Royal Jarmon's World

I dunno why I've held onto this conversation with Royal Jarmon for so damn long (but apologies for gatekeeping this one).

Nearly a year ago I chatted with the retired couch surfer. Full-time painter, sculptor, and explorer now based in Brooklyn. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions around the world- it all feels like a manifestation of childhood memory itself.

There’s an occasional “fuck you” mentality baked into Royal's work, which I adore. 'Specially when art often tries too hard to explain itself.

Super abstract recollections are realized in many forms. Oil, acrylic, mechanical pencils, college ruled paper, and crayons. Metaphorically and literally bent just far enough to feel distorted, yet still somewhat familiar. From his paintings to his sculptures, it all feels like childhood objects you once knew, now seen through a warped lens of time. It’s relatable. Uncanny. Even childish at times.

The work pulls you right in, almost as if he’s letting you in on the joke while also not giving a shit whether you get it or not.

The convo takes place during a moment when I was just beginning to tap into my own childhood memory archive, exploring the rituals. Annoying Sundays at Church doodling on the communion envelopes, the participation awards. Compartmentalizing childhood experiences that, in hindsight, shaped a bit of everything today.

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After speaking with Royal, I thought I had gone deep enough into my memory bank. But it simply just wasn't far enough [...]

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"I'm an analog dude stuck in the digital world."

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KYLE: Your work hits this weird, familiar nerve for me. Like being a kid in grade school again, just fucking with mechanical pencils, mashing objects together, seeing what sticks. There’s something about the way you recontextualize everyday objects that reminds me of that same impulse. What’s the process like for you?

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ROYAL: Yeah, it's pretty intuitive. I think that some of these things just kind of come to me. Like, I'll do something with a number two pencil and then I'll be like, Woah, this would be cool for a mechanical pencil. So then I'll just go to Staples and look at the stuff that I remember having in school. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to mess with these. And I don't even know sometimes what I was even trying to do until after I do it.

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KYLE: What's your first experience with creation, as a kid?

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ROYAL: When I was quite little, one of the first things I remember was making a drawing at a Christmas party. My uncle was kind of drunk, and he was like, "Oh, that's amazing. I'm gonna buy that from you." And he bought it for like $5. But in my mind, that was $20. It was a drawing of a hot air balloon or something.

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Then I told my dad about it, so excited. And my dad was like, "It's not that good..." And my uncle was like, "Five-year-olds don't draw like this." And then my dad was like, "You're sharing that money with your sister because your uncle is just drunk." But now, you know, 30-some years later, that's what I do. So. Yeah, that's one of the first ones.

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You just made me think of one more, though. I used to have coloring competitions with my sister. I think I was even younger, but I was messy, and my sister was prim and proper. So she won. And then my mom was like, "It's okay, Royal. You don't have to color in the lines."

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But anyways, those are the things that come to mind.

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‍KYLE: So yeah, that's pretty sick. If you don't mind me asking, how's that relationship now with your Dad considering , you've already started making a huge name for yourself in the art world, the culture? How is your work perceived by your family now?

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ROYAL: Well, I had a pretty complicated childhood, and I didn't grow up with my dad after that. Even then, it was like I just saw him every once in a while, and he kind of worked against me on this a lot once I did become an adult, and I got to know him again. And, where I come from, what I do is not even conceived. I don't know, I never would have conceived you can just do this, like on any kind of level. And so, it's kind of bizarre for my family, I guess. Yeah.

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KYLE: Yeah. Where'd you grow up?

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ROYAL: Multiple places. I was born in Cali. My Dad was in the Air Force, but then I grew up in Iowa and then Ohio. Mostly Ohio. Like from ten on I was living in Ohio. But then I dipped when I was 17. I just, like, ran away.

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KYLE: So did that have a huge influence on your art during that time and what you were making?

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ROYAL: I wasn't thinking about it. Like I said, everything was always super complicated in my mind. Very complicated. So it's too much to try to describe, but, the thing that was always consistent, because it was kind of an anchor, was art. And you know, my greatest dream of this was like...To live in Paris and be a poor artist and just be on the street making paintings, and people will buy them, and that's alI I need.

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I had that thought when I was young. But I don't even know if that's a real thing.

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But art was just always mine. 

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That was the thing that naturally was always there. And people were always impressed with what I was making. I wasn't even making stuff, thinking, oh, look at this. You know, sometimes I'll just be like, I'll just draw somebody. And they'd be like, what?!  I lived in my car. I lived on couches. I lived in basements. I did a million different jobs. I traveled in my 20s. I didn't go to college. I just traveled, and that was just always the same. And then people just started buying my stuff from me. And it was very odd. And then that's when I started thinking like, oh. That's interesting, you know? 

