Alex Pardee Interview: Zero Friends Retail Store in NYC!

Alex Pardee’s unique style is one conceived through watching years of horror movies, writing graffiti, and listening to gangster rap. His work best represents that of a circus sideshow cemetery. Final pieces are often brought to life by translating random shapes and colors into signs of torment and absurdity. By juxtaposing these two conflicting moods, Alex makes his works more personal to his viewers, forcing them to project their own feelings and emotions onto each character in his twisted universe. Alex Pardee’s devotion to his art has gained the attention of Warner Bros., Reprise Records, Freeze Management, Hurley International, KidRobot, Twenty Twenty Skateboards, and more. Alex continues to use his art as a means of self-medication, creating emotionally charged images on canvases, sketchbooks, and any other surfaces he can cover with his bizarre characters.  He was gracious enough to take a few moments to talk about his latest endeaveor, Zero Friends.  More specifically the grand opening of the new Zero Friends retail outlet in NYC!

AMF: I know from a little bit of research that Zero Friends consists of a creative collective.  Beyond that, however, what does Zero Friends mean to you?

AP: It’s basically a tangible extension of both my art as well as some of my talented friends’ art. For years I have tried to find more marketable avenues for my art, and naturally, comic books and t-shirts have always been one of the best, most consistent ways of doing so. I was doing things basically on my own for years through my old company, Eyesuck Ink, which was a publishing company I started back in 1996 as a way to distribute my own zines as I figured that you needed an “official” publishing name to be taken seriously. From there I started making t-shirts to help push the comic book line. And then eventually, I started branching out into doing more fine art, illustration, art direction, and those sorts of things, and because I was doing everything singlehandedly with Eyesuck Ink, the publishing/t-shirt company got put on the backburner. Years later I met up with some friends and we all decided to really put our heads together and try to start a new company, with an official direction and goal.

Through Zerofriends, we started just using all of MY art for the lines, because it was a free catalog of images that we can make some cool clothes from. Our intentions have always been to branch out and incorporate other artists, friends, etc., which is what we are starting to focus on now with artists like Skinner, Craola, Robert Bowen, Attaboy, and some others.

I guess I ranted a little bit. In short, Zerofriends started as a family of friends, and that’s what it continues to be. We are all equally creative and we all have some weird imaginations so we like to think of ourselves as storytellers, but we tell stories through clothing, paintings, and now films.

AMF: It must be exciting to be opening up the first Zero Friends retail space.  How did that all happen?  Is anyone else involved, other than yourself?

AP: We are opening up a ZF Retail store in NY in the East Village today, January 30th. And yah, it’s insanely exciting. We are collaborating with Upper Playground NY on the store space. It is in the same location as their UPNY store, we just converted it into a slightly new look with all of our Zerofriends products, prints, and art. We have been in talks with UP to collab and do a pop-up shop for a while and when we got the opportunity to do so in NY we jumped at it, as I, personally, have never even been involved in any art shows or conventions in NY, so it was not only fresh territory, but one of the illest cities in the world. It’s an amazing opportunity.

AMF: When picking artists to work with on Zero Friends projects, are you looking for artists who share your ideas or are you looking for something completely different than what people would expect from a Alex Pardee project?

AP: I think simply put we are just looking for stuff that we, as a team, like. In the future, if we all want to collab with a fisherman on a line of fishing vests that we think are awesome, that’s what we will do. Sometimes we like stuff that may flow in the same vein as my stuff, but we most likely will change it up quite a bit.

AMF: You have some fans in some interesting places.  Sam Kieth, creator of the comic book The Maxx, seems to be a big fan of yours.  On the other side of the spectrum, I meet some Wall Street guys recently and it came up randomly what big fans they were of your work.  What do you think it is about your work that makes it so palatable to so many different kinds of people?

AP: I’m not sure. I think maybe it just confuses people perhaps? And maybe sometimes people like being confused by colors or shapes or something. Like they might think they are supposed to hate it because it’s weird and messy, or grotesque, but then the pieces are filled with smiley faces and bright colors so they actually like it. I don’t know. A lot of pop culture influences my art, whether it is apparent or not, so maybe some unexpected people pick up on that. And regarding Sam Kieth, his work has been a consistent influence on me since I was 15, and we have had the pleasure of working together over the years so that’s awesome to hear that he is still a bit of a fan!

AMF: Who are your biggest artistic and/or creative influences?  Who was it when you were young who were doing shit that you were like, “yeah, I wanna make dope shit like that!”?

AP: Obviously Sam Kieth has been a mainstay. My influences change a lot, I love lifework stuff like Aaron Horkey & Jon Wayshak. Skinner. I love old 80’s cartoonists like Gary Larson & Berkeley Breathed. I don’t know, a ton of artists inspire me every day I think. Too many to name.

AMF: Getting back to Zero Friends, how much involvement will you personally have in the different aspects of the business?

AP: I’m basically co-owner and art director, and working with the other artists. That’s the extent of my involvement. Darren & Sean handle the rest of the fun stuff.

AMF: Now that you have a retail location in NYC do you plan on spending more time here?  Are your NYC fans gonna start seeing at Jonathan LeVine openings?

AP: I would love a LeVine show, but I’m actually going to still be based out of the SF Bay Area. But I will be popping in and out of NY.

AMF: In the end, what do you hope to accomplish…both with Zero Friends itself and more specifically this new retail space?

AP: Just the same thing that we hope to accomplish every day: introduce a new person to some new art. Hopefully we will be able to get some more retail pop-up opportunities in the near future.  Thanks!

The Zero Friends retail store is located @ 437 East 9th Street in NYC.