We caught up with BMBW Logic collaborative artist, life long painter, illustrator, pro snowboarder, video producer and co-founder / owner / operator of Dinosaurs Will Die snowboards’ Sean Genovese. Geno is an unbound, unrestricted, unconventional, detailed and meticulous creator. Something more than your average “dude drawing funny stuff”, his style is a direct line to his viewpoint, a celebration of the good, bad, beautiful and ugly of his friends and the snowboard community at large. In art, as in snowboarding, his approach is methodical yet raw and always uniquely Geno.
We grabbed an hour of Sean’s time to answer some questions from long time friend and co-hort, Jesse Burtner. And true to his form, he waited until the very last bit of daylight to answer, then dropped the hammer. This is Geno Hour with Sean Genovese.
When did you get your start as an artist and was it painting or drawing or interpretive dance first?
Around 1995. Snowboarding is interpretive dance, isn’t it?
How much connection do you feel between your snowboarding and your art?
Some days there’s more connection than others.
Your work as a young lad was pretty dark and then it drifted to a more satirical commentary, what do you attribute that to?
Life. Teen angst I’d guess; then coming to the realization that you can’t take it too seriously.
Sean in the DWD team video
There’s art and there’s graphic design, how do you separate the two? Or do you?
Art is the freedom for an artist to do whatever they want… it’s a label for something that has no boundaries. Graphic design organizes that chaos into something that is comprehensible for commercial products. $$$
Do you have a singular piece that your most proud of?
Not so much. They’re all different and are a little memory of something, so it’s difficult to choose one.
For me the Birnie board has to be up there. The commentary was strong, sex sells and the way it was painted really set it off. How did you arrive at that concept and look?
I like that one too. There was some shock factor with that one, so I think that’s what made it memorable for people. It was in response to graphics with photos of women and female models; usually in a provocative way. I didn’t want to just do the opposite of that and put a photo of dude on there, that would be to easy; just a knee-jerk response. So instead I had a bit of fun with it and created the drawing of the transvestite.
The Wandering Murder of Future Deads, a never ending parade of lizard-like deviants. They’ve been on DWD boards and now on the Logic binding. Are they ever going to make a gallery appearance?
They could. They’re pretty wild and a gallery sounds pretty restrictive.
How many consecutive Future Deads did you draw when you launched the project?
There was just shy of 100 of ’em.
Did you draw one a day? Or more sporadic?
Yeah, it was around 1 a day at first, sometimes 2.
You’re so fucking busy, what’s gonna give? Work, art or life?
They’re all synonymous, so I don’t foresee one giving without the other.
Your latest pro model for Dinosaurs Will Die is actually 5 guest pro models for the homie/ripper/diggers that support your scene. Did you do all those graphics and if so how and then follow up question why?
Yeah, I worked with each of them on their model to give it the look they wanted. Blake Geis, Lucas Ouellette, Matt Heneghan, Ben Bilocq, Parker Duke and Corey McDonald;that was a great experience. For Blake’s our friend Adam Lewandowski did the top art and I did the base. Lucas and his wife, Ashley, shot the photos of the skulls that we collaged for the matte/gloss layer on the top and the burnt wood photo used for the base of his board; I took the photo of an abandoned house out in eastern Washington that I manipulated and we used on the top. Hene’s wife Sarah drew the drawings in the background on the top, then we used some photos from the Heneghan family archive to replicate the album cover I the middle, and I took the photo for the base in the alley behind they’re apartment. Parker drew his base art and some details on the top, then I colored it and drew the top. I worked with Ben Bilocq and drew his based on the Future Dead style. C-Mac and his two sons, Collin and Carson did the drawing for his board, and he had a bunch of materials he brought to the table, including the classic photo of his best friend, Carson, boardin’ back in the day.
All of them deserve it. They work hard and have had DWD’s back for a while now… filming on Dino boards and supporting it when they could have chosen and brand out there to get boards from. Much respect to everything that they do. 🙏🏻
You now ride a Flex Control Drive Plate with your art on it. Your transferring energy to it but is it transferring energy up and in to you? What’s that like?
It’s not as violating as it might sound… It actually feels pretty good.
Snowboard question now. What’s up with Geno hour? Did you develop that approach because I’m such a spazz that you just have to wait for me to burn out and then drop the hammer?
The process behind Geno Hour is, ‘putz then panic’.
