etnies

Meet Ramsey Dau

Posted By alex in The Influence | Tuesday, September 22, 2009 Skip To The Comments (9)

Ramsey Dau is an artist, a designer and the man behind the Comfy Chair Creative Superstore. Services include art direction, branding, tuna melt development, deep powder-turn coordination, reality checking and owning it. What follows here can only be described as an interview.

etnies: Where did you grow up?
Ramsey: I grew up in Los Angeles during the 70's and 80's. I spent 15 years in Orange County after college and returned to LA in 2008.

Where do you live?
I live in Silverlake. I like being close to Griffith Park. It's a small escape from the city. Plus it's right between Downtown and Hollywood, so it's easy to get to either one.

Where do you work?
I run my own design studio, Comfy Chair Creative Superstore (which I've been doing for 13 years), and split my days between commercial work and working on my own art. I try to work with clients within the fields of my own personal interests, so a lot of action sports companies, outdoor, music, fashion… that kind of stuff.

Talk about your art.
Well, I do a lot of drawing. I also paint in acrylic and do a lot of work with india ink. I'm very influenced by art from the 60s through 80s, and love pop art and a lot of modern and contemporary art. I'm definitely more into artists that have a "design" feel to them, rather than photorealism or expressionism. Some of my favorite artist and designers are Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Herb Lubalin, Warhol and Basquiat (especially their collaborations), Tom Wesselmann, Cy Twombly, Stuart Davis, Tom Sachs, Raymond Pettibon, Roy Lichtenstein, Le Corbusier, Henri Matisse... there's too many to list. Anyway, these people influence me. I'm also influenced by politics and get a lot of material from the Bush administration. I like to say something with my art, as opposed to just being decorative, or completely abstract. I love to use words and fonts in my work. I battle with learning to draw more naively. Sometimes the quick sketch is far better than the studied drawing. I like to see the artist's hand in the work and sometimes something done too well, just falls flat for me. So that's something I strive for in my work. I'm a perfectionist, so it can be hard to stay loose.

East vs West

Everything You Never Needed

What contemporary artists are you into?
There are a couple in that previous list, but besides that, Ed Templeton, Nathaniel Russell, Anthony Lister, Cleon Peterson, Jonas Wood, Barry McGee, Evan Hecox, Rosson Crow, Kill Pixie, Parra, Geoff McFetridge… I have to put Margaret Killgallen in here too, even though she tragically passed on a few years ago.

Decider

Great Swindle

Kick Ass

What’s the latest art show you’ve done?
The last show I had was a group poster show at De La Barracuda in Hollywood (this upper-scale streetwear shop that works with a lot of artists). I curated and produced the show, and had a lot of fun working with the other artists - Kill Pixie, Cleon Peterson, Deedee Cheriel, Nathaniel Russell, Megan Whitmarsh, Albert Reyes and Jared Purrington.

Line of Work

What about music?
It might sound cheesy to say now, but I spent my teens listening to KROQ. Sure they play crappy music now, but back then it was pretty much the only place to hear The Cure, The Smiths, The Dead Kennedys, Violent Femmes, Jane’s Addiction, The Minutemen... Anyway, music has always been a big influence on me. I never really played music (unless you count piano lessons in junior high), but about nine years ago I got into DJing as a way to interact with music. It's not the same as making music, but there can be a lot of creativity involved. A side note here, I use vinyl, not Serrato; can't get into the computer DJ thing. You can download my mixtapes here. As far as types of music that I like… I'm all over the place… from indie rock to electro, disco to metal. Some bands that I've been into lately are The Soft Pack, Tyvek, Jay Reatard, Dr. Dog, Chad Vangaalen, Fever Ray, Proxy, Crookers, Boys Noize, all the stuff on DFA... can't wait for the new LCD Soundsystem album.

What else are you into?
I shoot a lot of photos. I like riding my bike around town, taking pictures of architecture and signage. I get a lot of my artistic inspiration from this. I also have a small tee shirt line called Le Moustache that is basically an excuse to put some weird art on shirts for myself and my friends and sell enough at some local boutiques to pay for the supplies. I print them on my kitchen table. I love the outdoors and try to go trail running, hiking or mountain biking a couple times a week. It can be tough living in LA for that, but its pretty close. I snowboard in the winter and surf when the water's warm and the waves aren't too big, or too small - so that means not as much as I'd like. I still skate occasionally, but it seems like less of a priority these days. I remember being younger and saying that I'd never quit skating, and I haven't, but it just seems a lot harder to get a session together these days.

So you grew up skating?
Yeah. My first boards where those plastic sidewalk-surfer-type things that my sister and I would catamaran down the street on. Then around 8th grade I got my first "modern" skateboard. My skating heyday was probably the late 80's and early 90's. I'll always have an affinity for Rocco-era World, giant Ghetto Wear and Fuct shorts, baggy Plan B pants, "Video Days," "Sick boys," "Questionable," and the Powell and H-Street videos, Gonz and Natas. During this time I was in college at UC Davis and there were so many amazing ledges and handrails and planters, plus Sacto had a lot of great spots and was close by, as was SF. Skating was probably the biggest influence on me next to my family. It makes you look at the world differently. I still stop to look at big red curbs and slick ledges and try to remember to come back and skate them sometime.

Any advice for artists?
Take notes. Try to carry a small notepad with you at all times. You never know when you're going to have a good idea, and if you don't write it down, you're going to forget it. Then when you do have time to actually sit down and draw or paint or whatever, you've got a giant list of ideas to pull from. Also, this may sound stupid, but, pay attention to what you like. Everyone's different and if you can put together all your influences and all the things you like, you're going to create something new.