By Jonathan Burger, Craven Arts Council & Gallery, Inc.
Where are you from and how’d you end up in eastern North Carolina?
I’m from New Bern originally but I moved to Pollocksville when I was very young. Which I ended up eventually moving back to New Bern early in my teens.
Does your work have a central theme, or several themes?
My work covers a large range of themes, each piece is a reflection of my own emotions, feelings, and insights to my own life.
Do you have any formal training, or are you self-taught?
Other than my art classes in high school I’m self taught. Most of what I know I owe to those classes and to my great teacher, Donna Hawkins.
Your work features a lot of line work and other intensive techniques, how long does it usually take you to complete a piece?
A full page piece normally takes anywhere from 20-50 hours, with my piece “Secretion of Secrets” taking the longest of just over 50 hours.
A lot of your work in is black ink, what about that medium appeals to you?
When I started out drawing as a kid I always used pencils and graphite, almost exclusively, but in high school I started to get drawn to the boldness of ink. It’s easy to draw knowing you can erase your mistakes but with ink every line matters and the value is incredible. With ink you get the highest extremes of value from both sides light and dark. Though it’s challenging navigating those landscapes of value, every piece is something to learn from and I love the challenge.
Is there another artist who work you admire or inspires you?
One artist I looked up to early on when I was learning pen and ink was actually the scratch board illustrator Nico Delort. While his work is a slightly different medium, his work has always been a huge inspiration to me. Beautiful line work, detailing, and the incredible depth in his art is what made me want to pursue and experiment more with ink.
Do you have any advice for artists just starting out, or wanting to get into the arts?
Don’t pressure yourself too hard. Every piece doesn’t have to be grand or perfect. It’s a big problem of mine, I’m always trying to make the next piece better than the rest til I eventually psych myself out and end up creating nothing. Put in all you have and if you don’t like how it turns out then learn from it for next time.
What piece award, or exhibition are you particularly proud of, and why?
I was proud of my piece Cursed Blessings being in the Art Cubed exhibition at the Bank of the Arts a couple years ago. It was my first time being part of an exhibition outside of high school and was a great starting point for myself as an artist.
In one sentence, what is art to you?
Art is displaying and conveying emotion and thoughts to one another.
I know you have a piece in the Bank of the Arts National Juried Exhibition, but where else can people find your work?
I post all my artwork on my website, edaxerum.square.site, as well as on my instagram, @edaxerum, and on my Facebook page, Facebook.com/edaxerum.artist