Rob Sato is a Los Angeles–based artist and illustrator from Sacramento, California. He holds a BFA from the California College of Arts & Crafts and creates work that blends intricate detail with surreal storytelling. His art has been exhibited internationally, including at the Japanese American National Museum (LA) and the Oakland Museum of California. Sato also works occasionally in animation, designing for shows such as The Midnight Gospel and Beavis and Butthead, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, and Juxtapoz.
What does it mean to make drawings, especially over other art forms?
I don’t know anything else that provides such a quick and direct line from seeing and feeling to tangibility. Drawing can be a really raw reflection of what’s being refracted through the prism of any eye, mind, and body. It’s always been my main way to play, to make myself and others laugh, to hallucinate enjoyably, to enrich emotions, and it’s my main tool for seeing and thinking. Drawing, both as observation and as a physical activity, is among the few, sure ways I know that will ground me, that will help me look outward and feel the world around me.
What kind(s) of rituals are embedded in your drawing practice?
I began to do this thing about seven years back to calm myself where I run a pencil back and forth in descending lines over paper and the pencil pressure would change with my breathing. It started as a way to soothe my nerves and enter a more meditative state but then it soon became a method of drawing in and of itself. My warmup drawing practice took over my whole practice for a while with these back-and-forth lines building sedimentary layers of texture. Sometimes they build into shapes and images. It can feel like I’m mapping out ghostly landscapes and figures through a kind of metaphysical sonar, or like I’m making a rubbing against an invisible stone. That’s the only regular ritual I’m consciously aware of in my drawing. Drawing itself is my life’s ritual. If I don’t do it every day, I get very out of sorts.
In what ways does Los Angeles influence (or not) your approach to drawing?
How LA influences my drawing I couldn’t tell you exactly, but it certainly affects what I draw. I regularly do observational drawing and take in the people and environment, and while those observations get filtered into my more finished work, I’m not sure it’s readily recognizable there. It’s more a kind of energy being transferred. I feel a strong connection to LA; it’s very much home, but I draw the environment and people anywhere I go so I’m not sure if I can pinpoint how LA affects my approach. My friends and the many creative voices here have an impact on my drawing through the simple fact that we’re around each other, interacting and seeing what each other are up to. I am fascinated by how the vibrant natural world is woven into or lives in friction with the vibrant sprawling apocalypse that is LA. It’s at turns appalling, surprising, and delightful.