Julian Klincewicz is one of those. He seems to have preternatural talent at everything he touches. He rips at skating, he’s a great musician and over the past few years he’s become a multi-media artist and has collaborated with everyone from Kanye West to the late Virgil Abloh while directing campaigns for Calvin Klein and Louis Vuitton. He’s an in-demand multi-media powerhouse and always has a kind and creative take on everything he touches.

We were excited to see the release of his latest project — a passion project of sorts — a new book entitled Mayhem at Waimea Bay (An Allegory by the Sea) which features some really unique angles and textures starring Waimea Bay. We love when artists dip their toes into surfing — and while Julian is from Southern California and skates so he’s not a total surf outsider — his interpretation is well-worth checking out. We rang him up this morning while he unloaded groceries to talk about the book which is on sale now (see below to order).—Travis Ferré

Inherent Bummer: So how did you end up making a surf book?

Julian Klincewicz: We were on Oahu to shoot a project with Evan [Mock]. We were just shooting editorial and day-in-the-life stuff. Toward the end of the trip we were having a burnt out day and Evan was like, “There’s supposed to be big waves at Waimea today.” His house is right on The Bay, so we spent the day at his house watching all these big wave surfers go for it.

I’d never seen surfing like that. Growing up in Southern California and being in the skate scene — which is sort of adjacent to the surf scene — there’s always a consciousness and awareness of what’s going on in surfing, but I’m not good enough at surfing to really “be a surfer,” or I don’t identify that way at least — and not for lack of trying at various points in my life! But when I look at surfing, I think there’s this sweet spot of having surface level understanding where I know enough to not completely kook it but I don’t know so much that I have a preset notion of what it’s supposed to look like. So watching all the surfers I was able to be in awe — like holy shit these are massive waves and you can really see and comprehend the power of the ocean but also look at it as like playful and colorful and appreciate these little specs (the surfers) against these huge blue walls of water.

What was the premise and medium were shooting on?

It’s all shot in one afternoon. We watched for three or four hours and throughout the day I would take photos and film. I was at this point in my personal life where I was having a minor existential crisis about doing so much commercial work and not having a great balance between my work and personal art. It was 2021 when I shot it and so there’s a little Covid introspection and getting back into the world and thinking about what my genuine interests are and me not really knowing at the time.

What ended up happening is I shot everything that day, came back and didn’t really look at the images for a month. Then got back into them and something in them was really calling me. I started editing and coloring and made a collection of photos and let them sit and came back to it and they all felt a little lyrical to me — I was searching the photos for some kind of meaning, and as I was working on them I started a written piece that goes in tandem with the imagery. The writing and the images developed together over the course of two years. Working on images. Then writing. Then back to work with the images and tailoring the writing to the images.

The title of the book is Mayhem at Waimea Bay (The Allegory of the Sea) and I think it represents that artistic burnout, rebirth and me surrendering to where inspiration comes from and being open to it. I didn’t go into make a surf book, but that’s what came out.

At the time of shooting it, what had you been into? What was your frame of mind?

I was looking and reading a lot about landscape photography. In a weird way, I was in a headspace of being really aware of nature. I was reading about photographer John Pfahl at the time — he does these photos where he’ll tie up trees or put string on a beach — they’d be called like “interventions.” I was studying his work and he was talking about how the challenge of landscape photography is to really hook people — [and to do so] you almost have to Trojan Horse them into it.... to get them to interact with the Image of the landscape and not just the landscape itself. The surfers were myTrojan Horse. They give you a human connection to the natural world and in this case what they’re doing is phenomenal so it’s equal parts surfing and landscape.

What can people expect when they receive the book?

The book itself is the art piece. It’s a combination of photos and text and to me they have equal weight — it’s the dialogue between the two that makes the book the work of art. It’s pop and playful imagery with an introspective undertone in the written element. For me it’s become a little bit of a sojourn — I see every art output as a receipt of the process — and this particular process was rediscovering personal inspiration. I don’t know if that gets picked up but if you sit with it, I think you’ll identify because it’s illustrating the process of existential crisis and searching for meaning and ultimately a resolution, even if it’s not the expected one. And in my case the resolution is a body of work that’s all about surfing [laughs].