Art Space Talk: Christian Rex van Minnen

I discovered the art of Christian Rex van Minnen while browsing the Featured Artist section on www.myartspace.com. In Christian's work aspects of alchemy and automatism are linked together in the cognitive creative process. As he has stated, intention becomes line, line becomes shape, shape becomes form, and form becomes content. In his work Christian finds himself either suppressing or indulging his own desire to associate personal narrative to the raw visual information inherent in the material and process. Construction, destruction and reconstruction are symbiotic elements in the creative process allowing the image to fluctuate between abstraction and representation, truth and illusion, personal and archetypal.

Brian Sherwin: Christian, tell us about your educational background. Do you have formal training in art? Are you self-taught? Who were your instructors and how did they influence you?

Christian Rex van Minnen: I didn’t attend a formal ‘art school’ but I did have some great mentors along the way. My art teacher in high school, Tish McFee, was instrumental in helping me be direct and fearless with my artistic expression. More often than not art instructors sent me into a corner to do my work alone and I was used to this. I attended Regis University for my undergraduate degree which is a small, Jesuit liberal arts school in Colorado. I had a fairly holistic education, as is the nature of a liberal arts education, and dabbled in political science, biology, English and fine arts.

For most of my life I’ve been in denial about pursuing art as a career. I felt that my art, which I always practiced on my own, would be corrupted if I pursued formal training and professionalism of my passion. Moreover, I resented the so-called ‘art-world’ as it appeared fake, exclusive and more or less, inbred. The art department at Regis was really neglected by the rest of the school; however, I did meet some great teachers there who encouraged me to follow my vision. Overall, I have had great mentors and peers throughout my education but my technique and practice I can claim as my own.

BS: Christian, tell us about your early artistic influences and experiences. When did you decide to pursue art?

CVM: My earliest recollection of making art was when I was 4 or 5 drawing imagined animals on the little pieces of paper behind the pews at the Baptist church where my Dad was a minister. I was really influenced by nature and carried around with me illustrated field guides with pictures of amphibians, reptiles, birds and flowers. I continued to draw throughout primary school, mostly emulations of comic book anti-heroes and various life-forms and my drawing skill was often used as a kind of self-defense mechanism. At this point I was really influenced by the great illustrators of the comic book industry and horror movie legends like HR Giger, Wes Craven and Clive Barker. I found safety in horror in that facing these fears allowed me to deal with the other sources of fear and violence in my life at the time.

I was introduced to oil paint when I was 15 by my high school art teacher, Tish McFee, who is now collecting my work. My drawing skills translated well into oil paint and I have been using oils as my primary medium since. It wasn’t until after I graduated from Regis University and did some traveling that I decided to pursue a career in art. I received an artist’s residency at The Assembly in Denver in 2004 which really changed my perspective on professional arts, and artists for that matter.

The Assembly was a conglomeration of 3 galleries and about 20 studios in Denver’s Sante Fe Arts District. It was great to be working around other artists for the first time. Prior to this I never really was friends with other artists so it was a great experience to be around that kind of shared creativity and to experience criticism and exhibition for the first time. Most viewers, particularly in Denver where I began to exhibit, were simultaneously amazed and disgusted by my work. The people who are immediately attracted to my work and the most enthusiastic are generally my age or younger and usually can’t afford to buy them.

Up until recently I haven’t been very successful at selling my work so I have taken many different jobs to subsidize my career; art teacher, technologies teacher, used-building materials salesperson, recycled materials designer, set designer, etc., etc. In the past year my work has been getting a lot of national attention and finally the hard work and determination is starting to pay off.

BS: With that said, how would you say that your work has advanced since that time?

CVM: Conceptually, I have been attracted to the idea of the merging of abstraction and figuration. I have been influenced by many artists which include Wei Dong and Chinese Contemporary figurative painters, Gao Xingxian, George Condo, Odd Nerdrum and Inka Essenhigh, as well as film artists such as David Cronenberg and David Lynch. The artists that most interest me are those who render in great detail things that don’t exist or are unnameable.

On a technical level I have incorporated certain aspects of abstraction to make the painting more difficult; to make the physical information on the canvas initially hard to name and control while pulling it into form and, sometimes, content or social context. In this sense, the abstract figurative speaks to both the process and result and makes the act of painting sustainable.

It was in Gao Xingxian’s book Return to Painting that I first found a parallel between the counter intuitive process I was working with and his notion of the "abstract figurative." My understanding of the medium of oil paint itself has also changed dramatically. I became interested in alchemy and its relationship to paintings which lead me to one of the most influential books I’ve ever read: James Elkin’s What Painting Is. His work studies in detail the correlation between alchemical principles and the act and substance of oil painting. I have become much more aware of what I am working with and how they work within me.

My work has changed very little in the sense that I have always facilitated self-discovery through art and had a need to exercise my own fear and desires so they don’t manifest themselves in undesirable ways.

BS: Christian, is there anything else you would like to tell us about your background in regards to how your art has evolved?

CVM: There are many things that have influenced my art in the way it has evolved and I am only beginning to understand their significance years and years later. Violence has been a big influence. During my early childhood and teenage my life was saturated with violence, substance abuse, suicide and depression. Instead of trying to bury these feelings and memories I have continued to explore them in an effort to understand and control them.

Anatomy, physiology and biology have also been very strong influences and I have made an effort to understand biological form and function out of context, as one can understand lead or oxides outside the context of the periodic table. I have found parallels to this practice in both the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and the emerging science of biomimicry, which is also know has bionics or biomimetics.

BS: Christian, can you go into detail about your artistic process? How do you begin a piece? When do you know that a piece is finished?

CVM: My initial process is fairly violent and counter intuitive. It is similar to trying to play chess with yourself and making it interesting and self-revealing. I fill the ground with information that I can’t name or control. On a technical level, these are abstract under-paintings that are heavily textured and utilize physically strong and flexible pigments such as lead and earth-sourced pigments.

I usually work with anywhere from 3-7 canvases at a time so that I can allow for these under-paintings to dry while working on others. Because I am intentionally making the process of rendering figure difficult it is also beneficial to be working on several canvases at once as some pieces prove to be stale-mates for sometime. The goal of this first phase is to make the image obscure to myself, or abstract.

By continually adding marks, glazes and impasto, the image continues to fluctuate between abstraction and figuration, the truth of the paint film and the illusion of form. The goal is to render an image that is simultaneously abstract and controlled by form. I rarely achieve the abstract and figurative in singularity, however, the product of operating between these two poles is always interesting and satisfying to me.

BS: Christian, how does current world events influence your work? In other words, how does contemporary life impact your creative practice?

CVM: The characteristics of my psychological shadow are not different from those of our country’s; guilt, fear, anxiety, depression, spiritual apathy. Being an American is always on my mind. In some way the abstract figurative portraits show the psychological aspects of all Americans. I have basically eliminated most media from my life. I don’t watch TV, although I love film, and I rarely read the newspaper. It’s all bullshit and a waste of time and energy. I just try to live my life truthfully and make the lives of those around me better however I can.

The apocalypse has always existed in the tomorrow; the question is how you live in the face of constantly impending doom! This seems to be the mantra for our generation and our parents growing up under the constant threat of nuclear war. I am fascinated by the optimism that drives people despite everything that tells you your actions are futile. The emerging science of biomimcry is one example of great optimism and practicality that exists in the world today. This science is revolutionary in that it is solving design problems by using nature’s wisdom instead of imposing our science upon it.

BS: Tell us more about the philosophy behind your art. What motivates you to create?

CVM: It is the tool I have to understand myself and the world around me. Just as the vulture is built to find sustenance in putrefaction, my philosophy as an artist is that I can always yield positivity through exploration of darkness and mystery. I like David Cronenberg’s philosophy of why he makes art, which is to be direct in manifesting his innermost fear and desire so that he can know it and own up to it and not be afraid of it.

The philosophies of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung concerning every person’s hero journey and the psychological shadow are extremely important to me as a driving force and also something I feel I can communicate to my students and to the viewers of my art.

BS: Christian, why did you choose to work in the medium(s) that you use?

CVM: It was a natural evolution from drawing. I love the oneness of the paint film; its simultaneously homogeneous and yet diverse state. The oil paint film is to me the abyss and the field of pure potentiality.

BS: Christian, what is your studio like? Can you go into detail about your studio routine? Do you work in silence-- listen to music.

CVM: My studio is covered in plastic because it is an extra bedroom in my house; I’m like bubble-boy in there. I have had a studio outside my house but generally I paint at home. Perhaps this is why I am so meticulous and controlling with paint. Anyway, it is fairly clean, at least in comparison to Francis Bacon’s studio, and I try to maintain a sense of order and organization. I think this is important to me as my studio is often a reflection of my mental state.


I usually have two easels up side by side and five to ten canvases in progress hanging from the wall. I love music and listen to music constantly. I have this ancient 50 disc changer CD player that I fill with every sort of music so that in 20 minutes I might here tracks from Hank Williams, Chopin, Screeching Weasel, Art Tatem, Buck 65 and Aphex Twin. I like to have a massive diversity of sounds, helps to keep my mind fresh.

BS: What are you working on at this time?

CVM: Multiple projects. I am continuing my pursuit of the concept of the abstract-figurative using the conventions of portraiture. I also have a project that is an interactive triptych-cubed: nine canvases built into three equilateral triangles that stack upon one another to create a three sided vertically oriented triptych that the viewer can rotate and change into 81 different combinations. It’s very challenging and it will take me perhaps another year to complete.


I am also working on several masks including a monk-fish and the figure at the base of the Crucifixion from the famous Francis Bacon painting by the same name. There are other projects that I have been planning for some time but lack the technology and capital to develop, for now at least. I am going to put together a few grant applications for these projects.

BS: Do you have any upcoming exhibits? Where can our readers view your work?

CVM: I have a solo exhibition up now until the end of October at Brian Marki Gallery, Portland, OR, as a result of winning the National Artist Auditions. In November I’ll be showing at Limner Gallery’s juried show "A Show of Heads," in Hudson, NY, as well as a show juried by Brandon Fortune, Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery, at Gallery RFD in Swainsboro, GA. In December I’ll be a part of Copro Nason Gallery’s annual group show in Santa Monica, CA, and in February 2008 I’ll be showing at Roq La Rue, Seattle, WA, in their group show entitled "Animals."

BS: Christian, the internet is changing how we discover and view art. In your opinion, how have sites like www.myartspace.com empowered artists?

CVM: Hell yes! I think it’s fantastic. I embrace the art of self-promotion, and sites like this are certainly empowering to that end. I have met many incredible artists through this site that I would never have met or communicated with otherwise. I tend to be slightly introverted and would be hesitant to approach other artists in person but through this avenue it is quite easy and direct. I have had artists that I greatly admire contact me about my work featured on myartspace and have helped me get into some really great galleries.

BS: Finally, what are your goals as an artist? What do you hope to accomplish with your work?

CVM: Besides just being happy, I would say that my number one goal as an artist is to make my artistic practice sustainable. I don’t want to burn out and I want to stay true to the core of my work: that this art, in whatever medium I choose, is facilitating self-discovery and self-realization and if I stay true to that it may help others in the same way.


I think that my current medium of oils is one that I want to master; however, I realize that limitations on space and capital have also limited my choice of mediums. I have ideas and concepts that I have been filing away until the day that I have the required space and funds to carry them out.


On a professional level, my goal is to make a consistent living and have everyday to paint or make stuff and work on ideas that require a lot of time and patience. I don’t want to develop ulcers by having to juggle 5 jobs, care for my family, and push my art career at the same time. As an artist I hope to be fearless in my entrance to the abyss, courageous in the face of the dragon, and humble on my return home.




You can learn more about Christian Rex van Minnen by visiting www.beinart.org or www.myspace.com/vanminnen. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.


Take care, Stay true,


Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Alysia Kaplan

Alysia Kaplan's Glass House Series is an exploration of the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Pavilion: specifically, his use of materials, geometry, sculpture and reflection to create multiple interpretations of space. By emphasizing individual elements within the Pavilion the intent is to make the viewer aware of how through the use of reflection; Mies expanded how one interacts physically and psychologically within the space.

Glass House #1, Archival Inkjet and Acrylic, 30"w x 22"h

Brian Sherwin: Alysia, what can you tell us about your educational background. Where did you study? Also, who were your mentors and how did they influence you?

Alysia Kaplan: I have a BFA in Commercial Illustrative Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology and an MFA in Print Media from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I would say my beginning photography Professor Gunther Cartwright was a big influence. He demanded a sense of rigor from his students, which created an intense environment, which seemed cruel at times, but prepared us for what was ahead. Peter Power and James Zanzi at SAIC both helped me find my voice and look at my pieces in a more physical light.

BS: Alysia, can you tell us about your early artistic influences and experiences. When did you decide to pursue art?

AK: I was actually planning on becoming a marine biologist. At the last minute I decided to pursue photography. At a young age I remember looking through my father’s camera viewfinder and feeling that the world was a different place from this vantage point. I really had little artistic experience prior to college and was overwhelmed in the beginning. I don’t think I started making work that was truly mine until after I graduated.

Glass House #5, Archival Inkjet and Acrylic, 30"w x 22"h

BS: With that said, how would you say that your work has advanced since that time?

AK: One always learns (or hopes to) over time. I do not know if advanced is the proper word. The work follows a trajectory based on my immediate interests and what medium seems appropriate. I like to think my work has matured, but I still have images I loved from before I knew what I was doing. With time I feel we become more focused and learn how to speak about our work in broader terms.

BS: Alysia, is there anything else you would like to tell us about your background in regards to how your art have evolved?

AK: Having a child changed my work and therefore me. It sounds cliché, but you start to see how your past affects you and therefore your work and so on. In the end it is rather circular. For me it is all about home or the lack thereof.

BS: Can you go into detail about your artistic process? How do you start a piece? When do you know that a piece is finished?

AK: Most art making feels subliminal to me. Sometimes I will read an article or a book and want to pursue a theme based on that reading. More often than not I just start working with images that feel for lack of a better word right at the moment. I usually do not realize what a piece is really about until I finish it. Which is to say there is nowhere left to go. Then it is usually ridiculously obvious.

Glass House #2, Archival Inkjet and Acrylic, 30"w x 22"h

BS: Alysia, you mentioned that having a child has changed you and the way that you work... how does current world events influence your work? Do the things you observe cause change as well? In other words, how does contemporary life impact your creative practice?

AK: I consider myself an observer of human nature. How we move within our immediate space and the broader impact that has on ourselves and our relationship to the environment is what interests me most at the moment.

BS: Alysia, tell us more about the philosophy behind your art. What motivates you to create?

AK: I do not have a grand philosophy. I make because I enjoy it. The process can be frustrating, but quite frankly I wouldn’t know how not to do it.

Glass House #3, Archival Inkjet and Acrylic, 30"w x 22"h

BS: Why did you choose to work in the medium(s) that you use?

AK: My need for immediate gratification draws me too photography, more specifically Polaroid film and cameras. I used to spend a great deal of time in the darkroom and enjoyed how an image could be manipulated. Print Media seemed like a natural progression as I take my images one step further away from where they originated. My photographs seemed a bit less precious at that point, which was a good thing. This allowed them to take on new forms and led to me making installations. I actually stopped taking photographs for a long time and just recently felt the need to shoot again.

BS: Alysia, what is your studio like? Can you go into detail about your studio routine? Do you work in silence-- listen to music. Can you describe the space you work in?

AK: If I am not taking or collecting photos I am usually working with them on the computer prior to making prints in the shop. I like to listen to music when I print-any and everything. If I have the space to myself early in the morning I enjoy the quiet. My studio is more of a staging and construction area and I like to use that time to think.

BS: With that said, what are you working on at this time?

AK: I am working on a series tentatively titled Affectionate Identity Desire, which is about our love affair with the objects in our homes, and how we can humanize these inanimate objects. I am giving them relationships of their own while playing with graphic form.

Glass House #4, Archival Inkjet and Acrylic, 30"w x 22"h

BS: Are you involved with any upcoming exhibits? Where can our readers view your work?

AK: I am in a group show coming up in November at Orleans St Gallery in St Charles, IL. Hopefully there will be more shows in the near future. Teaching has been a priority as of late. I also hope to have my website up soon.

BS: Alysia, the internet is changing how we discover and view art. In your opinion, how have sites like myartspace.com empowered artists?

AK: I enjoy the democratic nature of sites like myartspace. Not every one has the means to travel to see shows or the ability to get their work out to a larger audience. I feel this helps to level the playing field a bit and perhaps take away some of the intimidation people might feel about presenting their work.

BS: Finally, what are your goals as an artist? What do you hope to accomplish with your work?

AK: A sense of peace for myself hopefully a place for people to question and explore.

You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Tamara Kostianovsky

Tamara Kostianovsky received a BFA from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes ¨Prilidiano Pueyrredon¨, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States, at venues such as Exit Art, NY; The Armory Show, NY; Artists Space, NY, Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, PA; Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA; Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Johnsonese Gallery, Chicago, IL.

Back to the Front, Towels and various articles of clothing belonging to the artist, embroidery floss, batting, metal chain.91 x 29 x 33", 2007

Brian Sherwin: Tamara, tell us about your educational background. Where did you study art?

Tamara Kostianovsky: I studied painting in Argentina -where I grew up- and later got an MFA in the United States at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

BS: Tamara, tell us about your early artistic influences and experiences. When did you decide to pursue art?

TK: I realized early on that I wanted to be an artist. My father is a doctor who used to exchange professional treatment for paintings with a small group of artists. At a very young age, I was exposed to studio visits which absolutely mesmerized me. I grew up surrounded by paintings and in contact with professional artists. As I teenager, I decided that I wanted to pursue art professionally.

Abnegation, Various articles of clothing belonging to the artist, embroidery floss, batting, armature wire, meat hook. 53½ x 49 x 27", 2007

BS: How would you say that your work has advanced since that time?

TK: More than anything, it was my experience of immigration to this country that made me reflect on what I wanted to say with my art. Once in the States, I went through what can be called an identity crises. Overnight, the context that used to define who I was suddenly disappeared. Also in the States, I became familiar with many art movements that I wasn't aware of before: the Feminist Art Movement and Arte Povera were major influences in my work.

BS: With that said, is there anything else you would like to tell us about your background in regards to how your art has evolved?

TK: A few months after my arrival to the United States in 2000, the Argentinean economy collapsed. This fact had an enormous influence in my life because I was planning to live for that first year in the States with some money that was coming from Argentina, but all of a sudden, those resources were not available. By then, I couldn't afford rent, let alone art supplies! My compulsion to create began utilizing those things that I had at hand. I worked with hair for a few years and more recently, I have been working with the clothes I had brought from Argentina. The material choice was born out of necessity but overtime it became a political statement to reuse domestic items to make artwork with instead of engaging in the consumerist system.

Unearthed, Various articles of clothing belonging to the artist, embroidery floss, batting, armature wire, meat hook. 74 x 26 x 17'', 2007

BS: Tamara, can you go into detail about your artistic process? How do you begin a piece? When do you know that a piece is finished?

