The Benevolent Monsters of Johan Potma and Mateo Dineen: Interview
Interview and article for Beautiful Bizarre
Original article
“Out of Body Experience” by Mateo Dineen
@www.zozoville.com/en/
Extract:
This is Zozoville. An extraordinary, fuzzy, and snug place where life has a million colours and no one has to be perfect. Well, so long as they are fluent in monster language.
I first became familiar with the art of Johan Potma and Mateo Dineen while strolling along Berlin’s Boxhagener Platz, all covered in January snow, a few years ago. Fishing for oddities, I was instantly captured by the unlikely elegance and oddball brilliance of respected Zozoville citizens like Lord Slugworth and Mr Knowitall, the gracious, whimsical solitude of Cat Lady and the irresistible strange beauty. I remember thinking, such magnificently furry talent, how can it sit freezing in the ruthless cold?
But that eclectic, idiosyncratic, and utterly inspirational bazaar has worked out well for the artists over the years, helping them crystallize their vision into something more concrete: The creation of Zozoville Gallery, two small rooms only a few steps away from the square. Having recently celebrated its tenth birthday in its brand new, larger, and more commercially productive space just around the corner from where it all begun.
So when did your paths first cross and what made you decide to unite your artistic vision? Were there similarities since the very beginning, or has your art evolved in parallel in the process?
Johan : We met up in 2004. I saw Mateo’s artwork in a little show in Friedrichshain and saw many similarities with my own work, so I decided to contact him. We met up and soon became good friends. Mateo invited me to come to the flea markets with him, where he was already selling his artwork. I did and soon we figured that instead of being competitors, we might do better if we teamed up. This is how Zozoville came to be. During our time in the Zozoville gallery, which we soon after teaming up, opened, we saw that our styles got even closer together Much like how maybe a band works towards one sound, we too, shared many ideas and techniques, that now somehow seem to define the world of Zozoville.
Where do all those one-eyed monsters and benevolent oddballs, like the Count of Foie Gras and Ernest Muffin, come from? What are the key features of Zozoland’s imaginary citizens?
Mateo: For the most part, the characters you see in our finished pieces are the result of lots of sketching. There are many ideas that are explored through our drawings, but only the strongest ideas survive. Knowing which ones to paint is sometimes difficult, but other times it can be an idea that seems to take on a life of its own. As far as where their particular features come from, I can only say that we both try to just let the creativity flow. There aren’t necessarily any “key” features that a Zozoville monster should have. In Zozoville just about anything is possible.
From old pieces of wood to tins and cigar boxes, one thing your creations have in common is their connection to old, worn-out treasures you often transform to modern artworks. Is there a symbolic value to it, the new emerging from the old, the art of the present from the art of the past?
Johan: Hmmm, maybe. But then again, maybe not ;) We both really appreciate the old materials for the story they bring to the artwork. meaning that all the cracks, dents and scratches themselves tell stories of a past. This is a very nice layer to add to the story we tell in our sketches and finished artworks. What I also like is that the materials we paint on aren’t perfect. They present obstacles we have to work with. For example, when you are working on an old door, and all of a sudden a hinge is in the way. You need to then figure out what to do. This keeps the painting process unpredictable, which is a nice way to paint. Painting is in many ways, problem-solving. The materials help us create many of these problems, which is great.
