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.