TK: I usually have a vision of what I want my work to be about or look like. The rest is just submerging myself in a process that tries to transform that vision into something physical. It's hard for me to know when a work is finished. I'm a very anxious person and always feel that the work is done before it actually is. So I let my work sit around for a few weeks after I think it is finished and then go back to it and work on the areas that don't satisfy me.

BS: Aside from what you've already mentioned... how does current world events influence your work? In other words, how does contemporary life impact your creative practice?

TK: Recently, I have been interested in understanding how we processviolence culturally. The Unearthed series investigates more directlyour relationship to violent images. I am interested in speaking aboutviolence because it seems to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time: we are all familiar with the idea of war and crime, but ouremotional connection to violence is detached from its actual aftermath. I do not think that we would be at war if most people werefamiliar with the images of bodies dismembered after a bomb explodes.I don't think people would engage in violent acts if we were allcloser to the image of a knife slicing somebody's throat.

I've been using images of cows instead of those of people because Iwant to moderate the shock to avoid having the viewer be repulsed bythe imagery in the work. In this sense, a large part of my approachinvolves making violence appear aesthetic. I use beauty as a means topull the viewer into the work. By representing images of violence thatare censored out of our collective consciousness, I intend to connectpeople with the everyday reality of violence, hoping that new stepswill be taken to avoid it.

Second Skin, Various articles of clothing belonging to the artist, embroidery floss, batting, armature wire, meat hook. 60 x 29 x 12", 2007

BS: Tamara, tell us more about the philosophy behind your art...

TK: With this new series, my intent is to confront the audience with the real nature of violence, offering a context for reflecting about its uses and effects, for evaluating the vulnerability of our physical existences.

BS: Can you go into further detail about how the medium(s) that you use help to express your message?

TK: Speaking about violence without being confronted with the physical aspect of it crates a sense of disconnectedness, making violence appear abstract. Alternatively, I create sculptures using clothes or domestic items that most of us are familiar with. In using these materials for the creation of mutilated or dismembered bodies, I am attempting to connect the violent imagery that I am working with in conjunction to the sensitivity, the domesticity, and the desire that we experience with our clothing.

Motherland, Various articles of clothing belonging to the artist, embroidery floss, batting, armature wire, meat hook. 67 x 28 x 15", 2007

BS: Tamara, what is your studio like? Can you go into detail about your studio routine? Do you work in silence-- listen to music?

TK: I listen to the radio while I work, which eases the lonely part of making art. I like to work for long stretches of time, so about 3 times a week I am able to work for 9 or more hours in the studio without having other stuff interfering with my process. I like working with natural light so I start the day early and work until it's dark.

BS: What are you working on at this time?

TK: I'm working on another piece of this series and I'm also investigating making sculptures with real beef.

BS: Tamara, do you have an upcoming exhibit? Where can our readers view your work?

TK: I have two sculptures in the S-Files 007, El Museo del Barrio's 5th Biennial in New York. The exhibition will be up until January. My earlier work can be found at www.tamarakostianovsky.com.

Detail of Unearthed

BS: Tamara, the internet is changing how we discover and view art. In your opinion, how have sites like myartspace.com empowered you as an artist?

TK: My experience with the site has been wonderful because it brought my work closer to a community or art people who have very positively received my work.

BS: Finally, what are your goals as an artist? What do you hope to accomplish with your work?

TK: I hope my work can translate some issues of our time into a visual experience that is moving and can enable us to reflect on our everyday choices.

You can learn more about Tamara Kostianovsky by visiting her website-- www.tamarakostianovsky.com. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Jessie Joo

Jessie Joo is an artist originally from Seoul, Korea. Jessie has studied the structure of the metaphysical and material side of reality extensively-- which has led the artist to depict them as an individual universe with its own mechanism. Most of Jessie Joo's works are water color paintings, however the artist also creates oil paintings and installations. Jessie is especially interested in capturing ephemeral moments of our lives.

Brian Sherwin: Jessie, tell us about your educational background. Do you have formal training in art? If so, who were your instructors and how did they influence you?

Jessie Joo: I earned a BFA and MFA at the School of Visual Arts in NY. Although I studied at the SVA for 6 years, my academic training came from high school years in Korea. In my college years I had good teachers like Donald Kuspit, Paul Waldman, Gary Stephan and many others, but without Silas Rhodes I couldn’t have finished my education. One of my many influences came from a lecture by Donald Kuspit about the Sensation in art. It is just a small portion and it would be hard to name every influence because every single bit of influence made good and profound impact on me whether I fully realize it or not.

BS: Tell us about your early artistic influences and experiences. When did you decide to pursue art?

JJ: I attended a Kindergarten with a good art program, my interest started growing from that moment and the winter of my last year in middle school I decided to become a painter. I can not mention any artistic influences and experiences, but everything was built up gradually over an extended period of time; my parents devotion to God and Neighbor throughout their life, my art teachers, Masters in art, faith, friends, difficult years in High School, etc. But finally I considered myself an artist upon finishing graduate school.
BS: Jessie, with that said, how would you say that your work has advanced since that time?

JJ: I’ve gotten older and my art has matured with me. I don’t see anything as being really advanced, some part of it becames more sophisticated in regards to mastering medium. But as a whole I start seeing white hairs in my black hairs, an increase in wrinkles, trying hard to control my bear belly. I try to work out to keep them in shape.

BS: Jessie, is there anything else you would like to tell us about your background in regards to how your art has evolved?

JJ: I will put it this way, I try not to evolve into a money-maker, but reality makes it extremely hard.

BS: Jessie, can you go into detail about your artistic process? How do you begin a piece? When do you know that a piece is finished?

JJ: I lay down an ink drop, any form, when the drop leaves me, I have no longer control over it. I wait until where the image leads, and then I start adding my opinion and response with my brush to it.

For me there are two kinds of artists, one believes he completed his work, the other hopes to finish and struggle, but never complete. I remember Robert Motherwell in his interview. The interviewer asked him 'did you ever make any masterpiece?', to which Motherwell responded that maybe he did but he didn’t know, he probably went away without knowing it, or maybe there are none.

BS: Jessie, how does current world events influence your work? In other words, how does contemporary life impact your creative practice?

JJ: I am pretty much saddened by most of them, but facing the reality of my own gives me enough trouble-- just look at the life of Van Gogh. I try as much as I can to avoid a similar life. After all, art is about another struggle within me, I think contemporary life has less of an impact in my art-- if you meant it as surrounding.

BS: Jessie, tell us more about the philosophy behind your art. What motivates you to create?

JJ: I like to borrow the words from two people-- Victor Hugo and Gao Xingjian:

"Music expresses that which can not be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

"Painting starts where words fail or are inadequate in expressing what one wants to express.."

Me, I am not good at anything else. Art is what I am good at.

BS: Jessie, why did you choose to work in the medium(s) that you use?

JJ: You have it wrong... it goes the other way around-- the mediums choose me. As long as they give me enough work to do, I go on.

BS: Jessie, what is your studio like? Can you go into detail about your studio routine? Do you work in silence-- listen to music.

JJ: My studio has many different kinds of art, in terms of style and Genre. I pray a bit and read news on the Internet and then decide which art I’ll see to. Then the struggle begins, is it too simple?

I grew up listening to classical music and Gospel. Most of the time I listen to them while I confront my art, but I think it has nothing to do with my art. It all depends on what kind of mood I am in. Often the music fails to change my mood, but a good meeting between me and my art makes a difference.

BS: Jessie, what are you working on at this time?

JJ: Landscape painting, I’ve got to feed my family. But in my head I am working on a big drawing from the Head series and Horn series.

BS: Are you involved with any upcoming exhibits? Where can our readers view your work?

JJ: I recently moved to NC from NY and I'm in the process of looking for a place to exhibit. You can always check in on www.myartspace.com and search ‘Jessie Joo’.

BS: The internet is changing how we discover and view art. In your opinion, how have sites like www.myartspace.com empowered artists?

JJ: It helped me to see who is out there and what kind of art is out there, but artwork needs to be seen in person. The Internet gives us information, but you cannot feel the soul of the artist through it.

BS: Finally, what are your goals as an artist? What do you hope to accomplish with your work?

JJ: One day I wish I could complete my art, and say to my son, " See, I finished."

You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Dean McDowell

Dean McDowell was born, lives and works in County Down. Graduating with honors in graphic design, he worked within the graphics industry for several years before moving into the field of fine art. McDowell’s almost surreal portraits of people draws influence from expressionism. Using color, line and space he plays with the mood of each painting, creating an atmosphere of emotion typified by bold expression of color and light. Influenced by everything from the Renaissance to the current underground art movement in the States, he incorporates a dark yet mischievous insight into our emotions.

An Autumn Shimmer by Dean McDowell

Brian Sherwin: Dean, tell us about your educational background. Do you have formal training in art? Can you tell us about those early years?

Dean McDowell: At the susceptible age of 14 I was given some very bad advice by my schools career advisor, basically he told me, ‘Son, there is no future in art’. At that point I felt like I’d been kicked in the groin by the system, art was always the one thing I seemingly excelled at. After that advice I started gearing my education towards graphic design, studying what I needed to get into college and subsequently achieving a degree in graphics. All through that time I kept art in the background, I would take courses here and there, sit in on art lectures, any spare time was devoted to art in one way or another.

BS: Dean, can you go into further detail about your early artistic influences and experiences. Also, when did you decide to pursue art?

DM: Growing up in a village in Northern Ireland my early artistic influences were few and far between, in fact they came every Friday. My father worked in a large town and every week I would plague him to bring me the latest US comics. Needless to say, I was totally mesmerized by the artwork, I would draw each panel copying the styles of these American comic artists who I knew so little about. It was really from those initial comics my early style was formed.

Constantly Within by Dean McDowell

BS: With that said, how would you say that your work has advanced since that time?

DM: Comics opened my eyes to so many different art forms and I really started to look beyond the artwork and more at the artists. I would be trying to develop my own artistic style, yet be studying everyone from Da Vinci to Giger.

BS: Dean, can you go into detail about your artistic process? How do you begin a piece? Can you tell us about the progression of one of your paintings?

DM: My work is very intuitive, I have no set plan when I begin a painting, just a vague idea of the mood and tone I want to achieve. I’ll prep either a board or canvas, scribble a very rough impression of that idea and start building it from there. A painting could take a week, month or even a year, it’s all about being in that creative frame of mind.

Something Alluding to Secrecy by Dean McDowell

BS: Dean, how does current world events influence your art?

DM: Although current world events may have an influence on my art, the situation within my own country has influenced me a lot more. Growing up in Northern Ireland in the dark days of the ‘troubles’, it was hard not to be affected by events. Both sides of the divide went through so much pain and suffering, it seemed to be an endless cycle of hate. I guess most people who live here were affected one way or another and I really feel that sorrow is now embedded within my psyche.

BS: Dean, tell us more about the philosophy behind your art. What motivates you to create?

DM: To see the differing reactions people take from an image or painting is quite an amazing thing, one silent image can say so much. I’m fascinated by that range of diverse reaction, even more so by people’s inner emotions. We seem to mask our true thoughts, rarely letting our facial armor slip. It’s amazing what we keep hidden inside.

BS: Why did you choose to work in the medium(s) that you use?

DM: I dabble in most mediums but my preference is for acrylics. I find them so versatile and have even adapted my style because of them. Working acrylics a lot like oils, I can really build a painting, layering, distorting. Yet when mood and needs change you can almost use them as watercolours on that same painting.

Truth Behind the Smile by Dean McDowell

BS: Dean, what is your studio like? Do you follow any form of routine?

DM: ‘Organized Chaos’ is a much overused term but I can’t think of a better description of my studio. Because I work on numerous paintings at once, things get pretty chaotic, having a routine in that situation is well nigh impossible. The one thing I do religiously each day I go into the studio, before anything else, is put on music. I don’t even know what to begin to explain how important it is.

BS: Speaking of your studio, what are you working on at this time?

DM: I am currently working on two groups of paintings with working titles ‘Children of Men’ and ‘Dark Thoughts’. Both sets are very dark, moody and larger than my current work. Besides that I’ve been working with a couple of bands, which is really exciting. The guys have given me a lot of artistic freedom so there is some pretty interesting stuff coming from that. I’ve also got a side project I’ve been working on with a friend from the States, its animation based artwork so really different to my normal stuff, but I’m really enjoying it.

BS: Do you have an upcoming exhibits? Where can our readers view your work?

DM: I’ve just finished my last solo exhibition for 07 but I have a UK spring/summer show coming up in 08. Apart from that I’m in talks about a US show, but as yet nothing has been set in stone. Because I don’t print my works it limits me to only a couple of shows per year but keep checking my website, myartspace or myspace for details of the shows.

Misery Loves Company by Dean McDowell

BS: In regards to your website, myartspace, and myspace-- the internet is changing how we discover and view art. In your opinion, how has the internet empowered artists?

DM: The internet has become an integral part of my day and I feel it’s such an important tool for rural based artists. Although I now live in a city, Northern Ireland is such a small country with a limited art market, it’s very important for me to highlight my art online. And of course, it also gives me the freedom to view the emerging and named underground US scene. With so many fantastic artists coming through, as well as the established names, I have my own personal viewing gallery at my fingertips. As much as I’d love to see lots of these artists work in the flesh, I just couldn’t afford the weekly plane trips.

BS: Finally, what are your goals as an artist? What do you hope to accomplish with your work?

DM: What does any artist really want to accomplish? Art is a very personal thing for me, I probably destroy as much art as I produce and you know I’d be happy with just one piece I liked. Don’t think that’s ever going to happen...



You can learn more about Dean McDowell by visiting the following page-- www.myspace.com/deanmcdowell. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Opinions: Kirsten Anderson on Pop Surrealism

Kirsten Anderson is the owner and curator of Roq La Rue Gallery (www.roqlarue.com). Kirsten opened Roq La Rue gallery in 1998 in reaction to the Northwest’s lack of alternative art spaces. Fueled by a devotion to the rapidly growing Lowbrow/Pop Surrealism art movement, the gallery quickly gained notoriety, and respect, as one of only a handful of galleries (at the time) willing to show the work. As a bonus, an enthusiastic community of collectors responded quickly to the gallery’s eclectic mix of artists, whose outlaw sensibilities and counter-cultural subject matter was rendered with undeniable ability and vision. I would like to thank Kirsten for giving her opinion about the following issue.


Brian Sherwin: Kirsten, there has been some debate about the connection between Lowbrow art and Pop Surrealism. Many combine the two as one movement of art while others state that the two are unique art movements that simply share common ground. As someone who has been very involved in these scenes, what is your opinion about their connection? Are they one in the same or should they be seen as two different movements?

Kirsten Anderson: Well- as far as I know I'm one of the few who have stated they believe that there are two different things going on... I think Lowbrow begot Pop Surrealism in a lot of ways. When I first got involved with this movement a decade ago it was called "Lowbrow". That term was used by Robert Williams to describe his own work and the work of the artists who sort of orbited him. It was meant tongue-in-cheek, but also it stayed in usage because it unapologetically stated that this art was not trying to appeal to overly academic art critics. At the time, I think people involved knew something big was happening but the prospect of this work (with the exception of Robert Williams) ever appearing in museums or scholarly treatises seemed very remote. Now that is very different, this whole scene has become a whole different animal so to speak.

In the late 90's the scene was small and mostly confined to Southern California. Juxtapoz magazine was in circulation and really helped shape what was starting coalesce as a "movement". Juxtapoz focused on figurative and narrative art with a big dose of cartoony freak appeal, but they also celebrated artists who were outstandingly technically proficient, whether that meant an underground cartoonist or someone like Mati Klarwein or Ernst Fuchs. Being unshackled from what everyone else thought was pretty liberating and allowed a lot of room for artists to work within. Out of this scene came artists like Mark Ryden, Camille Rose Garcia, Glenn Barr, Liz McGrath, Shag, Tod Schorr, and Tim Biskup- all of whom are wildly different yet share some undefinable something that links them. That undefinability has been the main problem with "naming" this scene.

When I wrote "Pop Surrealism", which was the first survey of this new art scene in 2004, I was originally going to call it "Lowbrow". Several of the artists I had asked to be in the book were keen on the project but no longer wanted to be called "Lowbrow", to them it sounded denigrating, which made sense as many of these artists were transcending the rough and tumble work Lowbrow had first started as and was becoming more refined. So I had to come up with another title... which took me six months to do. I latched onto "Pop Surrealism" through Kenny Scharf... I think he coined the term to describe his own work, and I thought it was the closest umbrella term I could think of. After that the term started to become used as a name for this scene, although people still use Lowbrow also, since that was the original name.

To me- Lowbrow art is what the scene originally started as... work that stayed true to it's more "working class roots" more or less, and focused on the fetishization of counter-cultural icons (such as hot rods, surfing, rock n roll, monsters, drugs, ect). I find this work to be more transgressive, provocative and very non-polite... it has a purity underneath because it was never intended to be anything other than what the artist was responding to in his or her life. I can't see this type of work ever truly being accepted by the "high" world. To understand more of the genesis of where Lowbrow came from I recommend reading Larry Reid's essay in Pop Surrealism.

As time went on and interest and inspiration of this art started to grow, new artists began to appear and they often brought a more "refined" sensibility to the genre. Also- the artists who'd been working in the scene started to grow and explore as well. A good example of this is someone like Mark Ryden being so quickly embraced. Artists started working with more fantastical imagery and the work started to become more dream-like and surreal, and personal. The work started to become more "beautiful" and have more palatable imagery. To me, this new form of work is "Pop Surrealism"- I would use Ryden, Marion Peck, Alex Gross, and Eric White as examples of what I'm talking about. If you compare their work with artists who I would put in the "Lowbrow" genre like Anthony Ausgang, the Pizz, XNO, Van Arno, and Shag you can see that they are very different.

So to me there is a division, but a very fluid division. Now with street art infiltrating the scene you have even more fluidity, with artists like Jeff Soto rising to prominence within the genre, who can cross back and forth between Pop Surrealism and Street Art easily. Also- Juxtapoz has seemingly morphed itself into a street art magazine and I think that causes the lines to blur further. Collectors who buy Shag might also buy Anthony Micallef.

Lastly, there has been an implosion of new galleries who show this kind of work but who might not have a real understanding of how this scene originated. They are just showing stuff they like, which is fine, but now anyone can be a "pop surrealist" artist these days. I'm not even sure that the term has any real meaning anymore. The galleries (myself included) will show Audrey Kawasaki or people like Jonathan Viner... they are not "Pop Surrealism" nor "Lowbrow"- they are just very good contemporary figurative art, but they still fall into that scene.

Art Space Talk: Christine Peterson

Christine Peterson's art is an expression of personal experiences that have devastated, antagonized, and encouraged her. Christine is fascinated by simple yet beautiful forms, especially those found in nature.The use of abstracted forms allow the viewer to connect with the work without preconceptions. By abstracting a simple shape, Christine is able to create complexity through color, texture and light. Christine has stated that she wants to continue to portray interesting, passionate, disquieting, and beautiful moments of human life.

Colors Behind Your Eyes Series- Behind Your Eyes, relief on Mulberry, 25" x 34", 2007

Brian Sherwin: Christine, tell us about your educational background. Do you have formal training in art? If so, who were your instructors and how did they influence you?

