J.P. Huss delivers an astonishing variety of grown-up psychedelic arts

Jan Philipp Huss is a really multi talented visual artist. No matter if flyer designs, blacklight backdrops, visuals, sculptures or computer graphics- there is no facet of psychedelic arts he is not experienced in. His unique, somehow tidied up psychedelic style on the one hand and his remarkable dignity on the other made his portofolio astonishing extensive. Roberdo met this extraordinary artist for an interview

Hi Jan, nice to meet you!Please tell us some word about your personand your artistic background!

Hi, my name is Jan. I grew up in an artist family always surounded by art and exhibitions. In 1997 I got into contact with the Goa Tribe and soon started to paint backdrops and djing. In 2001 I set up the Flammentanz Project with a friend as platform for deco projects, djs and small events. Since I ever had a fascination for computer grafics and started playing around with it in about 1994 with Microsoft Paint I decided to make a training as media designer in a small agency. After that I started to study media design at university and still do. Besides my study I was always working as freelancer for different companies.

What are your different projects? What is your focus at the moment?

Concerning your digital arts: Which is the most powerful software you use?

What is your biggest source of inspiration? Any idols or influences?

The main influence I got from my father and his creative mind. I love to be in the nature and that’s of course my biggest source of inspiration. I’m fascinated of organic structures what led me to an interest in the art and design of the Jugendstil. Another big influence are archaic cultures and the spiritual wisdom and experience.
I don’t like the word idol but artist which I really respect for their work are HR Giger, Ernst Haeckel, Felix, Alex Grey, M.C. Escher and so on.

By hard training you can learn the techniques but I think there must be talent, especially the gift to see. If you have a talent you can learn by yourself and in exchange with others very well. University and school push your education into a clear direction, give you the right background and of course the grade. They give you the chance to learn techniques, to get access to a lot of software and to connect to a large group of like-minded. If you are lucky a good professor or teacher can really push you forward! But I think you can work completely free only by yourself because university and school are focused on commercial tastes and trends.

You are also doing quite a lot of party decorations. Which kind of decoration do you prefer? What is your ideal of a perfect party decoration?

What is the worst thing at trance parties at the moment? What is lost / neglated?

Sometimes I miss the smiling faces, the open minded people and the creativity in music production.

What I really regret is that a lot of people only think of making money out of the scene. It’s good when there is some money left after an event to pay the organisers. Money is needed to keep the scene alive but I think there are some cases where the quality decreases caused by people only looking for profit. I like idealistic people pushing the fun and the atmosphere into the center.

You desigend quite a few really nice party flyers. Nowadays the internet becomes more and more important for event promotion. What do you think about the importance and dynamic of printed flyers?

I think it gets less and less important to print flyers but hey! there are still some people without internet. I like it to get caught by a nice flyer lying around at a party, to keep the nice ones and to look at an old flyer and think “wow that was a party!” There are a lot of forums and communities in the internet, where you can find almost every trance party on the globe, but you have to know where to look. Printed flyers have the possibility to reach other groups of people or wake the interest of people not totally involved in the scene.

Anything else left to say?

I’m looking for some labels or party organiser for doing some cover or flyer artworks ;)
If someone likes to show my art in an exhibition or gallery or wants to collaborate e.g. to make a psychedelic art exhibition don’t hesitate to contact me.

www.jp-huss.de

www.flammentanz.de

www.testbild-kollektiv.de