LIMITLESS WITH DAVE COURT

Dave Court’s cross-media projects speak to the range and depth of his capacity as a multidisciplinary artist.

Interview: Lara Pacillo and Dylan Starczak // Main photo: Emmaline Zanelli

Over a decade into his career, Dave Court sees challenges as opportunities, making a habit of pushing the boundaries of his artistic capacity.

His diverse body of work — spanning painting, sculpture, installation, graphic design, video, and music — reflects his ability to blur the lines between the physical and the virtual.

This year, he undertook the Guildhouse Catapult Mentorship, underscoring his value of collaboration. His newly launched art studio Washdog Studios, which is home to over ten creators, is set to push this concept even further.

Before embarking on a three-month research and development trip to New York, we caught up with Dave to discuss the evolution of his career, the legacy of past projects, and the importance of working with others.

What led you to pursue a career as an artist?

I studied visual arts at UniSA specialising in painting. I went into that out of high school because I felt like I may as well have a crack at something that I enjoy doing. I was always drawing and painting, and loved making things, and I thought I may as well give that a go before anything else. I guess it’s been a bit of a circuitous road since then, doing lots of different things, but very happy to end up doing it.

How would you describe your art briefly?

What do I say? Painting, projection, sculpture, interactive, colourful, abstract, messy, fun stuff.

How has your art evolved over time?

It’s changed a lot, I suppose. I guess early on I was very, very illustrative, lots of drawing and painting, and then it’s been a journey of getting deeper and deeper into abstraction and transitioning and experimenting and picking up different media and tools and techniques along the way. And expanding into video, moving image, kind of performance, installation, learning a lot of digital and techie tools in the last few years. Going really deep on that, but just kind of snowballing on, like everything, I guess.

‘Behind the Facade’ *by Dave Court // Photo: Samuel Graves*

Has the evolution been self-taught? How did you learn the skills to create for different disciplines?

I always used digital tools like Adobe Suite, Photoshop and Illustrator. That was always a small part in composing artworks and bits of graphic design and illustration.

But I got really deep into digital software such as Blender 3D Modeling and TouchDesigner for live interactive, generative installation and performance — that was fully self-taught during 2020 lockdowns.

It was getting a hold of the basics, slowly getting comfortable and picking things up — working with people and learning from other people that did the same thing around the same time. There’s been a really nice community crew of us that are using these tools to do similar stuff at the moment.

What’s your creative process like?

It kind of depends on the work I’m making. If it’s a commission, it’s driven by the parameters of the outcome. But generally, there’s always a big process of experimentation and exploration, figuring out what is interesting with what I have at my disposal. A lot of the time, I don’t really know what a final work is going to look like when I start making.

How do you think your disciplines intersect?

I think that’s what is interesting to me — pulling out and discovering those commonalities between different things. So, for example, when I was learning and making with Blender 3D Modeling, it felt a lot like oil painting to me in the way that it’s like you’re making, putting together pieces to create an illusion of reality. And then there’s like a point or a moment where it clicks, and then it’s convincing to your eye in a certain way, which I think is interesting.

But yeah, a lot of little connections like that. Looking at what’s the same, what’s different and kind of contrasting those things against each other. I like having a feedback loop of things that travels through both worlds, or back and forth.

Can you tell me about how you got involved with Guildhouse Catapult Mentorships?

Catapult is a program that Guildhouse runs where it connect artists with mentors. I’ve seen artists and had a bunch of friends that have done it in the past, and thought I’d go for it this year.

I did the mentorship with Soda Jerk. They’re a really dope video artist duo. They make a lot of sample and appropriating based video works. I met them during Adelaide Film Festival’s Expand Lab program, and always really loved their work.

Some people do the mentorship through a specific project or a specific artwork, and they get advice on it. Mine was more of a general support system with lots of chat, practice, advice on living life as an artist kind of conversations, it’s really a support and another perspective.

Do you recommend other artists take on that kind of program?

Absolutely. I think that kind of artist mentoring and that direct connection and conversation is so valuable to anyone who is trying to do anything really. Especially artists learning from artists who have gone through similar experiences, or maybe different experiences. Just learning from people.

*Coalesce, an audiovisual project by Motez and Dave Court*

What are some of your favourite works you’ve done, and why?

I think at the moment definitely the Motez project. With some funding through Department of Premier and Cabinet, we had the opportunity to be able to do that as a Covid response project. It was really nice to be able to have that time and space and funding to focus and make something that was really fully enmeshed — multimedia, multi-sensory, collaborative. It was expansive in that it was artworks, videos, a live show, clothing, prints and a vinyl record. Just being able to go full maximal on all aspects of exploring these ideas and making them real things.

What are some challenges you’ve experienced in your career so far, and what are some particular things you’re proud of? Two questions there.

I think everything is challenging, and I feel like a lot of the time I try and do things the hard way. I don’t know. I feel like I bounce between doing things because they’re easy and deliberately doing things the hardest way possible to learn and make it the best thing it can be.

I’m proud of big projects like The Created Range retail store, Yewth Magazine – they were successful for what they were at the time, and we got so much out of them. It’s a similar thing with The Bait Fridge, which is an ongoing project that has grown and grown over the last few years. Lots off bodies of work that we can all be very proud of.

Can you tell me a bit about Washdog Studios?

So we have only officially, properly launched very recently. Over the last five, six years, due to many reasons, I’ve been moving studio once every year or so, and each time, I’ve moved into a bigger or different place and collected other artists who are looking for space too along the way. We’ve kind of moved together and been picking up more and more people. At the moment, we’re based at Washdog Studios which is in a big warehouse, sharing with Workshop.

There’s 12 to 13 of us at the moment. It’s become a very nice, collaborative environment. Lots of people working together in similar areas, but also very diverse areas, which makes interesting collaborations across different media as well.

Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?

I think my advice is always just do the thing. Make the best thing you can with the tools that you have. Also, be as aware as you can of the context that you’re making in, whether it’s historically, other people that are around you making similar stuff or might be able to help you or work with you. Just keep your eyes peeled and be generous and supportive and work with people.