REGINALD ARMSTRONG INTERVIEW

On an overcast Saturday in Downtown LA’s Fashion District, MERDE chats with artist Reginald Armstrong. He paints in an industrial warehouse alongside his Jindo pup, Crenshaw. Over an afternoon filled with sipping Topo Chico and leafing through sketchbooks, photographer Jasmine Rutledge captures Reginald alongside his prolific works. His studio tour left us with a bevy of stunning visuals to process but also—a sense of the gritty underbelly of artistry and fame. We’re grateful to share Reginald’s first interview. 

MERDE MAGAZINE: Tell us about yourself and your upbringing.

REGINALD ARMSTRONG: I grew up in El Paso, Texas but I was born in Germany. My mom is from Panama; my dad is West Indian Caribbean, My dad was stationed in Panama up until I was 5, which I don’t remember, and then we moved to El Paso, Texas. Luckily, we have home videos where I can see where I was. My dad took a ton of photos from that period which I still reference today. My parents divorced when I was 8, and we moved around a lot.

MERDE: What memories from your childhood influenced your path to art?

REGINALD: My dad was in the Army Band. I remember going to military concerts and parties and seeing him perform. It became part of my and my sibling’s nature to become creative in some fashion—elements of break dancing, graffiti artists, drawing a tag and a name for myself. When my dad was going to college, he drew his notes for anatomy. I remember seeing them in his office and asking about [his anatomy] textbook. He said, “that’s my sketchbook notepad. I have a hard time paying attention, so when I’m listening, I draw it out.”

When he told me that was okay, it only made sense for me to carry that into my school work. At this point, I was like, ‘fuck school.’ I was there to be social and didn’t care about grades because of the family shit I was going through. This opened the door for me to sketch. Then sports came into my life, and I had to care about school in order to compete.

When I moved out from my mom’s and into my dad’s, it was a turning point for me. I joined the wrestling team, and the coach was one of the best in the state. Suddenly, everyone was there to help me pass, and I got into this championship mindset. I wanted to win and be the best. Simultaneously, I was filling sketchbooks and entering a new creative phase. I gained respect through the sport; it’s how I got through high school. I was undefeated my entire season of junior and senior years, and only lost one match both years at state. Through this I learned that I deserved nothing. I think the fact I didn’t get 1st translates for me today into this idea of being present with where you’re at.

The challenges I faced then correlate with the challenges I face as an artist today. When you’re on the mat, you’re facing someone equally with the same strengths and the same techniques—but there are all these other elements at play. I tried to perceive it as a more fluid, flow-like state, and that’s what I bring to my art practice.

MERDE: You certainly set high standards for your practices as a teenager. Did you have doubts as well?

REGINALD: I perceived musicians and artists as having fame when they were super young, so as a teenager, I was like, ‘am I already past the age of being forged into a great artist?” I’ve come to the conclusion it's all mental. Screw it. I can’t measure myself against somebody else who’s had a different lifestyle and different surroundings.
I used to pass notes with little drawings to girls who I told to keep for when I’m famous. I still think about those notes because they were like little breadcrumbs to how I was thinking and the mindset of being young. It’s not always things you can see; sometimes it’s things you can’t measure that are the most important.

MERDE: How do you stay true to your craft and maintain an online presence in the age of social media?

REGINALD: When I look at the followers I have on Instagram, I don’t care. I’m super vigilant about my mindset. Staying true to my craft is all I can do. I’m constantly letting it all out, and just hope it speaks to different people. The best way to focus—and what I’m really good at—is exploring motifs that are relevant to my present state of thought. Maybe an emotion I’m going through that may feel surreal. Vultures are visual; I’ve been exploring the idea of being eaten in a city like this.

MERDE: Where did the shift from sketching to painting start?

REGINALD: It started in high school when I met another creative kid in class. We went to a cafe downtown one day, and there were some small Dali-esque paintings on the wall that caught my eye—very clean and surreal. I left the artist a note, and they called me. He invited me out. I started hanging out with artists around El Paso.

In college, I was painting, trying to make a business out of it, trying to push my boundaries into more contemporary ideas and they were all still jumping from bar to bar. I started to value relationships according to ambition, surrounding myself with like-minded artists who wanted to hang out and collaborate. I was always trying to keep that narrative of flow state.

MERDE: What other motifs showed up in your work as you grew as an artist?

REGINALD: I worked at Costco for a while, and the aesthetic of the wood pallet and this idea of a business that flows with this object pervaded my work. It became a reference point. I’m fascinated by symbolism and creating objects that tell a story. I’ve been pushing myself with figurative work not to think so much. When you’re in that flow state, too much thinking hinders where you’ll go. It’s also about being perceptive to what’s happening around you.

When I started creating work around the symbol of pallets, it was a personal representation of what was happening with the loss of my job in 2008 and the economy crashing. I was living in a studio that was very industrial, and I was seeing all these pallets around me in the yard. The pallet became the symbol for me to talk about socio-economic issues. These symbols that reoccur in my work are important for the overall narrative because I am thinking in terms of series and eras of my work.

““It’s not always things you can see; sometimes it’s things you can’t measure that are the most important.””

I have pieces from 13 years ago where I wasn’t as focused on technical aspects but exploring these motifs like a deconstructed pallet. You can see my cultural background from Panama in a lot of my older abstract work, where I incorporated Cahuna indigenous symbols. I also incorporated the game of bingo into a lot of my work. My mom played Bingo all her life, and I always wanted her to take me places as a kid, but she had to play her bingo. The game of bingo is probably as relevant to her as art is to my life, and for me, art is a lot like bingo. Not every card or moment is a win, but it comes down to the challenge of just enjoying the moment.

