Quarter-Finalist

Robert Gilliam

I love to create art because of the feeling of wow that I get knowing that my work is an expression from my mind and through my hands .

Currently 5th

in the Quarter-Finals
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You decide who will appear in Artforum Magazine, take home $25,000, and display their work at The Art of Elysium's Salon!

Voting for Semi-Finalists ends Thursday the 25th of June at 7PM PDT

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What is your favorite type of art to create?

My favorite type of art to create is art that comes from nothing. I like to call it Freestyle art , because of the freedom feeling I have when I create and the sporadic solutions I come up with to the problem of “where do I begin”. Sometimes I just use whatever's in reach and go from there. I enjoy painting with mushroom coffee on raw canvas with gold leaf as much as I love to make slingshots and belt buckles .

Where do you find inspiration?

Sometimes I find inspiration from anger , sometimes it’s from nature and human conversation. This body of work Called The Art of the Covenant is/ was inspired by a mixture of frustration , Mushroom Coffee and George Washington Carver , who was also a great painter and Mycologist who mixed them both on canvas and cloths. I give thanks for those that come before me , I AM inspired by my ancestors who guild my hands.

What would you do with $25,000?

I would use $25,000 to cover my 26yr old daughter’s expenses Fighting against Rheumatoid Arthritis and make her life less painful on her way to recovery. I’d use it to restock the materials I need to run a successful printing business that I’ve started and keep the roof over my community with the non profit I own and run called the 1st Church of Mycology where I teach mushroom cultivation workshops for the youth by bringing in fellow mycologists from all over the world under one roof to serve.

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