I'd like to meet:
a day in the life
riding the river
the great snuffalufagus in the sky
overworked and underpaid
new york city
About Harper
Save the animals and kill the humans! Hello my people's. Much respect to everyone, except the assholes. Lots of love to the ladies out there especially.
I am Mr. Kyle William Harper, an artist of all mediums and an adrenaline junkie of sorts. Art, skateboarding and traveling are my life.
I am a person who likes to stand in the rain for no good reason at all. I don't know why. I'm just a weirdo. I like the wind. I like to stand on the edge of cliffs.
I like sunrises more than sunsets. And I like anything that goes fast. I am currently living the dream or at least my dream anyways, and working on a
wide variety of ongoing and neverending crazy art projects. Mainly dancing, a lot of chanting, some hoola hooping. Never enough hours in the day but that's
how it goes. I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Until I finish my website (because I'm never home), my artwork can be seen here and at
The Hive Gallery 729 S. Spring St. LA, CA. 90014,
The Cannibal Flower in Los Angeles (follow the links for location information),
Monkeyhouse Toys 1618 1/2 Silver Lake Blvd. LA, CA. 90026(which
is publishing a coloring book coming out in July/August which has some of my artwork in it),
Alpha Cult in Long Beach, 408 East First St #102, 90802,
Project Gallery , 8545 Washington Blvd, Culver City, 90232, Strychnin Gallery , Boxhagener Str. 36, 10245 Berlin, Germany,
The Rabbit Hole Gallery , 195 Arizona Avenue #3, Atlanta, Georgia 30307,
and I'm in the Volkarts shows as well throughout the Los Angeles area.
So anyways, let's see...
A little family history I suppose. My mom's family were lunatic or should I just say lacking fear acrobatic entertainers and actors from
Germany. Anyways, they came to America after the war and joined Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey circus as high flying acrobats doing extremely
difficult flips 100 feet in the air without a safety net. Crazy. Straight madness, but that's why I love them. They lived in New Brunswick, New Jersey
(when they weren't on the road) until my mom came out west to California to work for the airlines where she met my dad. They married briefly, had
me and seperated. My dad was a deadbeat fuckhead and left my mom to raise me by herself but since she had to work all the time, me and my 2 half brothers
and 1 half sister pretty much raised ourselves. My mom worked her ass off to raise us and I give her mad props for being so damn kick ass. I grew up in
both Torrance, CA. and Mammoth Lakes, CA. The best of both worlds, the city and the country.
There was so much inspiration here in Torrance that
influenced me that I couldn't have gotten anywhere else. Like the skateboarding/punk scene of the area (Minutemen, Descendents, F.Y.P,
Toys that Kill, and Black Flag) that I was surrounded by as a child; molding and corrupting my inner soul. It was wonderful. From San Pedro to
Hermosa Beach, the South Bay was full of this huge creative anti-establishment energy that would just rile the patriot in anyone. It taught me to love
my country, question authority, and to not trust my government or most people for that matter. Sorry. Mammoth Lakes on the other hand gave me my
appreciation for nature and my love for snowboarding. When I was nine it was found that I had a third cartalage on my heart. Bummer.
I had to have major heart surgury or I would have died but was told that my chances of surviving past age 35 were slim. That's when I learned to enjoy
every moment like it's your last. My mom and I began traveling the world after that(since she worked for the airlines) and she helped influence my love
for the open road. In the sixth grade my older brother(the musician) introduced me to marijuana and LSD and opened my eyes to a new way of thinking
or a different way anyways. A more positive point of view and it just so happens to have been the best thing that happened to me. My dad was an alcoholic
(Boy, if he reads this he's going to hate me but I guess the truth hurts), so I never really drank. And so marijuana was the perfect substitute and LSD was just bitchin'!
So, that's when I woke up and said my dream or nothing at all. Gambling my life for a dream. I began to paint or draw everyday and traveling and painting
some more. Keeping a journal of my journey's and artwork. From Calpe to Budapest. I saw different cultures and the way different people lived. I drew,
I wrote and I took a lot of photographs. I bombed the hills of Spain on my skateboard nearly getting hit several times on my way down and skated the
streets of Italy. Good times. Played soccer with the locals in East Germany and climbed Mt. Roberts in Alaska. I've had cappucino in Milan and smoked
some of the best hash in the cafe's of Amsterdam. Conquered Naples and it's crackhead drivers and rocked it at the New Orleans Jazz Fest. Stepped in
the halls of the Sistene Chapel and stopped to take a friendly photo with the Russians. Who happen to be very nice people by the way. Babooshka.
Much Love. I saw the Berlin Wall before it got torn down and have driven through the infamous Checkpoint Charlie while it was still operating.