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KYLE: So what year did you receive your first sale?

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ROYAL: The first time was, probably. 2007, 2008. And it was crazy. I met this lady who was a friend of a friend. And I was finally making oil paintings. And she bought this triptych for, like, $1,600. And at that time, it was crazy to me.. I mean, I asked her for less than that, but she's like, it's worth it. You need to value yourself. And she was pretty wealthy, so she gave me like $1,600, $1,700. And I was just like, okay…And then I just went crazy, you know?

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KYLE: Wow. And she told you that you should be pricing your work higher?

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ROYAL: Yeah. You know, I don't know what the deal was there. But I guess she collected art. But I remember it was $1,700. It was a triptych. An oil painting of trees.

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KYLE:  Were you living in New York at the time?

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ROYAL: I was living in Calgary. Alberta, Canada. I was like living there. I wasn't really technically living there, but I was there a lot. I'm telling you, I was, like, living in different places every three months. Different cities. I just had a lot of friends I met. Have you ever read that book On the Road, Jack Kerouac?

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KYLE: No, never.

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ROYAL:  So it's like a dude that just travels the US back in the day and works odd jobs. And I guess I was living that kind of life. Like route 66, just like traveling and making friends here. And I made a really good friend and then helped him drive a car to Canada. And then I ended up there. And then they're like, do you want to build our deck? Because I did construction and landscaping, all these jobs. And I was like, sure. And so I just stayed with him, they had a basement suite. So I built their deck and redid their yard. And so yeah. Very, organic for me.

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KYLE: And at the core of everything, art was always there. You were always drawing? Painting? Were you sculpting as well?

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ROYAL: Yeah, a little, but not much. I was drawing and painting but yeah, I guess I would meet people along the way and they would be impressed by what I was making. And they would like, buy me art supplies. So, like, really random. Like, one time I met this guy and he was religious and he was like, “I was at the art store and God told me to buy this canvas and all these paintings.” And then he's like, “My wife is mad at me for buying all the stuff, but I knew I was supposed to buy it!!!”

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And he's like, “Now I'm meeting you and these are these are for you.” And he gave all this stuff to me. And I was like, “O.k.a.y…Okay, sure!”. And, just stuff like this, very odd. I met this dude, and he went to this art class of wildlife artists in Canada. And he taught a class, and I had no money. And he was like, don't tell anybody in my class, but you can come for free every week.  So I started going and then he would just sit and watch me sometimes. And then he'd be like, why don't you do like this? Why are you doing it like this? Or he’d be like you're not being brave. And it was very strange. 

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And then, I finally stormed out of his class. I got upset. Because he was trying to tell me how to do it, and I was like, no, I'm doing it my way. But that was very helpful. Because he challenged me. And I didn't like what he was saying, but I needed to hear it because I didn’t go to art school. I never have anyone critique me, you know what I mean?

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KYLE: Yeah. Yeah. I just had a conversation like that recently with somebody. He was my first boss. And I was such a “know-it-all” in high school. I would always tell him, "No, you're running your company the wrong way." He would fucking chase me around the parking lot, trying to kick my ass. But he was much heavier than me—just sprinting around his fucking Maserati, laughing at him, just being an asshole.

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And he reached out to me the other day, and I was like, "I just appreciate you for making sure that I was challenged during that time because I came into production at such a young age." I knew where I needed to be. I knew where I wanted to go.

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And so when somebody like that told me, "No, do it this way," I would refuse. I would rebel. And that was just innate. And we had a conversation. I was like, "Thank you for wanting to kick my ass and, like, kind of level things out for me because, yeah, I didn’t really have anybody doing that."

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ROYAL: Yeah. It's very priceless when someone's willing to be uncomfortable, to try to share something with you. That you don't even want from them. You know what I mean? And that information. So, yeah, at the time, I didn't know how to be grateful, but now I am very grateful, you know?

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KYLE: There's so far and few between, you know, when it comes to just like, that honest human connection. It's really lacking right now. And I think it's cool when you come across it.

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ROYAL: Yeah. That's why I feel like it's priceless because it's kind of rare now. Because everyone's just, like, busy.

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‍KYLE: Everybody's go go go.

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ROYAL: Yeah for sure.

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KYLE: I mean everybody's “busy”.

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ROYAL: Rent's going up and the ladies aren’t!

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KYLE: Yeah, hahahaha.

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‍ROYAL: Wait, are you in New York? 

