We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amadeus Roy. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amadeus below.
Alright, Amadeus thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
For the painting side of things, I really believe my base level knowledge just comes from an innate understanding of the medium. The process of painting has always made sense to me. I’ve never had a formal education focused on painting, and the knowledge I have now has come from attempting the ideas I have in my head and learning “on the job”. As for the construction aspect, that all came from having a construction worker as a Father and working with him during the summers growing up. My skills of woodworking, construction, etc. really all comes from his and I just kept bugging him as I got more curious about the practice. For both sides of my practice, similar to my approach to life, I operate off the notion that you don’t know what you don’t know. This is what I would consider to be my biggest obstacle then, and now. Without that formal training, my essential skill has been to always be exploring for new ideas and information to grow my skills. This is a slow process, however, and the only real strategy to do it more efficiently, I’ve found, is to surround myself with people who know more than I do in different worlds of knowledge. Having a community of skilled individuals, all aiming to help each other, is really an undefeated way to become great at anything.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
What’s up everybody, I’m Amadeus Roy. I am a visual artist, currently focusing on acrylics on woodwork and murals. I’ve been pursuing this career for about 3 years now ever since I finally decided to start taking my ideas seriously and focusing on executing them. My work is inspired by coping with existential thoughts circling around the pursuit of a better world for all people, and a healthier relationship with our home planet. Being that I work in abstraction, these concepts may not be immediately present upon first glance, but they are the very DNA that makes up all of my pieces. The paintings and murals you see from me are a representation of a lifestyle that is focused on finding solutions to these topics, while also trying to spread peace and kindness to those around me. Gotta start somewhere, right? What I believe is truly exciting about my art is that I often struggle to find other works that remind me of my own, thus creating a new experience for the viewer every time. While these ideas do occur naturally in my practice, it is a factor that I push to its limits as it forces the viewer to expand their own mental boundaries, and encourages them to become familiar with this process so they can apply it to their day to day life.
Keep a lookout for upcoming works and never hesitate to expand your experience!
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My main mission I pursue through my art is to change the minds of the viewers in a direction of tolerance and compassion. Far too often, people are taught that there is only one right way to do anything, and even if you successfully do it a different way, its wrong. This is simply false. Having a society locked into one mindset is incredibly destructive and leads to unnecessary stress along with alienating those who think differently than you. In everything I do, I work to bring people together to have shared experiences. It is in these instances, the ones that help you realise that you aren’t too different than the person next to you, that we can begin to take steps towards making ourselves a community once again and build towards a more accepting world.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
The first time I read the book, and subsequent series, “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn, my perspective on life was completely altered. Through this story, focusing on a philosophical dialogue between student and master, the concept of tolerance (and our loss of understanding to it) was beautifully illustrated. Along with explaining how humans across history chose to use strategies opposite of this concept in order to coerce others to their vision, the story illuminated the idea to me that I can achieve whatever I aim for, by whichever path I choose to get there. This empowered me to set off on a path that included everything that I wanted to do, while doing all those things exactly how I see fit. Far too often we fall into a path that is set out for us by others who don’t truly know us at all, which then leads to unnecessary challenges, and even worse, many of us to give up on the dreams we were chasing. Instead of this, we should be emboldened to pursue our lives in the way that works for us specifically, and then use our different paths to help each other achieve greater prosperity as a collective.
Contact Info:
- Website: amadeusroyart.com
- Instagram: @amadeus_roy
- Linkedin: Amadeus Roy
- Twitter: @amadeus_roy
- Youtube: Amadeus Roy
Image Credits
Portrait by Jeff Concelosi
Shots of laying down and facing mural by Kayla Lewis
Shot of two embracing by Jordan “Wavy” Montgomery
Shots of artwork by Amadeus Roy