Mike de Sutter is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York
TWS –How are you doing in this Covid-19 pandemic?
MDS –I’m doing well! I’ve got an adequate amount of food and art supplies and really can’t complain.
TWS –Are you being able to telecommute / work from home?
MDS –In order to pay Brooklyn rent I’m a freelance designer in addition to my art practice. I’ve generally worked from home before all this, so yeah, things haven’t changed much in that area.
TWS –Did the lock-down affected your creativity and art making? How?
MDS –I always have a lot of ideas and clippings to match sitting around that I hope at some point I’ll have time to sit and work on. It feels like i’ve been given permission to finally stay home and do just that. At first I created worked directly about social distancing but soon started working on larger bodies of work that I started long ago.
After a month of being able to explore a lot of these stored ideas, I decided it was time to work on a series of books. I often use book projects as a way of playing without the rules and structure that I often place on myself with my larger bodies of work. It’s a way of feeling productive by creating something while at the same time giving myself a creative break. It’s fun to play when nothing feels like it’s on the line. It doesn’t matter if this work “looks” like everything else i’m working on, that’s freeing.
TWS –Are you able to track positive moments or things that happened during this crisis so far?
MDS –I’d like to think I could document this time in my life through art, but i think that would get in the way of my normal practice, I have enough projects already doing that, haha.
TWS –What’s the first thing you would like to do when we can get back to normal?
MDS –I’m looking forward to sitting at the bar at Diner (my favorite restaurant around the corner from where i live) during breakfast time on a Saturday morning and reading a book over coffee and eggs.