Christine Peterson: I have a BFA in fine arts from Iowa State University. After graduating from ISU, I realized that I wanted to continue to specifically study painting, and I am currently enrolled at Savannah College of Art and Design as a painting major.

BS: Christine, tell us about your early artistic influences and experiences. When did you decide to pursue art?

CP: I have always known that I wanted to be an artist. As a child, I would go to the public library and find any book I could on the great masters- Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Boticelli. I don't think I fully realized that I wanted to seriously persue being a studio artist until a few years ago. I spent my final semester at ISU studying abroad in Rome, and being there opened my eyes to the potential of truly great art. Since then I have devoted myself fully to creating. I am most influenced by artists who can capture devastation and beauty all at the same time. Anselm Kiefer and Edvard Munch are two of my biggest influences.

Bloom series- Medusa, relief on kitakata, 20" x 39", 2007

BS: With that said, how would you say that your art has advanced since that time?

CP: My work has evolved quite a bit even over the past year. Originally, my work was very figurative. I created countless self portraits and used my likeness as a catalyst to express whatever emotions I wanted to portray in my pieces. Most of the issues I dealt with in my work were of a personal nature. I created many pieces that referenced my feelings or emotions.

Lately, I have become interested in a broader sense of human interaction, or lack thereof. Some of the most beautiful times in our lives come from a human connection, and some of the most horrific times come when we feel as if we are all alone.

My current body of work has progressed in a more abstract direction. I still use bold color and texture to convey a point, but have removed the figure. I feel that by abstracting, a broader audience can relate to and find their own meaning with in a piece.

Smack Series- Two, relief on Mulberry, 25" x 34", 2007

BS: Can you go into detail about your artistic process? How do you begin a piece? When do you know that a piece is finished?

CP: I carry a sketchbook with me constantly and usually begin in there to create small compositions. I am inspired by the most minuscule things. Situations around me, a line in a book or the glimpse of beauty will ignite something within me to let me know that "its time." Once I decide exactly where I want the idea to go, I will begin working on a piece. More often than not, I have no idea what the end result will look like. I have a basic idea, but the final piece is usually completely different from what I intended.

I will usually get to a point within a piece where I am completely frustrated and will be dumbfounded as far as where to go. It can be extremely discouraging, but I know that eventually the piece will just speak to me and tell me where I need to go.

I am not sure how I know when a piece is complete. Some pieces never seem done; I will constantly question if I could work something out more. With others, I will get to a point where I step back and just know its finished.

BS: Christine, how does current world events influence your work? In other words, how does contemporary life impact your creative practice?

CP: I feel contemporary life impacts my work because I deal so much with human interaction. In so many ways, we are moving farther and farther from one another. We send emails instead of speaking, we text someone before we will pick up the phone and call. It seems as though everyone wants to be heard, but no one is willing to listen. We are all standing side by side but just out of each others reach.

Bloom series- Passive Drifter, relief on kitakata, 20" x 39", 2007

BS: With that said, tell us more about the philosophy behind your art. What motivates you to create?

CP: My work has always been a way for me to speak when I feel I don't have the words. Anytime I feel that something needs to be said, I somehow find a way to express it through my art.

BS: Why did you choose to work in the medium(s) that you use?

CP: I have always loved painting, especially in oil. There is a fluidity and peace that I find when I am painting that I cant find anywhere else. Recently I have begun printmaking. One of the things that attracted me to printmaking is the process itself. Carving the block, inking, using the press, all of these components are extremely methodical and soothing. I also love the idea that you never know exactly what you are going to get until you lift your paper off of the press- its fantastic!

Bloom series- No Backbone, relief on kitakata, 20" x 39", 2007

BS: Christine, what is your studio like? Can you go into detail about your studio routine? Do you work in silence-- listen to music.

CP: As a starving college artist, my studio is any area in my apartment that I can clear a space. I try to keep it contained to one area where I can leave my inspirations, studies, etc. I love to work at odd hours, especially in the middle of the night or early morning. It is comforting to feel you are the only one up and about. I absolutely have to listen to music when I work. There is no specific artist or genre- anything that will motivate and inspire me with the piece I am working on.

BS: What are you working on at this time?

CP: I am currently working on a series of paintings that convey lack of human interaction through abstracted oceanic forms.

BS: Do you have any upcoming exhibits? Where can our readers view your work?

CP: I don't have any upcoming exhibits, but my work is on display in a few locations around Savannah, Georgia.

Colors Behind Your Eyes Series- Behind Your Eyes II, relief on Mulberry, 25" x 34", 2007

BS: Christine, the Internet is changing how we discover and view art. In your opinion, how have sites like www.myartspace.com empowered artists?

CP: Myartspace has been one of the best tools for me in getting my work to people who would otherwise have never seen it. It is also an amazing support and networking tool. Artists are able to interact with each other and anyone who is interested in their work through an avenue that has never been available before. Of course, there is nothing like seeing a work of art in person, but the Internet provides people the opportunity to discover and see things they normally may not be able to see.

BS: Finally, what are your goals as an artist? What do you hope to accomplish with your work?

CP: My ultimate goal is to always produce and show my art. I want to continue to capture amazing, horrific and beautiful moments in life, as well as give a voice to someone else. I also want for people to look at my work and respond to it in some way. Whether you hate it or love it, I hope never to be overlooked.

I'd like to thank Christine for taking the time to answer my questions. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Mickey Smith

Mickey Smith was born in 1972 in Duluth, Minnesota and received a B.A. in Photography from Moorhead State University in 1994. Images from her Volume series have shown in galleries and museums throughout the United States and are included in the collections of the Weisman Art Museum and Fidelity Corporate Art Collection. Smith is the current recipient of the McKnight Artist Fellowship for Photography and a Forecast Public Art Affairs grant.

Volume series- Blood, 2006

Brian Sherwin: Mickey, I observed your art during Art Chicago. How did the exhibit go for you? Are you planning to take part in any other major art exhibits in the near future?

Mickey Smith: Art Chicago was my first fair. I wasn’t able to make it, but I heard reports that the show was strong this year and the Volume work received a bit of attention. It was great from that perspective.

The McKnight Photography Fellowship exhibition closed last week, in my mind a major exhibition wrapped in a great deal of pressure. Before the show opened, more than once was asked, "So what did you do with the all that money?" Toward the end of October Dean Kessmann and I will show at Ellen Curlee Gallery in Saint Louis.

BS: You attended Moorhead State University. Can you tell us about the photography department there? Who were your mentors at the time? Have you worked with instructors outside of college?

MS: There were two very different photography departments at MSU. I worked primarily in the art department, working with D.B. MacRaven, but spent time in mass communications across campus working with Wayne Gudmundson. The most influential person I have worked with is Harry Mattison, he truly changed my life and continues to be a creative force, even though we really have very little contact.

Volume series- Cancer, 2006

BS: Why did you decide to concentrate on photography? Also... who has influenced your work?

MS: My sixth grade teacher told my mother to get me a camera. Mr. Tolar was a huge influence, recognizing it would be an outlet with a lot going in a complex little 10 year-old world. Although I’ve worked primarily with photography to date, a shift is on the horizon. I’m not attached to the camera and I am terrible at the technical side.

At the moment I am reading books on Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Ed Rushca, Carrie Mae Weems, and Duane Michaels. They have been influential for a long while, but I’m just now beginning to study their work, hoping to glean insight about why I keep coming back to word and image.

BS: You are known for exploring history, knowledge, and a sense of place in your subtly evocative photographs of book spines. These spines often contain a single word or a small group of words that provoke thoughts of strength and weakness in the viewer. Can you explain why you decided to use books and words as a vehicle for your art? It seems as if you desire the viewer to create his or her own story around the words... is that so?

MS: Initially I was interested in the subject matter because it was such an oddity to be back in the stacks after being strapped to a computer for a decade. I had forgotten about the quiet sacred quality of the public library. Anything seems possible when shrouded with such vast amounts of information. The types of volumes I am drawn to are soon to be a thing of the past.

The books, specifically the spines, become a concrete and valued delivery mechanism for the words. I’m interested in what they become when photographed. I am interested in the bindery clerk in Minnesota that decides to bind BLOOD in red and the clerk in New York that binds the same title in blue.

One the greatest unexpected pleasures that has come from this project is that people seem to make a very personal connection to a word, or to curating their own series of words.

Volume series- Critique + Curator, 2007

BS: Mickey, this might be a silly question, but how do you decide which words to focus on?

MS: The way I select the titles is by walking through a dizzying amount of stacks. Literally, I get sick to my stomach while looking. Since I strictly use ambient light, so I don’t even bother going down dark aisles because I don’t want to come across a title that I love that will be impossible to photograph. In need to see the object, it is impossible to search online. The titles have to have the right combination of word, color, placement, and resonance.

BS: You had a successful 10-year career as an arts administrator before moving back to the other side of the proverbial desk to become a full time artist. How has knowing the business side of art helped you in your career as an artist? Any suggestions as to what emerging artists should look out for in the gallery scene?

MS: Two different issues. The gallery scene is an entirely different beast. I’m still learning how to look out for myself, so I can’t impart much wisdom. Students coming out of the MFA programs are likely better prepared than I am for the contemporary art world.

The variations between segments in the art world are stark. As an administrator, I specialized in international exchange, grant making and programming for public and non-profit arts organizations. When I worked for those organizations I thought I had a strong grasp on what it was like to be a working artist... In retrospect I had no clue what it would be like, even though I was still making a bit of work on the side. Being an artist is about a million times more stressful, more rewarding and random. Often I feel incredibly vulnerable, which was never the case on the other side of the desk.

Volume series- Detail, 2007

BS: You've stated that the switch from arts administrator to artist was like switching political parties. Can you go into further detail about this?

MS: I used to be a member of the party with the (perceived) power.

BS: Mickey, in the past it was hard for women to 'make it' as an artist, but it was especially hard for women working on the business side of art. Based on your experience, do you think that holds true today? Or is there more of a gender balance within the context of the contemporary art world?

MS: I do not find it to be true on the business side. Women are quickly filling leadership positions. The gender balance is about to tip as the first generation of arts administrators from the 1970’s approach retirement. It seems the majority of twenty-something arts administrators now getting degrees in arts administration tend to be women.

My experience with gender related issues has been more complex since I’ve started working as an artist. When I arrived at my first big meeting in Chelsea, the dealer walked around the corner, looked at me blankly for a long time (meanwhile I’m panicking - oh shit, I’m here at the wrong time, wrong place, he already hates my work…) and finally exclaimed, "Oh my god, you’re a woman!" I find it fascinating. Because of the scale and nature of the work people are often surprised to learn I am a woman. Another dealer in Dumbo told me once he figured out I was a woman it made him question weather I had an "underlying feminist manifesto." I could go on here about more negative experiences but there is no point really… I have absolutely no tolerance for funders, administrators or curators that take advantage of any artist. Recently I’ve become more involved in advocacy for individual artists.

The bigger question in the contemporary art world is ageism. Apparently I’m on the cusp of the issue at the ripe old age of 35.

Volume series- Continuum, 2007

BS: You mentioned a new project when I first contacted you. The project is called Unaccompanied Minor. Can you tell our readers about this project? What are your motives behind it?

MS: Millions of children travel between their divorced parents by foot, car, bus, train, and airplane. Some carry their suitcases next door, others board planes and fly thousands of miles. I was one of those children for over a decade. My mode of transportation was a Greyhound bus, the distance between stations 150 miles.

Unaccompanied Minor is the working title for this project I’ve been thinking about and occasionally working for twenty years or so... Once I start I’m afraid it will consume me completely. My motives are to remove the stigma of divorce for kids, turn attention to kids versus parents, make transit between homes a more creative and magical time, create a document, a community, a true and open conversation for the kids. At times I’m not sure if it will be an art project, a business, or both. It’s overwhelming.

BS: Can you share some more of your philosophy about art and artistic creation?

MS: In 2001, I heard an artist tell an audience of arts administrators, "A little voice inside of me said, if you do not do this, the best parts of you will die and the rest wouldn’t be worth much." I recognized that voice inside. It still resonates to the core.

BS: What about your studio practice? Can you describe your average studio session? How do you map out what you are going to capture?

MS: At the moment my studio practice isn’t in the studio. I create everything on location and bring it back to the studio. I set aside big chunks of time that are quite far apart to make images on site, in the libraries. One of my goals lately has been to be a bit more prolific in studio. When I have an idea I tend to think about it for a long before actually making the piece. The flip side of the slow process is that there are few surprises and the final work looks exactly as I intend.

Volume series- Today + Tomorrow, 2007

BS: Mickey, do you have any suggestions for photographers who are just starting out?

MS: If you know you are supposed to be an artist, be an artist or photographer. Don’t get distracted. Make it your first priority. If you’re not sure, or don’t think you have the drive plus talent, go try something else.

BS: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art or the 'art world'?

MS: Not at the moment, I hope my work says most of what I need to say… Thank you so much for the opportunity to consider your questions Brian.

You can learn more about Mickey Smith by visiting her website-- www.mickeysmithart.com. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Carina Traberg

Carina Traberg was born in Denmark in 1978. She began her BA education in 1999 at The Funen Academy of Fine Art where she studied for five years under the tutelage of professors Jesper Christiansen and Anette Abrahamson. In 2002 Traberg undertook an independent study period in Istanbul where she was heavily inspired by the modern architecture and culture and achieved two solo exhibitions. For this she was awarded the Carlsberg 2002 travel grant. After graduating in 2004, Traberg worked in Aarhus where she was accepted into the 2005 censored Easter Exhibition. Her works was well received and offers for further exhibitions were taken up. Since 2005 she has been based in London where she participated in several shows and art fairs and has received commissions for private collectors in England and Poland. In 2006 Traberg completed a Postgraduate Diploma at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Cityscape installation, Photos on cardboard, various sizes, 2003-4

Brian Sherwin: Carina, can you tell us about your youth? Can you recall some of your first experiences with visual art and how they helped you on the path you are on today?

Carina Traberg: I have always made things since I was very young. It was always some object that had a function, like a machine that little balls would move through, a skateboard or a pillow that had ears. And I always had some plan for something that I wanted to make, which I found very exiting. That hasn’t changed for me.

BS: Carina, you studied at The Funen Academy of Fine Art for five years... who were your mentors during that time?

CT: For the first two years I had a brilliant professor who is a Danish Painter, Jesper Christiansen. He’d come round to the studio space every two weeks and look at the work and had a very subtle and humorous way of teaching. I have figured out that he actually knew what was going on and could see a direction, in which the work was going, but would only give little hints and let his students figure everything out themselves. He also really impressed me by that fact that he spent five years painting white chairs on white canvas.

Changing House, Acrylic on canvas, 40x45 cm, 2007

BS: Carina, in 2002 you undertook an independent study period in Istanbul. Can you tell us about your experience there? What mark did Istanbul leave on you, so to speak?

CT: I went to Istanbul and fell in love, basically. So I moved there to be with my partner and set myself up in a lovely studio, where I enjoyed being able to be away from college. I began painting completely different paintings, influenced by the city, the colours and light, and the change of lifestyle. It all sounds very romantic, and it was.

BS: Carina, your practice is primarily based on painting. However, your work does not deal with the essence of painting, but rather with the conceptual matter and the use of material. Can you tell us more about your painting practice and the thoughts behind it?

CT: I have never been particularly interested in "real" paintings, the textures and gestures of it. I enjoy painting and I use it as a medium to create images. I always use masking tape to mark of a field before I begin to paint it to create a flat hard-edged surface. I like making the paint look as flat as possible mostly to contrast the strong perspectives that I often use. Sometimes I paint with other materials than paint, like cardboard or electrical tape, not as shortcuts but to give other surfaces to the work.

Industrial Space 1, Acrylic on canvas, 110x130 cm, 2002

BS: Carina, what artists have inspired you?

CT: Inspiration for ideas and new work often come to me when I am away from an art context and in general I am more inspired by other things and situations. I like to visit big cities and always feel refreshed and full of ideas coming back from one. But to mention some artists whose work I admire; Julian Opie, Sarah Morris, Mondrian, Thomas Demand and Ugo Rondinone.

BS: Carina, I understand that you are also a musician. How does your music relate to your visual art? Are they linked?

CT: I have recently discovered music making as basically a new medium, that I really enjoy. I see my music as an integral part of my practice and it has helped me open up some aspects of my approach to painting. I have also found that this music art is much more functional than a painting can be. I can listen to my music anywhere and whilst doing other things, and to round everything off, I even listen to it when I paint.

Windows, Acrylic on canvas, 40x45 cm, 2007

BS: Can you go into further detail about your personal philosophy on art?

CT: I like creating another world with my art, both when I make it and for the viewer to enter. The art that I look at is art that alter the world and not just imitate or replicate it.

BS: Carina, why do you prefer to work in series?

CT: When I have an idea and begin a new subject or thought, I never feel satisfied with making just the one piece of work. I don’t think that it gives a full picture or exploration of the subject and I am always interested in seeing what happens if I try again.

Industrial Space 3, Acrylic on canvas, 110x130 cm, 2002

BS: Carina, what group exhibitions have you been involved with?

CT: The most interesting group show that I did was just after finishing my Postgraduate Diploma in London last year, where everyone turned up with a piece of work that had to be installed into a context that the curators wanted to be different to a normal group show. So we all spent five days building an independent structure out of scrap wood in the space to connect the works. We were not allowed to use the walls, so we had to rethink ways of displaying the work. I ended up making a box for my painting so that it could only be seen through small slits.

BS: Carina, tell us about your studio. Where do you work? Do you follow a routine or do you work in a sporadic manner? Tell us about your studio practice.

CT: I have a studio now in East London, which is a open plan place with other people around. I don’t have a set way or method of working and I don’t go everyday if I don’t know what I am going to do there. At the moment I am very antisocial when I work, I have my headphones on and enjoy being lost to the world.

BS: Finally, what are your goals as an artist? What do you hope to accomplish?

CT: I try to take it one step at a time in terms of exhibitions. I would like to be able to continue to have fun and enjoy making my work, which I really am at the moment.

You can learn more about Carina Traberg and her art by visiting the following page-- www.carinatraberg.blogspot.com. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Anne Neely

Anne Neely's art is about nature. However, like nature, Anne's paintings reveal more than one can observe with just a single glance. Under the layers of daily shifts and changes that go on in the natural world there is something more-- something that is foreboding. Her painting language is one of inquiry, working through her imagination as a conduit to the world she perceives.

Anne's paintings convey multiple perspectives-- the chaotic elements of a distant storm-- while embracing the essence of plentiful fields. In a sense, her paintings pay homage to the earth. However, under the layers of her painterly technique one can also discover the many layers of the physical body, with veins and cells connecting us to the earth. With these imaginative landscapes Anne explores the double-sided edge of beauty and the human condition.

Anne's work can be found in several public and corporate collections-- including, The Smithsonian and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Floe, 56 x 72", oil on linen, 2006

Brian Sherwin: Anne, can you recall your early years as an artist? Where did you study? Who were your mentors?

