Painter Aaron Kraten remembers fixing Vespas, fooling pay phones and feeling out of place

AARON KRATEN’S ‘CALIBRATION’

Everyone knows Santa Ana multimedia painter Aaron Kraten for his signature sad-girl image. But Kraten, 34, has led a variegated life, doing everything from fixing motor scooters to running a thrift store to designing video games before becoming a full-time painter eight years ago. (And for the record, his women aren’t sad.)

We asked the artist, whose work is in the Musem of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Orange County Museum of Art, and the home of District Weekly publisher Will Swaim, about all that—and about being part of the “Analog Generation,” a group show he organized at Alpha Cult.

Did you begin painting in mixed media, or as a classicist with oils on canvas?
There was a lot of free time at the thrift store, and my manager was just like, “Do whatever you want on your breaks.” I found all of this wood in the trash that Urban Outfitters was throwing out. I just started doing all this drawing on it and then painting on top of that and that was how it started. I’m still not using brushes. It’s all hand-painted; I use nail polish, acrylics of various types, aerosols, some oil paints.

And then, somewhat later—Dirty Harry the video game, right?
I worked on Silent Hill V, which should come out later this year, Getting Up for Atari, and then I worked on a Dirty Harry game that was canceled. They spent so long on development that Warner Brothers kind of backed out. They spent, like, $14 million on that game. I just kind of saw that this wasn’t something I wanted to do forever.

How did the Alpha Cult show come about?
They just approached me with this. Everybody’s doing paintings, but in the show we’re also each doing one skateboard [deck], so that you can see what everybody’s different style is together.

Some people—many people, even—know you for your image of a sad-looking girl. What’s the story with your women?
I don’t really feel like they look sad as much as misplaced. When people have really strong style, it’s like they don’t fit in because they’re different. That’s kind of how my people are. The people I’m drawing are definitely pulled from pop culture—punk rock girls, indie girls, a bunch of different subcultures in society.

Were you ever misplaced?
Oh yeah, sure. I’m real comfortable in my skin as an adult, but I guess as an adolescent I felt like I didn’t belong. A lot of my [subjects] are influenced by the people I came in contact with as an adolescent. Like a lot of the crazy chicks and a lot of the guys I know. This one guy built something called a green box [also, a blue box] and he would steal telephone calls and go on bulletin boards and hang out. I liked all those cyberpunk kids. They were funny. I think it’s more interesting to be misplaced. Even though it’s kind of unsettling, it’s kind of exciting, being in a place you’re not familiar with, you’re not comfortable with. If life was the same all the time it would be mundane.

You’re also influenced by Japanese animation, too, though?
I don’t really follow the new stuff, but I like the older movies like Akira and Ghost in the Shell and pre-Z Dragonball-series cartoons. I was also a Vespa mechanic for a few years and that’s definitely influenced my work. Just the Vespas and the Mod style that kind of had a resurgence in the late ’90s.

Are you still into scooters?
Those scooters were fun, and I had a bunch of them, but with people on cell phones now it’s totally scary.

ANALOG GENERATION ALPHA CULT | 408 E FIRST ST | SUITE 102 | LONG BEACH 90802 | 562.432.9144 | OPENING RECEPTION SAT 7-11PM | OPEN MON-SAT 11AM-7PM | SUN 11AM-5PM | THROUGH JUNE 11 | FREE

Tags: aaron kraten, alpha cult, analog generation, art, Long Beach