Interview with Daniel Sannwald

q)please tell us a brief info about yourself.

a)I turned 30 this year and I was just reading on a ( not sure if trust worth) paper that men start to change there bodysmell at that point of their life. The paper said that men start to smell similar to baked things. I wonder like which bread I would start to smell. I hope like fig & raisin bread. Imagine! That would be wonderful.

q)Tell us about your humble beginnings, When did you you first realized that you wanted to be an artist?

a)I never wanted to be an artist – until now I see everything just as a game and I do it as long as it makes me happy. I am much rather see my self as becoming a gardener at one point of my life. I Really long for nature these days and image how nice it would be to grow huge beetroots.

q) What are your tools of the trade and why?

a)I am very busy in experimenting with photography and in showing errors and mistakes in a society that is busy in creating the perfect image. Especially in, fashion photography, the field I am working.

It makes me happy to see mistakes in my work.

q) Who or what gives you inspiration on your morbid art?

a)I am inspired by a lot of things and then also really little somehow. At the moment I am really into food but I am not sure if I can say that it inspires me but I guess somehow it does. These days I spend a lot of time on all the different food markets in London.

q) Is your artistic background self-taught or did you go to college to study?

a)I did my Master of Arts at the Royal Academy of fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. I’ve graduated and was lucky to be in a class with nice people such as Bruna Kazinoti and Albert Folch. It was a beautiful time and I’m so happy I met such nice people – my class really inspired me and gave me new directions.

q) How do you keep “fresh” within your industry?

a)Oh please don’t ask me this. It took me years not to be busy in how to be “fresh” but still I catch myself sometimes not being able to avoid it. I think that in our days of competition thoughts of “zeitgeist”, “being fresh” and so on just makes us “blind” and really unhappy.

It’s better to try and keep busy with more important things.

q) What are some of your current projects?

a)The nicest project for me at the moment is my upcoming book, which will be published soon. I’ve been working now on it for quite a while and I can hardly wait to see it printed now.

q) Which of your works are you the most proud of? And why?

a)That changes from day to day, some moments I’m not proud of anything and then on others of a lot.

I really like one sentence someone said in a video work I did together with some friends, it doesn’t really make me proud but really excited: “Too much to see nothing and too little to see”.

What a good sentence! Don’t you agree?

q) Are there any areas, techniques, mediums and projects in your field that you have yet to try?

a)So many things I still haven’t tried and it’s nice to know that there are so many things still to learn and to try.

q) What do you do to keep yourself motivated and avoid burn-out?

a)I’m still trying to figure that out myself. Maybe enjoying love and forgetting the world for a short time or as I am a huge fan of the universe going to the planetarium is also a good way to regain strength.

q) How do you spend most of your free time?

a)I like to have nice food and I really enjoy reading children books and look at children illustrations.

Some of my friends organized a goodbye dinner for me when I left Belgium for England.

Each meal at the dinner was inspired by a meal out of a children book.

That was a perfect way to spend my free time.

q)What contemporary artists or developments in art interest you?

a)Art created by non artists.

q) We really like some of your pictures, how can we get our hands on them? Do you sell them? How?

a)Yeah some of my work is for sale. Just come by my studio in London and I show you what I have got.