Anne Neely: One of my first visits to a museum in New York was the Frick and I fell in love with Rembrandt because his portraits always followed me around and, at the time, I imagined he was alive within them! I knew I wanted to make an object that was alive like that in paint. The power of a live object, the concept being opposites by nature, intrigued me.

I remember in my teens going to the library and copying De Vinci drawings. Even though I was fascinated by the figure, it was Nature that I drew as it surrounded me and captured all of my attention. I lived across the street from a farm in a rural area and was given lots of freedom to roam and that became the basis for my love of and attachment to Nature as a life force and a reference point for my life. Although art was my passion, I didn't go to Art School or specialize because I had other passions too and, at the time, a liberal arts education satisfied those interests. I have never regretted that decision.

Several people in my life have been an influence, but to name a few. William Holst was a very inspirational teacher at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, NH, who had studied with Hans Hoffman, and taught me about space and structure in a painting. Later on at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. Kenneth Daley introduced me to Printmaking and opened a door into another world of expression that I have used throughout my painting life as a way to clarify or begin a new body of work.

Lethe, 55 x 70", oil on linen, 2005–06

BS: Anne, you are have instructed art at: Maine College of Art, Art Institute of Boston, Milton Academy... and several other educational institutions. Can you tell our readers about your academic philosophy? How do you instruct your students?

AN: Observation is probably the most important skill a student can acquire. I use the word "acquire" because observation is a life-long process of learning how to see and there are several ways to observe. When you are young you "acquire" it, and with diligence you can become a master of both the seen and the unseen, which gives you a lot of freedom.

I teach to the individual and guide them to find their "creative center". Oddly the word "creative" implies something that is beyond knowing which is the opposite of center, being at the middle point and implying awareness of both sides. But I mean exactly that. There can be a core within one’s self that is as personal as a face and as big as the universe. It is the perspective of the self that sits in the middle within the context of an expansive universe. Once a student has discovered something from this place, he/she can develop it in any media. In that moment there is a declaration of self recognition and it’s the beginning of the marriage between wonder and knowledge.

I also tell my painting students they need to be bold when they begin because, the more they paint, the more they know and the more decisions there are to make that go way beyond what they are painting.

BS: How did you find balance between being an art educator and a professional artist creating personal works?

AN: Teaching keeps me honest because each day I talk about what art is, or what seeing is, or drawing, or painting and it lingers when I am in the studio. When I am painting and I reach the moment when I am on the verge of discovery, it is, among other things, fieldwork for teaching. They both compliment each other in my life because each career requires me to always to be in the present and asks a lot of me.

Green River, 64 x 84", oil on canvas, 2006

BS: Anne, your art has been featured in ARTnews, The Boston Globe, The New Art Examiner, The New York Times and several other publications. How do you feel when you have been chosen for publication? Do you see it as a sign of success or would you rather just get back to painting?

AN: Having my work written about gives me some documentation of the moment that I’ve exhibited a group of paintings and set forth an idea to the wider public. It can fix my show in time and space so "some news" is definitely better than no news. But, in the end, the studio is where the action is.

BS: In regards to art world success, would you say that some artists get caught up in the moment after major accomplishments... be it features in publications or prestigious awards? I've known artists-- especially younger artists-- who get caught up in the moment and trapped by the 'art star' mentality. This often causes their work to suffer. How do you remain humble and why do you think so many others lose sight of their work?

AN: Have you ever heard of the saying "one can never be famous enough"? I took that saying to heart many years ago and it freed me up from being caught up in the art world. Being an artist has to be about doing the best work I can because that is all I really have and that’s the big equalizer among all artists. I think artists begin to lose sight of their work when they take themselves too seriously as personalities.

Down River, 55 x 70", oil on linen, 2005–06

BS: Anne, at the core you are a painters painter, so to speak. You are interested in the physicality of paint-- how it can be moved, shaped, or in some cases... provoked. When did you develop this interest (or should I say love?) for paint and how it can be utilized to form expressions of your thoughts?

AN: When I was young I fell in love with the expression of painting. I could make the paint do something and control its’ movement. Painting felt immediate and fast. Now, having lived longer, made more paintings and looked more, I think painting is very hard and gets harder every year. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why I continue to do it.

Painting is challenging because I am always learning a visual language. Each time I paint now I am making movement at the hands of the paint, so to speak, just the opposite of my early experience. When problems come up I have to find the chink in the painting wall that will allow me continue to work from that place. In that moment the mark or what I call "the touch" of the paint can guide me and, if I am patient, I might even find my way out of the mess.

Sometimes it takes only days but other times, months or years. I am constantly surprised and grateful for any discovery of new ways to say things in paint. I feel that to paint is to find the presence of the painting and that is really finding out who I am, what I think and what I perceive. I have been consistently amazed at the versatility of paint and, as my work evolves I find myself experimenting more and more with palette and brush.

BS: Anne, you have stated that you seek the visual equivalent of the 'life force' in your paintings. In that, you offer the viewer an alternative vision of the world as seen through your imagination. Can you go into further detail about the world you have created for viewers? What do you hope people find when observing your art?

AN: Aside from the title, my paintings provide a door, for the viewer to enter through Nature. That door usually is some recognizable reference. Then the painting has become a conduit to the heart of the painting and it is in that moment that the viewer is drawn into the presence of the painting or moves on. In those few seconds, hopefully the viewer finds the life force/energy in my work that he/she is hungry for and chooses to linger. It is that energy which sparks the viewer’s imagination and enables them to travel, traverse or go into the painting. I think deep down, all artists want a connection between the viewer’s energy and the energy in the painting. It’s such a visceral, almost physical experience.

Crossing, 45 x 60", oil on canvas, 2005

BS: Your landscapes, or 'places' as you suggest, often appear to be beautiful on the surface. However, further investigation reveals a world that captures a sense of horror or despair. Do these images reflect our reality in that they convey the double-edged sword of life, so to speak? Tell us more about this... about the psychology of your art.

AN: I live in a time that is reflected in what I do as a painter. I don’t think I can disregard the complexity of our present world; in fact, I search in my paintings, for a peaceful passage or a beautiful moment that can be an affirmation of life within all the chaos. So its important to me to straddle the edge of beauty knowing that it stands so closely to darkness. At best I want to convey an appreciation of life amidst a sense of foreboding.

I paint to make meaning, to find meaning or get lost in it, to figure things out (only momentarily), by asking questions while learning how to read the language of space and color. All of these things are part of the process of being in the studio and choosing painting as a life partner. Painting is about exploring an idea through making something and building, changing and transforming forms and space until the magic happens and you begin to see life staring back at you. Each artist has his/her own voyage to this place, the heart of the painting, whether it is working from observation or from imagination. What I know is that there is a merging of what is inside and what is outside and that’s what comes out on the canvas.

BS: Anne, I read that you recently shifted from creating vertical paintings to working on horizontal surfaces. Why did you make this change? Also, how has it helped you create your vision?

AN: I think of vertical orientation as the figure and horizontal as the landscape. Up until recently I was fascinated the relationship between the self and the universe, the life cycle and things seen and unseen ascending into the cosmos. Now that I am dealing with more grounded issues like weather and water it seems to be a natural progression to move onto the horizontal plane where I can paint earth and water from my various strata of memory.

Rill, 24 x 32", oil on linen, 2006

BS: Anne, I've read that your influences range from the art of Piet Mondrian’s floral works to the spontaneous handling of paint by Abstract Expressionists-- such as Joan Mitchell. Can you confirm these influences? Also, who else has influenced your work?

AN: I respond very physically to the bold strokes and color of Joan Mitchell and even though her work is very different from mine, I feel her as a kindred spirit because she is always in the present with her work while she makes it. Piet Mondrians’s floral works are so tender while at the same time being emotional. I think those qualities in an artwork are rare and I admire them.
There are so many ways an artist can be influenced. I love seeing the usual suspects like Goya, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Matisse because, each time I look at them, they teach me what great art can be and how to recognize it. If they had something specific that I wanted I would not hesitate to take from their vision, knowing that the instant I took in the lesson and really "owned it," the lesson would be absorbed, transformed and interpreted into my vision. That is why I tell my students to borrow whatever they want. All contemporary artists owe a debt to the artists who have come before them. We stand on their shoulders holding their accumulated knowledge and experience.

I am reading Matisse the Master right now and author Hilary Spurling refers to a moment during the war (1917) when Matisse talks to a younger artist, Severini, telling him how he has "finally solved the problem of how to dominate and reveal reality through a process of abstraction." What artist hasn’t struggled with that one! It’s a classic problem to even voice let alone act on it: Think about Philip Guston and his struggle.

Although I have been following Anslem Kiefer’s work for a while and loved the expansive quality of it, I was simply taken aback by the grandness of his vision and the use of multiple materials at his recent Monumenta exhibition this summer in the Grand Palais in Paris. It left me so inspired and hopeful about art being in the world and making a difference.

I am influenced by poets, their poems, and reading essays about their process. They paint with words. Recently deceased poet, Stanley Kunitz has some wonderful things to say about poems in his book The Wild Braid and in the following excerpt I could have easily substituted the word painting for poem. It’s from the section called "no maker": " After a certain period, the poem seems to have no maker at all. Poems gather their own momentum and you feel they’re moving on their own. You are part of the world in which they are born and come to maturity, but they have an identity beyond the person to whom they are confiding because the poem doesn’t really belong to anyone, it belongs to a great tradition…"

What the Weather Brings, 24 x 32", oil on linen, 2006

BS: Anne, what are you working on at this time? Also, do you have an upcoming exhibitions?

AN: I just had a show at the Lohin Geduld gallery in New York called "What the weather brings" and I have more to say on that topic so I am currently continuing some of the ideas which has led to focus more specifically on water, the conduit for life. I will be having a show in October of 2008 in Boston at the Alpha Gallery and in the spring of 2009 at Lohin Geduld in New York.

BS: Where can our readers view your art?

AN: My work can be found on my web site www.anneneely.com, on www.lohingeduld.com, www.alphagallery.com, or www.hammondgallery.com.

BS: Anne, do you have any advice for young painters? Any suggestions about work ethic or the business side of art?

AN: I would say keep painting and believe in what you do. Lead a full and enriching life that you can incorporate into your art because no matter what ideas you are concentrating on, the work will still, in some measure, reveal your life.

BS: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art or the art world?

AN: If I can make something like an object or an idea come alive and have its own presence in a painting, then I will have achieved my childhood dream. I know that I am here on the planet to make art that reminds us of the world we live in. The art world might overlap it’s vision with mine or not, but that’s out of my control. So I continue to do what I do and am grateful to have the opportunity to do it.

You can learn more about Anne Neely by visiting her website-- www.anneneely.com. You can read more of my interview by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Opinions: To Understand a Painting, You Need a Chair by Timothy Hawkesworth

To Understand a Painting, You Need a Chair

by Timothy Hawkesworth

www.timothyhawkesworth.com

Imagine John Clease bounding onto the stage at the Old Stratford just as Brutus is sinking the knife into Julius Caesar. "Stay in your seats! This is not a murder. Brutus is only sticking a plastic thing under Julius Caesar’s arm. Yes don’t be alarmed, this is not, I repeat not a murder." This is what Rene Magritte did to painting with his famous piece, "Ce n’est pas une pipe." Since then, propelled by Warhol and Duchamp, a large portion of the art community have taken this line of mischief to where many would claim that contemporary art is now just a matter of philosophy and theory of art and visuality. The old experiential core of painting is apparently no longer needed – no longer relevant. The mischief is now serious business, filling libraries and art magazines. It is the main pillar of the art establishment.

When curators hang paintings with a heavy thematic construct, when they post large "educational" explanations beside a painting, or when they sell you audio-tapes to listen to while you look at paintings, they undermine the relationship between the viewer and the painting. Painting communicates through the power of unnamed substances. It creates a silence inside us in which the imagination has room to travel. A viewer in front of a painting is in a position to have a full-bodied meditation – to be transported and expanded. Philip Guston talked about "reeling with meanings" in front of paintings. The moment needs silence, possibly a chair, some good lighting and a frame that doesn’t distract. Keep the writing for the catalogue or the book – give painting its due.

This is a matter of respect for the artist and the viewer. There is plenty to say about painting, to study, and to write, but first we need to look and taste the painting, letting it warm us and transport us. Art education has to be built around the viewer’s personal experience of the painting. It is about filling out that experience and making the viewer hungry for more. Let people go to the paintings they like, and spend time with them. The first job of art education is teaching people to relax and breathe and to just hang out in front of a painting, teaching them to be open to whatever the painting may do with them. After the viewer has established a personal foothold, then it is time to inform and to explore the experiences he or she is having. If the enterprise of art education and art study is not based on this private reverie, it has lost its relationship with the very core of what it is teaching and studying. The enterprise becomes self-referential and a mutation of its original function. It is like replacing the wedding feast with a dissertation on nutrition and the process of digestion.

This disconnection from the original experience of painting not only affects how art is shown and taught, it undermines the practice and foundations of the whole field. The disembodied theory-based writing that now dominates the field is spawning an art scene of a theory-based art. This community is colored by irony and weariness. The focus of the art produced is to critique and reexamine what already exists. It does not do first hand research outside its own theoretic concerns. It does not draw from, or investigate further, nature and the world around us. It is not about life and it does not seek to expand or explore our experiences as human beings. It is at its core reductive and reactionary. It dissipates the viewer’s experience and negates the artist’s creative possibilities. It is not that we don’t need philosophy and theory of art. It is that the pages of unreadable convoluted discourse that emanates from the art magazines and Art History departments is more about power and position. The art being barely relevant makes the critic, curator or the art historian, indispensable. The big exhibition is centered on the theoretical constructs of the curator, the art merely goes to illustrate the theory that fills the catalogue and dictates the hanging and the selection of the show. This is painting in the service of theory, or more correctly, in the service of careerism. I recently visited our local ICA, which was celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary. The director rose to thank the curators and their assistants who had made these twenty-five years such a success. Then she stumbled and added sheepishly "Oh yes and the artists."

Novalis said "Philosophy is really homesickness. It is the urge to be at home everywhere." The lasting power of philosophy is tied to longing: a longing to understand our relationship with the enormous, indifferent energy of the universe. Its rigor and vitality come from the impossibility of its quest and from its commitment to encounter reality. In this it has much in common with painting. They can be good bedfellows. For this collaboration to work however the philosopher would have to see paintings for what they are: living records of encounters with reality: evidence from archaeological digs down into our communal psyche. The physical energy of creativity alive in painting is a fact of nature – empirical evidence to be examined. The philosopher’s personal experience of painting is no less valuable than his or her personal experience of the universe – just more evidence. The best art theory has been written from this perspective in that it acknowledges both the physical nature of creativity, and the expansive possibilities that are at its core. I think of the work of John Berger. It is writing that is poignant and expansive, full of surprise and vitality while always mindful of the mysterious. It is grounded in the world although it searches out the intangible. It is also very readable.

Our creativity is a natural part of us, and the work we do as artists, is full of possibility. Robert Frost said "there are still sounds that live in the cavern of the mouth that have not yet been brought to book." There are forms that have not yet been brought to painting. It has not all been done before. All the great artists of history knew this, and felt the pathos of the shortness of life. Scientists, who study nature, are awed by the complexities, scale, and sheer beauty of the universe in which we live. It is clear we are only glimpsing a fraction of what is out there and what is inside us. The Arts, at their best, have sought to offer us experience of this sense of possibility. "Moments of extension and hope," according to Seamus Heaney. The comic richness of James Joyce’s Ulysses takes us out further than any writer before; the twist of the poem catches us by surprise, or the choppy slash of De Kooning’s brushstroke turns us and extends us in ways we could not expect. There is exhilaration and excitement in these moments. The art historical and curatorial fields need to encompass this possibility, this openness. This would mean they would have to return to the humble roll of the individual viewer, open to new experience. They would have to stop the fast rotations of their theoretic constructs, and just sit silently in front of a painting. When the heart opens, or when a walk by the ocean quiets us, theory falls away. We just are. This space is at the heart of where painting comes from and how it works. The critical analysis and theoretic exploration have to start from here. Painting is personal and intimate – we follow Rembrandt’s finger through the paint, right there, right now. If the critic is not present and receptive, he or she is in no position to comment on the work.

The viewer of art is offered a holistic experience. He or she is taken out for a ride, engaged through the senses and propelled by the imagination feeding on the medium of the art form. The poets talk about making a temple of the inner ear for sound to echo down through the psyche. Painting goes onto our stomach. It is always palpable physical presence. More than any other art form it speaks directly to the body. It offers us the chance to return to our personal experience of the world, as experienced through our bodies, as a central part of our exploration of what it means to be human. It is a place where our learning and our nature get to coexist.

James Joyce wrote, "There is no limit to creativity except consciousness. *" Our creativity has propelled human evolution. It is our one great resource. The real tragedy of the human race may be currently unfolding as we wallow in denial, playing theoretical head games, at a time when we are destroying the very resources that enable our survival on the planet. It is a time when the arts that foster our creativity and keep us grounded in our corporal experience of the world are most needed. Seamus Heaney, when he received the Nobel Prize, credited poetry for having a restorative effect between the mind’s center and its circumference. He was referring to the flow between the conscious analytical mind, and the broader embodied mind. It is here in these old archaic practices of art making that we have the opportunity to return to the reality of our embodied experiences of the world, to the center of our public discourse. At this moment, in this culture, this is a radical and revolutionary concept. It was Foucault, the French radical who suggested that to understand a painting you need a chair. It is here, seated silently before a painting, honoring our personal response, that we assert the truth of our own experience. In this we challenge the commercial and political discourses that are dedicated to separating us from that reality. Simone Wiel wrote from Paris, as the Nazi armies approached, that the failure of the democracies in the face of Fascism was due to a failure of intellectual and spiritual rigor. It was perhaps an overstatement to blame the fall of France on the Surrealists or for us now to blame the rise of fundamentalism both here and abroad, on the deconstructionists. However it is clear that some intellectual constructs foster creativity and investigation of the world around us, while others hinder it. This may well be a reasonable and practical measure of their value. It is time to sit, look at the paintings, and reevaluate.

*By "consciousness" I take him to mean what we now call the analytical mind.

Art Space Talk: Eun Woo Cho

Eun Woo Cho was born in Seoul Korea and earned her BFA at Ontario College of Arts & Design. She has been involved in several different site specific performances and shows in Canada, Italy and the United States. She recently obtained her M.F.A from the School of Visual Art in New York. Her Red Skirt Project explores the plight and strength of comfort women during Japan's occupation of Korea- this series also explores the ability of women to endure pain in general.

Red Skirt Project- Red Ribbon, Various Size performance, Photo Video, 2006

Brian Sherwin: Eun Woo, you earned your BFA from Ontario College. You recently earned an MFA from the School of Visual Art in New York. Who were your mentors during your academic years?

Eun Woo Cho: To be honest, I try not to be inspired by a human being, but in something greater than a human being. It is difficult to find mentors or "mentor ship" because human beings will never be perfect like the universe. I believe the meaning of the mentor or inspiration from someone else is to truly understand their ideas and to respect their life and their existence. "Whenever I talk with her, I feel like I tripped, and found a white pearl near a tree in a beautiful forest. Whenever I see her, I could almost hear sounds of clear morning dew." Petah Coyne, my thesis advisor in SVA MFA, is not only an intelligent artist, but she also has great wisdom in her heart. I truly admire and respect her as a person. Her existence and mentality change her surroundings and mood. She is magical to me.

