didn’t have exposure to it.
You mean you didn’t see films as an artform?
Yea, I never made the connection. I just saw them as entertainment. And I think once I moved here and got into trying to make them, and writing. Then being around people who were successful in movies like actual artist like actors and directors, I then I saw they were interested in art. That’s how I got interested.
Jim Carey
(Laughs)…yeah, like Jim Carey. Yeah sure. I don’t really like his paintings actually because I saw this thing on the art scene.
That’s how I feel about children’s stories. It’s like “Oh, I’m a debutante, famous actress, celebutante so I’ll write a children’s book. I’ve been writing children’s books…forever and they just come along and do it because they can sell. People will buy.
I know. It was really my boss’s son. My boss’s son is Giovanni Ribisi. He was in “Avatar”. (I make a face because I don’t recall the actor.) You know, the bad guy in “Avatar”. He’s been in tons of stuff. I kind of saw how he was really into art. That’s kind of how I got into it. I was like, “Oh! So, it really is an art”
You never heard “Arts & Entertainment”? (laugh)
Right, right…right! So, then I tried to finish that film and I couldn’t. So, then I’m really into these—I’m really into looking at paintings! Now, I’m really into paintings—abstract paintings. I started looking at Kandinsky and De Kooning. I really like their stuff. Pollack. Although I really don’t like Pollack any more, for some reason. (laughs) But, De Kooning, Lichtenstein. I really started loving their stuff and I was like, I want to try their stuff. Then I just started doing it—a lot of them. I figure the more I do, the better I’ll get. You know? It’s like a number’s game.
The more you do the better you get is 99.9% agreed in anything. Practice.
Yeah. I kind of got that from these guys in the film business named the Duplass Brothers. They make movies for really low budget. And they just keep making movies. Don’t raise money, and all that. Get out your own video camera and just start making movies. And, they’re very prolific. They make a lot of films. Now, they’re at a point where they are making big movies. I figure I’d take that approach.
That’s what I did—a painting a day. When I was making them I thought they were good and now I look back and they’re just awful.
Prolific means prolific. It doesn’t mean good or bad. It just means you make a lot of it. And then you can go back and choose what you want to show.
It all came out of movies. Another thing I was going to say was that while I was getting ready to make this movie that didn’t get made…Which actually is starting to happen again now. We’re getting it together again. It’s going to happen within the next year…but when I was preparing for that movie I had to learn all about color and color-correcting a film. And the shot-composition and the colors in there. That was when I learned where colors go together. I saw them together: teil and orange—popular combination. Then I started looking at the color wheel and that was kind of how I approached my paintings. I pick the colors and then I make the painting.
I’m actually going to do a seminar on color theory…and all colors go together. [The question is] not “What colors go together?” What intensity? What value and proportion? They all go together.
That’s true. Yeah. Because if you watch certain movies you’ll see… I mean, a good movie to me is as good as a painting. That’s something.
Some of my inspiration and ideas come from a scene I screengrab—what do you call the thing, the in between, lead-in? I don’t know what it’s called. Between scenes when you’re in one place and then they flash a view of where you’re going—where the next thing is taking place? They’re beautiful. The New York skyline, castle, painting in the background, necklace… screengrab!
Transition. They call it an “insert”.
Okay, some of my best inspirations are inserts. You’re right. Every scene has a potential to be artwork. Let me ask you about your very first piece. I don’t need a step-by-step but how did you start?
Oh, it was that one, I can show it to you. It was that red piece.
No, I mean did you go to the store and get a canvas or did you borrow somebody’s canvas?
No, I went to the store.
Okay, so you planned this.
I want to show it to you because it’s that one that’s a Mondrian. You liked it. It kind of tells a story itself of how I got started. (looking through his Instgram)
By the way, you’ve been getting a lot of laughs, chuckles from the titles of your pieces. Love the names. If didn’t understand [the title] I’d go on the internet and look it up. (looking at Nellans’ first piece) Oh, that one. Yes.
That’s the first one I ever made. I started it by going to the store. My roommate…he’s an artist. After I made the decision to start painting I just starting looking up YouTube videos and I also really like Mondrian and thought that’s pretty easy to paint. My roommate took me to the art store and I bought paint and bought a canvas and I just made the background first. That was what it was kind of suppose to be. I was just recreating a Mondrian… well I would just have a Mondrian. You know? It looked real. But then I decided to do like a splatter thing all over it. I was thinking let’s just destroy this. It’s too organized. Then I thought I’ll just do that. I went and got more and more canvases.
This is a really stupid question but since nobody died and we’re not here at any catastrophe I’m going to ask it. How did you feel?
I was like, whoa, that’s kind of good! (I laugh) I was like, interesting!
Was it what you expected?
Well, yeah, it was. Funny thing is that I never thought of myself as a very creative person.
Right, because you didn’t think film making was creative.
Right. When I first moved here I wanted to be a producer, really. I always thought of myself as business person. Very methodical…make money. That was my life up until I started doing this. Then when I started seeing film as an art, I feel a really good sense of completion every time I do one.
Does it escalate? Do you wake up at 3 o’clock in the morning and go, I’ve got to do this? Or is it satisfying enough?
