#ask asty

[theartofasty]

hey, sorry if you dont use this anymore - i was looking to get a print of Withering Dusk because it's cool as fuck but I heard some rough stuff around INPRNT not paying artists. Do you still get paid by them, and if not, is there a better way to get you money in return for your art?

Hi, sorry for the super late response, been down for the past few months due to severe health issues I had a REALLY rough time with INPRNT last year with their payout times, but they seemed to have fixed it for most people including me, at least it seems so. I still have to wait around 1-2 weeks for their payment to process but it's a far cry from the several months wait me and many other artists were dealing with last year, so, if you want to buy my prints on there, go for it! And thank you for your concern.

[theartofasty]

sometimes your art reminds me of Remedios Varo and i wish you two could have collaborated

believe me that is very much NOT a coincidence lol

[theartofasty]

i know it’s a pretty common question you’ve probably been asked before, but what do you take inspiration from for your work? It’s extremely gorgeous and striking, I love the forms you create in your art and your watercolors :-)

thank you! honestly trying to pool together all my influences at this point in my life is kind of a gargantuan task, but I will try to name at least a few lol some of my earliest influences come from various surrealist painters I was exposed to at a relatively young age, primarily Salvador Dalí, Remedios Varo, H.R.Giger, Robert Steven Connett and Zdzisław Beksiński

As for more current influences, I take a lot of inspiration from many of my contemporaries and peers, which are honestly, too many to name, but some of the most instrumental for my current conception of aesthetics have been Illustrators like Medusawolf, Adam Burke, Brandon Geurts

Aside of painters, I also take a lot of influence from different art mediums that I consume, particularly film (mostly horror, sci-fi, and dark fantasy) and music (mostly extreme and experimental music), in fact, if you dig deep enough you might find most of my painting's names are references to, or directly lifted from song titles :P Another major aspect in my influences and themes is my personal fascination with the natural world, particularly with the world of arthropods

[theartofasty]

if you could only choose ONE - lots of eyes - multiple mouths - too many limbs - extremely squishy

I'm already extremely squishy and I would very much like to get rid of that lol

So I'm going with too many limbs

Embrace the Scutigera life

[theartofasty]

Why do you feel that your art doesn't fit into horror spaces?

Mainly because my art's goal is not, and has never been to scare or unsettle in any intentional form, I'm very well aware that my darker themes and aesthetics will often land it in the same conversation as horror art, but my work is one that I actively try to keep focused on very specific approaches that don't quite match horror

My creatures, for example, are almost never depicted in scenes or situations where they are threatening, or implied to want to cause harm in any form, on the contrary, my monsters are often the victims of harm, often caused by their very own nature, and one that they can only stand to contemplate and try to survive through, almost in less of a struggle and more as a form of radical acceptance of an inescapable condition.

when push comes to shove, I often get left out from discussions on /actual/ horror art because of this, because my focus is just not what the majority of people are looking for when they think of the cornerstone representative values and artists of horror, in a way, I'm okay with that, because despite all of this, the horror community has still been the most welcoming one I've come across on the internet, and plenty of people within it have come to uphold and appreciate what I do, with cracks and all; and still, I can't help but wonder sometimes on how much better my work would do and how much less I could financially struggle if the focus and intent of my work was better at fitting within the core aesthetic elements and values of a specific internet art community, rather than just getting accepted into it on the sides as a technicality.

[theartofasty]

Good day

I have been trying to contact you for a while now , I have got clients who are willing to buy your art as nfts

With the rate am looking at your work it would cost $5k a pic please contact me asap

I'm almost not mad at this but scam attempt because the fucking AUDACITY to pull up to my askbox with this shit is edging on admirable lmao

[theartofasty]

happy birthday! your use of color and shapes is phenomenal, i love all the different ways you occupy the canvas and draw the eye through these complicated flowing figures. absolutely incredible

thank you! it took me a while to get there, for the longest time I was terrified of, well, filling out the canvas, "backgrounds" felt overwhelming or annoying, but when I started understanding that there's no point in separating "subject" and "background" as different subjects and instead learned to see the whole picture, it became not only easier, but more enjoyable to construct all these increasingly larger and more complicated compositions :)

[theartofasty]

oh crazy! very cute! happy bug kissing love xoxo

Every bug must be kissed