HARVEY GLAZER
Although Harv (aka Harvey Glazer) has always been creatively driven - having an award-winning career directing films as well as music videos for Drake, Classified and Trey Songz, just to name a few - he only recently started work in fine art. In an interview with the Toronto-based digital media artist, Glazer discusses his motivations for taking up print art, a style that he calls Pornigami.
Harv, Katsumi, 2012, giclee print, 20" x 30"
Thanir: What does Pornigami mean?
Glazer: Well PORN for pornography and IGAMI for Origami. The joke is that it’s not porn whatsoever but so many people view nudity as pornography when in fact nudity is the basis for the beginnings of all art.
Thanir: How would you describe your style of art? How did you come to this style?
Glazer: It was a happy accident, I was looking at an image of an origami crane and decided to see if I could make a folded origami woman and I ended up creating Pornigami. The first images were super elementary but I had never seen it before and for the first time ever was impressed by my own work. I continue pushing the extremes of what I can do with triangles. Taking hard edged shaped and recreating the most beautiful soft edged surfaces known to mankind; women.
Thanir: What is the best part of creating art?
Glazer: Having someone buy your art, put it on their wall and love it forever. There’s nothing else like it, in my film career I make a movie and a10 million people have an opinion but art is so different, you either love it or hate it and the ones that love it so much they need to take it home with them, that’s a special bond between the buyer and the art.
Thanir: Where do you see your art going in 5 years?
Glazer: I hope to just keep pushing my detail further and further, to be experimenting with different ways of telling my story. I don’t see myself straying too far from my style, I love it and the response to it feels like it has longevity as long as I keep it fresh without straying too far from its original design.
Thanir: What does success look like to you?
Glazer: Success looks like being able to do art full time and feed the kids, not that I don’t love being a director/producer and I’m working on some exciting projects right now but my art is so much more creatively fulfilling to me.
Thanir: What is the most memorable milestone in your career?
Glazer: Truthfully I’ve had too many to list, I started a successful skateboard/snowboard company right out of high school, I‘ve won music video awards from Much Music, BET, MTV, I’ve directed 3 feature films and now I have an art career, those are all celebrated milestones in my world.
Thanir: Do you have any advice for other young artists?
Glazer: Put it out there, you won’t know if someone likes it until you show them, don’t hide your art away and keep it to yourselves. Group art fairs are amazing places to show your art to a mass of buyers who are there to buy.
Thanir: Do you have any upcoming exhibitions?
Glazer: I just had a gallery show at Goodfellas in Toronto, I have a group show coming up end of July with a couple of my favourite artists right now Richard Ahnert and Samara Shuter, it’s called 'Girl’s, Guy’s and Goats,' and it’s going to be a great show at the Spoke Club.
