[NoHo Arts District, CA] – Meet North Hollywood illustrator, animator and filmmaker Randall Kaplan. Our NoHo Artist Feature is a way to highlight the visual artists who call NoHo home.
The NoHo Arts District is just one-square mile but what we do in this one-square-mile makes us a vibrant and creative neighborhood. Although we are known for our performing arts, visual artists comprise a significant portion of our community. Our NoHo Artist Feature hopes to encourage local establishments to incorporate more art and murals on their walls and open their doors to more art events. So, we think more people should meet Randall, one of our neighborhood’s unique creators.
Get to know Randall Kaplan
Randall is a visual artist who specializes in illustration, animation and design.
So, Randall, how did it all begin?
When I was really little in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn in the 1980s, I looked inside this old Smithsonian magazine. There were two prints of the paintings- “The Temptation of Saint Anthony” and “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch.
Seeing these paintings opened up something in me. They were magical and terrifying and beautiful. All those forms, the bodies- the creatures- the madness. I couldn’t look away, and the more I looked, the more I saw.
Growing up I’d draw daily and make comic books. I always wanted to tell stories visually, and became obsessed with film.
I went to the School of Visual Arts in New York to study filmmaking. After making a short film called ‘Id’ that I put online, a company, Pathfinder Pictures saw it and asked if I had more.
In 2009, they released a DVD anthology of five of my short films called ”Beneath the Flesh.”
I moved to LA and worked as a video and animatic editor. I wanted to continue to make films but became more interested in seeing the drawings in the storyboards come to life rather than shooting live action. This was when I started to teach myself how to animate by hand.
A lot of what scared and fascinated me as a child came out in my work as an adult. I started creating an animated feature film, Boxhead, and animating and illustrating professionally between odd jobs.
For a long time, the darkness in my work and in life became all I could see. It got suffocating, and I needed to find clarity.
David Lynch deeply inspires me artistically and personally. Because of him, I began meditating.
As he always showed in his work and his life, you could explore and not shy away from the darkness and still reach for the light.
The older I get, the more I find that balance essential.
You are an illustrator, animator and filmmaker. Do you have a favorite?
Filmmaking because it can combine all of those things, and with sound. There’s nothing like making drawings and paintings move and come to life, in time with music and sound. It combines the mediums and the senses.
Do you have a favorite piece(s) and why?
Two paintings- “Come With Me” and “Shattered”- because they are of very old characters of mine that represent a lot of very personal things. A drawing called “Almost” is also one of my favorites. It’s ‘Almost an angel.
Tell us a bit more about your Boxhead project.
Boxhead is a hand-drawn animated feature I’ve been working on for over a decade. It’s grown and evolved over time but it’s roots go back to my childhood.
It’s about an aging alcoholic recluse who’s haunted by a creature from his past.
It deals with loneliness, connection, dreams and how they fall apart.
I’m currently looking for producers and further funding to complete it.
Tell us more about your films. Do you have a favorite?
I made four live-action short films and one stop-motion animated short film in my late teens and early twenties in college. Those were the films that made up “Beneath the Flesh.” A lot of the themes and ideas I started exploring in those, I’m still working with today.
Now I’m working on a short hand hand-drawn animated film called “Womb.” This is currently my focus, so it’s up there with my favorites. Boxhead is the most important one to me and I’m making Womb to help fund it. Those two are my favorites.
Do you have a dream collab?
Trent Reznor. I’ve been a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails and all his work for decades, and collaborating with him has always been a dream of mine.
What do you like about living in the NoHo Arts District?
I like that it is diverse in every way, in the people and places and even the streets. It is walkable, which is very important to me.
Living here I’ve made many great friends over the years. I’ve also met other artists, filmmakers and musicians whom I’ve collaborated with and worked for.
More recently I’ve started to do logo and design work for local entertainers and businesses.
What would you like to see more of?
Real affordable housing and affordable coffee shops and places supporting a real artists community. More theaters and small galleries. None of this is possible without regulating real estate and lowering rents. Art doesn’t thrive in expensive neighborhoods, it dies. We don’t need more gentrification that only some people benefit from, it only adds to the horrible social stratification, poverty, and sucks the life out the creativity that is here.
Anything you’d like to add/highlight?
I think it’s more important than ever to make honest and raw art passionately, not watered down by external expectations.
I also think it’s vital that in this strange, dangerous time we are in, artists speak out in the name of humanity. We have to bring our conscience into our art.
I hope that my work can inspire people to look inside.
