Going for total saturation—The Electric Acid Kool-Acid Test is channeling itself through Eric Inkala’s work as he rebirths it to his own urban identity of today.

Eric, your work is incredibly vibrant and joyful. We’re love to hear where the seeds of your vision come from and more about your journey as an artist, starting as a graffiti artist. When did you know you were an artist?
I would say, I was in early high school when I really realized my love for art.As a kid, I was always drawing but really made the switch after I started doing graffiti. That world really opened me up to be more artistic and made me want to explore more outside of what I was doing on the street. After my sophomore year in high school, I applied to an arts high school and got accepted for the remainder of my high school years. That was what gave me the intro and encouragement to really get down with the art stuff. I was introduced to all mediums and that’s when I discovered my love for painting.

What inspires you?
I’m inspired by everyday life in New York and everything that it has to offer. Other artist friends and painters, graffiti still inspires me a lot as well. I’m very inspired by colors and their effect on people.

Where did you grow up? Was art present in your life?
I grew up in Minneapolis Minnesota. And, yes,very much so, my mother has always been super artistic so I definitely got it from her. My parents also were super supportive of me doing all of the art stuff throughout the years so that definitely helped shape me as an artist.

Tell us about your technique.
My work is really an exploration of color and abstraction. Exploring form through cutting up images of drawings and re-appropriating them into new compositions. In each composition in any given painting,could be the result of up to twenty drawings put into its form. Then when I start the painting process my color selection happens very organically. A lot of people think my work is very planned out but I like to leave a lot to chance for exploration when choosing color schemes. Starting with a dominant few colors and then slowly building it out from that.

You have your own unique iconography in your art. Can you tell us more about that and where that comes from both outside and within you?
IYeah when I started I really was drawing and painting only letters on the street so when I started to actually paint and come up with my own visual dialog it stemmed from that. I then started to draw these characters that have evolved over time and become a signature of my work, that sort of work as a vehicle to express certain things through abstraction. Some of my work also deals with letters still, sometimes I do these cursive streams of consciousness drawings that are very abstract and super free-flowing and end up as patterns inside of the forms in my paintings.