Studio Berghe
Creative Studio
"IT’S OK TO BE AN ASSHOLE FROM TIME TO TIME."
Timothy, what’s up man? How are things going for you?
My life is going 200km/h on the left lane, on the road to somewhere. I don’t even know what I'm doing from time to time. But I guess I am constantly building on something that I could call my own business / life. And I have the best dog ever.
Can you please tell our readers who you are and what you do?
You could say I am a jack of all trades, in a somewhat positive way, with ADHD and a big love for “je m'en foutisme” (that’s French). I started a small business a few years ago, Studio Berghe, where I combine my art projects (street art, paintings, graphic design, …) with my interior projects (furniture design, interior advice, photography, …). Besides my commercial work, i also make artwork with my own visual language and stories, under the alias 'BERH'.
You seem like a multi-talented guy, how do you develop all those skills?
I dropped out of art school after just one year, just because i was a stupid little piece of shit. But because of that my life kind of changed for the better. At 16 I started doing graffiti and experimenting with different forms of art. All this art stuff was my passion, and somehow kind of turned into a little side hustle. Hooray!
A few years ago I went to college to study interior design / furniture design, where I could combine my passion for art with my love for design (aka fancy expensive shit). After I finished college, I realized that I wanted to combine both passions in one package.
So I kind of developed some skills on my own, through experience and trial & error, and others while attending (lol) college. But I guess I always had some sort of view on how things aesthetically should be placed or positioned and how colors matched, so where I am in life and what I'm doing seems like a logical outcome to me. I try to learn a new skill every year, so when I'm 60, I will be one skilled motherfucker.
Let’s say I want a painting, a tattoo and a new design for my interior. How do you get started? What inspires you?
First of all i would say, calm down & let’s talk. For me the artwork and the interior is something that’s overlapping. I can design a concept for your interior and integrate the painting so everything is in balance. But the interior is something that the customer has a say in, as for the painting they only may give me a theme at most. I also do commercial assignments with graffiti / street-art, then it’s the same story as the interior.
With the tattoos it’s a whole different cookie. For me there is no pressure on tattooing, it’s more a weird form of meditation. If i’m not calm i fuck up somebody’s skin, and that would be a shame… So it’s my moment of zen in a fast paced life. This might change in the future, but at the moment I just draw some shit and you can choose from those drawings, if you don’t like them, fine by me.
Tell us something really meaningful for your career.
I don’t know, I just go where the things I do take me. I don’t really think about what I'm doing, I just enjoy it. I guess seeing people enjoy something I made is meaningful?
What is your biggest milestone so far?
Over the last 3 years I've got to meet a lot of interesting people and go to some very nice places, but that’s nothing special to me personally.
Allegedly, the first illegal graffiti piece I made was under a certain bridge, it sucked balls and wasn’t really something to be proud of. But a few years ago I had the opportunity to make a big mural on that same wall. I kind of covered my own piece haha. It’s not the biggest milestone someone could have, but it kind of affected my view on what I'm doing.
If you had to choose between money or endless creativity?
I would choose endless creativity, because having a creative block sucks big time. But then again, if you want to paint, you will need money to buy your equipment. I think that creativity is limited because of money. Sure, a person with no money can draw something on a piece of paper, but the feeling you can get from completing a big mural, or finishing a painting with lots of colors and 10 sorts of brushes is something else for me.
Inspire the people that want to be like you Timothy! Tell them something!
Sometimes, just sometimes, stop giving a fuck and just be you. Don’t try to please people or change your opinion, because you don’t want to be an asshole. It’s ok to be an asshole from time to time. It will benefit you personally and that will have an effect on your creative impulses. If people drop you because of that, that’s their problem.
