Welcome to our enlightening conversation with Milo Hartnoll, an artist whose eclectic journey through various mediums defies the traditional boundaries of visual art. Milo’s practice is a testament to the relentless pursuit of innovation and self-discovery, pushing the limits of what can be expressed through art. As we delve into his world, Hartnoll shares his insights on staying motivated, the role of destiny in his career, and how he uses his work to comment on contemporary societal themes. Join us as we explore the creative processes and philosophies that drive one of the most intriguing figures in today’s art scene.

✧ ✧ ✧

Discuss your strategies for staying motivated and continually finding inspiration in your artistic practice.

I am a proponent of experimentation within one’s practice; I hate to stay stale in what I do. I fear for my work to become something that resembles a visual product, rather than a pursuit of self-discovery. I am constantly switching mediums, trying to find and explore different creative avenues that I get the itch for. I find it all feeds back into each other. For example, I have a project where I am developing a card game that is based on an imagined verbal conflict between two siblings, to see if I could translate such an abstract concept into systems and tangible rules.

 

I also have an on-and-off project where I learnt rudimentary programming in order to create a pixelated, isometric world, where you can control a character and go around interacting with characters in a strange land. I do these things because I find just painting can be too limited in providing specific experiences I want to convey to the audience, and I have an interest in interactivity within making art, so feel it necessary to try new things, despite any learning curve they may provide. These things help me stay productive, as my interests float around the place, and I find it impossible to force creativity when it isn’t there, so my solution is to try to innovate on whatever formula I have going at the moment. Sometimes I just get in the mood to explore blue, I don’t need to overthink it, just chase a thread and see what manifests.

Delve into the concept of destiny vs. choice in finding one's passion in art. Do you believe that your passion for art was predestined, or was it a choice you consciously made? Can you share experiences that led you to this belief?

I am personally a believer in hard determinism, which is to say that everything is pre-determined, based on an unbreakable chain of cause and effect, therefore my journey in creating art was always how it was going to be. But to give a less pretentious answer, both my parents have had creative careers (my dad is a musician, and my mother was a poet for a while), which naturally provided me with a belief that a creative path was always potentially on the cards. 

 

When I was young, I always liked the challenge of drawing, and at school I felt it was the only way for me to do stuff that I wanted to do, rejecting the tedium of solving problems for issues I didn’t much care for. As soon as I had the choice to only pick art subjects, I did it, eventually studying Illustration at university, which enabled me to explore different mediums and alternative visual solutions to respond to given briefs. It was in my third year of that degree I decided firmly to be an ‘artist’, that is to say, a pursuit of art for my own sake. 

Discuss how your art comments on or reflects contemporary social, political, or environmental themes. In what ways does your artwork reflect or comment on current social, political, or environmental issues? Can you give specific examples from your works?

A lot of my work predominantly responds to niche and mainstream internet culture, as we find ourselves more and more entangled with new forms of social digital communication, in an ever-evolving landscape. I am fascinated with how language is adapting to be more visual, with emojis becoming almost modern-day hieroglyphics. A hybrid of text and pictorial image macros within memes, and messages. A perfect GIF to relate a specific feeling or mood, supplanting limited text-based communication to convey what we are communicating. Some of my paintings are translations of specific image macros that I find myself using in different contexts, as I paint them, I think more about this topic and why I am drawn to these specific pictures. I also have experimented with including text within the picture plane, as I feel it can give paintings sound. 

 

I am not interested in making my work particularly political, as I don’t feel it is my place to have an opinion in such matters, other than my specific fascination with communication.  

Describe your artistic process from conception to completion. Could you walk us through the steps of your artistic process, starting from the initial idea to the finished piece? How do you develop your concepts, and what are the key stages in creating your final work?

To be fair, I often start more projects than I finish, It’s just the nature of how I do things. Paintings may lay dormant for a couple of years, then, after a long time sitting with them, I come back and work over them with fresh ideas. Generally, my principle of finishing a piece just takes it to enough of a resolution where I am bored working on it anymore; either the idea has been realised and I can move on, or I reach an impasse, where starting another painting may help me answer specific questions that the previous painting has posed. At the moment I am very much in a question-asking phase, hoarding my paintings for myself, and filling up my walls. 

 

If I ever find myself enamoured with a piece of media or something I keep interacting with, I often try to translate that feeling into whatever medium I can. Using making work of it as a way to understand my feelings further.

Identify five habits or concerns that you are actively working to change or release from your artistic practice.

I don’t know, I can provide five, but I will try.

 

✧ I feel I need more discipline in my work and more focus. I used to be more disciplined but leaned more into chaos to break free from embellished habits and break free from my own hand. I think I am narrowing down the discipline factor, but I would like to finish more projects, but the concept of finishing work is abstract, as I have outlined in my other question.

 

✧ Organisation. Perhaps this is the same as discipline, but I could do with more preliminary studies I think more importantly bigger pieces of work I make, to help supplement their conception.

 

✧ I want to start getting my work more out there, and make an active effort to exhibit and showcase what I have made, to get an audience response. My work exists in a bit of a vacuum at the moment. If no one sees my work, does it even exist?

