I first met Brent Houzenga during the acute madness that was the beginning of the COVID-19 society-wide shutdowns in March of 2020. We had both secured temporary gigs with the Krewe of Red Beans to pick up meals from closed restaurants and deliver them to the overworked emergency rooms of all the area hospitals in an effort called Feed the Front Line NOLA. We were subsequently tapped to create artwork promoting the community aid initiative. The deliveries continued for six weeks, and a fast friendship was built. Later that spring, we collaborated again on a portrait of one of the hoppers on strike from Metro Service Waste in June 2020. Our joint works have been featured in his zines and other previous self-publications. I sat down with him in his action figure and art-adorned house to discuss his work, where he finds his inspiration, and his brand new book, Time Again.
Describe your artistry to me. What are your mediums, guiding thoughts and principles, and important messages?
I primarily work with spray paint and I make stencils. But I kind of consider myself, in some regard, an action painter, where the stencil is just part of the process and it’s more about making moves, reacting to those moves, and being free with the process until the actual image emerges. Coming up on 20 years, I’ve been working with these found photographs, that I found in someone’s trash, from the 1890s. At the time I didn’t know what I was doing, but something just happened and I started using them. I tried to find out who these people were. But without a name, historical societies and such can’t do much to help you, and I didn’t have a name. For me, they came to represent the everyman. And because they’re anonymous people and I never found out who they were or what they did, they just sort of became like a symbol for me. That everybody is meant to shine. So that could be me, it could be you.
Whose trash was it?
I don’t know. I was in Macomb, Illinois, about to graduate from college.
I’m sure your process has changed between then and now, but for your newer works, are you researching these people that you’re creating portraits of? Or do you go in blind?
After painting these found photos, it gave me a particular interest in photography and the history of photography. Because if you look at these photos, they’re cabinet cards. So that’s from a certain period of time and I thought that was really interesting. And I thought, the science of photography and its evolution is really cool. It’s fucking magic. And so that was really interesting. And through that I found out that Frederick Douglass was one of the most photographed people of the 19th century. Then I thought, I gotta read about him, you know? He wrote these beautiful essays about the power of art and what it can do. So whenever anybody asked him to sit [for a photograph], he would do it, because he wanted to be presented as a statesman and an upstanding person at a time when Black people were portrayed primarily as slaves. So that sort of led me to research… people. In 2020, I worked with Feed The Front Line to create posters and murals across the city and painted one of the hoppers that was on strike during the Black Lives Matter protests. And in the midst of all that, a friend told me I should read about the suffragettes. Right after that, I painted Emmeline Pankhurst, who was a suffragette in England. I read about all of them, but she was one of the leaders. A little while later, I painted Lucy Parsons, who was in Chicago around the time of the labor question. That’s what they called it (the labor movement). And she was a radical. She was an anarchist. So that’s kind of what led me to the stuff that I’ve painted this year. And then, during this second time around with the orange man, I was kind of like, I don’t know what else to do, but I can read books and I can make paintings and hopefully use this natural occurring phenomenon of people asking me, who is that? to actually tell a story and educate people.
Frederick Douglass
What have you learned about yourself through connecting to these figures from the past?
The thing that I latch onto is, why don’t I know these stories? These people have a place in history, but it’s not common knowledge. And with everything going on today, it’s a little bit of trying to communicate to people, don’t you know what we had to do to get here and to get what we have? So that’s one part. The thing I’ve learned about myself is that I do have the capacity to approach these things in a really academic way and do the research, and do the work. I’m an artist, and I’m going to make these paintings. I don’t know if it makes a difference. Maybe it makes a little difference. A lot of times it just feels like I’m not doing enough. I think everybody feels that way.
Emmeline Pankhurst
Why masking tape and spray paint?
Well, I went to fine art school and I studied printmaking. We had the lab and the presses and the inks and stuff. But I’m also a punk rocker. So half of who I am is academic, because I do have an education. And half of who I am is because of my punk and DIY roots. I had a zine in college and when I graduated I wanted to keep making art. I found stencils and spray paint because posterboard cost less than a dollar back then and a can of spray paint cost a dollar. So I literally got the cheapest spray paint I could find with the most basic colors—I think yellow, red, blue, green, white, and black—and that’s what I had to work with. And I was using found objects at the time. So it was punk as fuck. And I could make a bunch of stuff without spending any money. I didn’t really realize it until later that the punk aesthetic is in the artwork.
Would you say you’re an artist who has a hard time looking back on some of their earlier work? Or is it enjoyable to find that thread through all of your stuff?
No, it’s cool. I love it. And, you know, some of the stuff I made in 2006 could easily sit right next to some of the stuff I made today.
Brent Houzenga paints a car during Jammin’ on Julia, an art-focused block party on Julia Street in the CBD, on May 7, 2022 (photo by Katie Sikora)
You have a new book coming out. What can you tell me about that?
The idea came from the consistent viewer response of, who is that? They want to put a name with a face and that always gave me an avenue to tell my story—why would you paint [someone] that you don’t know? And the story of my book, Time Again, is me going from the beginning of my career saying, “I will never paint anyone famous,” to today saying, “Here’s the exact type of people I will paint.” For a long time, my work was sort of anti-fame because I feel like you shouldn’t idolize anyone. Like, you’re just as good as anyone else. But then, at some point, I realized how important it is to have heroes. The book is the byproduct of a show I produced first in Waterloo, Iowa based on this evolution, and will reproduce here in New Orleans this month.
And then the show, when does that open?
It’ll be the second Saturday of March. Leading up to that, I’m going to Iowa to do the closing for the Time Again gallery show there. This is a big trip because I’m going to do the closing, and then the next day I’ve been asked to speak at my high school for their dinner on academic excellence. I’ll also be working with some students from my high school and the high school where my sister teaches. Then I’ll come home and put the show up and have the release party here at Chemical 14 in the Bywater.
Feed the Front Line NOLA
For someone who’s never been to a Houzenga show before, what should they expect?
They should expect a lot of color. A lot of people like to say my stuff is pop, but I think it’s more psychedelia. Sort of a little sensory overload.
I think it’s grittier than pop.
I mean, it’s something else, that’s for sure.
If you had to summarize the overarching message of what the show and the subsequent book encapsulates, what would you say that is? Or is there one?
Basically, all the people in the show and book are different. Maybe at their time they weren’t totally normal people, but they were able to write and they saw what was happening in the world, and they called for action, almost all of them. And not only that, but a lot of them took the consequences of calling for that action. The other part of it is my story. Painting anonymous people and swearing I will never paint famous people, to realizing what a hero is and what it means to me.
After the release of the book and the shows in both Iowa and here, do you have anything else that’s coming up this year that you’re excited about or things that you’re thinking of or dreaming about?
Well, me and Elijah are in a band.
And for our readers, Elijah is?
My son. The book is dedicated to him. We would like to play some shows. We would like to record some music. I also have another band with some adults, tentatively titled The Father Thing. So we’re hoping to play some music as well. I’ve also had some cool music things happen. One of my songs [“Empathy (Dead Ahead)”], which is a protest song, was on this compilation called Punksgiving with a bunch of bands from all over the country. So I was really happy to be included in that.
Truth Universal
(November 2013 ANTIGRAVITY)
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Oh, somebody once told me that there is a time to stop being punk rock. And that time is not now. And I don’t see when that time will ever be.
The Time Again book release and art exhibition opening will take place on March 14 at Chemical 14 gallery. For more info, check out houzenga.com, @houzenga on Instagram, and chemical14.com.
Top photo of Brent Houzenga in his home studio, and found photo album by Katie Sikora
