Rising Stars: Meet Julian Prins of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Julian Prins.

Hi Julian, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
As a young boy, I was always interested in drawing and customization. Drawing came very naturally to me, and I was always the art kid in school, or the guy who could draw. I remember early moments in various art classes and many different workshops I had taken for fun growing up, and Im so thankful to have always had such a creative family and that support system with my art. I was gifted many sketchbooks as a kid and still am, which, just became something that I would always and still do to occupy time as a way to explore and express, and I still have kept a lot of them due to their sentimentality. My my mother, father, and two brothers are all artists to me in their own regard, and they influenced me heavily with me being the youngest, in how I had observed the life and aesthetic we have built as a family. It’s something I often think about in my practice and general trajectory as an artist, as many of my early things I remember making were drawings to pass time, gifts for family members like portraits or cards or things made from scratch for their birthday, and I still love the fact of that being my roots. I am from Monrovia, California, born in Pasadena, and grew up spending a lot time in Sierra Madre, where mostly all of my early schooling was, and where my mother had a boutique business that I was certainly influenced by through her aesthetic and the people and artists that would hang around that town and come to her store. Looking back on my story, being from the San Gabriel Valley and growing up pretty close to the mountains and surrounded by a lot of greenery and beauty has been such a blessing. I was being inspired by that nature, and then also eventually being able to access more closer to the city city, and find another type of inspiration there, and both have been a huge source of self-discovery for me, becoming me! I did a lot of soccer growing up, but was always still doing art on the side. I chose to go to a high school that had a four-year art program, and knew that was already my path, sort of, while also still playing soccer. I grew older, I found myself much rather wanting to be painting or drawing, so in my last year of high school I didn’t play soccer anymore and got serious about Art. I had great art teachers in High school who saw my ability, and I was able to go to art school with tremendous support from my parents. I went to California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where I was really thrown into a critical mass explosion of experimentation and conceptuality, and connection to people, and ideologies of making, and showing work, and then regurgitating that, and archiving, and introspection, and of course the ability to have a studio which I could make in, collect things and store them and use them. In addition, the campus, felt like it was stuck in time, so I felt as if I was creating things for really myself and the community there. I was in my first year there and then the pandemic happened and everything halted for a moment in uncertainty, but I continued art school online haha. I painted out of my apartment and was also making music, and I needed a job so I eventually worked on campus as the gallery assistant where I grew heavily attached to the existence of the gallery in relation to the artist and also the nature and fundamentals of construction in installation. When school became in person, I was in the dorms and I was fully immersed in it. From that whole time period of school, I really can say confidently, I was able to put words to my art by just being constantly surrounded by it. I was really paying more attention to little things that I was able to choose as inspiration. I eventually moved into the city and lived in an apartment in Koreatown, painting and making, and I took many art jobs as an art assistant painter, a gallery assistant on Sunset blvd. in Hollywood, a fabricator and Installer at a museum in Santa Monica, and now I art assist currently and am a freelance curator, but am always and have been my own artist. I live in Arts District now where I have a humble practice with painting and fabricating and really enjoy composition and assemblage, Art is such a privilege and a beautiful thing but I have never forgotten where I started and everything else I have also become as not just an artist, but a son, a brother, and a friend.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think it has to have been both, but thats really needed. I can’t explain and recall everything in this interview as to what struggles in happenings have gone on that brought me to now, but Im certainly glad I experienced them and made it out. General struggles I suppose with being not just an artist but a human being, it is easy to fall uncertain of oneself and the trajectory of what one desires and is to become, and of course fall short of being confident in every aspect of oneself and past present and future. Whats that saying?,…that necessity is the mother of invention, but also laziness or being idle is the father or something. Both for certain, I think really just making ones own opportunities is the best way to go about things. Just always trying to find a way and if not able to, see it as a point of learning and asking or opportunity for communicating. I think my ultimate opponent in life is time, but I see it also as the greatest strength. Its something we all have agreed upon, but also something we use infinitely. As an artist I constantly sit in the in between of things. Accessing…a moment,..where I can release a point of specificity in feeling, in material, in action. Thats the eternal struggle for me really, is WHEN can I do that!! whilst also paying the piper of all my experiences; my rent, my loans, materials, and also remembering to be taking care of the vessel that is myself. Im so lucky to be whole and able, and the struggle is real, but gosh darn, the struggle is mine.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a painter at heart because its easy to say, but within that is so much for me. I am probably recognized to those around me as primarily a painter, but I also have a rare ceramic practice, and found object sculpture practice, and really see myself as a child of assemblage. I can paint with oils or acrylics or anything really and find myself just really interested in material arrangement, manipulation, textures, color, and presentation. My art practice for me is really drawing attention to what material is at hand in the culminating moment of making, and what move can I do that I know is good to the idea of me in that moment. That constantly changes, sometimes I find myself in a more dimensional mood and other times just love to be confined to the picture plane of paint and color and image, that feels very natural to me. Sometimes Im calculated and neat and other times messy with sporadic laziness, but usually sit somewhere in between. In my space, Ill set it up to get to a point of immersion and comfort within the experience of the process. I do a lot of rearranging to see just how things end up, working within frames or self obstructions such as a limited color palette, an index of imagery that is made up of motifs and symbolism. Within that index is also objects I’ve collected, past drawings and tinier works, sentimentalities, that present to me as fragments on their own that can be greater by subtraction or attached to another part to make something new. I see things in relation to each other constantly,and project my own experience. I see that as an enlightenment and joy really and its what helps me introspect and evolve. That metaphorical relationship bleeds in my work through the presence of a real relationship portrayal or a comparison or acknowledgment within the actual subjects in the composition. There are often elements of a recursion and an examination as well as connection happening through the mark-making.

As an artist and a gallery worker, I find myself more familiar with many forms of art in how its displayed within the scape of the white cube and that also influences my thinking in how I make work and think about art in general. I see that as a great strength and weakness, but surely something that sets me apart. There really isn’t enough shine on the inner mechanics of the art gallery; the Gallery Assistants, Preparators, Art Handlers, and Installers that oil the machine. I think being aware of that and also having somewhat an idea of how to install and display work from that experience, alongside knowing how to work with other artists, makes me feel a bit more Independent and fearless and Im certainly proud of that awareness. What feels best in my work and excites me the most in others, is when I can see ones intention and thoughtfulness in their decision making in all facets of the existence of the work, so that I can in the least, see their commentary, and in addition form much more in my head.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was very observant growing up. I’ve always been very witty and kinda grew into an attention to detail and a willingness to sit and be patient. I felt I had a silly sense of style and took a lot after my brothers with hand-me-downs and such. We would spend lots of time together and also with our cousins playing different games. I have an amazing family that has always been incredibly supportive and interested, and caring. We were big into soccer for a while as a family, but always art-oriented from my mom and dad. I was always the art kid in class, and at the time, I didn’t think much of it, but I feel thankful to look back at my upbringing sweetly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://julianprins.portfoliobox.net/
• Instagram: @juliannnprins
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Artsandcraftshusband

Image Credits
Sophia Mork