Purple Magazine
— S/S 2016 issue 25

Natalie Krim

diary

interview and portrait by OLIVIER ZAHM

Natalie Krim

OLIVIER ZAHM — When did you move to LA?

NATALIE KRIM — A year ago. I just felt like there was a shift in New York, and I wanted a change. A lot of my friends were leaving and going to different places, so I went, too.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Would you consider your drawings a journal of your emotions?

NATALIE KRIM — I guess I would. Very much. All my drawings are based on my experiences with people or an emotion that I feel toward somebody, so they contain little secrets between me and somebody else.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Do you draw every day?

NATALIE KRIM — I try and draw every morning, very early, at five or six o’clock. I can’t draw in the afternoon or at night. Nothing comes out. I have to do it right when I wake up.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Your brain has to be virgin?

NATALIE KRIM — Yes. Drawing is almost like waking up from a dream. You know when you have a dream, and you feel you have to tell somebody right away or you’ll lose it? That’s what I have to do. I feel like I have so much in my head when I wake up that I just have to get it out right away.

OLIVIER ZAHM — When you’re happy with your dream, your day will be better. Or if not, does it darken your day?

NATALIE KRIM — Not necessarily. I don’t really judge my drawing. I know when one drawing is better than another, but I don’t let it change my day. I just leave it and go on to something else.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Every drawing is somewhat autobiographical?

NATALIE KRIM — I would say yes, 100 percent. But it’s not always a sexual experience.

OLIVIER ZAHM — It’s about your state of mind or your emotion?

NATALIE KRIM — Yes.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Are you very sensitive?

NATALIE KRIM — Probably too sensitive for my own good. I’m way too sensitive. But I’m getting better at not being so emotional.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Sensitive but not depressed. Are you prone to emotional crisis?

NATALIE KRIM — Yes. Often. But as I’m getting older, I’m leveling out.

OLIVIER ZAHM — How old are you?

NATALIE KRIM — I just turned 30.

Untitled, 2015, ink on paper

OLIVIER ZAHM — Do you mostly do drawings, or do you also paint?

NATALIE KRIM — I prefer to draw with ink or pencil. I just like the pressure you can put down with a pencil or a pen. I’ve been adding color a little bit recently, but I mostly do all my work without color.

OLIVIER ZAHM — You work with old paper. What kind?

NATALIE KRIM — Ledger journal paper from the 1800s to the 1920s. I like to share the page with somebody else who used it first. I just like the feeling of somebody else touching the paper before me. Or if they wrote something down, then I could go off of that. Or if a little kid draws — I love kids’ drawings. Old paper really just soaks the ink up a lot better than modern paper.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Do you also use normal paper that you buy in an art-supply store?

NATALIE KRIM — Sometimes, if I’m out of what I usually use.

OLIVIER ZAHM — So, you have to work with the actual format of the paper that you find. That’s already decided for you.

NATALIE KRIM — Well, I used to draw a lot in school in my notebooks, so I think that’s just what I got used to.

OLIVIER ZAHM — And do you preciously guard your drawings, or do you just walk all over them, like Jean-Michel Basquiat?

NATALIE KRIM — Well, a lot of them are in the back of my car right now, just scattered around, so I have to take better care of them.

OLIVIER ZAHM — But you keep them.

NATALIE KRIM — Yes. All of them.

Untitled, 2015, ink on paper

OLIVIER ZAHM — Is drawing a deliberate choice? It’s typically considered a minor art in this massively commercialized art world, where everything is about performance and shocking visual effect. Choosing this medium is a very confidential path.

NATALIE KRIM — I didn’t think about it. It was just something that I always did, and then people started to recognize it a little bit. My mom was an illustrator, so I was drawing in the house when I was little. That was one way that she taught me to express myself.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Was your mother a fashion illustrator?

NATALIE KRIM — Yes. But I didn’t set out and say, “Oh, I’m going to be an artist and draw.” It was just how I was brought up. It just came naturally.

OLIVIER ZAHM — You mainly draw girls.

NATALIE KRIM — They’re mostly me. Yeah, they’re all me, I think. Sometimes there are two of her in the same work but that’s just because I feel like I’m two sometimes.

[Table of contents]

S/S 2016 issue 25

Table of contents

purple EDITO

purple NEWS

purple BEST of the SEASON

purple INTERVIEW

purple FASHION WOMEN

purple FASHION MEN

purple DOCUMENT

purple BEAUTY

purple LOVE

purple PHILOSOPHY

purple SEX

purple NIGHT

purple STORY

purple VISUAL ESSAY

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