ARTCRUSH. INSTALMENT: CRAIG DAMRAUER

This instalment of Artcrush takes a peek into the life of New Orleans based artist, Craig Damrauer. Craig is truly philosophical in his approach to work, life and relationships and is the creator of the New Math body of work which our studio has recently made into a collection, which you can see here.

Constantly pondering the problems our modern world puts on the interactions and relationships we have with others, Craig's art is his quantification of how humans tend to complicate everything.

We first found Craig through his collaboration with 20x200 and knew his work would translate perfectly with our mantra of making art accessible to all. The simplicity of Craig's work, is it's strength; his equations incite the "ohhh I get it" reaction like no other.

Interestingly, Craig was raised in Colorado by scientists but being inherently creative, developed a mind that was equal parts left and right, given he now seamlessly combines art and science. Relationships are at the core of his work and he describes his New Math body of work as a "tapestry of equations that could stretch on forever, or at least as far as human interaction stretches", which is exactly the mammoth artistic challenge that Craig has committed himself. Starting out with a deck of 40 equations in 2002, Craig has continued to quantify the world with an ever-growing series of equations. There are now, literally hundreds, each one extolling more truth than the last.

We asked Craig a few questions and he gave us some excellent answers.

1. What song/album do you have on repeat at the moment?

The Kinks - Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). 

Listen to our Artcrush Ear Worms here.

2. Could you take a photo of something and tell us a story about it? 

'Hey hon'

'What? I'm busy.'

'With what? The car stuff?'

'Nah, carving this strawberry into a little face.'

'Oh nice. Hey, I have a question.'

'What's that.'

'You remember that piece of fabric I was saving?'

'Not really, why?'

'It was red.'

'Nope, sorry. Where was it?'

'I had it over by the windowsill. The cat used to sleep on it before he escaped.'

'Oh man.'

'You seen it?'

3. If you had to describe your city of New Orleans in 5 words, what would they be?

Random

Clear

Deep

Natural

Complex

We encourage anyone that hasn't seen much of Craig's work to keep an eye out. He creates incredibly relatable work that speaks to the human in everyone. 

See more from Craig here: AssortedBitsOfWisdom.com

Or via instagram: misterdamrauer