NEW INTERVIEW WITH AUGUST HIGHLAND (September 2008)
Excerpt from a new interview with the artist appearing in an upcoming issue of Session Wave.

Veronica Delacourt:
How do you maintain your high level of productivity while consistently producing works that critics have raved as "underground art for corporations" and "revolutionary eye-candy" and "as addictive as sex and money" and "seeing Highland's work for the first time was like finally discovering what I didn't know I was looking for," etc, etc?

August Highland:
Well, to be fair, not all critics have described my work in this way. (Highland laughs). But, you're right, I do work a lot. There has been a cost for being so committed to my work. My wife and I separated in late-2005. It was around the time that I was winding down from a 30-show marathon. My work was being exhibited in 1-3 shows at a time from coast to coast and in 24 months there was not one day when my work was not being exhibited in one show or another. At the same time, I was still producing new work. I took my MacPro with me everywhere. I would bring it with me on the plane or train to my openings. I would work all night in the hotel after an opening. At one opening in Los Angeles, I didn't even mingle in the gallery, but stayed in the back office working. I was not OCD. Just driven. I had been working toward this apex of creativity for over 10 years and everything just culminated for me and I was compelled to seize the opportunity and cash in my chips so to speak.
But then the marriage fell apart. It was really my fault. I was naive and stupid and got sucked into all the crap that goes on at openings, with all the young, available women who are attracted to power and success, and I sort of took the bait one too many times. So I was getting seduced by women on one hand and on the other I was getting preyed on by the players in the art world, those loser, wannabes who know a newbie when they see one and make empty promises and act like they have the magic to open doors. The experience was like being Alice in Wonderland. So I was led astray. But I was not a victim. Just inexperienced. I now look back on it and laugh at it all and feel sorry for the people involved who still go on doing what they do.
Then, after my highly successful one-man show in New York, I was nearly killed in a taxi on the way to JFK. The taxi driver was going 80mph in a 40mph zone and swerved to avoid hitting a pedestrian crossing the street. The taxi caromed off the concrete median and flipped twice, landing in a heavily wooded shoulder off the highway.
I miraculously survived with only a bruise where the shoulder harness twisted against my body.
The driver of the taxi was not so lucky. He was instantly killed. His head was three-quarters decapitated. I could not see out the windows of the taxi because they were painted in his blood.

Fast-forward 2 years. A lot of couples counseling and moving 4 times. Staying sober and losing 60 pounds. Putting my family first and winning my wife back. Moving back together. A happy ending to the most miserable period of my life.

Then in 2008, I developed my techniques to the most advanced degree that I could ever have imagined. I just kept pushing the envelope, not knowing where it would lead, yet having the instinct that I was onto something. And finally in February of 2008, I discovered a way to do the work I was doing on a much larger scale, more efficiently and with less emotional and mental drain. The results I was getting were superior to any work I had produced before and I was getting these results without the psychological struggle I used to go through. This is when I decided to return to my roots, which is the Classics, and to immerse myself in the text from Milton's Paradise Lost. I decided to devote all of 2008 to Milton's epic work to pay tribute to the monumental poet's 400th anniversary. So far I have produced 90 mixes, each mix based on one of Milton's 630 neologisms. John Milton invented more neologisms in the English language than any other poet. Each of the mixes contains text from Paradise Lost. Most of the mixes contain full lines from the poem, some have partial lines and some even fragments of words. Many of the mixes have thousands of lines in the painting, one on top of the other, many layers deep. It's September now, and I just got back from a 2-month vacation. I am completely steeped in the project and just as inspired as when I began the Paradise Effect in January/Februrary.

The response to the project has been nothing short of phenomenal. Seeing people's response to the work and hearing them express the meaning it has for them is more fulfilling to me than the high prices that my work is now selling at. I can't produce the work fast enough. I do have to admit, though, that it's a great feeling to be getting checks in the mail instead of bills and junk mail. It's also satisfying to run into those same people who scammed me or dismissed me when I was a new face on the scene and to see the expressions on their faces now.

(The interview continues in the upcoming issue of "Session Wave.")

"THE PARADISE EFFECT"
A Tribute to the 400th Birthday of John Milton


The visual textworks that August Highland has created based on Paradise Lost by John Milton never fail to inspire awe and excitement in those who have been collecting Highland's work since he launched his first critically acclaimed show in Los Angeles in 2004 as well as in those around the world who are discovering his work for the first time this year. In his customary modest fashion, Highland attributes the prolific and inspired works of perfection that he has produced for the Paradise Effect to Milton's incomparable masterpiece of epic poetry. "Paradise Lost is a towering literary wonder created by a towering literary genius," Highland said in a recent 2008 interview with Gazelle Friedman. "This is the first time in my 17-year career that I have not had to endure periods of creative struggle, like bouts of vacillation or creative block. I know that, in large part, this is owing to the fact that I have selected a text that is so profound and timeless and universal that I have been exceptionally moved and forced to transcend myself, allowing Milton's work to be given a 21st century incarnation through the new genre that I have invented. It's my hope that represented in this new style, Milton's Paradise Lost will feed the imagination of the techmedia-literate young minds of today as well as reanimate the passion for Milton's literary artistry in those who attribute importance to a classical education and at the same time pride themselves in having the independent mindedness and spiritedness to appreciate a contemporary rendition of Paradise Lost in the highly stylized visual genre of Exhibition Literature."
August Highland has devoted 2008 exclusively to the Paradise Effect. Read more about this monumental, revolutionary project by clicking on the links at the top of the page. As of the early summer of 2008, there are over 60 series of works based on the text of Paradise Lost. Highland has been travelling and vacationing through July and August. Upon his return to his studio in September, he will re-embark on the production of over 100 new series to add to the Milton Project.
Look forward to 2009 when Highland will re-direct his creative forces and devote all of next year to the work of another universally celebrated bard who stands shoulder to shoulder with Milton, and who will be celebrating an anniversary marking the first publication of his world-renown collection of poems. Highland will announce this new project at midnight on New Year's Day of 2009.

Gallery
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August Highland