Interview with Raphael Leray(Yetzer Hara)

q)Tell me something about yourself….What’s your background…?

a)My real name is Raphael Leray and I'm born in 1984.
I live and work in Paris.
I started drawing, as autodidact, during the autumn 2005,
under the name of Yetzer Hara.

q)When growing what was the greatest force pushing you towards art?

a)Fear of falling into a weak nihilism.
So I had to decide to lead a project , but a project that didn't disguise an inner blank or lie.
And a piece of art , when it is done with a bit of sincerity and not merely with the ambition of a social achievement implying a scholar lining up on some new trends , had the quality of being enought arbitrary to don't lie even if the artist himself is a lier.It reveal something true about you and despite you! And that's what really pushed me to try, not to know myself but to leave something true about me.

q)Were you inspired/encouraged by any one person to pursue your craft?

a)Ah.....It's a bit perverse, but in general what push me the most to work are peoples that look indifferent in front of what I do. I guess that if everybody were approving all the time my drawings , I'll just stop to do it. I have a deep aversion for any kind of consensuality. I need to have my dosage of paranoia and confrontation to get enought energy for working.
Of course the fact that a few peoples appreciate my work is absolutely vital for me , but it's not what push me at work however.

q)How would you describe your art to someone who could not see it?

a)I don't think I would like to describe graphicaly my work to someone , but maybe more what I 'm
trying to do. I think that I'm trying to realise , somehow, a « topography » of my feels as if they were independant organism and conctruction living and interacting in my body.
But I'm only interpreting my will saying this...
I guess that , most of the time , an artist is only able to see in his own work what his mental's equipment let him see, in consequence he could never see appear this latter while looking at his work , and this mental's equipement is precisely the essence of his work , therefore he could hardly explain the real speficity of his piece to someone, beside the material or conceptual side of it.


q)Are certains colours,shapes that you’re drawn to?

a)No , not really in fact...
When I'm feeling touched by the work of someone , I cannot explaining this feel to me simply by the presence of some forms and colors.
I haven't any particular interrest in the research of design etc...
When I'm drawing, the forms appear almost automaticaly, I don't predict them before putting the pen on the paper, forms cames up randomly.
Then I begin to be seduce by one or two and I start to look for composing them until I'm satisfied.Each time I made some new « forms » I reinject few of them in the next drawing . Somehow it's a « work in progress », but only from a purely graphical point of view.

q)What other talent would you like most to have?

a)I'm very attracted by writing. From the elaboration of a science-fiction story to a philosophical essay, it's the processus of writing itself that fascinate me. So if I would like to have an other talent it would be this one.

q)What’s your favourite mediums to work in/on?

a)Actually it's paper and pen of course ... But I think seriously about including some others medium such as photography and maybe somes short text in my work, I never considered drawing as my finality but more like the first step of a wider enterprise.
Furthermore in french the translation is « dessin » for drawing, this word had been derivated during the XVIII century from the word « dessein » wich was meanig both « project » and « drawing », and this old duality suit well with the impression I have working on my drawings.

q)What artists influence or have influenced you(these need not be visual artists)and how have they done so?

a)From a graphical point of view I don't have any truly conscious influence, but probabily some peoples could analyse and find a lot.
But if we talk about influence in a more spiritual way somes peoples like Eva Hesse , Francis Bacon , Kenneth Anger, Tarkowski, Arnold Shoenberg, Scriabine, (and the list should be much longer) had a powerfull inpact on the vision of art I have, I'm always obsessed to lurn a maximum about their lifes , their processus of creation , but most of all I'm focused about the moment when there is this swing in their carrier, this kind of awakening you know ?When slowly or suddenly they find themselves at the very limit of the common conditioning of their time.There is as much as factors as individuals : sickness, accident, rencontre, etc, and often a long and hard work...


q)What non-visual art interest you and does this have an impact on your art?

a)Music have undoublty a huge impact on me and therefore on my work , but I couldn't explain
really how . However with certain kind of atonal and concrete music there is , somehow , a sort of synesthesie that is operating more or less conscioulsy, as if the structure and the suggested materiality of the sounds used were influencing the composition in my drawings.


q)What do you think about artists using the Internet as a forum for sharing their work?

a)Internet have permit to a lot of peoples like me to don't pass necesserarily through the approbation and encouragement of the few littles networks of art communities where they live to start having a visibility, and this is a very positive point.
But personnaly I feel that this good side is accompanied of a less nice aspect wich is a strong tendancy for autarcy and a lake of critics.With online network like myspace or others, you get only « good » feedbacks about your work simply because peoples that maybe have some critics to give you just ignore you.That's a general problem with internet , peoples only come directly to what they already like, they just wan't to be reinforced in their tastes or opinions.And any real discovery mainly come from accident in a research.
This remark is maybe a bit too much affirmative, but I guess it's often the case.

q)What is your favourite toy,game or other artefact from your youth(and do you still own it)?

a)I'm still youth hey !!

q)Got any new projects planned?


a)Humm... I prefer to don't talk about that , I have beginning to be a bit superstitious for those kind of things.
But yes there is somes.

q)What advice can you give to other artists to help them improve their chances of survival in this global village we call our home?

a)I will tell them if I survive.

q)Favourite books/authors?

a)Without hesitation , one of my favorite author of all times is Friedich Nietzsche, I discover his philosophical's work when I was 14, and ofcourse first understood his books very superficialy, but he never left my life since that time.
Each time I re-open his books I discover and understand a torrent of things that didn't appeared to me before.
Also the reading of great authors like Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault give me an indispensable light to read Nietzche. I get very humble when reading the thoughts of such peoples, this is an activity that will undoubtedlty follow me until the end of my life.

q)Favourite music?

a)I'm essentialy listening bruitist/experimetal stuff , among others I really like peoples like Ikue Mori, Otomo Yoshihide, Oval, Pansonic, Nurse with wound, John Cage, Henri Pousseur, Laurie Spiegel. Sometimes I can also listen some old black metal stuff in the fields of Burzum , and even some Baroque music especially the Madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo.
Weird music had been one of my main preocupation, since the age of 17 I had been involved in a number of activity around the experimental music scene such as : gig's organisation , radio show, disc selling, that I progessively stop when I started to draw.But I'm still a hard supporter.


q)What do you fear most?

a)Death.


q) Your contacts…

a)http://yetzer-hara.com
http://myspace.com/acediaa

Email : raphael@yetzer-hara.com

And thank you......