Caleb Beyers
Words by Jenkin Au
Photography by Andy Fang

Walking down the streets, you may mistake this artist as a crazy (mentally) individual. That’s probably because of his beard, but as the old cliche goes, never judge a book by the cover. In reality, Caleb Beyers really is crazy. His work is out of this world and represents true creativity, as it lends and experiments from many different mediums, whether it be wood, paper or lights. As we sat down with this UK-born but raised-in-Canada artist for a quick chat, Caleb brings us into his world of artistry, which was met with criticism and the resistance of conventional branding, if any at all.

Caleb, can you tell us a little more about yourself?

I’m somebody who doesn’t sleep a lot and I don’t watch any T.V. whatsoever. I used to be a film teacher and I like to get involved in a lot of different projects. I would like to say that I’m a specialist in anything; I find that I have taken a lot of criticism from professionals from different fields, because I do stuff like architectural stuff that’s based on the web, and stuff that’s more technical or stuff that’s artsy. I’ve occupied this weird space and I find that, a lot of the time, I’m not working, I just integrate it as a part of my life. Over the last few months, I feel like I have finally got some real momentum going. I feel like being in Vancouver is a good thing.

What is your art style like?

I don’t think I have a style and I’m really conscious about that. I think that if I were to ever have a style, it would be a style of concept, not a visual style. It wouldn’t be something that you can look at and say, “I know who did that,” but a style where the idea has a certain set of characteristics. I don’t like to work with just painting, just drawing, or just sculpture; I like to do all kinds of things so I consciously try to not set a style. In general, having a style is a marketing tool, almost a trademark. If someone ripped off Kaws you would know it right away. It occupies a weird space between commerce and art. It’s a really interesting space but it’s something that I personally don’t want to do.

Well, then can you tell us more about your style of concept?

I like to work in all kinds of different mediums and I have all kinds of ideas of how things are like. I think of my friends and I think about social interactions and I think about economics. Whenever I see something that would be interesting to do or make, I kind of catalogue it, write it down, and then when in my day to day life, certain things come up over and over again, I go, “Yeah, I would really like to make something out of paper, or wood.” I start to try and tailor that into how it fit into the world and then it’s a big refinement process. Ask my wife, I have a stack of papers that grows every day. I’m pretty sure that most of the good ideas are forgotten about and then the ones that keep coming up, then it is like, “I got to get this down.”

I asked you to bring along a few of your favourite pieces. Can you tell us a little more about them?

I was studying in Brooklyn with my then-fiancé, and I started working on these drawings and I call them the blocks. I sold some of them to friends, and some of them were writers for Saturday Night Live. I started getting commissions for these and they are big, all pencil, drawings.

They’re like giant cross sections of the earth!

They are and they’re definitely not to scale or anything, and this was intentional. These are pieces that I’m going to be doing more, but it’s just that they are really tedious and meticulous.

Yeah, definitely. I was looking at some of your other artwork and I could really see a lot of detail, and even tell many stories with what’s going on in the picture if I wanted to.

That’s the idea. I want them to not necessarily be a narrative, but I would like people to make their own story. I think that’s what’s missing. There are so many artists that are trying to force stories into their minds, rather than having them create stories on their own. I was talking to someone about playgrounds the other day, and you got these playgrounds that are all structured where you have to walk this way, and then you got this other playground, a European style of playground and it’s just this big mound, or rolling hills. I forget what the technical term is but you see a lot more variety with how kids play on the natural terrain.

Definitely. I’ve seen this actually built inside of this big house. Indoors, it’s just a huge wavy floor, with things sticking out of it. It’s more meant for the participants to go and try to find their fun instead of having it there for you.

Yeah. Even in architecture, the residential side, there’s this growing trend to more open floor plans and you can push things around and make it however you want. If I ever opened a boutique, I would want it to be -

Moldable?

Yeah, and be able to change it up every week if I wanted to.

Are there any other favourites that you want to show

us?

Have you seen my GI Joe projects?

No, I haven’t.

I did this one called “Half the Battle” and I made all these wooden figurines, 20 of them, all out of driftwood and branches and cardboard. I feel like I grew up with consumer and television culture. I watched TV a lot growing up and played with a lot of plastic toys. I kind of grown up to be really critical of that stuff. I know what designing those toys means and what it means to the society, like how you have you have factories producing toys and creating stories about these characters and the good and evil. All this stuff isn’t necessarily a good thing to be teaching kids. My best times growing up were spent in the woods, so I guess this is combination of both. I did a bunch of other things to go along with the show.

How long did it take you to make one of these guys?

A couple days but I would make all the legs at the same time, then all the arms at the same time. It just makes it easier, plus I had a lot of help. I had a big painting party.

Do you think making them in batches takes away from the uniqueness of each of them?

Yes and no. They are all totally different because they each are made from different pieces of wood and they are all painted by hand.

I’m sorry, but what I meant was say for example, y

ou’re making the head and the head is a little fatter than all the other ones and then as a result, maybe you would make the rest of the body fat as well.

I worked really hard to find wood that was the same size and I carved them and cut them all the same size. They are very different in the sense that they have a lot of variation within them but they are still pretty similar.

You deal with a lot of paper with your art work, with examples like the city that you built and the most recent art show you did El Kartel. Please tell us why you like working with paper so much.

You can make really fluid shapes with it or you can make really hard, geometric shapes with it. I like math, especially geometry, and I think playing with paper allows you to experiment with geometry in many different ways.

Looking over your artwork, you use a lot of different mediums. How do you decide which medium will go with what artwork? Also, what are some pros and cons of 3D art?

I don’t think there are pros and cons; I think it’s what you make of it. I’ve done drawings that I hate and will never show anyone and I’ve done sculptures that I will never show anyone. I like it because you can’t mass produce paper sculptures like you could a plastic sculpture. You can never get a robot to cut the paper and clue it together. As far as matching an idea with a concept, generally I’m working with new techniques and figuring out how to select the right materials. Out of that process, I look at things and try to think of new ideas through looking at it differently.

In the art world today, it’s really hard to fully classify someone as an only underground artist or commercial artist because these artists eventually step into either side. What do you have to comment about this new era of the art industry?

I don’t know. I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, about style. Making an entry into underground and graffiti art is all about style and having that style. In that way, it’s really hard to sell myself as a commercial artist because I don’t have a style. When you get a guy like Kaws, you have these guys that have a style that you can recognize immediately. The thing with companies picking up these artists is about having the artists and having the public recognize that their brand is a supporter of these artists. I think it is fine and I have nothing against it; if I had a style, I would probably do the same. I think it’s really different than working in the gallery world or working in the commercial art world, where you’re producing art that’s not meant to sell a product.

With the downfall of the economy, and the general rigors of being an artist, what advice do you have to new artists to stay true to the game, but at the same time, have a stable financial backing?

I would tell them to have a second job and to never make art to sell it. I think that the moment you start thinking about making something to sell it is when you start to forget about the ideas for yourself. I mean, I do a lot of commercial art, but it has nothing to do with MY art. I work with all kinds of businesses but the art that I do with them will never be, “This is me! This is what I do and I care about this!” It’s interpreting their character, their personality and then representing it, not as my own, but as their own.

What is HYPE?

I think it’s like a presence in a collective consciousness. It’s where somebody has been able to put themselves out there and their artwork out there to have a bunch of people interested in them and talk about them, not necessarily just to know who they are, but to have somebody go, “That guy’s chill,” or think that the thing that they’re doing is the shit.