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KYLE: I'm in L.A. 

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ROYAL: Yeah. So, you know. I told my mom my rent and then I was like, “Mom I’ve been paying this kind of rent for years”, and she's like, “Why don't you buy an apartment? I would have cosigned with you.” Well, it's too late now.

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KYLE: Yeah, literally. My grandma.

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You know, it's cool telling me those stories. It helps me connect your ideas with your work. More so that it gives me a further understanding of an innate, child-like aspect to you and your world.

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ROYAL: So, yeah, I kind of have just kept on that. I'm trying to grow up, but it's really hard for me.

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But what's different from what you thought?

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‍KYLE: That's a good question. Let me think about that.

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ROYAL: Plus I'm kind of getting old.

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KYLE: How old are you?

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ROYAL: Almost 38. 

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KYLE: Holy shit. 

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ROYAL: That's what I mean. I keep meeting people and they're like, I thought you were in your 20s. And I know I look younger and they're like, not yes, you look younger, but it's also how you act.  And I was like, oh, okay. Gotchu! <Laughing>

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KYLE: <laughing> It's almost like a slap in the face, but like, but not at the same time.

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ROYAL: It's true. It's true though. Well, it's just it's me. I mean, it can be positive or negative. It just depends on what you value. Right?

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KYLE: What so what do you value? And then I'll answer.

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ROYAL: Oh, boy. What do I value? 

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Okay. This is not the right way to say it.

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But being real. And these things change as you mature too. And it's like, now I want different things and. I don't know. Man. Got me thinking. What do I value…I don't know. I don't know how to answer there.

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KYLE: We’ll come back to that one.

I would say in terms of how I viewed you before, versus now. I would say that it really hasn't changed much, you know?

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ROYAL: Okay. Cool.

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KYLE:  When I saw you come on camera, I'm like, oh 24 (years old), or 25. So it’s fucking crazy that you’ve lived all those different lives. You were contracting. You were couch surfing.

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ROYAL: –I was in a band. Yeah, I've done so many things. It's wild.

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KYLE: And I think that's why, even now, nothing really feels different when speaking with you. There's so much ingrained in your work—the thought, the intentionality behind it. If I pull up a photo of how you approach things, my eye has so much to take in, so many layers to consider, especially with the back story.

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It feels familiar, like I’ve seen it before, but never contextualized like this—with these shapes, these forms. Like this is a trinity. Right? 

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ROYAL: Right.

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KYLE: And that’s when it hits me—so much time and energy went into reimagining these objects, repurposing it in a way that completely transforms it.

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It all connects. In a way, it reflects what you've experienced in life, the things you've picked up along the way, the trade skills you've mastered. It’s tactile.

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ROYAL: Oh yeah.  That was intense. Because the smaller ones, I just start it. And some of them I stop making. And most of them I just go till it's about done.

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KYLE:  I haven't seen these fucking pencils in so many years.

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I remember these pencils because there were certain kids that would fucking chew on them and it makes me think about these memories as a kid, you know what I'm saying? What's cool about it is there's so many layers to such a small object. At the core, it's a simple object that we overlook because of how familiar it is. But still allow thought to be provoked, through familiar objects. And it's only done by your brain, you know?

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ROYAL: Yeah. Yeah. Those, those sculptures like that. I feel like the DNA of it is something so recognizable that I have a big playing field of where I can go with it. Those are the items I choose. And like, it's helpful when there's something to anchor it. Like you said, you have all these memories with that. And now I can bend it anywhere and you're still going to be like. I know, this thing. It's dear, it’s nothing, it’s cheap, it's priceless.

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KYLE: What's the intentionality behind giving people a new idea, would you say?

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ROYAL: I’m an explorer.

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Maybe if I was born in the 1800s, I would have been an explorer, you know? Like I'm exploring. A long time ago, like ten, 10/15 years ago, this guy told me, “Go Further” he's like, “Go too far… Because you can always step back.” And with that experience. I can be like, oh, okay, this was too far, lets step back. And now you know your boundary of what people are going to be able to digest, you know?

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KYLE: So can you give me an example of that with your work where that's happened?

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ROYAL: For instance, with those sculptures, I was exploring. I’ve been painting more recently and I'm noticing different things in how I layer the paint. And I'm finding that the sculpture is very much informing. And I'm able to pay more attention to layering and interactions of techniques, color, and composition. And it's just getting more clear. So I find that it's the same, same pattern as my whole life's been, I guess.

