Artist Dan Colen Talks About Religion, The Art World, And Inspiration (VIDEO)

Dan Colen's not your typical artist. His nonchalant manner mixed with his admissions of painstaking planning makes for a heady combination in this interview by Art Talk.

An artist who came by his craft after wanting to be an NBA player and professional skateboarder, Colen eventually got his bachelor's at the Rhode Island School of Design, and has made enough headway into the art world to earn the representation of Gagosian Gallery.

Colen's work varies in subject and medium, utilising the unusual (lipstick, chewed gum) and the classic (oil paints). There's an undeniable sense of youth and rebelliousness in his work, whether in the medium itself or in the inspiration from which it grew. In 2006, Colen had large rocks painted with graffiti displayed in the Whitney Biennial, pieces that were inspired by "these things you would, you know, come up to like walking through the woods, like teenager would kind of set up camp and drink beer and sometimes spray paint all over them [...} and so that's where it came from."

Watch the interview with Colen below and let us know: innovative and interesting? Or overrated and immature?