Yeah, it’s satisfying enough. It’s like sometimes I go on runs where I do a lot of them in row like in week or weeks. Right now I haven’t been doing so many—in the last couple of weeks. I mean the best is when I finish one and it turns out really well. It’s a great feeling
What do you do with the ones that don’t turn out so well?
There in a stack in my room in my apartment. I don’t necessarily (laughs)… I’ve probably thrown away one painting before. I just usually feel like I can fix it.
What do you look forward to doing besides making art? Actually we talked about this and you don’t have to talk about your movie you’re making…or do you?
Yeah, I would. The movie I’m making is about a guy who’s a general manager of printing company because that’s where I work. I work in a place like that. That’s what I do. That’s where I came up with this idea. This guy runs this printing company and he has drinking problem and goes to a bar every night and drinks a lot. He also has a gambling problem. These guys at the bar take his bets. One day he goes into the bar and he finds out the bar’s been sold to these other guys—these gangsters. He owes the original owners fifty-thousand dollars and now his debt has been passed onto these other people. These new people say…they basically force him to start printing money at his printing place. Counterfeiting of money.
Oh my god! That sounds great. That’s the premise. Okay so don’t tell me any more…
It’s called “Paper”.
Love it! I love one-word titles. Unlike your pieces. (we laugh hardily)
[A couple examples of Nellans’ titles for his artwork: “Strip Club Regular, Part Time Activist” and “Dusty Jenkins and His Shady Band of Janitors”. You get my drift.]
Titles. (still laughing) One day I just figured I can start making crazy titles and that makes it even better.
It does! But for films one-word titles are great.
Do you like movies?
My first boyfriend in LA, he hung out with a lot of… he and his roommates were the original “Friends” (laughing). I mean in that one was a wanna-be actress and her big role was like Joey’s butt was [stand-in] for Di Niro. She was a stand-in light-meter reading for a really famous actor because she was the right height and coloring. And then one of them worked in a marketing PR firm. And one of them worked in a really mundane job—boring job—because he wanted to be a writer. We would go to his readings and stuff. One of their roommates was Shane Black.
Oh, yea, he’s a big director.
Right, so I don’t know where “Friends” came from and I’m sure there’s hundreds of millions of groups of friends in the States that have this dynamic but I’m telling you, this is the original! (laughing)
My boss’s son is Phoebe’s brother. [for real] (more laughing)
Oh, cool! Anyway, we were around movies, around people who are in movies, people who make movies like the…and so we would always see movies—three times a week. You can do that in LA. Santa Monica: you can go to a historical bijou and see an old film then you can go to the big theatre and see a big movie. Sometimes a premiere. A screening… and then you grow up, get married, have kids… got to make a living. So, to answer your question…
Besides killing time and the possibility of making some money, what drives you? What motivates you? [in regards to art]
Creating something unique. I like creating. I like the fact that these things were never existed before and now they do. That’s really what it is. That’s what I like doing. When I started painting to when I finish…because I never know how it’s going to turn out when I start. I never decide “okay this is what…”—well in some cases I’ll copy an old painting of mine, change it a little bit, like that teal one, that’s almost a recreation of the smaller teal one. That’s what it is. I’ll just make a bigger version of that. That’s what I’ve been doing lately. I want to see what some of these little ones look bigger.
I read something recently from Kandinsky where abstract art is really the only thing that’s totally original. Like when you’re taking photos or filming a movie it’s something that’s already happened. Or the photo isn’t original. Abstract art is the only thing that’s never existed before.
That’s funny because there’s another famous artist [or person] who said that art is not original. But I get what both are saying. The only thing that is true is you can’t tell how it’s going to turn out. How art is going to turn out because you can’t predict the future. This is true. I start with a drawing and a color palette in my mind, but with ego aside, it always turns out more spectacular than I ever imagine. And this is why I paint and torture myself and think I gotta get some sleep… get up at 7:00 and it’s 3 o’clock but I just have to finish this one part because I want to see how it turns out.
Artists say they suffer for their art… I get it. It’s totally true! I guess they call it discipline.
I know when to stop. I’m not a perfectionist. I don’t have a lot of patience.
Neither one of us has passion. We are just disciplined.
True! And I just like to get it over with.
Well that’s a different point of view. I can’t stop and you have to get it over with.
I have to get it over with. I have to finish. I think I picked that up in my work. Everything’s a rush. It’s always due. Deadlines. So I’m kind of like rushing through it all. I don’t have the patience. Stay up until three in the morning. I just can’t do that. I just want to get it done! Sometimes I start painting on it when it’s not even dry and it gets a little screwed up because of my impatience.
I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not thinking at all. I don’t plan it in any way. I literally, randomly…subconsciously I know where things go. I automatically put things in the right place. Transcendent, like I’m not thinking about it at all. That’s why I go so fast. Like I know what I’m doing.
You’re trusting your brain. You’re trusting yourself.
Let’s say you were 10 years younger and you had all the money in the world and didn’t have to work and you had all the connections, what is it that you want to do? Let’s pretend you have time, money, physicality, all the resources.
I’d have what my bosses son has: my own studio just dedicated… that area for painting. It would be a great place for creatives to come together to make films.
I like that you said you’d have a place to paint. It’s not the love but it’s a love.
It’s a love. Yeah.