Always a Story: An Interview with Kyle VanLanduyt

Kyle VanLanduyt said he’s excited to be showing his work alongside other veterans in next year’s Veterans Art Show. 

“It was an honor to serve my country…and it’s an honor to be with any veteran or anyone who serves their country,” he said.

VanLanduyt served four years as an Air Force firefighter sergeant, which took him to another of different bases—from Texas to Indiana to Guam to working on the Space Shuttle Recovery Team. While in the military, he started DJing part time, which was his first step into the arts he works in now. After the military, he spent over twenty years as a DJ before deciding he wanted to gain new artistic skills.

VanLanduyt said he had always loved filmmaking and animation, so he went back to school to hone those skills, completing a degree in animation and game art design in 2017. His short film, Siri Siri Tail, which he completed for his senior capstone, was an official selection for the Kansas City Film Festival in 2016. He has also worked with animation, generally within the science fiction genre.

In addition to film, VanLanduyt has worked with a variety of mediums, ranging from Adam West Batman appearances to photography. He’s worked with the Prairie Village Jazz Fest, the Arts Council of Johnson County’s Shooting Stars program, and other arts projects and collaborations around the metro.

Of all his mediums and projects, however, photography is his favorite.

“There’s no delay of gratification (with photography),” he said. His time in the military has had a permanent impact on his photography as well.

In particular, he said he is captivated by the lines of planes. “These beautiful aircraft that are war machines—are they for peace or for war? What’s the storyline behind that?” he said, describing his thought process as he shoots photos of planes at air show and airports. His love for aircraft, he said, grew from not only growing up in a military family (his father was also in the Air Force), but also from a lifelong love of science fiction.

VanLanduyt’s next project is a further expansion of his work as he prepares to launch Skye Box Studio, which will offer a full studio package to clients, including voice work, photography, copywriting, film, and other services. The studio is named after his daughter, Skye, who he said is his “supergirl.”

For him, everything comes back to storytelling, he explained. In some ways, his work itself is a story of the artists who influenced him; he always tries to incorporate some kind of homage to artists he looks up to in his work, he said.

His work is always trying to draw people into a story, too, and he said he accomplishes that by looking for the photo, the angle, the lighting, or the editing that makes people stop and notice. He said he’ll often take thousands of pictures and only keep a few of them, always hunting for the ones that tell a different story.

He said he’ll often approach photography—which he’s been working on almost daily since quarantine started—with the mindset of: “It’s not the perfect shot yet. How can I make it the perfect shot?”

“If my piece or message can bring a smile to your face or be something positive that you can walk away with or reflect on, then I win,” he said.

You can learn more about VanLanduyt and his work by visiting his Instagram, @skyebox_studio.