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Maybe that's it. I'm just curious and I want to see what can be done and how it can be better. And I think I look at the whole world like that. Think about 100 years ago if you said cell phones, like you're going to be able to do this, we're going to be able to see each other on a little box and talk and record it. So that you can watch it again. 150 years ago, they'd be like, we have to kill this person. You know what I mean? 

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KYLE: Yeah. Yeah.

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ROYAL: Literally. But now I'm saying, What's that for us now? We're so used to what we are used to. So what's next? Like, are we going to go to Mars? Are we going to live in space? That's not my interests. But that kind of like, “what's next?”, how are we going to solve the problems we're facing now? I think I'm more on the creative side of that, where I'm living on the edge of it in my mind. And I'm like how do we solve these problems? I'm not trying to be negative. But a lot of art is kind of boring to me.

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There's really good art, but a lot of art is boring. And so I'm like, how do we solve this? What actually would be something never seen before… Or How? Why? Because some of the stuff I made has gone viral and then people will be like, why? Why? Why? And someone did that on my recent one. And I said, poetry. And it was perfect because it was about Bukowski, he's a writer, so he wrote poetry. But yeah, sometimes you’re capturing the feelings of the issues, at the edge of it all, you know? 

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KYLE: What you just said was hard as fuck. A lot of art is boring. And, you know, it's like what you're saying earlier, it's like, you have this idea of what you want. And along the way, you're constantly discovering that you want it differently. You want it like this, you want it like that. Oh, and you might go too far in this direction.

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Let me take a step back. And a lot of work today you can't really feel it. But it’s as if your work is the start to the conversation, right? To open dialog between people and ideas. Like poetry. Originally it flourished based on the intention to start a conversation, and record history. So it's really interesting how everything kind of ties back. How do you maintain that level of integrity amongst a noisy world?

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ROYAL:  Yeah. And I don't want to sound too negative about stuff being boring or this and that because there is a very important place for it. And I think it's a productivity thing. We need a lot of the world to be productive, and productive can be boring, but it's essential.

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But I just feel like it makes me physically ill. Like, I've worked jobs—I’ve never had a real job—but I’ve worked jobs where I had to be there for three weeks in a row, and it’s so childish, but it literally makes me feel physically ill. To the point where I will just work exceptionally hard, thinking that I'll get off my job earlier.

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And then the art director will come up and be like, "Hey Royal, you need to just pace yourself. You're getting everything done way too early, and you have to be here for these hours." So I think there is an important part of it. Which is being boring, being productive. But it's just so hard for me. I don't know. I guess I've geared myself this way, but it's so hard for me.

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KYLE: I could relate to that so much

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ROYAL:  Yeah. Well, it's a balance. It’s not my favorite word. But it's important, but, wait, how old are you now?

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KYLE: 25.

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ROYAL: Nice. But youngster.

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KYLE: I know i’m a youngster, but you still look the same age as me.

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ROYAL:  Fuck. Must be the camera.

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KYLE: I want to just know more about how you keep that. Maintain that, you know, because do you ever find yourself pulled in this other direction and you have to snap yourself out of it?

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ROYAL: Oh, dude that's why I keep saying, like, balance and boring can be good and all that because, you know, just think of it like an explorer. An explorer. Back in the day they're risking their life. They're doing dangerous stuff. But how are they going to eat when they're in a new realm that they don't know what you can eat? And, you know, there can be suffering to it, but at the same time, you're nourishing that other side of yourself. So that's why it's about what you 

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I think the grass is green where you water it. It's all choices. Especially as I get older and mature, I'm like, oh, man, if I would have made these choices back here, then this right here would have worked out very differently now. And you know, that's all of life. Choices and results of those choices. And reformatting and moving forward again. So yeah, but I feel like you got a good hand on that. Sounds like.

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KYLE:  It's a good analogy.

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ROYAL: Yeah. And you know, there's a price to everything. And we are kind of like animals. So we have things hardwired into us. And when you think about everything scientifically.Earth all works together and all the way down to an atom in a cell, and the mitochondria and the ribosomes are going up the endoplasmic reticulum, and we are really just like that. We aren't conscious of that side of it. I think that's why we have dreams and stuff. It's trying to tell us something that's hard to comprehend in our brain.

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KYLE:  Dreams are a good, jumping point. Because I was smoking a lot of weed before I was going to bed, and I was wondering why I wasn't dreaming. And then I realize that weed kind of dampens your memory.

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ROYAL: Yeah. Suppresses dreams for sure.

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KYLE: Suppress it. Yeah. And I was like, damn it's interesting that it does that with dreams because it's this one thing that we spend half of our lifetime doing that I'm like not participating in.

