Today we’d like to introduce you to David Wexler.
David, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I grew up in a family of film-makers. My grandfather Haskell Wexler was a cinematographer and my dad Jeff Wexler is a production sound mixer. They have always been a huge inspiration to me, and I kind of grew up getting to visit a lot of film sets, always interesting in film-making, but also felt very drawn to music.
Eventually, I leaned towards making cinema for concerts because it was somewhere in between those worlds… to me it represented a new kind of cinema where less conventions had been adopted and where there was a lot more room for experimentation. I studied film-making in College at the Academy of Arts in San Francisco but always felt more inclined towards the video art side of things. I met Flying Lotus in College and we began to collaborating on various projects, eventually, he really gave me the opportunity to explore video in the context of his visual shows and the shows of other Brainfeeder artists. So I really have him to thank for giving me the opportunities to express myself and inspiring me to get involved in concerts.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I am one of the co-founders of Strangeloop Studios, and we produce content and visual shows for many different artists. In the past, we have designed content for Erykah Badu, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, David Gilmour, and many more. As an artist, I work the team at SLS, and it is really a group collaborative effort, in which we are trying to visually complement and embody the sound of musicians and their unique universes. I see myself as a small part of a larger creative process, a process with the goal of creating inspiring worlds that can live through many media. The process is everything. Every day I feel blessed to work with incredible and inspiring people with the common goal of making beautiful work that breaks out of aesthetic confines and pushes us forward into territory that we’re excited about. I feel like the world can be very complex and confusing and through creativity we can find our own way out, connecting on deeper levels that sometimes get overlooked.
Have things improved for artists? What should cities do to empower artists?
I feel like there is such an abundance of art in today’s world that sometimes it can be daunting for artists. We live in an era of information overload, and sometimes that can stifle creativity. There is an internal pressure to compete with the biggest spectacle, and sometimes that is not the most authentic thing for an artist. In my experience, even if you are engaged thoroughly with the spectacle in your art, its important to keep doing personal work (for me it is drawing, writing, making music) that might not be the biggest commercial enterprise, but it can ground you amidst the din of media and information that can sometimes paralyze creativity through sheer overwhelm. For me, this personal work can be incredible therapy, and we all have problems that creativity can help, regardless of its commercial viability.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
On https://www.strangeloop-studios.com/ you can see glimpses of a lot of the projects we’ve worked on, but the best to see them is attending some of these concerts. We’ll also be releasing a short film ‘Children of the Void’ in the not-too-distant future, which is project developed in-house at our studio. Keep an eye out for it!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.strangeloop-studios.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strangelooptv/?hl=en
Image Credit:
Photos by Theo Jemison https://www.theojemison.com/ and Julian Bajsel https://www.instagram.com/jbajsel/?hl=en
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