Saturday Conversation: Mister Cartoon And Roger Gastman On Street Art And More

Mister Cartoon is known as a tattoo artist, street artist, graffiti artist and more. He is all of those things and more. Now, he is doing his largest ever solo exhibit at Roger Gastman’s Beyond the Streets gallery on La Brea in L.A.

As I found when I spoke to the duo of Cartoon and Gastman it is the perfect pairing. They share a similar appreciation for the art of the streets, for the independence, non-conformity and urbanity it represents, and tey are big fans of each other.

I spoke to the pair about the show, how they got to know each other, the music that influenced the “Just My Imagination” show, and much more.

Steve Baltin: So tell me about the crazy car first, since you mentioned that.

Mister. Cartoon: This is one of my old school cars. It was always a dream of mine to have a 1939 Master Deluxe Chevy. It’s known as a grandfather of all bombs. So, yeah, I made it my canvas really, it’s a canvas that you can drive. So that’s how I started out. And the whole business was airbrushing t-shirts, the car shows and mural in cars. That was my contribution to the culture, finding my place that I could barish things. When I started out, I didn’t have no money or anything, so in order for me to build a low rider, I would barter. So I would go to these auto body shops and paint a mural on their wall or draw them a logo for a t-shirt, something that I can get paint in exchange or a stereo or wheels. So yeah, I became real passionate about cars when I was young.

Baltin: What were the similar traits that really excited you guys about working together?

Roger Gastman: I’ll give you a preview a little bit, but Cartoon’s the star here. I’ve been a fan of Cartoon long before Cartoon knew who the hell I was. But I admired it greatly. It was so different than everything I was seeing on the East Coast where I grew up. And as soon as I moved out here, I became even more of a fan once I started to see some of the work in person, some of the murals, some of the car. I just instantly gravitated towards what he did and what he represented and the people that he continued to push to the front. And I loved it. I was so thankful to include him in shows we’d worked on through the years and just continued to stay a fan and we became friends and had a lot of mutual things we liked. One of the simple things we both loved was graffiti, where so much of this spawns from. That’s not what this show is about, but the roots of what Cartoon was running around doing originally was graffiti. The roots of what I was running around doing and how I even came into this world was graffiti. Again, I’m grateful Cartoon has been in our shows. The great show he just had in London, he made an incredible piece that was one of the show stealers. And we opened this space in September. One of the reasons we opened this flagship space in September was to be able to show the artists we admire like Cartoon and give them a beautiful white clean gallery right here on La Brea to not come in and be part of a group. We all are often so many times part of groups and focus on him and really just let him be the star.

Cartoon: That’s right on. A lot of times you work with the gallery, curator, so they’ve never done graffiti, they don’t have that street edge. But Roger already understood that, so I think that makes a huge difference. That’s like a tattooer owning a tattoo shop, those are the type of standards that we really like. So he understood my style and him from not being here was dope because he could see it from a lens outside where guys here growing up with it, they might be a little more harsh or a little more jaded. But he looks at it with a fresh set of eyes and is honest with me too. So it’s dope that he’s down too to do like crazy installations. So, like he said, we’ve been really in so many group shows with other writers and other artists, our peers that we respect. But now this is a solo show to fill up this whole gallery.

Gastman: I wanted to add, we’re in this together very much. Cartoon and the other artists we work with have so thankfully supported me in these massive shows. And it’s for the sake of that. But with this space, we have no idea what’ll happen. We know we’re going to have a great show and we know people are going to show up. But, in the end, like Cartoon said, we’re down to support crazy ideas, do great things, and give each other honest feedback.

Baltin: For you guys, how important is it to have someone who can give you feedback that you feel like understands where you’re coming from?

Cartoon: Yeah, that’s important. And a lot of it is about taste, connecting with the person and making sure that both of you have the same taste and level of detail, ’cause it’s not just a painting, sometimes it’s hanging the show. “Where is this going to go? The installation, what should go where?” So a lot of that stuff. I trust him to be able to come in and help me with some of these decisions too. It’s like we’re making an album. And then I’ve got to bring in the badass saxophone player and a drummer. I’m going to bring in John Bonham [Led Zeppelin] for this one and I’m going to bring in all these cool artists. Even though I’m the headliner, even though I’m up front, it does take a team to get this stuff done. But I know that each painting’s like my kid. But I don’t take it to where if my kid doesn’t make the team right now, that doesn’t mean he can’t ever make the team, he just might make the next game. So I look at it kind of like that and try to put out the best show possible.

Gastman: What I’m psyched about is I’m not sitting here scratching my head being like, “Some of these paintings aren’t as good as the others. We don’t have enough to fill this wall. What are we going to do?” I’m sitting here scratching my head being like, “Yeah, some of these paintings fit more of one body of work than the other, but there’s more than enough.” We could hang this show multiple ways and edit things out different ways to still create an incredible body of work.

Baltin: One of the cool things of all art is that the audience makes it their own. So when you get to see people come into the show and have this response, how exciting is it to watch people take in the pieces they love?

Cartoon: That’s going to be the joy of the show, seeing people’s reactions and how they interpret paintings. And even just like with this interview, you ask different questions and all that makes a difference, man. All these things that we’re working on, trying to put the right people to the right place.

Gastman: Something that’s important about this show is there are no huge tricks or crazy build-outs. Everything in this show is very authentic and you’re walking into a Mister Cartoon solo art show. It’s works on canvas, some works on metal. There’s a car in here, but that car is the work of his art also but this is a painting show.

Cartoon: And this is a show too about the culture and a romantic and fantasy side of art. I got men and women in relationships. You can see them in the paintings. And the oldies playing in the background and the body lines of a classic car and candy paint. I want to take the romantic, beautiful side of that street culture, the Lowrider culture, and peel it from the street and put it on this canvas. And this might be the closest that some of these people have ever seen in person. They might have seen it on TV or music video, but actually seeing the texture and the pearls of the paint and the candy transparent colors. So that’s what makes this show unique and different from everybody else’s. All the paint is automotive. So in the automotive paint, you have metals brushed down and broken that reflect light. And when you shoot pearl over it and you bury it with clear coat, and then you wet sand that clear coat and you polish it out and make it like a mirror, and then underneath it all is the story of good times and bad times, love and hate, the death of the Pachuco, that old OG style, the vet is slowly disappearing in the new generations of the modern world are coming in. So you see that in the art. You see a young guy and you see an old guy and you see the woman that’s the center of our life, rebirth and evolution.

Gastman: When you say relationships, I think that’s one of the things I take out of the show a lot. It’s not relationships only with your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your son, your daughter, whatever it is your brother, your sister. It’s like the love of someone’s car, the guy driving the train, looking out the window. He loves that train he’s driving. It’s the relationships people have with things in everyday life or their goal items in a sense that make them happy and keep moving. That’s what I take from a lot of it too.

Baltin: When you look at these paintings, what are these songs you hear in the background? What were the songs that influenced these paintings?

Cartoon: Oh, yeah. The show is called “Just My Imagination.” That comes from that old school song, music like The Temptations and The Stylistics and, of course, the greats like Marvin Gaye and the Motown sound, the Philadelphia, Sweet Soul, so all that music is being played off funk, Rick James, Parliament Funkadelic, all that is like the motivation, to push me over the top. And this is the soundtrack to this art show.