Artists not only work in their heads or the bottoms of their physical beings, but deep inside of their hearts-- in this they rejoice. Everything already exists and has been defined and created perfectly by the greater human being. People or artists create their works or try to make something mean that they try to prove how small and imperfect they are! We want to meet a mentor, an inspiring person and professors, who do not force us to understand their lives, but naturally know where they are coming from and what their aims in life are.

Red Skirt Project- Korean bride, my older sister, Various Size performance, Photo Video, 2004

BS: Eun Woo, you are known for taking on controversial themes and certain establishments with your work. For example, the Red Skirt Project. Can you tell our readers more about the Red Skirt Project and how you have given your support to Korean women who were used as sex slaves during WWII?

EWC: There is "NOTHING" on this earth that could not support them. How much support will be enough or not enough? What will make their terrified bloody hearts become white? Who will clarify their sorrowful lives? What will be true support? A Japanese government letter of apology is not enough! Millions of dollars is not enough! Beautiful art work is not enough! However, I will truly celebrate and pray for their existence here.

I am proud of their survival. I am celebrating their being and I thank you for them that they are still surviving and continue to live their lives. The Red Skirt Project is not only focused on sex slaves during WWII. It is all about women and human growth in this different society and in history. It represents different degrees of human emotions. The Red Skirt Project is multiple access and it presents potential conflicts in information about women in different times and about the young generation. It is a gesture of promise. It is both a traditional and a new way of entering a contract with performers under a mutual agreement which benefits women, audiences, and me.

Red Skirt Project- flower, Various Size animation, photo, 2006

BS: Can you go into further detail about the traditions involved with Red Skirt Project? Would you say that the project reveals not only the rape of the 'comfort women' by Japanese forces during WWII, but also the rape of Korean culture in general during that time?

EWC: Everything is tradition and everything is not tradition in my work. My work depends on the viewer's choice in terms of imagining what it means. It may also be changed to fit during these days, and the changes can become accepted as a part of the other tradition on other days. I try to do my work in traditions-- or not traditions --because, one day, you will be the tradition as well.

BS: Eun Woo, you were born in Seoul, Korea. How do people form your homeland view the Red Skirt Project. Did you find a lot of support for the Red Skirt Project back home? Also, did your family support this project?

EWC: Yes. I have enough support from my country Seoul, Korea because I was born there and I have their soul. My country, Korea is small, but extremely precious and strong. It has survived as a country for 5,000 years. They have great wisdom. I have their hearts and I am proud-- I am very thankful to have them.

When you plant your crops, you need to wait a long time for your trees to bear fruit. Art is the same as harvesting fruit from your trees. You may not be able to have your fruit in your lifetime, but, if you work hard on it, I promise you that you will have it someday. If I did not have my fruit during my lifetime, my grandchildren will benefit from my efforts. My family is my everything. If they are not here, I am not here. They are my key to life. I heaven when I see my parents. I always receive great comfort and fulfilling love from my parents and my two sisters.

Red Skirt Project- with my younger sister hyun kyung, Various Size performance, Photo Video, 2007

BS: Eun Woo, would you say that you are an activist first, artist second... or artist first, activist second-- or are these two aspects meshed together? Would you remain dedicated to one aspect if you no longer did the other?

EWC: Every single human should be involved socially or politically in their lifetimes and, furthermore, in society. Human beings are supposed to be naturally involved in activism. Creating, practicing, and demonstrating their activity in their lives will continually define their ideas or concepts or transform their new ideas to create meaningful moments in their societies. I am having a good time and I appreciate my life as much as I can, even though I have to face difficult problems.

BS: Eun Woo, can you go into further detail about your artistic philosophy? In your opinion, what should art do for society? What should it not do?

EWC: The universe will continue to turn without your theories. It has done so before and will continue to do so. You do not know where this wind comes from, the sunrise, or the little bird's song. You forgot where you are coming from? You do not know your creator. It follows then that, for scientists, "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. Is this contemporary work exploring and exciting for this short moment, is it really individually experienced and aesthetically expressed to the world, or are we in the same political frame?

Sweet things can easily make other things bitter. If the artwork is not sweet but exudes a quality of feeling, or if it shows that the artist has spoken to a great extent from their soul with their material, are we in heaven? Your individual meanings or ideas fail because those theories already existed before, a long time ago, either in your mind or conjecture but not necessarily based on facts or truth.

His or her understatement, in true descriptions of reality, is not understood as statements that would be true independently of what people think about them-- or unnecessary. Your idea of thought, "theory", can not take away or make captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy-- which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this sinful world-- rather than your Paradise.

Red Skirt Project- comfort women, Various Size performance, Photo Video, 2007

BS: Finally, what projects are you working on at this time?

EWC: I am working with video, sound, time, heaven and death. It is a fascinating subject matter, because we can't force any of these subjects-- wishes or attempts to die may fail! Death is an important natural process. Death could be/not be the beauty of life. War, crime, revenge, martyrdom, suicide, and many other forms of violent death are glorified by different media. Understanding the nature of the universe and its contents, there remain some important unanswered questions.Whether death is a subjective matter depends on ones belief in the presence or lack of ones perception of what good or bad existence will follow their natural law. Every single human activity is a search for happiness and love in their heaven.

I hope that you have enjoyed learning about Eun Woo Cho and her art. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Kika Nicolela

Kika Nicolela is a new media artist from Campinas, Brazil. Kika's works include single-channel videos, video installations, performances, experimental documentaries and photography. Kika graduated with a degree in Cinema and Video from the University of Sao Paulo in 2000. In 2002, she completed film courses at the University of California. Since then, she has developed her personal works-- which have been exhibited internationally.


Face to Face. 2006

Brian Sherwin: Kika, where did you study? Who were your mentors?

Kika Nicolela: I graduated in Film and Video at São Paulo University. I started very young, when I was 17, and studied there for seven years. I’m not sure if I have mentors, but there were some exceptional professors at this course, and they all had some influence on me. People like Jean-Claude Bernardet, Arlindo Machado and Ismail Xavier, who are very respected film and video scholars in Brazil and abroad.

In the last years of my studies, I started an internship at a film production company in São Paulo and there I met and worked with some great Brazilian filmmakers, and that experience was also very gratifying. I was very much impressed with Tata Amaral, for example, who was one of the few Brazilian female feature film directors at that time (and still today we have no more than five).

In 2002 I went to live in Los Angeles for almost a year, and I did some continuing education courses at UCLA, which was extremely important to me, because the classes were very much hands-on and the students worked very hard, so I was able to complete about 8 short films in only 7 months. That was the beginning of developing my own voice and finding the themes that interested me.

I also met amazing film professionals in seminars, such as: Sophia Coppola, Mike Figgis, Paul Mazursky, Conrad Hall, Janusz Kaminski, Sam Raimi, Curtis Hanson and Callie Khouri, among others. It was so inspiring to talk to them and learn from these people. But it was right after I came back to Brazil that I really started working with contemporary artists and that led me to video art. I found that it could be a much more personal rewarding and free art form than classical filmmaking.

BS: How did your studies help to shape the work you create today?

KN: I think it’s very hard to say how much of this or that helped to get me where I am today. We’re made of so many different experiences, and sometimes something seemingly not important has actually a profound effect on us, and only later we realize that. I believe I’m very much concerned with using elements of film language in new ways; I also have a strong sense of narrative and structure that are somehow present in all my works.

BS: Kika, tell us about your installations, films, and photographs. What are the themes you deal with in your work?

KN: Examination of the relationships between the camera, subject, author and the spectator. I always seek new ways of exploring this complex bonding between the audience and the audiovisual, mediated by the point of view of a 3rd person – the artist. Another theme that has been very present in my latest pieces is the connection between man and his environment, between the body and its surroundings, being those urban or natural.

I perceive these two lines of work as different ways of approaching the same theme: (un)communication in the contemporary relationships and art. Another relevant question is: how to use art to produce unique perceptive experiences?

BS: What about influences... who has influenced you?

KN: Ingmar Bergman, David Lynch, Jean Luc Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, Alain Resnais, P.T. Anderson, Pedro Almodovar, David Cronemberg, Peter Greenaway, Bill Viola, Mathew Barney, Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry. Those are some names that just came to my mind right now.

BS: Can you tell us more about your artistic process... your philosophy, so to speak? How do your ideas become a reality?

KN: In general, I could say that my artistic process include having an idea, finding out the essence of it, researching about the themes and/or techniques involved, then writing a shooting script - not a screenplay per se, but a script of the things I want to shoot, a kind of blue print to guide me, but at the shooting itself I always keep an open mind and improvise a lot.

I either work by myself or with other partners, it depends on the project, but I love to have other people’s creative inputs to my ideas. One of the people that has contributed many times with me is my husband, who is a great director of photography. Sometimes, I worked with other artists from scratch, so the concepts are both theirs and mine. And then comes what I consider the most important and delightful moment: the editing.

The editing is actually the most creative part, in which the film really takes form. I experiment a lot, but always having in mind the essence of what I want to convey or express with the work. I do my best not to get impressed by easy effects, because there are so many available. I also avoid following stylistic tricks and trends. I try to find the right tone, rhythm and look for that particular piece I’m working on. And then comes the difficult task of knowing when it’s ready, when to stop and say: "that’s it, that’s the best I can do right now".

Concerning how my ideas become a reality… this is a tricky question, because there are many ways this can take place. I mean, I always have many ideas floating in my head at the same time. Then something triggers the process of starting the project itself. It could be the invitation for a specific exhibition, a grant that fits the profile of one of my ideas, a partner who invites me to do something together, or just an event that happens in front of me and I record with my camera, later transforming it into a new piece. I try to be always open to new opportunities and inspirations. And I always keep a camera nearby.

Working with video can be really simple and cheap, or incredibly expensive and complex. I’ve done both kind of works, and everything in between!



FLUX. 2005

BS: Kika, can you go into further detail about FLUX(2005)? Tell our readers about the meaning behind this piece. What inspired you?

KN: FLUX is a project that started with an invitation. The visual artist Suzy Okamoto had this beautiful exhibition space called Capela do Morumbi - which is a very old chapel in São Paulo that was transformed to receive contemporary art installations - available for her to make an exhibition. She wanted to make a video work, but she had never made one before. She had seen another video of mine and invited me to work with her on this one.

The first thing we decided was that we wanted to shoot part of the video in the chapel itself, and the sensation that we had inside that place was the foundation. The building was made of a kind of mixture with earth, very rough, and very sensual in a bizarre way. And we wanted to express this feeling and this exchange between our skin and the "skin" of the building, its walls, the grass outside, its stairs etc.

This was my fourth video in which I tried to translate a very abstract feeling, emotion or memory into audiovisual experience. It’s painful to explain its meanings, because the work is supposed to lead the audience to an abstract state of mind, and I hope that each experience is unique. But I can talk about my inspirations: the feelings that I had in that place were related to something animal, something primitive and untamed inside of me. The video speaks of the relation between our body and the environment; our ever lasting whish to return to a more primitive state. The performer we invited for this video is Leticia Sekito, a great dancer with whom I have collaborated many times in the past 4 years.

FLUX was primarily a video installation, composed of 4 different projections in the chapel itself. Then I edited this single-channel version that has been shown in many festivals and is now available on You Tube.

BS: What type of equipment do you use? Also, in regards to working with others... how do you choose who to work with?

KN: I have used many types of equipment in my videos; from snapshot still cameras that also shoot MP4 videos, to high tech High Definition cameras. I’m very keen of technology and I try to be always in synch with what’s happening in terms of new equipment, codecs and softwares. Right now, I have two different cameras: they’re both High Definition, but one is a Panasonic Handycam, which shoots in SD memory cards, and the other is the Panasonic HVX200, which is a wonderful bigger camera with a more complicated workflow.

My last video, WINDMAKER, was shot with the latest, and it’s amazing how beautiful the images are. I sometimes still use the Panasonic DVX100, which was the camera I used in FLUX for example, because I consider it the best standard definition camera out there. And now I’m looking forward to work with RED, which is a new digital cinema camera, just released in the US. I believe it will definitely change the way both filmmakers and video makers work – it will blur even more the lines between these two arts.

Concerning the softwares, I’ve used Sony Vegas for many years for editing, but I switched to Final Cut Pro recently (yes, I’m a Mac now). And I’ve used both Resolume and Arkaos as Vjiing softwares. In regards to working with others, I balance two things: their work and their personality, that is, first of all I have to admire their work, but I also need to feel an empathy for them. With some collaborators I’ve worked for months or years with, and it can become a traumatic experience if we don’t get along. Well, unfortunately, sometimes we only find out that some person is terrible to work with during the process…

BS: Kika, I've read that your work has been exhibited in more than 30 countries. Tell our readers about a few of those exhibitions. Which have been the most exciting for you?

KN: One of the things that I love the most about video art is that I can exhibit it in many different ways, and each way influences how the work will be perceived. I can show the same video in a small LCD screen on the wall of a gallery; I can show it on the web; I can make a site specific installation with it; or it can be projected on a large screen during a festival.

I’m a big fan of film and video festivals. The experience of sharing the dark room with hundreds of people, and watching films on the big screen, still fascinates me. Besides, festivals, especially video art ones, always bring together a variety of works from all over the world - some good, some bad, others spectacular - and usually I find the screenings inspiring and rewarding.

I’ve been fortunate to be selected to some great festivals, like Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin De Nouveau Cinéma Et Art Contemporain (France and Germany), Kunst Film Biennale (Germany), ACA Media Arts Festival (Japan), VAD Festival Internacional de Vídeo i Arts Digitals (Spain), Exis Experimental Film & Video Festival (Korea), Videolab (Portugal), International Short Film Festival Hamburg (Germany), just to name a few.

Not always I’ve been able to attend the festivals; rarely they have enough budget to invite and cover the directors expenses. My favorite ones were AluCine Toronto Latin@ Media Festival (Canada), which I attended in 2006 and 2007, because I love their selection (all genres, but more experimental), the organizers are great, they welcome the guests in a very warm way and Toronto is a fabulous city; Videoformes New Media & Video Art Festival (France), which I participated in 2004 and 2007 but only attended this year, because they select only experimental videos and very good ones, I met great artists there, I got the main award (which is always a nice experience), and I just love France; and International Electronic Art Festival Videobrasil (Brazil), which I participated in 2003 and 2005, because they take place in São Paulo, where I live, it’s one of the biggest video art festivals in the world, and they have an important role in promoting video art in Brazil for the past 20 years. All of these 3 festivals also organize great exhibitions and seminars beside their screenings.

BS: What do you like most about exhibiting?

KN: I adore watching people watching my works. It is so rewarding to see a spontaneous strong reaction to something I did. To me, art is all about communication; it’s the most complete communication there is, because I try to put my heart and soul in my works. I also believe in the power of the audiovisual experience and the possibilities it offers us, that is, we (artists) can change the world, or at least try to do it.

BS: Kika, in your opinion, what are some of the main issues facing video artists today?

KN: In my opinion, a great deal of video artists tend to get seduced by new technologies and medias and just loose themselves. I’ve seen so many bad Vjiing events that proclaims themselves art, so many interactive works that seem like a game for kids to press buttons, or horrible videos using game or second life excerpts like they were doing something revolutionary. I just think that we have to try to reflect about all these new tools, and remain true to ourselves.
BS: As a video artist, do you ever have any concerns about censorship?

KN: I have faced some problems regarding this. I have a project that deals with porn actors and it’s really hard to get a grant or funding to do it, mainly because of its subject. And I made a video called TROPIC OF CAPRICORN which is one of my favorite works, and despite the fact that it was my most exhibited and awarded work, it just got censored in You Tube, after months of being shown there. I sent them a letter complaining, but they never answered me. It was made with transvestites, and it displays a little bit of nudity and a lot of dirty talk. Still, it’s a touching video and it shouldn’t be censored.


WINDMAKER. 2007

BS: Kika, what are you working on at this time? Can you give our readers any details about your future projects?

KN: I’m finishing a single-channel version of my video installation WINDMAKER; I have about 4 projects in the process of getting funding; and I’m writing my first experimental fiction feature film.

BS: Do you have any exhibitions lined up? Also, where can our readers view more of your art?

KN: Yes. From October 10th to December 2nd, my video "Ecstasy Poem" will be part of a big contemporary art exhibition in São Paulo, called Cut and Paste CRTL_C + CRTL_V; I was just invited to be part of Supermarket of Art International Biennial, in Warsow (Poland), which will start end of October; and a retrospective of most of my works is being organized to take place in São Paulo on the first week of November.

BS: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art?

KN: Making art and showing it are the most rewarding things in my life. And I love to have feedback and exchange ideas – so please, whoever is reading this, just watch some of my stuff at www.youtube.com/kikanicolela and leave your comments!

You can learn more about Kika Nicolela by visiting her website-- www.dilemastudio.com. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Julian Hatton

Julian Hatton is an interesting painter in that he is not concerned with contemporary hype. In my opinion, he is a painters painter-- meaning that he focuses on his work instead of trends or what is going on in the art world today. This individualism is obvious when viewing Julian's paintings-- many of which are relatively small compared to what we normally view in the contemporary art world. Julian is an artist who will not allow himself to be defined by dictated standards or painterly 'rules of engagement', so to speak. He does not seek press or prizes, but that has not stopped him from receiving both.


Run Off . 24" x 24" . oil on canvas on panel . 2005-2006

Brian Sherwin: Julian, you studied at Harvard College and the New York Studio School of Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture. Can you recall any of your experiences from that time? Who were your mentors?

Julian Hatton: I got the idea to pursue a career in the visual arts while taking time off from college. I had been drawing cartoons for the newspaper and trying to get on the Lampoon, but I was far from funny enough so I never made it. School, my sophomore year was a bummer, for various reasons, so I decided to bail for a while. I was invited to spend time in Spain with a painter, Fernando Zobel. I had a great time for a couple of months and decided to change my major to art history. Fernando advised me not to pursue painting until after college, if, by then , I still wanted to.

Obviously, I did. I painted my first oil painting a few months before I finagled my way into the New York Studio School. The school gave me a paradigm of studio mores, working from observation, some good studio habits and some bad ones. The funny thing about the Studio School during the early 80’s is that I attended for a couple of years, yet I still feel self-taught as a painter. Perhaps it’s because you really are on your own in the arts, for better or worse.

Woody V. . 24" x 24" . oil on canvas on panel . 2005-2006

BS: Julian, your art has been featured or reviewed in several publications- The New York Times, Art in America, The Villager... you have also won several major awards, like the Pollock-Krasner Grant. How do you feel when your art gains exposure like that? Do you get excited? Nervous? Does it 'keep you on your toes' or do you try to keep it in the back of your mind... and just focus on painting?