 

✧ Collaboration. Working more with others is something I enjoy, but don’t get much opportunity. So making an effort to find other artists to work with is something I would like to introduce more into my practice. 

 

✧ Unkown. I need to explore the unknown more. Maybe AI will help me with that.

How do you think social media platforms influence the way art is created and perceived today?

I think a lot of artists need to realise that their work is now in competition with a sleuth of other visual content, and the modern-day artist is essentially a content creator, like any other kind of influencer. It may maybe a sad reality for some, but it’s the nature of the game if we want to upload our art to these platforms; we are restricted by the format that we are provided with. I see a lot of people curating their work to fit better under these frameworks, especially in the algorithmic preference that Instagram has towards Reels, as the popularity of TikTok has conditioned audiences to seek video-related content, for that nice dopamine rush. The ADHD nature of this makes for contemplative content/art pieces to wane, which is a shame. 

 

But platforms evolve, as does peoples’ attitude towards art over time. It’s a shame how much of a slave we have to be to the algorithm we are hoisted into when we upload our art, but people seldom look at artist websites, as the way most people interact with the online space is through our phones. Most paintings don’t translate well to a 4-inch screen, but what are we to do? It’s better than not being seen at all I find. As long as you as an artist don’t find yourself bending over backwards to pander to these systems, your artistic integrity can remain intact, which is something I value more than most.

Explain the evolution of your artistic style and your aspirations through technique. How has your artistic style evolved over time? Can you describe the journey and changes in your technique? What are your aspirations for your style and technique moving forward?

I used to be a lot more stiff and rigid in how I made work. I started my artistic journey being obsessed with realism, it was a more tangible goal to translate literally what the eye observed, but over time I realised the power of dipping into abstraction and non-linear representation. One piece of advice in art school from a tutor of mine always has stuck with me: ‘You need to loosen up’. A simple phrase that I made it my mission to do justice to, embracing chaos within the creative process more, having it act more as a mirror to my inner psyche, and creating something better than what I observe; a reflection of how what I create makes me feel, over its direct visual qualities. 

 

I devised my own painting/creating method that I have taught to others, loosely called ‘blobby’, which is about asking specific questions at specific times, starting with abstraction is a key proponent of the method. It’s a hybrid of order and chaos. But there’s not enough time to get into that here. 

Describe your quest for uniqueness in your art. How do you distinguish your work from others?

I think it’s simple; stay true to yourself, and you will always be original. No one else exists as your specific amalgamation of interests and ideas, so pursue what interests you and don’t let doubt creep in too much as to whether others will find interest in it also. 

Have you ever considered stopping creating art? If so, what might lead you to that decision?

 have, to be honest. It’s the nature of the game I feel. A few years ago I had a psychotic episode, the fallout of which really affected my ability to want to create, as my reality up until that point had been shattered. I took a long time to reflect and reject it entirely, as I was too emotionally stunted to continue projects that were confusing which led me to that breakdown. 

 

Also, a general sense of nihilism can make for an overwhelming sense of ennui, it’s important though, to turn that nihilism into one of an optimistic nature, and have it fuel a sense of creative liberation. If nothing matters, what’s stopping me from doing the fun stuff?

 

I sometimes fantasise about what it would be like to work in an office, perhaps in the same way someone in an office would fantasise about being an artist. Although I know deep down I would probably hate it, but sometimes the aimlessness of working for yourself can feel like a burden, you need very much to create your own sense of purpose, which is not easy.

What are some upcoming projects or plans you are excited about?

Recently I have been really interested in social digital spaces (not for the first time), but more specifically, ones that exist in Virtual Reality. I have a VR headset in which I go into the metaverse and observe social interactions in virtual chat rooms, where people appear as 3-D avatars, and get up to all sorts of chaos. I find these environments fascinating, how these visual assets dictate human behaviour. So what I’ve been doing, is going around these spaces and recording highlights that example of the odd and curious behaviour of its users, and have been learning Premiere Pro (a video editing software) to compile a documentary-type video that can act as a gateway for others to experience what I have in VR. 

 

Although admittedly the content gets a bit 18+ due to the nature of these chaotic, edgy spaces, where people seem to want to outdo each other in their exploration of the self. One funny example though, is how many people love to role-play, specifically working at virtual fast-food restaurants, making orders of fake burgers and pretending to sit down for a meal and chat nonsense. It is equally hilarious and surreal at the same time, so I want to do more documenting of what I can find in these worlds, and upload it to the internet.  

✦ ✦ ✦

Thank you for joining us in this captivating conversation with Milo. Milo's reflective and explorative approach to art offers profound insights into the intersection of creativity and personal growth. As Milo continues to challenge and redefine the parameters of his artistic practice, he invites us all to rethink our own perceptions of what art can be and how it can influence the broader cultural discourse. We eagerly anticipate witnessing the continued evolution of his work and the impact it will undoubtedly have on the art world. Keep an eye on Milo’s Portfolio, future projects and exhibitions, which promise to further his quest for innovation and expression in the ever-changing landscape of modern art.