Cruised the Dakota Badlands and paid my respects to our forefathers at Rushmore. Smoked fat joints and watched the geysers of Yellowstone shoot
out over a snow filled landscape at sunrise and have treked the TVA's Land between the Lakes in Kentucky and Tennessee. Hitchhiked across America
and I followed the Grateful Dead on and off from 1992 to 1995 but did it in style and with mass cash. Live painted for Mike Watt (one of my heroes)
and Banyan while they played live at club Fais do do's in Los Angeles. Etc, and so on. I was born to rock and I've always believed that it is important to
be well lived and well traveled. Well maybe not important but it's been fun anyhow.
Life is too short not to live people. Wake up. Grab it by the balls.
Do what scares you. Embrace as much of it as you can. Whatever I do now will be for my beautiful daughter Dakota. Life is my hobby and I'm sticking to it.
Okay, chief. I just want to die doing what I love. I may be dead tomorrow.
Carpe Diem, my friends.
And save a tree, burn a building, and build a teepee while you still can.
Much Love & a Cheers to all.
Keep an eye out for the Mona Lisa show which I'm curating in 2007. It's 50+ artists doing their rendition of Da
Vinci's Mona Lisa and will be showing in Berlin at the
Strychnin Gallery August 17th.
Other cities coming soon.
Harper's Interests
Music:
I like all kinds of music for many different confusing and crazy mental reasons. Mainly mental reasons. Jazz, funk, hip hop, rock 'n' roll, punk, classical, etc., etc. Music is a lifeline for me and I can't really imagine life without music. (Afro Cuban All Stars, The Beatles, P-Funk, Rolling Stones, The Doors, Rush, Black Sabbath, The Pretenders, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, Neil Young, The Police, Dead Kennedys, The Minutemen, F.Y.P., Toys that Kill, NOFX, Bad Religion, Operation Ivy, Buena Vista Social Club, Bobby Matos, Flogging Molly, Frank Zappa, Minor Threat, Rob Zombie, Descendents, Black Flag, G.G. Allin, Suicidal Tendencies, Mike Watt, Firehose, The Shapeshifters, Rush, The Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, Mozart, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Herb Albert, Funkadelic, Parliament, Velvet Underground, The Specials, Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, Phish, Primus, Pancho Sanchez, Bob Marley, Yellowman, Pato Bantan, Beck, Isreal Vibrations, Eek A Mouse, Steel Pulse, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, John Lennon, etc. etc. and so on and so forth).
Movies:
I like all kinds of movies but comedies are my favorite. Life is too serious as it is and with all these crazy politicians running around in the streets yelling,"The sky is falling!". It can be kind of rough. (History of the World part 1, Blazing Saddles, The Big Lebowski, Bubba Ho-Tep, Army of Darkness, They Live, Animal House, We Jam Econo, Endless Summer, The Shining, The Omen(the original), The Exorcist, Citizen Kane, Pi, Amelie, Being There, Momento, Shaun of the Dead, Where the Buffalo Roam, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Basquiat, Brazil, Scorched, Office Space, The Producers, Alice in Wonderland, 40 year old virgin, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 200 Motels, Pink Floyd The Wall, All of the Monty Python anything, Barfly, Strange Brew aye, Cheech and Chong, Idiocracy, Drugstore Cowboy, etc.)
Television:
I don't watch much tv. Bad for the mind and soul. Drop acid instead, it's more fun and better for you. Wonder Showzen, Robot Chicken, Family Guy, Bill Maher
Books:
I grew up reading a lot but my all time favorite books are basically anything written by Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Bukowski.
Heroes:
I don't really have any heroes, just people who's work I admire like all the musicians listed above and artists and writers like Hunter S. Thompson, Jean Michel Basquiat, Pablo Picasso, Ralph Steadman, Vincent Van Gogh, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Henri Rousseau, Charles Bukowski, Bruce Lee, Blaine Fontana, John Gill, Sophia Pottish, Greg Simkins, Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Tiki Jay One, Andy Howell, Misha, Jeremy Szuder, 13:11, Jeru, Mear One, Josh Taylor, Dan Fleres, Blinky, David Russell Talbot, Dark Vomit, Zoso, Asylm, Randy Kono, Saber, Man One, Alayna Magnon, Joe Ledbetter, Dave Kinsey, Bigfoot, Nathan Spoor, Chet Zar, Isaac Pierro, Plasticgod, Downtimer, Codak, Lesley Reppeteaux, GERMS, Jophen Stein, L. Croskey, Josh Clay, Nathan Cartwright, Jose Lopes, Michelle Waterman, Rachel Wong, Dave Flores, Poor Al, Douglas Alverez, Kortez, Travis Morley, Tim McCormick, Patrick Haemmerlein, Mars 1, M.C. Escher, Keith Hering, Winston Smith, Jackson Pollock, Robert Williams, Van Gogh, and comedians like Mel Brooks, John Belushi, Andy Kaufman, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Bill Maher, Jack Black, and John Candy.