Chainsaw

Alain Godefroid

Interview by L. Valena

If you could just start by explaining what you were given to respond to?

It was just one word, the word 'Chainsaw'.

What was your first reaction to that?

My first reaction was really to think about how much I hate chainsaws. It's frightening, and it reminds me of that horror movie from the eighties.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

Exactly. It was so frightening. I have reasons like that. But the first image I got when I saw the word, was a forest. I'm traveling around, and I really like mountains. I walk with my dog in the mountains, in the Alps. In the Alps, we have a lot of deforestation, and no one is talking about it because it's not new. It's been happening since the sixties, when they really started the ski stations. It's a catastrophe for the landscape. They're building not houses, not chalets, but three-floor buildings in concrete, without respecting nature. And of course, to this village very high in the mountains, they needed to deforest. And to do that they needed chainsaws. And okay, fine, so I started to look at what I had in my portfolio, and I had this drawing that I sent to you- without the blood. It was a drawing I had made with my iPad. So I decided to replace the lake that was really high, a pure water lake, with a lake of blood. I imagined that Chainsaw is an ogre, a monster who eats the blood of the conifers. That's the story.

The blood of the conifers! Oh man.

Yes, well. I have a lot of imagination.

So you made this piece before, and you edited it for this project.

Yes, I'm now close to seventy years old, but I started drawing when I was born. I was born with a pencil. My job was to be an illustrator. And now twenty years ago, I started painting, and now I feel much more like a painter than an illustrator. I still do drawings on my iPad- I think it's a wonderful tool. I use it very much when I'm traveling, because I'm still traveling a lot in my van. My camping car, just a small one, in the mountains mainly.

So you spend a lot of time in these mountains, among these conifers. It sounds like you have a lot of kinship with these trees.

Yes.

Is spending time in the mountains something you've always done?

Well, in fact I was born in the city. I'm retired now. I was an illustrator and art director in an advertising agency, but I've been retired about ten years. I decided to quit, and to really concentrate on painting and drawing, and of course to travel. I bought my van ten years ago, and I travel with my dog, mainly in the Alps. It's beautiful.

Is there anything else you have to say about this process?

I think this is interesting. I was very open- when I was asked to choose to respond to either music, visual art or the other items I had to choose from, I chose anything because I really didn't care. I think it's fantastic to open your mind to different ways of communicating.

That's great! Yeah, actually- this was an experiment. This was the first time we've given an artist just one word. So you were a guinea pig!

I have one question- why is the url at .ch? That's Switzerland, no?

Oh- I don't know!

[Laughs] Is it for taxes?

No no- I just love the idea of the words 'bait switch' form the entirety of the url. That's why it's baitswit.ch, but I might change it because it confuses a lot of people! [Editor’s note: since this interview we also purchased the url www.baitswitch.org, which still redirects to www.baitswit.ch because we are just too sweet on it to let it go].

Call Number: C18EV | C23VA.goCha

Alain Godefroid was born in Liège, Belgium, in 1949. He lives in Brussels, Belgium. Autodidact, Alain was born with a pencil and a brush in each hand. After a career as Art Director in advertising business he decided to live of his talent of painter and illustrator twenty years ago. He spends half of his time in his van travelling Europe on small roads. In love of nature he is fan of walking in the Alps. Beside his work of painting he became a specialist of digital drawing and finger painting on his iPad.

[Editor’s Note: This is the end of this particular branch of the Cyan tree/stream. You can read more about our pruning initiative here. If this artwork/interview inspired some creative movement in you, and you would like to create a response to re-seed this branch, we would be psyched to have you! Just push the button below to get started.]