In those bingo halls, people play with 10-15 cards, trying to increase their chances, giving themselves every opportunity to win. Using bingo as a symbol in my work helped me come to an understanding of her joy in it. I’ve come to terms with it more. Sure, she didn’t take us to Disneyland. But the things I got out of watching her play are now relevant and important, as well as my view of how I tell my own story and purpose. It’s just like the word bingo in cultural references, like an epiphany.

MERDE: What are some of your goals as an artist?

REGINALD: I’m working towards a big solo exhibition. I want something big—like Kordansky or Hauser and Wirth—but I’m also thinking in terms of periods of my life, and starting to curate my work here in the studio. There’s a series of figurative works, these gatherings, that I’m never going to sell because they represent a period of my work that I hope to be understood within the larger context of my work as a whole. I’m more focused on surrealism right now. I’ve been enjoying an abstract sensibility in some of my landscape paintings and have begun to enhance my figurative work with less realist elements like vibrant skin tones. With some of my previous figurative works, I’ve begun dissecting them by creating separate pieces by removing the people and solely painting the landscape.

MERDE: Do you work from images or imagination or both?

REGINALD: I work from images, many of which were taken by my dad. I didn’t want to work solely from images that were biased toward me and my family, though, so I’ve also found other images I’ve purchased. I’m not here to just tell a story about my family. I’d rather not know the people in the image; dig into a sense of mystery.

MERDE: Are you interested in pursuing your MFA?

REGINALD: No. When I started painting in college, I was drawing out of tape, fabric, and paint. A professor told me it was amazing, but I couldn’t recreate it in a series—that I wasn’t capable of it—without him even knowing my work ethic or capabilities. Those are the kinds of things I feel like I’d keep hearing if I pursued an MFA. I’d rather be out here and just keep painting. It was a battle to listen to feedback from a professor trying to filter out their own biased experiences while creating my own. In a way, they deny you to be more successful than them because maybe there was a point in their career they didn’t reach compared to my enthusiasm to be my greatest self. Several students out of my class went on to prestigious MFA programs. I never even attempted to follow them, even though I would have gotten one of the best reference letters.

 MERDE: How do you describe your style of painting?

Reginald: I don’t. I’m waiting for someone else to define it. Basquiat said in an interview, “Why do birds fly? How do you describe that?” For me, painting is a form of flight; it’s become my instinct and my nature. Sometimes people are too contemplative and struggle for ideas, but they’re always there underneath. I don’t struggle with ‘painter’s block.’ I struggle with rest. I have years and years of work, but I still say to myself ‘you gotta work more man.’ I just love doing it so much. Sometimes I’ll be painting for 12-14 hours and then remember I need to take a break, walk my dog, chill. A friend—and mentor to many—Henri Taylor, is always working. When I talk to him, he’s like ‘man, I need to rest.’ I did a commission for Apple, and I literally painted Henri resting in a hammock. Apple asked me to draw him on an iPad and it’s still on the side of the building at the Apple store here in DTLA. I wanted to show him resting, enjoying the success he’s achieved, and opening up the conversation about artists of color who didn’t gain success with privilege.  

MERDE: How did you meet Henri Taylor?
REGINALD: When I was at UTA [United Talent Agency], I was going by Squivel. I met him at someone else’s show, and I was a barber at the time. I told him, and we exchanged phone numbers. Fast forward to the pandemic, he hit me up asking if I was cutting hair. I wasn’t working, but if I was going to let anyone in my house to cut their hair it was Henri Taylor. I feel like barbering has helped me master the skill of talking to people and explaining my art and process without using pictures to describe my work.

Henri told me if I don’t have to sell my paintings right now, don’t, and to hold onto them. I took this to heart and am still holding onto my work. I don’t need to sell, but I do still want certain people to have my paintings. Speaking with Henri during that moment helped me understand some people were stagnant and weren’t making connections. But I was trying to talk to people from a distance, even on Instagram. I want my favorite artists to be like ‘yo this guy is doing something we should pay attention to.”

““Vultures are visual; I’ve been exploring the idea of being eaten in a city like this.””

MERDE: Back to the age of Instagram as an artist, how do you keep it real?

REGINALD: Art isn’t something that can be measured by the number of likes. None of that’s important when it really comes down to it because a lot of those people are just a part of a flock. They’re sheep; they’ll come when big things happen that get their attention, but the people that really matter are people you grew up with, that did things for you, that have always been there—and also people who you respect what they’re doing in the world. If you can get their attention and gain advice, that’s everything. This was the case for a curator from Night Gallery who found my Instagram and came into my studio to give me her insight into curating my work. She said ‘what are you waiting for? Let’s do it.” These are the long-lasting, relevant, meaningful connections I’m looking to make. Andy Warhol was really good at that, getting people around him, listening to their ideas, and implementing them into his work. 

MERDE: What’s your matra moving into 2023? 
REGINALD: Patience. You’re only as successful as your moments of success. It’s the Phil Jackson way of thinking. It’s about having mental patience. His mindset for his players was to sit on the bench and visualize the win. It’s all about perseverance. I think back to some of the decisions I made back then as a teenager going through difficult times, then learning that I could achieve and win was powerful. I could have died. I could have followed a path that could have taken me to a dark place, but I survived and won. As a wrestler, I wasn’t always winning, but I knew what I was capable of, and it was believing that I deserve nothing—not working off any type of privilege or pride—that I carry into painting. I might be all hype sometimes, like when I met Brad Pitt and he was interested in my work. That was a tidal wave, but it’s about repeating that and keeping up with it. Those are the moments I hope to plant seeds. The first thing in my mind is to make that intro and be confident in establishing future connections. Art is magical. It gets you out of some shit—and gets you into some shit as well.

PHOTOS BY JASMINE RUTLEDGE

INTERVIEW EDITED BY CHLOE ZOFIA