JH: I’ve always felt like an outsider. My friends didn’t attend MFA programs. We worked odd jobs and made ends meet while we made art. My sense of myself as a painter didn’t change until I attended the MacDowell Colony in 1992.For the first time I started to believe that maybe I really was an artist. Then a gallery took me on. Those were big changes, compared to the string of grants and awards that I’ve garnered since then. Yet big awards reaffirm your status, in case you were in doubt. And that never fails to be significant. Just this spring the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded me a prize in art for outstanding accomplishment. John Updike gave a short speech, along with Garrison Keillor and other blue chip culture heroes. That type of experience makes you feel like you’re at the very least no longer an outsider.

Persian Miniature . 24" x 24" . oil on canvas on panel . 2005-2006

BS: Julian, you are known for creating paintings that are a mix of discipline and play. How did you learn to control your surfaces in order to experiment playfully while remaining serious and true to desired goals for each piece? Would you say that it is important for a painter experiment in this manner?

JH: Some call me a "process painter". Translation: I am an improvisational painter. I respond to what’s on the canvas. Some call that playing. Nature, either observed, remembered or copied from another source, starts the ball rolling. Because my work grew out of a decade of en plien air nature studies, and because I find that subject infinitely flexible, I continue, in the studio paintings, to use the vocabulary of landscape but strive to freely respond to what’s happening on the surface. Soon after my starting point, often an en plien air sketch or old en plien air painting, I need to get lost, to not know where I am going, so to speak, in order to be fully engaged in the painting process. That is a recipe for failure and success, and lots of stress, frustration and hard work, but ultimately thrilling when one succeeds. Because I don’t have a plan, it takes a lot of effort and discipline to succeed when painting the way I do. Every painting is an experiment, in the sense that each composition and color scheme strives to be different. An exaggerated sensitivity to "already been there" seems to drive this habit.

Bean Bag. 60" x 60". oil on canvas. 2001-1

BS: Julian, your paintings often depict the bare essence of nature. This vivid distortions often capture this in manner that is both whimsical and mysterious. Your work is often organic... full of life... yet there is a somberness about them at times. Can you discuss the motives behind these images? How has nature influenced your work. Also, are there any social implications behind your work?

JH: I have been painting and drawing en plien air in nature for more than 30 years. I spent eight year painting in Prospect Park almost every day, except when it was below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I have a bad case of biophilia—a love of nature. It is rejuvenating, while painting is draining. Since 1995 I have done a lot of work in the studio, where now most of the work happens. I spent about ten years becoming somewhat fluent in the language of painting while also memorizing, unintentionally, an idiosyncratic vocabulary of forms and shapes based on direct observation of nature. Because mimesis doesn’t interest me, and because now I like to re-work the imagery so much, I have to avoid over-complicating the forms. Hence things tend to drift toward exaggerations, simplification and distortion. Yet I am not interested in simplification. I would like to be as inclusive as possible, to have as wide a range of colors, forms, textures as possible. Naturally (pun intended), my abstractions reflect their source.

Regarding social implications, let me say that in the context of 9/11, paintings about nature seemed out of touch. But, in the context of global warming, painting that responds to nature is an important place to be. One could site the American Transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreaux as related influences. The work touches on ideas of the individual in nature, pantheism, the purely aesthetic response to nature relative to the socially activist response to nature. It touches on the idea wilderness relative to man-manipulated nature. It connects with Cezanne’s attitudes relative to working from and abstracting from nature, formalism, academic tradition, etc. and especially "modernism", which arguably started with Cezanne.

Pass. oil on canvas and panel. 24" x 24. 2005-06

BS: Julian, who has influenced you? Your work is often compared to early American modernist works- Georgia O' Keefe, Arthur Dove... there are also traces of Gauguin and the Fauves. Are you influenced by any of these artists or movements?

JH: I am most influenced by the New York School and the improvisational way of painting (process). So, the late Gorky, de Kooning, Joan Mitchell guide me. When thinking of the connection drawn by critics between my work and early American modernists, I don’t emulate their style, although I do like their painting, but I do emulate their sense of trying to figure out things on their own.

My fearless use of color often aligns me with the Fauves, in the eyes of critics. What most critics fail to write about is artists who use primarily color to compose a painting. They also fail to distinguish between painting in which color depends on interaction and interdependency versus paintings in which colors stand alone independently and do not make a difference relative to each other, such that substitutions would seem to have little adverse effect on the work.

K.I.S.S. oil on canvas and panel. 24" x 24". 2005-06

BS: Julian, you often stay away from creating large abstractions- your works are often no more than 24 inches square. Why did you choose to work in a smaller manner than your peers? When one thinks of abstract painting he or she thinks of large, heroic, paintings. Why did you decide to 'go against the grain', so to speak?

JH: "Improv" painting on a large scale is very difficult. I have painted large, some more successful than others. Given my time constraints, like having to run a small business to "buy" painting time and pay rent, I have been more successful painting on a smaller scale. It’s really just pragmatism. You need to find a creative method that keeps you engaged and advances your project, a method that lasts decades if not forever. Small, as part of my method, has consistently worked better than large.

BS: Julian, critics have stated that you are giving new life to traditional methods of modern art... that you are exploring techniques and methods that many observe as already mapped out. Do you think it is foolish when people decide that certain manners of painting are 'outdated' or should be 'left behind'. It seems you are an advocate for exploring the roots of contemporary art in order to show that fresh art can be created from those anti-traditional traditional methods and themes, is that so?

JH: Given my background and opportunities, my inclinations were somewhat pre-determined. I connected with painting from observation. I found a subject that kept me engaged. I love oil paint. I love objects, artifacts, art, in nature, in museums, in flea markets. I like what the hand does after the brain processes the information. I like idea plus material, the brain responding to the outside world then using oil paint to reify the response. So, it’s no wonder that my work grows out of earlier oil painters. That was their idea, too. I also love to incorporate all the art I love, past, present, foreign and folk. So I am interested in all painters from whom I can steal a good image, idea, technique, etc..I like to think oil painting can still make an all inclusive, responsive metaphor for contemporary life.

Channelling. oil on canvas and panel. 24" x 24". 2005-06

BS: Julian, where do you paint? What is it like to be in your studio? Do you have certain conditions that must be met in order to start painting? Also, can you go into detail about how you start a painting? When do you know a painting is done?

JH: I paint en plien air and in my studio. Sometimes I’m in Manhattan, or Brooklyn, sometimes in upstate New York. I start a painting many different ways: from an on-site sketch, from a watercolor, from an older successful painting. I choose a ground, sometimes cotton duck glued to wood, sometimes gessoed canvas on stretcher with a solid wood backing. I start thin and often set aside a successful start in order not to bury it’s all too important and all too subtle nuances. Then I’ll a start another oil painting the exact same size, either a fresh canvas or an old canvas the same size with the old painted images knocked back by wet-sanding (never dry sand, the dust is toxic) If this doesn’t succeed, I’ll do it a third time. Usually this will get me to a point where I leave behind the original idea and dive into unexplored territory. At some point I either succeed or declare it a failure.

It’s usually pretty clear when the idea of the paintings achieves a clarity of form, color and composition such that I can call it a successful statement of a visual idea. Or, a painting is done when my wife comes into the studio and orders me to back away from the canvas and put my brushes down. She has saved many visual ideas from over painting, which is a big problem when you’re in uncharted territory, making it up as you go, while keeping one foot in naturalism, the other in abstraction, painting improvisationally and struggling to sort out the overwhelming formal choices that every painter has to deal with—color, form, space, etc..

If it’s a failure, I’ll recycle the unsuccessful painting and use it as background for a new painting. Almost all of my paintings are many paintings on top of each other. I use the old shapes to help solve problems in the current painting.

BS: Julian, do you have an suggestions or advice for young painters who are seeking gallery representation or simply trying to put their 'foot in the door'?

JH: Try the newest galleries who are still gathering a group of artists for regular shows. It’s the work that counts. But who you know often counts as much as the successfulness of the work when trying to get shown.

When the Beech Trees Dance. oil on canvas and panel. 24" x 24". 2005-06

BS: Julian, where can our readers view more of your art?

JH: At Elizabeth Harris Gallery in Chelsea, Kathryn Markel Gallery in Chelsea for monoprints, Hidell Brooks Gallery in Charlotte, N.C. for more monoprints, the Ober Gallery in Kent, Connecticut for a couple more paintings. Or, try my website: www.julianhatton.net or www.eharrisgallery.com.

BS: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art or the artworld?

JH: An under-emphasized point in painting is mastering the syntax of visual language, as in the illusionistic space of the 2-D surface, where most painting happens. There are rules to any language, as in syntax. Some parts of languages you can invent, some you have to borrow. There is no adequate pedagogy in art classes that successfully explains how the most successful abstract paintings work in terms of creating an orderly spacial illusion, as used by Jackson Pollock to Julie Mehretu. The art world rewards those who invent their own language. We all have to invent our own visual language, to some extent, not only to succeed in the art world but to have fun. The trick is inventing a visual language that others can understand and enjoy. There is more to be said about this but I’ve probably gone on long enough.

You can learn more about Julian Hatton by visiting his website--www.julianhatton.net. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Don Ritter

Don Ritter is a Canadian artist and writer living in Berlin, Germany. Since 1986, he has created electronic artworks that audiences control with their bodies, voices, or music. His large scale video-sound installations have been been exhibited at festivals and museums throughout Europe, North America and Asia, including SITE Santa Fe in New Mexico, Metrònom in Barcelona, Ars Electronica in Linz, Sonambiente Sound Festival in Berlin, New Music America in New York, and ArtFuture 2000 in Taipei. He is considered a pioneer of interactive video-sound installations and performances.

Vested, interactive video and sound installation, 13 x 15m, work in progress

Brian Sherwin: Don, I understand that you were born in Canada. You are currently living in Berlin, Germany. How did moving to Berlin make an impact on your art? Did you move to Germany for your work?

Don Ritter: Yes, I was born in Camrose, a small city near Edmonton, Alberta. I also lived in Toronto, Boston, Montreal or Brooklyn between 1979 and 2005, and in 2006 I moved to Berlin. My move to Germany was important for my art career because for the previous sixteen years I had been a full-time professor of art; now I can focus completely on my art activities.

Culture and art are very important to many people in Germany, especially in Berlin, making it an invigorating place for anyone in the arts. The country has a very intellectual and serious approach to culture and it seems especially fond of artworks that are dark and brooding, such as those by Max Beckmann, George Grosz, or Joseph Beuys. I am not sure if Berlin provides more opportunities to an artist than one living in New York City, but it offers a rich cultural environment and a large studio at a lower cost.

Since I began exhibiting in 1988, my work has always received support from Europe--especially from Germany-- but the main reason I moved to Berlin was because of a personal relationship with a Berlinerin that started in 2003.

FIT, interactive video and sound installation, 5 x 9 m, 1993

BS: Don, you are considered a pioneer of interactive video-sound installations and performances. Since 1986 your works have been exhibited at festivals and museums throughout North America, Europe and Asia. With that said, can you recall your early years... how did you get your start?

DR: I had been drawing, painting and making sculptures since I was six years old, but I was also interested in electronics—especially audio and video equipment. I was repairing the family television set at ten years old, and by high school I was an audiophile. I started oil painting when I was seventeen and copied Van Goghs and Picassos. After completing high school, I studied electronics engineering at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, hoping this background would support my future art interests. After I completed these studies, I worked for the telecommunications company Northern Telecom in Toronto. I worked in an engineering department on the design of telephone switching systems, large electronic boxes that connect together thousands of telephones, but I would paint in the evenings and on weekends.

I had a few exhibitions in Toronto during those days, and some of my friends and engineering colleagues bought my paintings. After three years working in telecommunication design, I started studying fine arts at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. I also started a second degree in psychology at Waterloo with a concentration in social psychology.

During my fine art studies, I painted, sculpted, and made a few installations with sound. My favorite professor at Waterloo was artist Basia Irland, who now teaches at the University of New Mexico. During my summer breaks, I worked for Bell-Northern Research (BNR) as a human interface designer. My colleagues at BNR were mostly European industrial psychologists who specialized in human cognition and perception. That experience was very important to my development as an artist because it led to my understanding of human interfaces, which I would later use within my interactive installations. My artworks during this time tended to be very organic and they usually contained human forms, but no electronics. My influences included Joseph Beuys, Eva Hesse, William de Kooning, Francis Bacon, and Titian.

Defenestration, interactive video and sound installation, 5 x 8 m, work in progress

BS: Don, I've read that you've studied film at Harvard University. Who were your mentors during that time? Also, care to give our readers more information about your academic past? Where did you study... have you taught as well?

DR: After I finished the undergraduate degrees at Waterloo, I began my graduate studies in 1986 at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was officially a student of CAVS, but I also took classes at the Harvard Carpenter Center and the MIT Media Lab, a research facility that focuses on new media technologies. Since the 1960’s, CAVS has a history of artists using video, lasers, holograms, and many other technologies. Artists who had been in residence at CAVS included Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, Peter Campus, and Antonio Muntadas.

I first started combining my interest in art, technology, and psychology at MIT in the form of videotapes, electronic music, video installations, and computer animation. My primary professors during those studies were artist Otto Piene (MIT), film maker Richard Leacock (MIT), and film theorist Vladimir Petric (Harvard). MIT and Harvard are sister institutions, so students at one institution can take classes at the other.

Petric had a sincere enthusiasm about film and life, and through him I learned about cinematography and film history. Through Leacock, I learned how to make documentary videos, which would became important for documenting my installations. Otto Piene is a German artist who has a long history of working with technology in the creation of very large artworks. Otto was the director of CAVS and my primary advisor.

In my final semester, I developed a software, called Orpheus that enabled video to be controlled by live music or sensors. I used this software to create my master’s thesis, a 30 x 30 ft interactive video installation titled Stithy (1988). Orpheus became the technical basis of my work for many years.

At MIT, I also made interactive performances that featured video controlled by live music. My primary collaborator was trombonist George Lewis, an improviser and pioneer of interactive music. In conjunction with an electronic music class, our first performance was presented at the MIT Media Lab in 1988. Between 1988 and 1990, George and I performed at various new music festivals in US, Canada and Italy, including New Music America (NYC) and the Verona Jazz Festival.

I held full-time positions as a professor of art at Concordia University (Montreal) from 1989 to 1996 and at Pratt Institute (Brooklyn) from 1995 to 2005. I taught BFA and MFA students the use of new media technologies to create videos, animations, web sites, digital images, and installations. My main responsibilities at Pratt were to supervise MFA theses and develop curriculum for the artistic, non-commercial use of new media. I worked with many outstanding students at both schools.

BS: Since those early years your work has made a huge impact. For example, your installation Intersection (created in 1993) has been experienced by over 600,000 people in seven countries. How does it feel to know that so many people have interacted with your work?

DR: I am very happy that Intersection has been so well received over the years, and that it is still being exhibited today. Intersection is a very experiential work. Visitors respond to it quite emotionally and they find the work either funny or frightening.

Intersection, interactive sound installation, dark space, 16 x 13m, 1993

BS: Don, Intersection is one of your most widely exhibited works. Intersection is an interactive sound installation presented in a large dark room. The work presents the sounds of four lanes of car traffic that respond to audiences by screeching to a halt, idling, accelerating or crashing into each other. Can you recall your thoughts behind this piece? What inspired you to create it?

DR: Although I had used audio in previous works, Intersection was my first sound installation. The idea behind Intersection is based on an experience I had as a teenager. I was walking down a street one evening and encountered two freight trains that were stopped on parallel tracks crossing the street. To continue on my way, I crawled over the first train; when I was standing between the trains--which were less than three feet apart--they both started moving in opposite directions. Fearing I might be hit by something sticking out from a train car, I lay down on the ground, parallel to the trains while they increased in speed. This situation went one for a few minutes until the last cars had passed. It was quite frightening because I didn’t know if I would get hurt or not. I didn’t get hurt, but it was still a stupid thing to do.

Intersection is a reference to that experience, but not in a literal sense. It refers to our fear of the unknown, the fear of not knowing if we have encountered something harmful. The installation is exhibited in a completely dark room, usually 45 x 40 ft. After entering the installation, people hear four lanes of car traffic traveling across the room and through the darkness. If people intersect with a passing car as they move across the room, the car will screech to a halt and remaining idling in front of them. If a person moves away from the path of a stopped car, it will accelerate and continue across the room. If a person remains in front of a stopped car for more than a few seconds, the sounds of subsequent cars traveling down that lane will smash into the stopped car.

Vox Populi, interactive video and sound installation, 13 x 15m, 2005

BS: Don, one of your most recent works is titled Vox Populi, an interactive video installation that enables audience members to become leaders by reading political speeches to a large projection of a cheering crowd. Can you tell our readers about the motives you had behind this piece?

DR: Vox Populi was completed in 2005, but the idea developed around 1994. The installation enables visitors to feel like leaders while reading political speeches from a lectern to a video projected crowd. The lectern has a microphone and also a computer screen containing historical political speeches. As a person reads a speech within the installation, a computer analyzes the speaker’s voice, determines the speed of the scrolling speech, and selects the response of the video projected crowd as being supportive or not. The specific speeches used in the installation are less important to me than having visitors feel like leaders, like they are controlling others through their speeches. The installation uses one or three video projections, depending on the size of the space. When it was shown at SITE Sante Fe in 2005, three video projections were used to create a 45 x 12 foot video image of a screaming crowd—it was very intimidating.

o telephone, 8 channel interactive sound installation, 6 x 6m, 2007

My most recent work is o telephone (2007), an interactive sound installation. Within o telephone, six modified 1960’s telephones are arranged in a circle within a darkened room and each randomly rings with a distinctive sound. If a viewer answers a ringing phone, "om" is heard through the handset and through the body of the phone. When viewers answer other ringing phones, the resulting "om" sounds will pan through all the answered phones and create a circle of audio traveling around the viewers. If no ringing telephones are answered, the telephones spontaneously begin a new composition comprised of "om" sounds. The idea for this work came from my yoga practice while living in Brooklyn. Hearing twenty people chant "om" is a very calming experience. According to Hinduism, "Om" is the sound of existence.

o telephone, 8 channel interactive sound installation, 6 x 6m, 2007

BS: Don, your work was initially recognized by institutions associated with new media art, such as Ars Electronica and MIT, but it now receives more recognition from museums and festivals of contemporary art. What do you think caused this shift in interest?

DR: I think there are a few reasons for this change. Since the early 1990’s, many of the international festivals that focus on new media art have become increasingly interested in commercial applications of digital technologies and less interested in work containing a fine art component. Also, many of the smaller new media festivals cannot accommodate large or costly installations. Intersection is relatively expensive to exhibit because the organizer must prepare a completely dark room, provide a multi-channel sound system, ship my equipment, provide my transportation and accommodation, etc. It seems that fine art venues are more able to afford my work. Also, I think the humanistic aspect of my work is of more interest to fine art venues than new media ones.

I used to aggrandize the technologies within my installations, but I now downplay their role. I still spend thousands of hours dealing with the technical construction of my works, but I am now more interested in how my works are relevant to audiences. For me, the medium of an artwork is less important than its meaning. I think this perspective is also of more interest to the fine art world than the new media art scene.

