Today we’d like to introduce you to Dane Kulpa.
Hi Dane, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I didn’t know I was on the journey to become an artist. I had a knack for drawing when I was younger, mostly characters. I was inspired by anime, things like Rurouni Kenshin and Dragonball Z. I loved cows at the time, so I created a group of superhero cows that fought to protect the world—no big deal. As I got older, I was into wrestling and customized my own action figures. I used a lot of white-out and permanent markers. It was a bit of a mess. That was the extent of my interest in art. I grew up, went to law school in New Hampshire, passed the NY and AZ bars, struggled to find work, and landed back in Arizona where I grew up.
At that time, I threw myself into nature and spent much of my time hiking. This was a profound part of my life as I finally began connecting with the desert that surrounded me most of my life. I started sketching in my free time—mostly mountains and landscapes. My Dad bought me a collection of alcohol markers that really kick-started my artistic evolution. I began finding my art style on 5×7 postcards until I felt prepared to work on bigger canvases. All the while, I was expanding my love of hiking, camping, and climbing, exploring epic parks across America. Nature’s inspiration touched my art and eventually, I decided to share my work with a broader audience. With encouragement and the help of loved ones, I launched Neon Viking™.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It is challenging to become a “successful” artist. And I only just began this path. Creators are competing with so many other amazing artists, often on platforms that are drowning with content that it can be difficult to differentiate oneself and generate an audience. I am still figuring it out.
The art part comes easy. It’s getting art in front of the right people, at the right time, with all the other factors falling into place, that is the hard part. But I’ll get back to you on that.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am an artist and I specialize in alcohol markers with acrylic accents. I am known for capturing the natural beauty of various kinds of landscapes, with a focus on mountains. I am inspired by the places that I visit. The style that I employ is one that is designed to make one feel that they are part of a living landscape. The mountains breathe, the sky moves, and the ground welcomes. This feeling is evoked by patterns in the scene—mandalas, cloud design, line and dot work, and other impossible features.
I really want my audience to feel like there is something more at work than nature. That they cannot understand it. And more, in its infinitude and incomprehensibility, it is beautiful. We need not understand it. The terms, or faculties, on which we evaluate what we see or deem beautiful should be confused. We should test the limits of our imagination, and yet why do we need to stray too far from our reality?
What was your favorite childhood memory?
There was this one time that my Dad and I traveled to Switzerland just the two of us. He had an itinerary for us and all these places that he wanted to go and see. We went to zoos, and museums hiked up the Swiss Alps, and ate delicious bratwurst. There was this one day in Interlaken in between major adventure days that we got to rest and hang out in the town.
We watched local sports, enjoyed music and news channels, and got to eat and live as the local Swiss do. I think that day and that trip in general really stand out to me because it was the first time that I got to see nature and enjoy a place in that way.
Pricing:
- Postcards – $6/postcard
- Prints – $40-$70
- Canvases – $75-$130
- Stickers – $3
- Commissions – vary based on the project
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.neonviking.shop/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/neonvikingart
