Jake Genen is a graphic designer and creator of unique, anamorphic, tintype-style portraits. THE ARTS Interview + Images Lizabeth Nieves My mother is an art teacher, so right off the bat I was brought into a lot of art. I have memories at 4 years, and my mother was at an ashram and doing life drawings, and I was running around watching people paint. I drew and painted all through elementary, junior high, and high school. I drew comic books as a kid. Toys and everything and anything. I was really big into horror movies as a kid, and I wanted to become a horror movie effects person. Then my mom’s friend was a scenic painter, so by high school I knew you could live and work as an artist. I always knew art was where it was at. I went to college at FIT and studied ad design, and was in the first class of animation. It was a good school. I worked through college, and designed a lot of t-shirts. I worked at Brooklyn Mint, which was Biggies T-shirt line, and I worked at Roc a Wear for while. I also designed socks for a French company. I had a t-shirt company in high school and college called Small Minds. The first year that I worked at Tim Hunter Design, I had a lot of free time. One day I found a lot of old images and thought, oh these are cool. I stuck a crawfish on a General. I was like, this is neat. I printed it big and then forgot about it for a year. Then I came back to it and I started buying images. At first I started with digital images, and then I started buying tintypes from eBay and flea markets. I like going to the New York Library and researching images also. The ball started rolling, and I started getting different images, and the idea was to become a street artist, and print big, and take up walls. I was a wimp to do it because everyone I know who did street art did an overnight. I just kept with it and started getting a good response. I’ve been creating the images for nine or ten years now. I like researching and finding as many weird animals as I can. Like the aye aye monkey which has really long fingers and big eyes. I look at a tintype and just feel it out. I look at a person and think, that person kind of looks like an owl. I try to find the animal that matches the person. I also sketch a little, and I have painted. Out of all the graphic work that I do, this is the only thing not overseen by art directors. It’s all mine. It’s a little story in my head. All the names of the portraits are derived from the names they come from. I’ve created about 40 something pictures at the point. I feel like you need 200 to make a book. What’s next for me? Keep on producing pieces—and I have an idea that instead of doing animorphic tintypes, I want to start doing animal based wood creatures. My next big project is having a daughter, due November 7th, and that’s pretty major! Portra it of an Art ist as a Young Man View Jake’s art at www.jakegstudios.com 24 | BOROMAG.COM | JUNE 2014
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