Kevin Burzynski is a Brooklyn based artist who specializes in photography, film, and collages. The following photos are part of his series “two”. Following the piece is an interview of Kevin Burzynski conducted by “Melt” correspondent Cory Loomis. Check out his website http://www.kevin-burzynski.com

KB: I’m ready Dr. Loomis

CL: Okay, to be completely true to the piece, I will start it by asking two questions.

Last I knew you were living in Brooklyn, are you still living there?

and what brought you out that way?

KB: I’m still out here. I moved here to work in the tv and film industry right after college. Still doing it up. It was easier to move to than LA.

CL: Do you believe there are “high” forms of art and “low” forms of art? Or are all mediums equal?

KB: Well there’s definitely “low brow” and “high brow” art, but a lot of times the low bro stuff is much better and creates a bigger impact, but it’s hard to rule if one piece is better than the other, I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

CL: Yeah a lot of collage artists seem to go for shock value where you take a more minimalist approach which I find refreshing. Do you consciously take a more minimalist approach to avoid being considered low-brow?

KB: Thanks! Is my stuff minimalist? I guess I take a minimalist approach in a way, but definitely not to be considered high brow or to avoid being low brow. I think a lot of my pieces are simple/minimal in a way because I’m trying to portray an idea, adding a million different cutouts is going to look cheesy; it looks like vomit to me. I don’t really want it to look like something people are gonna look at on acid in their dorm room. I like everything to be well-calculated and thought out beforehand. I usually think about a collage for a couple months before I actually start making it. And then the actual process of making it only takes a few hours usually.

CL: That’s a pretty high brow approach. Collages to me kind of fall under the “pop art” umbrella. What do you think about artists who use celebrities as subjects in their pieces?

KB: Haha I think you’re right….but considering my work as “highbrow” is something that still doesn’t seem right to me, it feels douchey.

And I think you’re definitely right about collage recently being put under the umbrella of pop art. Although collage has been around for a long time, I feel like this new movement of sampling 1960’s nat geos into psychedelic landscapes and so on is becoming really popular. I don’t really like it when the characters in collages are identifiable people throughout history, but rather stock characters, for the most part.

CL:Yeah, sometimes using a celebrity can be tasteful but most the time it is cheap in my opinion. Do you think there is a certain type of person or personality that tends to be more artistic than other types of personality?

KB: I’m not sure really, I think you have to be extremely passionate in order to be an artist, but as far as personalities, it’s hard to tell. I think usually people make art because they are in some sort of pain and need a way to express themselves and feel fulfilled in a creative way. Maybe you could say that artists are people who feel a need to create and express, people who don’t feel fulfilled if they aren’t producing original content of some sort.

CL: What type of personalities do you find you get along well with?

KB: People who I think are funny/ridiculous, wallflowers, down-to-earth people, people with a similar sense of humor maybe.

CL: Is your piece “two” supposed to represent relationships of personalities? Or are you trying to abstractly-stick it to the rule of thirds?

KB: I didn’t plan to take the “2” series all together, nor did I shoot it together. I was looking through all my old photos and realized that a lot of my still life photos had 2 subjects in them, and these photos kind of felt similar to me. They have a similar emptiness. I guess the “2 people in a relationship” theme can work here in a way… But I miss looking at picture books as a kid where the themes were very simple, and I think photos don’t have to have much meaning to them sometimes, they just have to have a certain mood about them.

CL: Yeah the art world has moved away from pure aesthetics, especially with multimedia stuff. I feel like the internet has saturated our minds. I hope the scene kind of goes back to a minimalist period soon.

Who is the most famous person you have ever caught on camera?

KB: Probably Tommy Hilfiger. I saw him recently at his hotel in Miami Beach and happened to have my camera on me. He was super nice and was down to let me get a few portraits. Also I met P.T. Anderson and Benicio Del Toro which was super cool but I didn’t have a real camera on me so I just used my iPhone.

CL: I just ate a hot pocket.

Do you ever eat gross food like that?
Or do you only eat like organic dirt and tree bark since you are a Brooklyn artist?

KB: Haha I’m actually not a very healthy eater at all. I get a lot of sandwiches from the deli and eat all the greasy food and candy on production sets I work on… I’m trying to start eating healthier. One of the best things about living in New York though is all of the amazing restaurants.

CL: Really? New York City has good food? Never heard that before.

So you work in film, are getting traction in the collage scene, and are a photographer.

Are there any mediums or forms that you plan on or want to get into in the future?

KB: I’ve still never shot film as in like 8mm for a short film, that’d be fun.

CL: You should do a silent short film about a love triangle. The bad guy has a thin mustache and wears a fancy hat.

KB: I’m good on that.

CL: haha. You have any gallery openings or events coming up?

KB: I’m in this little group show this month in Bushwick but it’s nothing major. I’m looking to have a legit show sometime this year out here in New York, possibly a solo show.

CL: Cool.