I’m pleased to present a great new find for our wrestling artist interview series! Steven Fain creates remarkable portraits of remarkable wrestlers—often in the bold medium of Sharpie on paper! Fain makes sure we know he’s an untrained (though I prefer “self-taught”) artist, but I say it takes great talent to capture such precise lights and shadows with one of these iconic but blunt, indelible markers with which I for one have messed up more times than I can count. When you consider he’s capturing this brilliant era of independent wrestlers with the very brand of marker so many of them bring with them to sign photos for fans, this is really a savvy and complex choice of medium.
Steven’s subjects aren’t the garish, larger-than-life and aesthetically beautiful subjects that inspire so many wrestling artists. The wrestlers he depicts are the unapologetic purveyors of violence as art. Fain is working with a whole different spectacle of excess, looking beyond the violence for the humans that work with it. The tired lines in Nick Gage’s face tell the story of the man, rather than the violence he projects. A traditional portrait in oils present the fresh-faced entrance pose of Mance Warner, rather than the wreckage he leaves behind. And with Danhausen, whose creepshow aesthetic delves into realms of abjection and unheimlich, Fain shows us a carnival showman welcoming us gleefully into his kunstkammer. After you read Steven Fain’s thoughts about the art of wrestling, take a look back at the previous interviews in this series . . .
Spectacle of Excess: Why is wrestling art? And why does it make such a good subject for art?
Steven Fain: I believe art’s function, if it is to have one, is to create an emotional response and relationship with the audience, no matter the medium. This past Friday night my daughter and I were at a wrestling show, which is somewhere common to find us, and there was a very violent match going on. I looked over at her and her friend and both were hiding behind their hands while also peeking through them, unable to look away. They were in horror but elated at the same time, completely in the moment and totally invested in the emotion that was on display. Most artists live their lives trying to reach an audience on that real level and never get there, but all over America there are these artists in small bars, high school gyms and bingo halls laying their bodies on the line, sacrificing literal blood to tell their story. If that isn’t art, then I hope I’m never called an artist, because those connections are what it is all about, not just as a goal for art but as a goal for life.
For me it makes a perfect subject for art because independent wrestling touches something in me. All artists use the things that speak to them to create their art and for me that is professional wrestling. I paint a lot of portraits and historical paintings on commission but my heart goes into my wrestling art.
This work is a 16 x 20 oil painting on canvas. I hand make my own paints and use a variety of, not surprisingly, cheap brushes and sponges. Most of my brushes are the disposable plastic style and I use Q-tips for parts as well. My main income is made from commissioned oil paintings, mostly portraits and historical topics.
Mance Warner is a national treasure. This is easily my favourite painting that I have done. This is painted with a photo I took as reference at my daughters first ever show and the first time I saw Mance wrestle live. On TV his promos are electric and every match is must watch television. In person both things are amplified by 10. Seeing Mance work is an amazing experience and every time I see this painting, which will be hanging on my wall after having Mancer sign it at the end of August, I am brought back to that experience.
–Steven Fain, on Unnamed Bodies in Unremembered Rooms
SofX: Is there a difference between fan art and “real” art?
SF: The difference between fan art and other art is strictly a legal classification for me. I am a professional artist, and as a hobby I draw fan art. Fan art, to me at least, refers to art that you do not own proper copyright to. I can’t draw Spider-man, for example, and then sell that drawing. I don’t own the copyright, therefore it is fan art. Art of wrestlers is no different. These men and women run their own merchandise stands/sites as part of the income they live off of. Therefore art made of them, that would only sell because they are in it, would not only be illegal, but immoral, to sell. I know some people disagree, but most of those people are the ones trying to rip off others people’s copyrights.
There is not much to say about this piece technically. Its a piece of cheap 50lb sketch paper with a black regular tip Sharpie marker.
Nick Gage is an absolute legend. If you love hardcore then you love Nick Gage. This man has bled more for the fans than any artist has ever sacrificed for their audience. He is an absolute terror but I tried to use the limited medium I was working in to show just his face completely clean: not splattered with blood and bruises, but still showing the sacrifice that he has willfully given.
–Steven Fain, on Nick Gage Sharpie
SofX: Who are your favorite artists in general? What artistic periods or movements resonate most with you?
SF: Robert Mapplethorpe. Banksy and Fermin La Calaca for visual art and Mance Warner, Danhausen and Brett Ison for perfomance aritsts. Having never had any art lessons of any kind I’m afraid my knowledge of artistic movements is quite lacking. The visual artists I like are bold and sometimes shocking, asking questions of both themselves and the audience, and the performance artists are no different. You see no WWE or big company guys in my portfolio because I like guys that enjoy being slammed onto thumbtacks, paint themselves like demons and collect teeth, and like being thrown through barbed wire covered doors, again, to ask questions of themselves and the audience.
SofX: What do you think of the idea that wrestling is a “spectacle of excess”?
SF: That seems like a phrase that would definitely fit. Wrestling is at its best when it makes you believe that which is unbelievable and to do that it lives in the excess. The attitudes, the costumes, the performances…it’s all over the top. It is indeed a spectacle of excess and I love every second of it.
Again, not much to speak of technically, as it’s just paper and a Sharpie. I enjoy the simplicity of the black and white, and even using cheap materials I think it can, if done right (and I don’t have any idea if I do it right) stir emotion that overwhelming someone with color and detail cannot. Of course, that could also just be my way of rationalizing a lack of technical skill.
Love that Danhausen. If anyone ever questions whether wrestling is art all they need to do is check out Danhausen. He paints himself like a demon. He wrestles like a god, and he makes amazing promos that don’t even allow one to question if they are art. I’ve not known of Danhausen nearly as long as the other two I chose to feature, but for a study of art in professional wrestling he is a required course for sure.
–Steven Fain, on Danhausen Sharpie
SoX: So you do know it’s fake, right? 🙂
SF: I’ve seen people cry at the end of wrestling matches. I’ve seen people jump up and down because they are so full of joy that they literally can not control it. There is no way to call that emotion fake.
Be sure to follow Steven on Twitter and check out his full portfolio!
Thanks so much for the spotlight!
Our pleasure!