(I did this artist profile for a Los Angeles weekly alternative paper. This is the unedited & unrated version. Enjoy!)

A Sketchy Portrait of an Artist From Downtown L.A.
By Jim Marquez

Emmeric James Konrad: avant-garde artist or simply a madman with cool, shockingly-white-and-Andy-Warholish-like hair?

As a 10 year veteran of the now suddenly explosive art scene of downtown L.A., Konrad is the walking embodiment of the atypical artist: motorcycle driving, four years U.S. Marine Search & Rescue, hard drinking procurer of lady's hearts, first generation, American-born German who's old man actually went through Ellis-fucking-Island. Konrad's work has been compared to that of Disney or Terry Gilliam's early work with Monty Python'�on crack.

His subjects are nudes or animals (the bunny is a big deal) or anything else that needs to be loved. He captures in animated grotesqueness in his fellow man that which most cannot see: no, not all that 'inner beauty'� crap, but the true ugliness of our nature done up in all its goofy, menacing glory.

Wanting to take a peek into the spinning wheels of Emmeric's head, we met at 'Crappy Joe's'� on 7th & Main (one of his many disturbing haunts) for buck-twenty-five beers and shots of something very lethal.

ME: At what age did you decide to become an artist?

EM: Three. My mom, a teacher, took me to a museum where I saw Picasso for the first time in Chicago. I knew then I wanted to paint. My first painting at that age was of a bird and a tree. My mother still has it, actually, a watercolor. It's not bad. And then when I officially decided to paint, near the end of high school, right about the time my parents divorced, my father said, 'If you want to be a artist, then you're going to have to support yourself'. So I joined the Marine Corp to help me pay for art school.

ME: Good God, I guess working at the local McDonald's wasn't enough, huh?

EM: Naw, man, I needed the action. Still do from time-to-time. Occasionally, I get into scrapes here and there, but I love it; just experiencing life. Anyway, after the Corp I went to Otis Parsons here in downtown, it's out by the airport now. Jackson Pollock had gone there you know way back. And I went to school with Camelia Garcia. That was the first time I was ever around 'artists'. I mean, one day I'm jumping out of helicopters, and the next'�I had always painted, that's what I did, but to be in that environment. I learned a lot. Jeffry Valens was teaching there. Didn't care for all the backstabbing, psychotic, competitiveness though, and in my senior year where we show our work for perspective galleries, that day, the riots started.

ME: That's fucked.

EM: Yeah, but fortunately I had started selling my work in my junior year. Already had some collectors. Then a buddy of mine living in Tokyo gave me a call to do a show; some gallery owner saw my work in his house. Flew me out, set it up, and it 's been a hell of a ride. I think my work is pretty good, but I've also been incredibly lucky. I have been so blessed with the people that buy my stuff; they're so passionate about art.

ME: Has living in the downtown environment inspired your art?

EM: Big time. Good art is always about inspiration and reacting to the environment you're around. Art is about interaction, touching other people. Being affected by other people. And living all over town here you get to meet a lot of characters. I think I've lived in eight different lofts over the years. Right now I'm in the 'Gronk Building'.

ME: So what do you like about Downtown L.A.?

EM: Potential. It a place where things can and do happen. It's a place where things can germinate and grow. The problem I have with the New York scene is that it feels like it all happened already.

ME: I love that! It's like, 'Fuck you New York!'

EM: It's true, everything's about fucking New York, everyone always talks about what happened before, the clubs, the galleries, the people, what was going on, how it used to be. Fuck that! L.A. feels hungry right now. I love it here!

ME: So why do you paint?

EM: Because I can't NOT paint. I think about what I'm going to paint all the time; the next one. Sleeping, driving, eating, it's always there in my head. And I love it when the art is finished, in my studio, and ends up in somebody's house, it mutates; it takes on a different light, a different flavor. And that's the most amazing thing in the world, in that you have such a personal thing, but it becomes such an interpersonal thing.

ME: Speaking about interpersonal, where is the most interesting place you've had sex?

EM: Whoa, what a great question out of left field. Oh man, I don't know if you can print this, but'�on top of the roof of the Hotel Figueroa. We snuck up there. Overlooking the downtown skyline at night with a gorgeous woman. Now that was pretty fucking phenomenal. How about you?

ME: On the roof of the garage across the street from the Roosevelt Hotel, on the hood of my car.

EM: Nice. It's something about being on top of things.

ME: So what's your biggest fear as a writer? Oh fuck, I mean as an artist.

EM: Ha! That was brilliant.

ME: No, sorry, man. Sorry. What a fuckin' slip.

EM: Naw, it's cool. My biggest fear as an artist is dying before I do my best work. One of my favorite artists, Jean Michael Basquiat died when he was 27. Imagine what he could have done by now? The work he never got to do? My God'�

(At this point I had to drop a quarter in order to use the can for a minute {lovely place} and when I got back EM was setting down my recorder. It was the next day at home, coming to at 4pm, that I heard the following in a cryptic manner: 'I walked into the fields and the little bunnies were eating all the roses; all of the roses. So I killed them. They were very tasty.'�)

ME: So what's the best thing you've ever painted?

EM: My last painting.

ME: And where do you go from here?

EM: My next painting.

ME: Ok, smart-ass: Ginger or Mary Ann?

EM: A threesome would be nice. How about You?

ME: Mrs. Howell, of course.

EM: You sick bastard.

ME: Drug of choice?

EM: Women.

ME: What was the name of the first girl you kissed?

EM: Oh God, I remember this, I was just talking about it with my dad the other day'�Emily. Her name was Emily. I was 3 years old. Yours?

ME: Diana. She kissed me on the cheek. Second grade. She was also the first and last woman to ever say 'I love you' to me.

EM: Wow, that's heavy. I have this weird thing where I usually hear that within this first week, and because its so quick it makes me not believe it.

ME: Talk about heavy, Christ! Ok, last one: What is the one thing out there now in the world that you wish you could have painted?

EM: That's easy: 'Les Demoiselles d' Avingnon'� by Picasso. 1907. It's a cube portrait of five prostitutes in a brothel. It's beautiful, man. Fuckin' perfect!


Upcoming Shows for Emmeric Konrad:

Nov. 5, 2005: 'Giant Robot Magazine'�
@ 'Milo Studios'� 1265 S. Cochran. L.A.
Rsvp 323.464.6685

Jan. 3, 2006: 'Ghetto Gloss Gallery'�
@ 2380 Glendale Blvd, Echo Park

February 2006- Arizona, USA

March 2006 Berlin, Germany

Contact: Emmeric@Emmeric.net

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