If you’re a loyal reader of this site (but let’s face it, why would you be?), you may have noticed our affinity for the work of Brooklyn-based painter Eric White. White’s paintings are like lucid dreams, photorealistic and surreal at the same time, a cool blend of modern and vintage, and somehow both familiar and foreign, like waking up in your own home to discover nobody speaks your native tongue, only Swahili. His images are beautifully obtuse and just the way we like them. We sat down with the painter as he prepped for a  group show in Norway to talk about his paintings, his iPod and his dislike of reality TV.

Can you talk about your process? Is it similar each time or does each piece call for something different? Do you work from photos frequently?

It’s pretty similar although it does vary sometimes. I almost always work from reference, either stuff that I take or found reference or some combination. I do a lot of preliminary work on the computer. But I don’t like to project so I will just do a print out and then do a grid on the canvas and then do it by eye.

Does what you print out on the computer end up looking like the final piece?

Pretty similar, but part of the reason I don’t like to project is that it leaves room for mistakes. It’s not going to look identical. Like right now, the reference I’m working from is black and white and I’m doing a color painting, so I’m basing it on a reference but I’m also making up the color as I go and that’s often the case because I work from a lot of old movie imagery and then I’ll turn those into color. As I get into something, oftentimes changes will have to be made so I’ll print out something different.

Do the printouts look like a collage or like something Winston Smith would do?

They’re pretty rough. They’re not very refined. I did some of that stuff for a while. I would do finished digital work but the stuff I’m doing for this is pretty raw. I’m just trying to get everything in place just to have a point of reference. It helps me figure out composition, which is roughly what I’m working out on the computer.

How long, on average, does it take for you to complete a piece?

It really depends. I usually keep track although lately I haven’t been doing that as well. For a medium size painting it’s probably at least two to three weeks.

Which painting took you the longest?

I would imagine that Ganesh painting I did about 15 years ago. I’ve also gotten a lot faster. That was in acrylic and I think if I’d been working in oil it would have been faster.

Your work is both photorealistic and surreal. How did you tap into these particular styles?

I think there’s something satisfying about throwing paint on something two dimensional and have it appear to have dimensionality and depth. And that’s just something that I’m able to do and that I’ve always been drawn to. I’ve tried to do things that are a little different than that but I always return. I’ve been doing that sort of thing since I was a little kid — just looking at something and drawing it. I do work straight from my imagination too, but generally I’m working from some sort of reference. And the other part of the question, I don’t necessarily try to make things strange, they just come out that way.

Was your process different when you started, back before Photoshop and before artists had so much technology available to them?

The thing I started noticing when I first started using Photoshop is that it gave me too many choices. Before that I would be working from photographs that I took from my television or books and I wouldn’t have any way to really move those things around other than to just draw them by hand. Once I got the computer, it just kind of opened up this whole world, so I guess in that way it changed. It didn’t really changed the content.

Are most artists you know good with Photoshop?

No. I know a lot that are, but I do know plenty that don’t like using it at all or don’t put the time in. I wasn’t sure when I got my first computer. I just remember being sick to my stomach and wondering why I was spending so much money on it and thinking I was never even going to use it. And then it just became this invaluable tool and a huge part of my process.

Your work reminds us of Charlie Kaufman, who wrote “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” amongst others — all of which start out fairly normal before doubling back in on themselves again and again and again. Are you fan of his work?

I’m a big fan of his, yeah, and I got to meet him. I got to go to the second to last day of shooting, because a friend of mine was working as one of Michel Gondry’s assistants on “Eternal Sunshine,” so I got to go on the set of that for a full day, which was so amazing. I was surprised that when I met Charlie Kaufman he was familiar with my work. He had seen some show of mine in L.A., so I was pretty happy about that.

Would you consider him an influence of yours?

He probably is. I mean I have hundreds of influences so I don’t know if he’s a direct influence, but the reason he appeals to me is because of the way his mind works. And he creates these worlds that are off kilter and I think that’s sort of what I do naturally too.

You frequently combine people from bygone eras with modern day. What is it about these anachronisms that appeals to you?

I probably am a nostalgic person, that’s one part of it.

Except most of the eras you cull from happened decades before you were born.

There’s something to an idealized world. There’s a lot of the idealization of women in my work, so there’s no better place then classic Hollywood imagery. And there’s something about it being before my time that it’s idealized even further. In a way, it’s a world that I can relate to but at the same time that I never experienced. Something about the ’30s and ’40s — I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been really drawn to it for a long time. I don’t really know why.

You did a series of pieces based on album covers, so it would seem music is a big influence for you. What do you play on your iPod while you’re painting?

It’s pretty all over the map. I have something like 220 gigs of music. It’s like 142 days of solid music in my iTunes, which doesn’t even include the CDs I haven’t put in it.

Do the artists you play reflect the mood of the paintings you’re working on?

No not really. It’s just whatever I need at the moment to get me motivated. Something will just come into my mind and I’ll just need to play it. Like lately I could only listen to Sonic Youth, running through every single album of theirs. But then it will switch. Like this song came on today randomly and now it’s ’50s Doo-wop. And I’ll have these weird obsessions. Like I was listening to Jimmy Rogers’ early country stuff and I got obsessed with him. Robert Wyatt, the guy from Soft Machine. That guy might be my favorite living musician right now.