I have spoken to many new media curators regarding the acceptance of new media art into the contemporary art world, and most say that it has not happened to a great degree. I think the reason for this situation is that new media art is often evaluated according to its technology, while contemporary art is usually judged according to its relationship with art history. When I exhibit at a new media venue, people are always interested in which technology I use--such as the model of computer—but fine art venues are relatively unconcerned about those details.

Digestion, interactive video and sound installation or performance, 5 x 10m, 2003

BS: Dottie Indyke (ARTnews) stated the following about your work-- "Ritter's play with his viewers' phobias recalls the anxiety-provoking tendencies of Surrealism.". With that said? Would you say that there is a great deal of psychology within the context of your work? What are your motives behind revealing-- or exploring-- the human condition? The majority of new media work is about the technology itself... why do you choose to study the human condition by utilizing technology?

DR: I think all artworks are about psychology, not just my own, because all artworks relate to how humans behave and think. I consider all media as mechanisms for promoting certain entities, making them more authoritative, more powerful, and wealthier. Artworks from the Italian Renaissance promoted the Papacy using imagery from the Bible, while contemporary works use modern imagery to promote something else.

Since 2003, I have been writing a book on media literacy called The e Decision. The content of the text is based on interviews with art curators and information from the fields of art, psychology, philosophy, aesthetics, and new media technologies. The book explores the function of media in general and it proposes that all media—including artworks-- have the same general function: to promote something within a society. In my own artworks, I am less interested in contributing to this social mechanism, preferring instead to talk about the existence of these mechanisms and their functions.

I have always been interested in psychology and considered becoming a psychologist after I competed my BA in psychology. It took many years for me to realize that the content of my artworks are often reflections of social behavior. Within my installation TV Guides (1995), for instance, viewers encounter a living room with a television that plays live commercial broadcasts. In response to any movement by viewers within the installation, the television sound and imagery fade out, followed by text on the screen that requests viewers to remain motionless. The imagery and sound resume only after everyone within the installation is motionless for at least five seconds.

TV Guides, interactive video and sound installation with live television, 8 x 5m, 1995

In many ways, my installations are like narratives with audiences as the actors. At one time, I was obsessed with using technology as an art medium, but I am now more interested in creating works that are meaningful. Artworks usually convey meaning through symbolism--certain imagery, symbols or whatever--but I am interested in conveying meaning by presenting audiences with particular experiences. In TV Guides, people feel the control of television, in Vox Populi they feel control over other people, and in Intersection they feel fear of the unknown.

BS: Don, what are you working on at this time? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions?

DR: I am currently working on a collection of installations called Roman Holidays. The term "Roman Holiday" originates in the 19th century and it refers to any situation where people watch the suffering of others as entertainment, such as the gladiator events of ancient Rome. I see this phenomenon happening today as portrayals of real and fictitious suffering are presented in films, television programs, news programs, newspapers, etc. The installations within the Roman Holiday series will permit audience members to enact suicide through interactive video and sound installations while being watched by other people.

My next exhibition is in Lille, France, October 11 to November 11 at the Maison Folie de Moulins. The festival is called Les Chants Mécaniques, and I will be presenting Intersection and o telephone. In November, I am a speaking about The e Decision at the Interactive Futures conference in Victoria, Canada.

BS: Don, do you have any advice for installation artists who are just starting out?

DR: I think there are many factors that contribute to an installation artist’s success. The ones that I think are important are the following. Know what you want to say through your work and, also, what your audience thinks you are saying. Know your media; get familiar with all the aspects of installation art, including architecture, theater, visual art, music, robotics, and whatever. Know art history and world history, and how it relates to your work. And finally, know the art business and how to interact with audiences and curators. Unfortunately, I am not a master of these items, but I am pretty sure they are all important.

BS: Thank you for answering my questions.

DR: Thank you Brian!

You can learn more about Don Ritter by visiting his website-- www.aesthetic-machinery.com. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Mark Melvin

Mark Melvin is one of four artists who will be featured in Saatchi's 4 New Sensations exhibit-- a Channel 4 Prize for STUART 2007 graduates. The four were chosen from a selection of twenty finalists. Mark Melvin is currently based in London where he experiments with various cycles and levels of repetition, be it a discussion of the habitual and routine, investigations into recollection and memory or appropriation from popular culture. These loops and repetitions are always fractured by a series of interruptions and reworkings, so that although the pieces are often cycles of appropriated songs, films or words in their entirety, a linear narrative or harmony is always broken, which arrests overlooking the passing of time.

Same Again (A sign from Cyndi)

Brian Sherwin: Mark, you have been chosen as one of Saatchi's 4 New Sensations. How did you feel upon learning that you had been selected? Also, can you tell us anything about the project you plan to create for Channel 4?

Mark Melvin: I was really quite surprised initially to hear I was selected for the final twenty let alone the final four. It’s really quite flattering and unexpected. With regards to the project, I hope to create a new neon work around the themes of the competition itself and continue what is a relatively new way of working for me.

Performance for wallbanger and solo percussion

BS: Mark, can you tell our readers about your background. When did you know that you wanted to be an artist? Where did you study? Who were your mentors and early influences?

MM: From an early age I knew I wanted to be an artist and it was something that I was good at at school. I knew I should pursue this interest and studied from foundation level to MA at Leeds College of Art and Design (UK), Glasgow School of Art (UK), Maryland Institute College of Art and Design (US), Konsthogskolan Valand (Sweden) and then now Central saint Martins College of Art and Design (UK). I think that a real turning point for my practice was during my BA at the Glasgow School of Art where I was taught by many influential people, David Harding, Ross Birrell, Stephanie Smith, Bryndis Snaesbjornsdottir and Peter McCaughey to name a few.

Peter introduced me to the music of Steve Reich during my first year; a composer whose music is concerned with the loop, synchronicity and the changing same. Reading about and around his music laid the foundations for the sculptural, video, collaborative and curatorial work that I have been making to date and my interest in repetition.

My brother, composer Adam Melvin, has also influenced my practice and I have worked on numerous site-specific, cross-disciplinary projects with him and hope to continue our interest in pairing music and visual art. In terms of contemporary artists I think that Pierre Huygue, Martin Arnold, and Christian Marclay, are definitely artists that I find interesting.

BS: Mark, you often experiment with various cycles and levels of repetition-- stating that, "Repetition is the key to an understanding of my practice". With this theme you focus on aspects of habit and routine-- you also investigate recollection and memory. Can you go into further detail about the use of repetition within the context of your work? How would you describe your work to someone who is not familiar with it?

MM: Sure. What I feel can be seen in my pieces through out is a preoccupation with the work as process, and in turn looping, sequence and rhythmic iteration have been prominent in their construction. Repetition is important to my practice and I often experiment with various cycles and levels of repetition. American Minimalist music has especially influenced my approach to video and performance and I have adopted similar cyclical and repetitive compositional tactics to provide structure for the processes in my work.

With my most recent video work I have ventured into the world of cinema both reconstructing and appropriating sections of film. This can be seen as a natural progression from the use of music in my work as I moved to an exploration of the musical as a film genre, amongst others. In pieces like Von Trapped 2005 and Tomorrow Remember Yesterday 2006 my practice has moved towards the familiar territory of popular cinema. Within the last ten years alone, film as a found object for manipulation or recreation has become a prominent genre in contemporary art: from Stan Douglas’s looped re-creation of a scene from Marnie (Subject To a Film: Marnie 1989) to Pierre Huyghe’s shot-by-shot remake of Rear Window (Remake 1995) or in the majority of Douglas Gordon’s work. But, in contrast to those re-enactments of film in contemporary art or cinematic samplings of artists such as Candice Breitz, Martin Arnold or Christian Marclay, I am less interested in narrative or representation than I am in cadence and gesture.

Von Trapped

In my sculptural work I have been exploring the language and formal aspects of signs, editing and accentuating elements in a performative manner. With Applause 2006, I began dealing with the written word and particularly wordplay in relation to signs. The sign is viewed in place of the thing itself, the "thing" existing in the present and simply being referred to by the sign. The sign therefore represents the present in its absence by replacing it. It is essentially a signifier for when we cannot fully experience the thing in the present.

The sign in a sense, could be perceived as a deferred presence. The circulation and distribution of signs defers the moment in which we can encounter the thing itself and interact with it. Whether we look at the signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that exist before the linguistic system itself, but only conceptual and phonic differences issued from it. With this in mind I have developed my sculptural ideas to explore what occurs when the sign becomes itself the "thing" and where language is deliberately constructed to make it difficult for us to encounter the signifier in the absence of the thing; where are initial interpretation is halted by a delay and where the subject of language becomes self referential. This idea of the sign as object is something that is prominent in the works of artists like Bruce Nauman and something I have tried to explore in sculptural works like Stop Making Sense 2007 and Stammer 2007 for example.

Another aspect of my practice is my collaborative practice. Over the last few years I have been working with International musicians and composers on projects, continuing with my interest in combining musical performance and video/installation both in traditional and non-traditional art settings. With these projects we concentrate on the idea of creating cross-disciplinary and often site-specific projects combining music both elements in a manner where no one element musical or visual gains overall prominence. Examples include: 4/4 2003, Speak 2004 and Three Glimpses 2006.

BS: Mark, you often work in collaboration with your brother, composer Adam Melvin. Can you discuss some of the projects you've worked on together? Also, Minimalist music has influenced your approach to video and performance-- would you say that your brother is part of this inspiration?

MM: Well. As I said before, Adam is an influence. Its very hard for us not to influence each other when you work so closely in tandem on these projects. Our projects have been quite prolific working with Juice Vocal Trio and Duo X on recent occasions. I suppose two good examples which show the diversity of our practice are 4/4 2003 and Speak 2004. 4/4 was a site - specific project at the Glasgow School of Art's Mackintosh Museum.

The project designed and curated by myself used the space as both its venue and inspiration, acting as both subject and site for the development of an evolving process. 4/4 was intended to open up the possibilities for musicians and contemporary visual artists to respond to each other, investigating the inspiration for the construction of music and video and attempting to articulate how the two can operate together, where neither is subsidiary to the other.

In constructing a process whereby architecture fed music, music fed video, and video inspired live musical improvisation, the aim of 4/4 was to expose and become the product of the separate stages of its own development. A four minute compositions was made, four artists asked to respond to it in the form of four silent video works and four musicians asked to improvise to the four videos in four performances. The project was a work in itself, dealing with the cyclical and very characteristic of my approach to my solo practice.

Speak 2004 is a multi-media piece which uses video and music in a uniquely intimate way, focusing on and exploring the ways in which the two art forms can be manipulated in close relation to one another. It is something of a theatrical piece in essence, the video element takes the form of a performer in much the same way as each of the musical performers do, working in close dialogue with the singer in particular.

The visual animation assumes the role of a silent performer, complementary yet integral to the performance structure of the piece. The narrative of this video projection comes from and influences that of the musical performance and composition, constructed in the manner of a musical part. The character projected is choreographed to move in and out of sync with both the live vocal performance and musical material at different stages, echoing and mimicking what the audience will see and hear. I think it is quite successful and in a sense influenced my use of language in my new neon works.

BS: Mark, you have noted an interest in Nietzsche’s concept of ‘eternal recurrence’, in Freud’s speculations on the repetition compulsion and the death drive, in Derrida’s discussions of ‘iterability’ and in Deleuze’s theories on repetition and difference. Tell me... what is your personal philosophy in regards to your art?

MM: Yes it is the writings of these philosophers on the subject of repetition that is of interest.
I feel that a temporal category, like repetition, is a subject that can be found in much of contemporary theory. What can be seen from these philosophers is that the question of repetition imposes itself once the idealistic system of thought exhausts its resources and becomes blocked.

In Nietzches theorizing on eternal recurrence, he suggests that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur in the exact same self-similar form an incomprehensible and unfathomable number of times. This theory deals with the idea that we are destined to repeat the same actions, mistakes, etc. again and again and only through clear communication and learning can we possibly create hurdles for inevitability. With this in mind, I have tried to explore the cyclical and repetitive in my practice. In doing so Derrida has also brought up ideas for exploration.

Derrida’s differ(a)nce, for example, a word which belongs neither to the voice nor to writing in the usual sense, and which could be even understood as being located in a space between. The verb differer in French has two meanings, which are quite different. Firstly it can mean to defer and secondly to differ. The double meaning occurs simultaneously so I think it is important to try and understand and explore how differ(a)nce as temporization and differ(a)nce as spacing might be brought together. I suppose I have tried to react to these theories by moving my practice on incrementally with knowledge that each new work should complement my whole body of work so far.

BS: Aside from music and philosophy... what else inspires you?

MM: Film, writing, theatre. I often appropriate texts and films reinterpreting moments from past works.

Applause

BS: Mark, this year you were awarded the Nationwide Mercury Prize Art Prize with your piece "Applause". Can you tell us more about this prize and how you felt upon learning that you had been chosen?

MM: The prize is a competition for student artists and you applied online. The winners work was shown on this years Nationwide Mercury Music Prize album. It was an incredible success and again unexpected. It seemed to be a music related competition and therefore something that I should apply for with the nature of my practice. I felt the selected work, worked well as a kinetic light piece and in documentation for the cover. Its amazing to think that your work will ever appear on the front cover of an album. I walk in music shops now and keep seeing it in multiple. It somehow seems fitting to see it again and again repeated across the shelves.

BS: Mark, I'm certain that you have been very busy lately. Have you found it difficult to find balance between your recent success and remaining devoted to your artistic process?

MM: It has been a successful year for me and it has also been busy. But I believe this success had enabled me to develop my work. I am a driven person and am only trying to keep the momentum so that I can continue to practice as an artist. Its difficult but its what I want to do. The two residencies I carried out during my degree (one in Traverse Theatre Edinburgh and one at CESTA, Tabor, Czech republic) were tough to balance with the degree commitments but I accepted them because they would inform and develop my practice on all levels, which I feel they have.

As soon as I finished my degree I went to Gallery Uhoda in Belgium to work on a new group exhibition with colleagues from University. I have just got back and am full of new ideas for work. I think that these experiences have fueled me to make new work and experiment more. That’s what you hope for as an artist I would have thought. I am thrilled to be given the support to keep going.

BS: Mark, can you tell us about any projects you are planning for the future? Where will your work take you next?

MM: Its hard to say really. Duo X, Adam and I are planning to work on developing a project combining neon and music where the buzz of neon contributes to and intersperses with musical material. This is one of many collaborative ideas Adam and I have been developing.

The show at Uhoda has also spurred Lia, Mike, Marcin and I to seek out spaces to continue our ideas for exhibition. The show worked well and the pieces were complementary to one another. We will certainly be working towards exhibiting together again soon. Ultimately I just hope that people continue to be interested in my practice so that I can continue experimenting with ideas.

Muted Score no. 1

BS: Mark, how do you start a piece? Do you draw up plans? Do you write it out? Tell us†a little about the process itself.

MM: It really depends on the idea and medium. With my video works I often begin with a moment from film, music or text and obsess over it until I find a process to begin production. With my more sculptural works they start life as drawings.

BS: What kind of mediums do you use?

MM: I work predominantly in video, with musical instruments, and neon. I have been known to use other mediums from turntables to mobile phones. I don’t want to restrict myself. My ideas often dictate the appropriate medium to use.

BS: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art or the art world?

MM: I am not sure what else to say really. I have only touched on a few of my works. I could talk for hours about the work but for now its probably time to stop.

You can learn more about Mark Melvin by visiting his website-- www.markmelvin.co.uk. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Myartspace.com: New York, New York, 2007 Competition Winners!

Vincent Como
Minkyung Lee

The New York, New York 2007 Competition winners have been announced. The jurors-- James Rondeau of the Art Institute of Chicago, Jessica Morgan of the Tate Modern, and Steven Zevitas of New American Paintings --selected 50 finalists and then chose 4 winners from that pool. The winners are: Vincent Como, Minkyung Lee, Svetlana Rabey, and Masha Ryskin. Congratulations to all of the winners! A lot of great work was submitted, and, as always, there was not enough room to showcase it all. Thanks to the editorial staff and the jury for the fine work, and thanks to the sponsor, Blick Art Supplies, for their support. You can find out more by visiting the following link: http://www.myartspace.com/contestresults/nyny07/ . You can read my interviews with each of the winners by going to the following page: www.myartspace.com/interviews

Svetlana Rabey
Masha Ryskin

Art Space Talk: Masha Ryskin

We are pleased to announce that Masha Ryskin is one of the four winners of the Myartspace.com NY, NY, Competition. She and the three other artists were chosen from a group of 50 finalists. The Myartspace.com team would like to thank the jurors-- Jessica Morgan (Tate Modern), James Rondeau (Art Institute of Chicago), and Steven Zevitas (New American Paintings). We would also like to thank everyone who participated in the competition.

Masha Ryskin is a Russian-born painter, printmaker, and installation artist. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has participated in a number of national and international residency programs and has worked in both United States and Indonesia, Finland, Costa Rica, Norway, and Spain. Her work has been featured in a number of publications, most recently in the New York Times.

Coffeescape II (detail), This is a detail of the site-specific wall piece Coffeescape II, 11 ft x 10 ft

Brian Sherwin: Masha, you are one of the Finalists of the Myartspace.com NY, NY, Competition. How does it feel to know that the jurors-- Jessica Morgan (Tate Modern), James Rondeau (Art Institute of Chicago, and Steven Zevitas (New American Paintings) selected you as a winner?

Masha Ryskin: I am really happy and flattered to have been chosen as one of the winners.

BS: Masha, tell us about the work you submitted. Why did you decided on those five images?

MR: This is one of my latest works and one I am the happiest with. I used the detail shots that I thought highlighted different aspects of the installation.

Coffeescape II (detail 2), 11 ft x 10 ft, coffee, intaglio, collage

BS: Masha, the media that you use ranges from painting and printmaking to installation. Can you tell us about your educational background? Who were you mentors? Also, what artists have influenced your work?

MR: My education is in traditional painting, followed by a Bachelor's degree in printmaking, and later an MFA in painting and mixed media. I also started working with fibers in graduate school. There really are too many mentors to mention here - I have been very fortunate - but the two wonderful people that I still turn to are Joanne Stryker from Rhode Island School of Design and Randy Williams from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

BS: Masha, you were raised in the Soviet Union. You now live in the United States. Can you tell us more about your background and how it has shaped you into the artist you are today?

MR: It was quite a difference to experience the education in the United States after the Soviet schools. The variety of things I was exposed to in this country was unbelievable. But, at the same time, I always draw on the foundation received in Moscow.

Coffeescape II (detail 3), 11 ft x 10 ft

BS: Masha, you have stated that your painting are like imaginary landscapes and that some of them are influenced by Russian folklore. Can tell us more about these paintings and the stories behind them?

MR: Well, there is not an overt narrative in my paintings, but the idea of a journey is always present. I use elements of nature as metaphors, in a subtle way.The personification of nature and especially trees is central in the Russian folklore.

BS: Masha, aspects of nature are a constant theme in your work. Why do you feel so connected to nature? Can you explain that connection?

MR: I grew up on the eighth floor of a concrete building in Moscow, so my encounters with nature were always very special.

