People Profile: Ryan Pola.

Ryan Pola, a funky Fine Arts student, is an avid creator of beauty and all round interesting guy. Seeing firsthand his activeness in creating art and beautiful responses on his Instagram and Facebook page, I thought it would be valuable to pick his brain by asking him a few questions:

When did you realise you wanted to be involved in art? Around the time I was sixteen, (I think). I had always been inclined to draw and paint and all those creative things, but it was around sixteen and when I was in maths class that I started replacing formulas with pencils and fractions with paints. I was over the restrictive methods we were being taught and decided I felt more instinctive aptitude to the arts.

When are you most productive? I would have to say when I am sitting alone in my bedroom while either having a horror movie playing in the background or listening to a certain few albums.

What is one thing you are really good at? Eating and watching TV series in rapid succession.

What is your favourite medium to work in? My favourite medium started off being watercolours, which then shifted to graphite a year or two years later. Then graphite was infused with oil paints, which became a bit of an interest for a while. Lately though, I have been fixated with collage. I wonder what my favourite medium will be next because at the rate I am going I’m due for a change soon.

In what do you find inspiration/motivation? Music plays a huge role in my inspiration. Florence + the Machine will always have a soft spot in my heart with their beautiful lyricism and “Ceremonial” sounds. Lana Del Rey, not the remixed Lana you will hear on the radio, but the Lana who went under pseudonyms and the Lana who sings about the beauty and ugliness of the American Dream. Marina + the Diamonds for the birth of the ego that was ‘Electra Heart,’ which came to interpret and be a satirical representation of ‘the Archetypes.’

What fascinates you? When I say this I do not want you to think of it in its present tense, or what it has truly been or will be, and when I say I love, I do not always or necessarily mean I like it.  

America. I have this undying love for America and what it represents. America, and its American Dream and it’s fascinations with the Bonnie and Clyde and the products it’s society can produce. The fame and the poor and excessive need for all that you can have. My fascination started with 1950’s America and everything it contained, which eventually branched out to encompass the rest of America. The concept of America is heavy and is dark, it is truly mesmerizing and I feel seduced by it. I never want to be a part of it though; I’ve looked at it too much and studied it way too deeply to want to be a part of something that can be so destructive.

Always at an arm’s length I will love the concept of America and will continue to look at it like a child with a magnifying glass over an ant mound. 
What do you wish you had been told ages ago? Stop caring so much and it all works out anyway. 
If we interviewed you again in 5 years, what is one achievement you would love to be able to tell us about? That I am now supreme ruler of the universe. 
Find out more about Ryan's art making here:  
Website: www.ryanpola.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ryanpola Instagram: @ryanpola
Ryan is exhibiting works from his collage series "Dark Paradises" in the MUST Container Festival this year. Opening night is Friday the 1st of August at Monash Clayton Campus. A few of us from Mosaik will be attending and encourage you to come have a wine or two ! 
Further details can be found on the Facebook event.

-B