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ROYAL:  Yeah–But sometimes you only need one dream. Sometimes I smoke weed, sometimes I don't. And when I stop, I'll have a dream. And I remember parts of it. And then I try to piece it together. Then once I kind of have the story as straight as possible. Then you can go through and start interpreting and honestly, sometimes I think that can just sort you out man. Big time. And then you might not dream as much because of that.

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KYLE: Oh, wow. 

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ROYAL: Because it's trying to sort you out. And if you get sorted out, there's no need for the dream. It's giving you a message. I believe. And I think weed can make you okay with things that maybe you shouldn't be, but it also creates pathways that are great. So, I don't know, it's interesting.

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KYLE: So dreams but be a significant resource in your life. If you're interpreting them like that.

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ROYAL: Yeah. I think it's all about you. It's like all about trying to sort your pathways and be real with yourself about what's happening and how you're behaving and how you're relating to people in the world. Because it's all the same. Like I said, we are like cells on Earth and we don't know how much we're affecting each other.

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KYLE: Yeah, on a more molecular level, too.

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I'm going to pull up one of your paintings because I want to talk to you more about your painting work. I love these paintings of the cars looking squished. Really blurs the planes. You play into this idea I always faced as a kid. I had this OCD, sort of tick. Where I would go crazy if drew my wheels ugly. And i’d rip the paper into shreds. And I like how you kind of play into that, like the non proportional wheels.

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ROYAL: Yeah play is a good word. There.

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KYLE: You play with so many different mediums. What are you most excited about right now?

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ROYAL: Man, I'm trying to break things. I would love to do more oil paintings again because there's just different capabilities to it. But it's also a whole new set of problems. Not even just in the paint, but the fact that, every place that you have these things is going to smell until they're dry, and the mess is harder to clean up, etc., etc.. 

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But, I'm excited about doing some oil paint stuff and working the things I learn from doing more of the sculpture stuff into the new paintings I'm doing. So, yeah, I’m excited to paint more and more. I paint a lot like I've been painting the whole time, but I used to just paint all the time, and I want to get back to that. So, that's what i’m excited about.

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‍KYLE: So you're thinking of doing paintings of even the sculpture forms?

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ROYAL: Oh yeah. I weave that in there. There's the other pencil map. Kind of the same thing how I said, like a BIC. Everyone knows what a BIC is. So I can make it crazy. And you're still going to know what it is. To people that know my work, it's recognizable. All the different kinds of qualities that I've been learning. I want to add to paintings too. Not even just subject matter but just the theory of it and the approach. 

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KYLE:  So now it's just a matter of kind of blurring everything all together.

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ROYAL: I feel like in the past, like I've had different series and I’d like it wasn't really a series.  I want it to be like when I'm long gone. I would want someone to be like, that's a Royal Jarmon. I don’t know if i’m intentionally trying to do that, but I know that's important to me.

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Like, people have questioned how I go in so many directions. And I would love it eventually it's not a question. Like Da Vinci, right? Like, I feel like he was reaching into some deeper part of himself. How are you making these delicate paintings? They're amazing and fantastic. And at the same time, you're inventing war machines. And he was tapping into something that was beyond subjects, you know, it was.

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KYLE: And that's kind of what you've been doing your whole life too.

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ROYAL: Yeah. That's me.

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KYLE: From an outsider's perspective, it feels like things have been connecting lately. Both for viewers and through the way you're curating and rolling out your work. Even if the connections aren't always exact, the pieces still complement each other. I appreciate that they stand on their own as distinct pieces. Personally, I enjoy that they don’t overlap with your sculpture pieces or car paintings. When you were moving from place to place, what was your primary means of creating art?

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ROYAL: Oh man, it was oil painting. I don't know how people let me do this, dude, but I would be painting in the corner of their living for, like, weeks and then I would put that in my car and take off somewhere. I look back now and I'm like, how did I do that? And how are people cool with that? I was oil painting a lot of that time.

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But that's why I was also able to sell some of them so it was probably a third of my income. And, I was very. Very poor. But, I always had sketchbooks. It was like me always having a little sketchbook on me. Always, always writing notes, sketching, drawing, writing, sketching, drawing.

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KYLE: Honestly, I really appreciate you sharing those stories. That’s the stuff that makes your art what it is. It’s been sick watching you evolve—and seeing where you take it next

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ROYAL: Appreciate you being persistent because I'm all over the place sometimes.

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KYLE: It kind of works out, you know?

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ROYAL: Yeah. Everything always works out. But that's life. But. Yeah. Thanks for the chat. Please write something nice.