Interview
Evaldas Gulbinas
Born in Lithuania, Evaldas currently lives and works in London, UK. While in Lithuania, he studied at two art schools. One was the Kedainiai Art School and the other was at the M.K.Ciurlionis National Art School.
After his studies, he moved to London. Here he began taking tattoo apprenticeships and work in tattoo parlors. While Evaldas is a tattoo artist, he is also actively studying academic art, having completed a foundation course in Art and Design at West Thames College. He has since graduated from the University of Westminster with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art - Mixed Media.
Evaldas later went on to complete his Master's degree of Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art at the University of the Arts London. Throughout his studies, he has been active in participating in art exhibitions as well as working in various tattoo parlors.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“At the moment, my background is tattoo art. Also, in my latest academic studies I completed a MA Fine art degree at the University of the Arts London. So, I guess my background is a mixture of tattoo art and fine art. I started my journey when I was 8 years old, with parents letting me go to art school. They saw me drawing at home when I was 7. In art school, I started to do more drawing and other related subjects. After that, I went to a national art school in Lithuania.
I then moved to London, United Kingdom. This was when I became interested in tattooing. I’ve taken a couple of tattoo apprenticeships and later on started tattooing. However, I wanted to push my own boundaries. So I went and completed a foundation diploma in Art and design at West Thames college. During this, I was always working professionally in tattoo studios as well as being active in participating in art exhibitions around London. Later on, I did a Bachelor's degree in fine art-mixed media at University of Westminster, and finally, I completed my Master’s degree in Fine art at Chelsea college of Arts in the University of the Arts London.
I have always loved being creative through making art in multiple media – jumping from one idea and media to another. Ideas naturally come to my head, so I make sense of them and create!”
What inspires you most?
“I am inspired by many life situations, including depression, happiness, academic art studies, tattooing and so on. I also find more inspiration by studying other fine artists. Usually, ideas click in my head naturally. Then, visually I figure out how to make it in the real world, what material and media to use. I think anything can inspire the artist. I have many positive and negative emotions in me, and making art helps me to get rid of them. Personally, I don’t like being emotional. But making art makes me happy and allows me to express myself. I often get inspired by being sad. I embrace sadness. London, where I currently live, is a bit of a depressed city, so here I make more art as a result.
I often get inspired by talking to customers in the tattoo studio where I work. It’s beautiful how many people are different out there. They all have different stories to tell, life situations, personalities and emotions. I try to combine my art out of it. I like being myself and in the now. I also feel inspired from today’s way of life, then I create, with tomorrow being a new day to create more art. Sometimes I analyze people or society as a whole. I like to ask myself questions about everything, as I often think too much. By making something I relax as well.”
“When I’m sad I think more about art, ideas to express and media to create, which drives me to be happier in life. It’s like I live in a circle. I am depressed – so I make art. Then I’m happy, and after my ‘battery’ drains, and I’m sad again, so I make more art.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“At the moment, I am thinking about themes such as pressure, the dark side of humanity, ugly could be beauty, suicidal moments, human emotions, upside down, the atmosphere of disordered people, playfulness, unity of broken community, through pain and tears, human complexities with the body and emotions, etc. All these themes are focused on people’s mindsets. How they work and why it is like that. I guess it’s about mental states, which I am opening myself up to through tattooing and listening to the people – having conversations and communications.
I often leave messages in my work. I think work without a message is not powerful. While doing tattoos, I try to flip ideas to my side. I think it is very beautiful when someone wears your art, or messages, on their body for the rest of their life, which people around them see. The messages I leave on sculptures, tattoos, drawing, paintings, or mixed media works – they all first make sense in my head of how to express myself. I feel very good when this happens, like I’m a part of something and not a ‘nothing’. I think my messages in the work are being played with my own emotions.”
How would you describe your work?
“I would describe my work as never ending creativity. I make work through tattoos, sculptures, paintings, mixed media, videos and installations – often changing my style. At the moment, my work is dark, mostly tattoos in black and white. My sculptures are also dark, and contain a mixture of drawing and sculpture into one medium. I want to show my feelings, from tiredness to being overworked. This work shows agony and darkness.
Before, I was making art using multiple colors, but now, with no colors. It is just my contemporary movement. Maybe I’m getting older so I feel more depressed or something. I could finalize my sculptures and drawings as ‘mental abstraction’. It looks like there are no rules of shapes when I make drawings of people's heads. At work I see faces everywhere, all containing different emotions, so I make faces in different shapes. I embrace madness and have no limits in my work. There are so many different ways I can express different personalities in my way to shape the idea of each face.
My work could also be seen as comparative to a ‘broken mirror’ – I express my life experiences. I am often not happy with my life and I don’t know why. It looks like I have everything but I still do not feel content, so I create to go to another dimension where I’m more happy to be in. It’s like being in a dream. My current work could also be described as being a part of a disordered environment, through broken glass.”
Which artists influence you most?
“I am inspired by artists such as Takashi Murakami, Yoyoi Kusama, Alexander McQueen, Tony Oursler, and Franko B.”
What is your creative process like?
“My creative process is ‘making through thinking’. I get the idea or something clicks to my head from my surrounding environment, and then I think how and in which media I am able to create. Or the other way around – I find the material and then think about the idea/message I could inject into it to create art. Often I think intensely in a short time about the work. At the moment, I am speeding up the creation of my artworks.
I often create commissioned tattoos. For example, I may be asked to design a tree tattoo. So I ask the customer if they want anything else included, such as snow on it. To me, this looks more interesting, because it’s something magical and symbolic. If I was creating a similar sculpture of a tree, I would take metal strips and create the tree out of it, and then project the snow or white dots on it. So, it’s about playing with different media and ideas in my mind, and then transferring them into real life.”
“I am always trying to make art which could be important to myself; which looks beautiful to me. I think art could come from anything, you just have to inject your own idea into it.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I think an artist's role is to create. It is a need, like eating. To create something new or express themselves through various mediums. There are so many artists and everyone has a voice to make art. In society, people want to see something exciting, and so you also get artists, who show their crazy creativity. I think society needs artists. At the moment, art is evolving heavily towards the technological side. Personally, I enjoy creating using mixed media, as it opens up new possibilities and more ‘magical’ things, without having any limitations.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“Yes I have had a few noteworthy exhibitions. One was in Oxford street, London, UK, entitled ‘Perception’. Koppel 540 art gallery – 2021.
Another I enjoyed participating in was the Master's degree show in Chelsea college of Art, University of the Arts London.
There was also the ‘Fine art Mixed media BA degree show’ – Ambika P3 London, UK – 2019.
Another was 'Realities in the making'. Rossocinabro art gallery Rome, Italy – 2021.
Lastly, ‘Nothing really matters’. Rossocinabro art gallery Rome, Italy – 2021.”
