Inhale Exhale

Noah Tibbs

Interview by C. VanWinkle
October 19, 2024

What was the prompt that you responded to? Can you describe it for me?

My prompt was two pieces. One was a portrait, though I’m not sure if it was a self-portrait or just a portrait of somebody else. It was kind of simplistic, like with a bold outline and bold colors. The brush strokes had an almost improvised quality to them, which I thought was really cool. One of the parts that stood out to me was the background, which was this really deep blue. I'm not sure if it was the intention, but it looked like a starry sky to me.

The other one was a layered piece. It was like a surreal Broadway poster with “EXHALE INHALE” featured prominently. It looked like acrylic paint on glass panels that were overlaid, and the frame had lights on it, so it was illuminated. It had a lot of words on it and the language had sort of Broadway poster vibes. Themes of decay were what I got from it.

I see. And what did you think of these pieces?

I didn’t really have any reading from the portrait beyond just being a portrait. For the Broadway poster piece, as I said, it had themes of decay, and then there was also a pink flower and snow, both things that are very delicate. They were kind of viewed like precious things. So it was themes of growth and decay, and big contrast. And “EXHALE INHALE” is very much something that living things do. It’s a big juxtaposition between decay and maggots and the delicate flower and snow.

How did you take that and get started on your own piece?

[The prompt] was a piece that was so removed from what I would normally create, which I thought was brilliant. I knew that the challenge was to make it my own. So step one was to try and understand it on basically a surface level. I started by just looking in great detail at the piece, zooming in, especially on the Broadway poster bit. I wrote down all the words that were written on it and any elements that stuck out to me. The first thing that I knew about what I’d do was it would be some kind of self-portrait on something like a Broadway poster, featuring the flower, and the mud and the snow, and then “INHALE EXHALE” being a standout thing. That’s what really made me think of the breathing exercises that I do for anxiety. So I ran with that. I took those seeds and gave it a Tibbs twist.

[laughs] That’s great.

The next challenge was figuring out how I wanted to present anxiety. As always, I like to give my work a positive spin, so instead of just showing all the bad that comes with anxiety, I wanted to present my personal experience with an anxious mind and the coping skills I have learned.

I had four elements to represent: the self-portrait, the tactile world, the mind that anxiety creates, and the mind I try and cultivate to cope.

The self-portrait was easy. I just had to get a good shot of me doing the breathing exercise.

The tactile world is where I took more inspiration from my prompt, which featured mud, flowers, and snow. The flowers were a definite include, and the mud features underneath the flowers and behind the torn-up paper. The snow was more of a challenge, as I haven’t lived near snow in a few years, and I ultimately decided that it wouldn’t fit the theme I was going for, so snow got substituted for clouds. The tactile world needed to be represented because coping with anxiety isn’t just breathing exercises. It’s many things, like being present in the physical world right in front of you, wherever that is.

The mind that anxiety creates is trickier to represent. I toyed with many ideas, but ultimately landed on a page of scribbled, anxious words that I then tore up to represent not only the words that go through my mind but also the way anxiety tears through my mind.

The mind I cultivate was easy for me. I went to what gives me hope, peace, and joy: the starry night sky. It’s a motif I return to over and over again in my work and I never bore of using the stars.

That’s beautiful. Is art a form of therapy for you?

Yes and no. In my general pieces, mental health elements factor in sometimes. I make art inspired by mental health when I feel like I actually have something to create about it. Also, it definitely helps me in that I just love creating things. When I'm not creating for long stretches of time, that just sucks, really. But I suppose I pull inspiration from wherever it comes from. Occasionally that’s mental health, but then other times, I just look around me and play. I love not having a fully fleshed-out plan, and I love playing with images to create something new, taking all these elements and tinkering around with them. I just find that satisfying.

From the start, I wanted this to be a representation of anxiety, but a hopeful one. A life lived with love and kindness for me and for anxiety. If anyone sees this and can relate, you are not alone. Anxiety sucks but it isn’t the end. Just breathe and cultivate warmth and gratitude. You’ve got this.

Looking at your work I don't see much text. Was this an element that was new for you?

Yeah, I’ve always toyed around with the idea of including text and I think I’ll probably start including it more. I played around with a lot of different pieces of text and different fonts, but decided simpler was better. The very last change was to swap “BROADWAY” for “THE WEST END.” I am English to my core.

Do you work from prompts often?

This is actually now the second time that I’ve worked from a prompt that someone else has given me. The first time, I got commissioned by a band to do the cover art for their new single.

Cool!

They told me they wanted a cool, surreal alpaca piece, though there were obviously more elements to it than just that.

Wow, I bet that’s something that you probably wouldn't have thought to create otherwise!

Yeah, I found quite a lot of joy and fun and fulfillment in creating for other people.

Now that you are on this side of our process, what’s your advice for a new person getting their prompt today?

Good question. Just look at the prompt, take in all the bits of information, and then think about what that sparks for you. You don’t even necessarily have to talk about your interpretation of it.

It was a lot of fun. It was daunting at first, when it was just, “Here’s your prompt, you decide what that means.” But then once I started to think about it and take to the challenge, it was a lot of fun to create from it. I think it's so cool that your philosophy in terms of the prompts is trying to bring out the artist’s voice. It’s like, “You’re steering the ship here.” And that’s really cool.

Call Number: B118VA | B119VA.tiInha

Hi, I’m Noah Tibbs, a surreal photographer creating scenes of wonder, whimsy, and weirdness with my camera. I am inspired by the world around me, especially nature. While not photographing, I like to dream up fantasy worlds and learn anything sciencey.