Interview with Lani Imre
Lani paints in a contemporary style that reflects aspects of illustration, graphics, and street art. She focuses on large-scale oil and acrylic paintings depicting an entourage of female characters. The strong, often defiant characters she creates, touch on themes of female identity and sexual fantasy, while posing commentary on the contradictions evoked by media environments and visual messaging. Lani has exhibited in many cities in Canada as well as Mexico and the United States, including Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Halifax, San Francisco, Baltimore, Portland, and San Jose Del Cabo.
Here’s an interview with Lani Imre about her recent collaboration with Hypha Project, (a new brewery that features local artists on the label) If you like what you see, #supportlocal and enter to win a fine art print by Lani Imre for as little as $5 at www.snagart.ca
Cris: Here we go. I'm Cris, co-founder of Hypha Project, here to interview the artist behind the design of our fifth beer release, "Raveness". Welcome, Lani Imre. How are you doing?
Lani: Hello. I'm doing great.
Cris: Awesome. Where are you residing again?
Lani: I'm in Squamish, B.C.
Cris: Cool. Thanks for jumping on. Thanks for doing this and you know, being part of the project and thanks for taking the time to do this remote online interview. My first question, your art experience covers a lot of different media, large scale graffiti, mixed media, sculpture, painting. I'm sure there's more. Plus you traveled a lot to train. Can you tell us more about your journey to art in your own words?
Lani: Yeah, it's it's been an extensive journey I feel, but I've always known I wanted to be an artist. So a lot of my traveling, like I like to travel, but art school has taken me to a lot of different places as well, Montreal and Mascot and Berkeley. And I just kind of adopted my practice to where I am. And on that vein of travel I just always wanted to paint and never did. I was in other mediums like ceramics and sculptural stuff, and it was just quite cumbersome. And at a certain point because I was moving around so much, I just picked up painting and it kind of stuck with me, and it's been perfect for my lifestyle and what I wanted to do and how I approached my life.
Cris: Actually I see your big art mural outside of our office in Vancouver. It's kind of close to Main Street. It's on the side of this building with a lady, a woman with a kind of a sea character. It's amazing. So I always walk by that and see that mural. It's so amazing people should definitely come by and check it out any time they want.
Cris: Your art is a very unique style look and feel from the website, and I quote, it depicts an entourage of visual, ritualized female characters. It's a big question here. What is it about women that inspires your art?
Lani: That is a big question. And I mean, I am a woman, so it's a subject that I can relate to easily. And then I'm just endlessly fascinated by women. It just feels they are the ultimate muse. And I love lines and I love form and subtleties of emotion. And I think all of that, just the beauty of women draws me to represent them. And then for myself, it's kind of a way to reclaim how women are represented as well. And, you know, socially for men and women, both there's a lot of constructs that are put on us. And for me, just starting way back was like a way that I could just. Personally express how I wanted to see women, the elements that I saw in women, the strength in that and just the expression.
Cris: No, that's amazing and you know what from a male perspective, I liked how you touched it as it's for females and male. You know, it really creates a unique, and excellent view of how depict females, even for the male side as well. Like you said, you know, there's different ways of people looking at different sexes. But I can really appreciate what you're doing and you do a really good job at it.
Cris: Can you tell me a little bit about the inspiration behind the design of this can "Raveness", as we call the raveness for the beer itself, but when this video airs, the beer will be out and promoted so people will know what it looks like unfortunately I don't have a picture right here, but maybe you can tell us that, you know. What inspired you about to use that one?
Lani: Yeah, I love I love that title that you're giving it.
Cris: Thanks. Awesome.
Lani: I just wanted to do something a little bit edgy and something that evoked a narrative. And because of the composition of the can, you know, that kind of the vertical framing I was just I was looking for something that would have a little bit of motion and maybe just like a catch like a moment in time, that would have some story. And I was just playing around with different, different ways to get I knew I wanted to put a figure in there, so just how to get that figure to fit in and brought the raven. And as just part of the story. And then as I was working on the piece. It was great because it kind of became my story. My mom actually went into ICU for a couple of weeks while I was working on the piece. She's doing well now.
Cris: Good to hear.
Lani: But yeah. But it became kind of like this, you know, with the Raven and present with them. And I was just like tapping into that as a as a source of therapy
Cris: Thanks for sharing that with us because that's coming from the heart. So I appreciate it. It's when people pick this up and see the label themselves, I mean, if they don't see this video or read the inspiration on our website, it could be left open to the viewer as well. They're going to be interested in its meaning when they see it meant for you.
To watch the whole interview click here
Raveness
"When I designed this image I wanted to capture a moment of uncertainty. I knew I was just embarking on a certain life challenge and the character in my drawing became reflective of my feelings of self-protectiveness. I included the raven as a companion and also as an element of wildness and wisdom."