Meet Observer Obscura

You may have seen the artwork of Observer Obscura while having a stroll around the city. Their Charming anecdotes have been dotting the city since they started the public art project way back in 2013. We had a chat with the artist about their work, truth, and lies. Check it out.

Two Truths and a Lie

(Answers at bottom of the article)

I’m an avid biker

I’ve driven across the country

I once worked as a chef

Would You Rather

be able to smell the future or hear into the past? Please explain why.

I’d rather hear into the past. I love listening to people and the way they tend to rationalize actions and decisions that they make. Information is power and history is filled with propaganda, I’d love to hear some truth.

Some questions with Psymon Spine

What was the first piece of art you ever made?

Probably a drawing at some point as a toddler. I was a champion stick figure artist. I’ve got one amazing drawing from my childhood someone framed and when they passed it came back to me. It’s filled with psychological symbolism and I think a therapist would have fun picking it apart. Though I’ve just been making things for as long as I remember, I never considered it art or myself an artist until fairly recently.

What was the best piece of advice you ever received?

Ask yourself why, why this person, this action, this choice, what’s the intention?

You have gained notoriety for fortune-cookie poems wheat-pasted around the city. What drew you to this text-based medium?

It’s always been about communication and connection for me. In my life, I’ve had difficulties communicating and connecting to people in an honest and real way. I started this project as a way to say things to people I found difficult in person, in this way I was removed as the messenger, and perhaps the universe would deliver the message for me. I realized quite quickly that what I was writing was not only deeply personal but also utilitarian in a way. I began to release the test out into the universe and very unexpectedly I started to get responses, some thought out, some spontaneous, sweet, and mean. it was inspiring, it fueled me to go deeper…It’s been a very healing project in many ways.

Why did you decide to create under the alias “Observer Obscura”?

I wasn’t interested in getting a name out there. I was looking for a way to describe what I was doing, observing the human condition. We are always trying to hide our true nature as a society, rejecting the darker parts hiding and rejecting what we don’t like. I wanted to tap into that and I wanted the work to be viewed as the words, not as a person, not as a sex, not as advertisement, just as a moment between the viewer and the words.

What is the all-time best toy from your childhood? Why?

I think it may have been my dollhouse, it’s the toy I definitely kept the longest. I had grand plans to renovate one day. It lived in my childhood home for decades. It had electricity and all the tiny lamps lit up when you plugged them in. The décor was definitively 70’s with yellows, oranges, and wood paneling.

How has the current climate impacted your creative process, especially on the streets of New York?

It has given me room to work for sure. Not having to hustle every day and just get some downtime to stretch and think creatively. I hope to have some good work to come out of it, but just having the time to reflect on life and do work at all has been a gift. I had just finished a series before quarantine started that was eerily appropriate for the common reality we were all suddenly sharing at the moment. I didn’t have access to a larger printer so I had to adapt the way I work in size and venue, it caused me to become more creative within the confines of my environment and it helped to keep me sane.

I mean it was an unprecedented time where you could pretty much go anywhere and get up in the streets, there was no one to stop you, and there was some great work done by those who took the opportunity. I think there’s been a total and welcome increase of text and protest art in the streets of NY and I think It’s opened up opportunity.

How do you hope viewers will engage with your work? What do you hope they take away from it?

I hope anyone who comes across the work is moved in some way, to laugh, question, feel, grow. I think the work blossoms when people have felt the need to react in some physical way, vandalizing the vandal. I call it social discourse on my website. I’ve had the fortune to come across some that have been redesigned well say, and I’ve documented nest to their original form. I have felt everything from flattered to angry to fascinated, there have been some great ones.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

Hahaha, my work is the soapbox I usually stand on. I guess my final comment is to look deeper, dare to do the scary things you want to do, do the hard work to truly love yourself, it’s all about you, and through that its really about us all. We are more similar than we’d ever like to admit. Invest in yourself.

Two truths and a lie answer key:

Truth: I’m an avid biker

Truth: I’ve driven across the country

Lie: I once worked as a chef

Observer Obscura