Are there any musicians who you think are particularly good fine artists?

Captain Beefheart. I think David Byrne’s a great artist. He’s more conceptual I guess. Chris Mars is amazing.

Have you ever done an album cover?

Yeah, I’ve done a few. That was one of the first things I did when I moved to California. I met this guy in a band and I ended up doing three album covers for this band out there. I did a Korn album cover, that was probably the biggest one. I actually did a couple of Frank Zappa covers.

Are they recognizable as your style?

One is and one was just done on the computer. That was a dream come true to do something for [Zappa.] Some of the covers were pretty bad but I did a couple that I liked.

Does having celebrity fans help your cred in the art world or hurt it? Does your work command more money now because folks like Leonardo Dicaprio and Viggo Mortensen own paintings?

I just got a commission because David Arquette mentioned my name on the Howard Stern Show, so that was pretty good. I don’t know if it does that much. It makes it kind of exciting sometimes. David Arquette brought one of my paintings on Jay Leno once, which was amazing. It’s just kind of a surreal thing to see it on TV.

Did you watch Bravo’s reality show “Work of Art”?

I tried, but I couldn’t take it. I’m not the biggest fan of reality television. I watched “The Real World” when it started and then I watched a couple episodes of “Survivor,” but I pretty much lost interest as it was exploding. I was staying at my friend’s house in L.A., and he watches a bunch of these, and that’s how I saw my first episode of “Jersey Shore” and “Project Runway,” which was kind of interesting, but the other two I just felt kind of dirty after watching.

Where did the notion of doing paintings within paintings come from?

It just was an idea that popped into my head. I’m sure it’s been done before. The first one I did was called “Collusion” and it has a red background, and it was actually supposed to be a corner of a room with two walls coming into a corner with someone sitting in front of it and the walls filled with artwork. Then it kind of evolved into a flat wall with images hanging on the wall and shadows. The first one there was supposed to be a figure walking across it and as I got into it I realized I didn’t need that and it was enough to just have a painting of paintings on the wall. And then it’s like you’re looking at someone looking at a painting. You’re one step removed somehow and then it can become about how we view art and all that. Once I hit on that idea it really appealed to me. At first they’re fun, but then when I get to the end and I have to paint the frames and the drop shadows around it it just becomes a total drag.

Can you talk about some of the images in this painting?

It was commissioned for [Nike CEO] Mark Parker. He had seen that series that I had done and he wanted one of his own that was filled with imagery that he liked. When we were talking he said, “Oh, let’s do a ten-foot one.” And I said, “I’d love to but that will probably take me the rest of my life to finish.” So we settled on a four-foot one. The level of detail in that one is… that one actually might be the one I spent the longest on. The one horizontal panoramic family portrait, I remember that taking me an entire summer. I was working on other things too, but that was an insane amount of work.

Does painting the paintings within those works allow you to paint in different styles than you normally would? Is it like doing a cover song or something?

Yeah that’s definitely true and in that one, he gave me a list of what he wanted and I put all that stuff in. I originally was asking for him to give me specific imagery, but he didn’t want to do that so he gave me some themes. He gave me specific people but he didn’t say, “Use this photo.” And that’s why Christopher Walken, Buster Keaton and Audrey Hepburn are in there. He said he liked astronauts and the Good Humor man so I made up that weird little astronaut one down at the bottom where they’re standing on Mars or something. And I had so much space so I asked a bunch of friends if I could replicate their work in there, which I did. And then one of those was actually painted by my assistant at the time, so I let her just do one.

Which one is it?

Is the oval one in the upper left.

What are you working on currently?

I am scrambling to get this painting done for a show that I have in Norway.

Have you done a lot of showing internationally?

A fair amount. I’m starting to do more now. I showed in Japan in 2001, which was my first one I think.

Is lowbrow art popular throughout the world?

I wouldn’t say everywhere, but there’s definitely some kind of surge in Italy for that kind of work. I actually have a show next year there in Milan.

Does every show feature exclusively new work?

It depends. This Norwegian show I’m doing with two other artists, and I think Tom Sanford did four new paintings. He paints faster than either of us. And Nicola Verlato did one or two new paintings and then I’m doing two new ones and having three others taken from other places.

Does that mean if I owned one of your paintings you might call me up and ask me to send it to Norway for a month for a show?

I would only do that for some kind of museum show where work wasn’t for sale. It’s only going to be work that is unsold.

So you have shows where not everything sells?

Once these go out, I don’t have anything in my studio that I’m not keeping for myself. Everything seems to sell eventually. I don’t have much inventory and I don’t produce as much as I like, but it’s hard to speed up the process. When I did that album cover series, that was probably the least successful show I’ve had in terms of sales, but I kind of expected it. But it’s actually good because that’s the only inventory I have, and I’ve been invited to all these group shows and I’m able to use them.

I would think the small ones might sell quickly because a) they’d be less expensive and b) they would also appeal to music collectors.

In a way, it was more of a conceptual show. I don’t think I sold one text-based one. The only ones that people wanted were the ones that were figurative and had weird little people on them. I’m sitting here staring at all the ones that are just text. I was hoping that somebody would buy a group of them because they look really good when they’re hung together. I’d like to do more of them. I did 24 of them but I’d like to end up with 100.

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