Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Juno.
Paul, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I was lucky enough to grow up with creative brothers, encouraging each other to create sillier and weirder comics parodying our VHS movies and Saturday morning cartoon shows. Drawing was freeing and fun, it allowed us to communicate our true sense of humor and self. It was also slowly fine tuning a rapidly growing interest in the arts. I don’t personally create parody work anymore, but truthfully that’s where the drawing began.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I dabble in as many mediums as I can handle, including acrylic, oils, graphite, color pencil, a little sculpture and photography. Illustrating has been a life-long passion of mine, drawing the cereal box on the kitchen table & the thoughts in my head onto paper. For most of my young years I created generally representational work, until art history challenged my perception of what artists could actually achieve in a life-time. I would sit in class listening to past artists who would paint one decade, sculpt the next. It was inspiring to know that you don’t need to be pigeon-holed with one skill set for life, you can grow and attain new abilities for life. This new thought changed me as an artist. I began painting abstracts, drawing surreal realities, and picked up photography.
Art studios of any kind are important to decompress and experiment in, and currently my decompression chamber is a small work-art studio space in Downtown LA, Little Tokyo. For the last five years I’ve been able to ping-pong back and forth with genres and styles, whichever is needed for the day. My own style has shifted in this space as new experiences, daydreams and hallucinations inject their meaning into my work.
If I had to distill my favorite new artistic activity from the last few years, it would be the mural process. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some seriously talented artists to help complete their massive mural ideas, I thoroughly enjoy public art, it’s a modern gallery of sorts, allowing artists to include their colorful ideas amongst the human landscape. Over the last few years I’ve been slowly accumulating a host of my own murals and small electrical box paintings throughout Los Angeles. At the moment I have painted 13 of those little boxes around town, most are still up and chances are you’ve probably seen one of them! Having art outside the gallery space is exciting, it literally forces the neighborhood to peripherally enjoy the local culture.
What would you recommend to an artist new to the city, or to art, in terms of meeting and connecting with other artists and creatives?
I am a deeply introverted individual, so painting at home with my girlfriend and pets or alone at the studio is actually really soothing, and seems to recharge my social battery. I depend on isolation to better focus on accomplishing ideas and projects. That being said it is very important to understand and be involved in the community around us. Going to gallery shows, pop-up events and/or renting a studio space (if you can) are solutions to get out of the home and out in the world.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I post artwork on my website and social media pages for all to enjoy.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pauljunoart.com
- Instagram: @pauljunoart
Image Credit:
Personal Photo: Angelica Russell
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