Filmmaker Harmony Korine might be best known for a cinematic obsession with youth culture (most recently channelled through his mainstream debut Spring Breakers) with his painting skills playing second fiddle. But Korine is quick to reveal that his venture into the art world is far from a fad – “I’ve been having visions since I was a kid,” he tells us. But what was it that facilitated a more in-depth exploration of his talent? “It seemed like life was moving so quickly. I had a lot of work from over the years and it felt like the right time.” That ‘time’ comes four years after his 2011 collaboration with Rita Ackerman titled Shadow Fux – the duo’s art project that drew inspiration from characters in the filmmaker’s 2009 flick Trash Humpers. Now, the Nashville-raised creative is exhibiting his own show at the Gagosian Beverly Hills. Neglecting the paint brush for Squeegees, leftover household paint and masking tape; “I just like the marks those things make. I like the way it feels,” he says, before adding, “It’s easy to access those materials in basements and janitor’s closets.”

“I had a good friend growing up who built a treehouse out of lint. He also rode a BMX bike that was made of soap. He had no money and I remember he fixed his own teeth with dental braces made of melted copper he stole. He's a politician now, but I always think back on him and how innovative that was,” Korine says of his inspirations – but did you expect anything more straight-and-narrow from the creative? With the paintings themselves described as a ‘heady mix of the unplanned, the seductive and the outlandish’, it’s clear on first glance that the filmmaker’s signature style has transcended from celluloid to the canvas (“It’s all part of the same thing. It comes from the same place,” he says). But how does he distinguish between the two crafts? “I mostly just do what I do. I don’t really pay attention and I try not and differentiate between any of it. I just like making things – it’s all the same to me.”

Harmony Korine’s RAIDERS is on show at the Gagosian Beverly Hills until 14 February, 2015