Interview: artist, Kevin Lewis Fougerousse.....

I recently had the great fortune of spending time at the studio of artist Kevin Lewis Fougerousse. There he is completing the final touches on his work and preparing for his first Dallas solo exhibit this Friday at the Aloft Hotel located in downtown. He is a soft spoken man who is deeply emotional and conveys his feelings through color, texture, and poem. Here are our words.

MSD: Where did you study art?

KLF: I went to school for graphic design and had a scholarship to the Memphis College of Art but I turned it down.

MSD: Why did you turn it down?

KLF: I knew that I wanted to do fine art, gallery work, and me being in my artist mind thought ‘fuck you, I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me what I can or cannot do.’ I figured that if I work as hard to do this on my own, as I would in school, I would enjoy it more. School is not for me.

MSD: So is your process completely raw talent? Where did you learn your technique?

KLF: I would say that 75 percent of it is self-taught and I have an art professor that taught at UCLA that I am real close with. I will randomly call him and ask him questions. He taught me a lot of do’s and dont’s but a lot of it is trial and error.

MSD: Tell me about the collection of work you are going to be showing.

KLF: Most of my passion comes from relationships. They all represent girls that I have opened myself up to. Most of these paintings started from coming out of a relationship when I moved back to Arkansas from LA. She moved to Nashville at the same time I moved to Arkansas and a month later we split. I had been living in LA for eight years and I would hang out with friends all the time but in Arkansas it was much different. In Arkansas there wasn’t really anyone to hang out with. I spent a lot of time alone doing these paintings and taking walks trying to figure out life and where I wanted to go from there.

MSD: What is your opinion of the Dallas art scene?

KLF: I love the open door policy here. In LA I had some luck getting in three different Beverly Hills galleries. But not a lot of business was produced out of it. I always felt like I was pushing and pushing but here I really feel like the ball is rolling and it is starting to pull me.

MSD: Tell me about your relationship with RO2.

KLF: I meet them(Susan Roth Romans and Jordan Roth) at a show a month ago two weeks after I got here. We meet at Aloft where I am doing my show. My friend Douglas introduced me to them and I showed Susan some images of my work from my phone and she asked if I wanted to do a show. Sometime later I asked my friend Douglas if he thought if they would let me do a solo show. He said that he didn't think they did solo shows. I ended up talking to Susan a week later and she said I was going to do a solo. It feels awesome to get picked up by a company that has been doing this for thirty something years shortly after getting here. I was nervous about how things were going to turn out.

MSD: What are your expectations for this show?

KLF: I don’t have any expectations for this show because that sets yourself up for failure. I am expecting 50 people to come if more come great. I don’t expect to sell but if I do than I will be surprised and happy because I know that shows are often just events for people to go to. Who really knows? I have no clue.

MSD: Who are some of your favorite artists?

KLF: Larry Rivers, Sean Jason Alexander, Charlie Iso, Michael Gorman, and Basquiat. The very first artist to ever inspire me was Van Gogh. He inspired me with textures and colors and that is when I started painting. As you can see I like bright colors.

Fougerousse's exhibit reception is Friday March 4th from 7-10pm at the Aloft Hotel.
For more information on Fougerousse visit www.klfstudios.com or www.ro2art.com.