Coffeescape II (detail 4), This is a detail of Coffeescape II, 11 ft x 10 ft, coffee, intaglio, collage

BS: Masha, I've read that you have collaborated with other artists. Can you tell us about some of the collaborations you've been involved with? Why do you enjoy working in this manner?

MR: Collaboration really allows you to step out of your comfort zone, and, if you work well with the other person, enriches your work tremendously. I have collaborated with Margaret Yuko Kimura, a printmaker who now lives in Cleveland, for about ten years now. We have complete trust in each others judgments, which opens up a lot of doors during our work together. I think it is difficult to find a collaborator you can work with well, so I really treasure the opportunity to work with Margaret. I have also collaborated with musicians and dancers.

BS: Masha, tell us about your studio space? Do you follow a routine when you are working on your art? Also, can you tell us more about your artistic process?

MR: I have a studio at my house and also get a lot of work done at artist residencies. I do not follow any specific routine, and my work is very intuitive, the pieces undergo many changes before they become final. I usually work on many pieces at a time.

Coffeescape II, This is a site-specific piece done directly on the wall, 11 ft x 10 ft, coffee, intaglio, collage

BS: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art?

MR: Not at the moment but anybody who has further questions is welcome to contact me through my Myartspace page.

Thank you reading my interview with Masha Ryskin. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Vincent Como

We are pleased to announce that Vincent Como is one of the four winners of the Myartspace.com NY, NY, Competition. He and the three other artists were chosen from a group of 50 finalists. The Myartspace.com team would like to thank the jurors-- Jessica Morgan (Tate Modern), James Rondeau (Art Institute of Chicago), and Steven Zevitas (New American Paintings). We would also like to thank everyone who participated in the competition.


Vincent Como focuses on the color black with his work. In a sense, he explores the significance of black through projects that involve drypoint prints, drawings and a cube cast in ink. Vincent creates thought provoking works that blend concept and technique by investigating the artistic, scientific and cultural significance of the color black.

Things in My Studio That Make Black- Every available medium in my studio at the time which makes black, 22 x 30in, Mixed media on paper

Brian Sherwin: Vincent, you are one of the Finalists of the Myartspace.com NY, NY, Competition. How does it feel to know that the jurors-- Jessica Morgan (Tate Modern), James Rondeau (Art Institute of Chicago, and Steven Zevitas (New American Paintings) selected you as a winner? Where were you at when you found out? Also, why did you decide to enter the NY, NY, Competition in the first place?

Vincent Como: I moved to New York (Brooklyn) about a year ago from Chicago, where I had spent the previous 9 years, so I have been pretty familiar with the exceptional curatorial work James Rondeau has been doing at the Art Institute. I've also been very familiar with the New American Paintings publication for many years and while comparatively, I wasn't nearly as familiar with Jessica Morgan's work, I certainly know about the Tate's programming and reputation. So as far as the decision to enter the competition it was really based on the quality of the Jury. To have an opportunity for these three professionals to view and assess my work was not something I'd pass up willingly, so with regard to my feelings on being one of the four selected by this jury it's definitely an honor.


History Of Painting- Series of 40 drawings chronicling the history of painting as an object, 11 x 8.5 in. each, Gouache and Ink on Paper


BS: Vincent, tell us about the work you submitted. Why did you decided on those five images?

VC: I felt that these particular works represented pretty well the whole of what it is I'm trying to accomplish with Black. Dark Matter relates to the scientific investigations, the History of Painting series of drawings relates to, well the history of painting. Basically taking the idea of contextual elements applied to works of art and exploring their impact on the reading of said work, as it has been done throughout history with different aesthetic stylizations. 4.5 cubic inches (Volume of the inside of my head) is a cast block of sumi ink which corresponds both to the idea of my head being filled with blackness, and also as an independent object a very miniature black "monolith" making reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Things in My Studio That Make Black is an ongoing drawing project which basically describes my studio practice. It depicts the materials I have on hand at the moment to make these Black works, and every few years I have occasion to re-visit the project with a slightly different format and somewhat different materials depending on what I've been working on. Black, Darkness, Matter is a drawing which explores the different facets of my ongoing investigation. Not unlike Solid liquid and gas, these are properties that I am interested in exploring and applying to the work I do.


4.5 Cubic in. (Volume of the Inside of My Head), 4.5x4.5x4.5 in, Cast Sumi Ink


BS: Vincent, what are you working on at this time?

VC: Why, I'm working on making things Black, of course... The Dark Matter drawing is the first in a series of three large-scale drawings accompanied by footnotes containing tertiary information, which reference properties of Black Holes/Dark Matter/Dark Energy so I'm continuing into the second of these, as well as a series of black monochrome paintings utilizing classical oil painting techniques. Then the ever-present research into all things Black, which is a mainstay of my studio practice. I've spent alot of time this past summer reading up on alchemical practices, particularly because of the Mandalas which they generate to describe and categorize different properties and transformations. I've been sketching out some thoughts on how to apply this to mapping out different properties of Black, Darkness, Matter etc. That's the most recent development.

BS: Vincent, tell us about your educational background. Where did you study art? Who were you mentors?

VC: I went through the Cleveland Institute of Art's rigorous 5-year BFA program, majoring in Drawing and also studied alot of Printmaking. I think the instructors I had the most interaction with, and the most discourse with were Holly Morrison, Ralph Woehrman, and Michael Houlihan. All of whom had a focus toward Print/Drawing.

BS: Vincent, what artists-- or art movements-- have influenced your work?

VC: I'm very fond of the Arte Povera Movement which was happening in Italy, with Kounnellis, Merz, Pistoletto etc. I'm very fond of what Spencer Finch is currently doing. I'm really interested in the specifics of his thinking process and how that translates into the works. The obvious influences are the Malevich, Reinhardt, Black Square Mafia who I'm also greatly indebted to.

Dark Matter- The first in a series of large-scale drawings referencing Black Holes accompanied by smaller drawings as "footnotes", 75 x 116 overall, Guoache on paper with additional drawing


BS: Vincent, can you tell us about your artistic philosophy? What are the motives... the thoughts... behind your work?

VC: To put it very simply, I'm really interested in Black. I'm interested both in the challenges of working with what many consider an absolute, and in doing so, I'm interested in how to keep challenging myself to bring in something new to the conversation about black...

BS: Vincent, tell us about your studio space? Do you work in silence or do you listen to music? Do you follow a routine when you are working on your art? What is it like to be in the studio of Vincent Como?

VC: I have a modest studio in Brooklyn that's a pretty straightforward white cube with a wall dedicated to shelves and storage for finished work and supplies. I work directly on a wall for larger pieces and have a table for smaller projects. Pretty much the first thing I do after entering the studio is plug my MP3 player into the speakers, usually before taking off a coat or doing anything else. And yes, there is a great deal of Heavy Metal that can be heard on the other side of my walls, but it all depends on what I'm working on that day, and how well a project is going. So it could vary from Om and Electric Wizard to the Velvet Underground or the Smiths to Bach or Ornette Coleman.

I'm pretty much nothing without a routine. I'm in my studio at some point almost every day and it's the only way I've found that works for me. It took a couple of years out of school to realize that I really needed to put myself in that head-space every day in order to keep the momentum of a project going and to make more fluid the progression from one series or project to the next without a huge gap in the process. So even if I'm spending alot of time reading and researching I try to do it at the studio to be in the space and really engage the space as a dedicated space to "Making things Black".


Black, Darkness, Matter, Mixed Media on Paper


BS: Vincent, can you tell us more about your artistic process? How do you start a piece?

VC: I guess part and parcel to the engagement of the studio space, the beginnings of the works are very often just notes scribbled on index cards as I read or strange blurbs/phases that i hear. There is usually a pretty long gestation period while I'm working on a project the next series is always at the back of my mind, so when I've completed the physical production of a show or series of work I'm pretty well ready to try and answer any questions I've thought of in the interim and get started in laying out the next ones. That's the Cliff Notes version, but it usually happens over the course of several months or for some thoughts even years rolling around in the back of my mind until something sparks and the right thing falls into place.

BS: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art?

VC: I'm pretty pleased with the direction of my work and feel that I have alot of ground to still cover with regard to the focus on Black/Darkness, so I hope a few of the readers will check in from time to time and come along for the ride.




Thank you reading my interview with Vincent Como. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.


Take care, Stay true,


Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Minkyung Lee

We are pleased to announce that Minkyung Lee is one of the four winners of the Myartspace.com NY, NY, Competition. She and the three other artists were chosen from a group of 50 finalists. The Myartspace.com team would like to thank the jurors-- Jessica Morgan (Tate Modern), James Rondeau (Art Institute of Chicago), and Steven Zevitas (New American Paintings). We would also like to thank everyone who participated in the competition.

The work of Minkyung Lee must be viewed within the context of the complex relationship between identity and place. Minkyung focuses on her situation in relation to her surroundings and to the circumstances that are attributable to the spaces she encounters. Place-- which can be used as a both noun and verb, is about the situation, a process of involvement, and intuitive experience that Minkyung moves from one place to next.

Her photographs could theoretically be a kind of documentation that reveals segments of reality without interpretation. However, still sharing this attitude, her approach is to find a balance between the two extremes by uniting a authenticity with anonymity. In these places, she consciously removes the personal criteria of her social and cultural status, she becomes a nomad who does not leave traces. Minkyung took pictures of actual places that she had lived or passed by and made miniatures of those places. Her images are miniatures of those places.

The Temporal Moment- Foreign Home series, Digital Print

Brian Sherwin: Minkyung, you are one of the finalists of the Myartspace.com NY, NY, Competition. How does it feel to know that the jurors-- Jessica Morgan (Tate Modern), James Rondeau (Art Institute of Chicago), and Steven Zevitas (New American Paintings) selected you as a winner? Where were you at when you found out? Also, why did you decide to enter the NY, NY, Competition in the first place? Did you feel lucky upon entering, so to speak?

Minkyung Lee: When Brian Skiba called me Wednesday morning, a holiday in Korea, I was on my way to observe Roni Horn’s show in Seoul. It was a mundane morning. Honestly, I felt as if I were in a dream when I got the call. Also, I couldn’t believe that the jurors, very big names in art world, really selected me. A mundane day turned into an unforgettable moment.

Three weeks ago one of my friends talked about MyArtSpace and mentioned the NY, NY, Competition. I was skeptical about the competition, because I applied to competitions thousands of times when I was a graduate student, and never had been selected for anything. At that time my friend told me, "It would be great if we became artists of 40 people in finals." I was persuaded after that. However, I never expected to be one of the four winners. This is a great surprise!

BS: Minkyung, you are an art instructor at Yeungnam University in Deagu, Korea. I understand that you earned you MFA degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Can you explain the difference between how art is instructed in Korea compared to the US... or is there a difference? Are there different viewpoints in Korea about art compared to what you found in the States? Also, would you mind telling us about the department you work in?

ML: I must first tell you that this is my own opinion. In Korea the art education system and curriculum are similar to those in United States. Before undergraduate school, Korean students are trained in basic drawing and painting intensively for a couple of years and that makes a difference. Upon becoming college students they have well-trained hands, but they are often slow to learn how to express their ideas with those skillful hands. In the United States it is different-- when I taught a basic drawing class, at the University of North Carolina, it seemed that most of students knew what they wanted to express even though they had some technical problems. Still at graduate school, one of most important things is the ability to talk about art works. In Korea, maybe it is due to a cultural difference, but graduate students are careful when speaking about the concepts in their artwork.

I teach a basic printmaking class in the Painting Department. The Painting Department is very much like studio art-- including basic photography, basic printmaking, drawing, painting, video, and installation. When teaching the technical course of printmaking I find that one-on-one discussions with students is the most important process in the class.

Hallway, 49 x 67 inches, Digital Print

BS: Why did you decide to travel in order to study art?

ML: I was born and raised in Daegu, a quiet and calm city. It was a good place to live. Because I lived in the same place with the same people for 23 years, I felt living was some kind of habit. I believed art was about the ideas of artists ideas and the story that came from their experience. To me, art is the way to understand oneself, people, and their issues through my experience. I felt limited experience restricted my expression in visual language so I decided to travel. It was good to travel in order to study art. Studying art in various places is the fun way to travel.

BS: Minkyung, before attending Cranbrook you worked as a printmaker and with a camera. After your studies you continued to work with traditional printmaking and with a camera... but you now utilize computers and other methods of artistic creation as well. How did your studies at Cranbrook influence this growth?

ML: I applied to many graduate schools in the United States. During that time I got a lot of reaction about how I was a poorly skilled printmaker and I was not even an amateur photographer. After spending a year at the University of North Carolina, I was accepted to Cranbrook.

During my first day in Michigan I went to the studios in my department and found out there was a big clean room next to the studios. For two years, in that clean room, 14 colleagues and I shared each other’s ideas and critiqued our works freely. In the Print Media Department, we did not care whether works were drawings, paintings, wall papers, fabric sculptures, videos, photos, digitally manipulated prints, or installations. We just talked about the work... what it was about, how it was interpreted. Two processes existed-- working and talking. Critiques allowed me to find out clear and accurate methods visually and conceptually,

Opened Door, 33 x 63 inches, Digital Print

BS: Minkyung, you took part in the Summer Residency program at the School of Visual Art, New York in 2005. How did that experience influence your visual language? What did you study while you were there? Also, who were your mentors at that time?

ML: That summer for the Residency at SVA was memorable due to the expensive dorm room and meeting Cindy Sherman. After the flight from Michigan to New York, I was squeezed into a tiny room crowded with a bed and a desk and spent my first night in New York. Honestly, I was not excited about being in the art Mecca. I was frustrated with the pressure to make good works.

After a couple of days in NY there were visiting artists’ studios planned by SVA. One of the artists was Cindy Sherman. As a person, she looked shy, but as an artist she was passionate. What I was impressed about was the fact that she didn’t have a fancy studio in Manhattan like most big artists. She instead worked in the attic of her house. It gave me an idea that a person was able to decide the use of a space... from there the space would determine a person’s role. After returning to my dorm room I started taking photos of my cleaned and occupied room. That was beginning of the miniature series I have worked with so far.

Judy Linn, a very thoughtful and experienced teacher, and Peter Garfield, a passionate man full of new ideas, were my mentors at that time. They always listened to my concepts with curiosity. They let me learn-- good mentors are good listeners.

BS: Minkyung, you have stated that your work has always been about the question of who we are and how we live. You have went on to say that your work is not just from the situation of being a Korean in America-- instead you focus your interest to know true identities beyond the concept of time, culture, society, country, and situation. Can you go into further detail about this philosophy?

ML: Basically my concept starts from the belief that all human beings live in temporal lives while they desire something more and something eternal. Also, I believe the desire would be the motive force for displacement. Some of my works are the images of dorm rooms, some are interiors of middle class home, and others are images of one bed room apartments. Most images are from my place and from Korean friends living in America that shows American style interior. Like me, they also moved from their home-town or country to a foreign place. Because of my limited choice for the images, there is a possibility that my works reflect the issues of social class, status, culture, certain country and situation. Essentially, the idea is about their displacement in foreign places. The images questions why they have to leave their home, what they are longing for, and what they want to search for in their present dwelling.

The Space for Everyone- Foreign Home series, 104 x 43 inches, Digital Print

BS: Tell us about your artistic process. How does your work get from point A to Point C, so to speak? I understand that you observe your work as a form of documentation-- can you go into further detail about that?

ML: First, I choose a place and take photos of component parts of the place, such as the ceiling, wall, carpet, floor, windows, furniture, and everything in the room. Then through the computer, I reduced the sizes and try to make it close to actual impression of the place. It is like an architect making a small model for his future planned building in a different order and it is the process of preserving the common moment of the room. I might not be able to bring everything to my miniature completely, but the purpose is reappearance of the place.

BS: Minkyung, you have stated the following, "These days I have worked with the notion that people including me who lives in post (maybe post-post) modernism era are all nomads and exiles."... can you go into further detail about that statement and how it is of importance to your work?

ML: In this era, it is believed there is no absolute truth or unchangeable concept. In the theory of knowledge from Buddhism or modern philosophy from western society, the essence might be the changeable personal experience. For example, the monitor I have been watching is not a monitor but something I have known that is a monitor. In this absence of absoluteness, the lives that people have can be temporal and instant. Like the lost orphan, people would desire to search for essential truth.

As temporal beings in limited time, the human being’s searching could be endless and lonely like a nomad, who carries every personal belongings and a small tent instead of a stable home. In this notion, nomads and exiles that I have mentioned are not political and social terms but the definition in the mental and spiritual part.

BS: Minkyung, tell us more about your Room series. Can you go into further detail about the thoughts behind this series?

ML: A room is a restricted space with limited time in my definition. Also, when a room is an empty space, it reflects perfect anonymity. Then while it is occupied, it conveys the owner’s identity. The room can be the life itself, or the person’s identity.

Father's Room, 42.5 x 35, Digital Print

BS: What kind of equipment do you use in your work?

ML: My equipment is not fancy. My cameras are Nikon 801 and 70s and a Nikon Coolscan 5000 film scanner. Sometimes I use a Cannon IXUS for fun. I make small drawings of the places before I actually take photos.

BS: What are you working on at this time? Also, do you have any upcoming exhibitions?

ML: These days I have worked on the ‘Foreign Home’ project. Some of my friends moved out from their home countries or states and live in new places. I interviewed them about why they left and asked them to take some photos of their home. I have been working with the images they have sent. The group show for young artists is opening in October 9th in Deagu. I have two solo shows starts December 13rd and January 23rd, 2008.

BS: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art or the art world?

ML: For now that is all. I am more than happy to have this precious opportunity to talk about my works. Thank you.

Thank you reading my interview with Minkyung Lee. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Svetlana Rabey

Myartspace.com is pleased to announce that Svetlana Rabey is one of the four winners of the Myartspace.com NY, NY, Competition. She and the three other artists were chosen from a group of 50 finalists. The Myartspace.com team would like to thank the jurors-- Jessica Morgan (Tate Modern), James Rondeau (Art Institute of Chicago), and Steven Zevitas (New American Paintings). We would also like to thank everyone who participated in the competition.


Svetlana Rabey creates variably scaled fabric installations in response to the shape and feeling of an architectural environment. The pieces function as architectural shadows, reacting to the shape and dimensions, color, texture and scale of the architecture. Volumes are flattened, multiplied and expanded within the structure. She follows a systematic process based on impulses, in which the geometry unfolds according to a rhythm that she discovers in the architecture, and ends when all possibilities are exhausted. Each piece is a variation on a theme.

Untitled, Detail of felt wall installation, felt, thread, pins

Brian Sherwin: Svetlana, you are one of the Finalists of the Myartspace.com NY, NY, Competition. How does it feel to know that the jurors-- Jessica Morgan (Tate Modern), James Rondeau (Art Institute of Chicago, and Steven Zevitas (New American Paintings) selected you as a winner? Also, why did you decide to enter the NY, NY, Competition in the first place?

Svetlana Rabey: I feel very honored and excited to be part of this opportunity and look forward to meeting the jurors. Since part of my work is installation based, an exhibition offers me the opportunity to interact with a new space and create a new work. A group show in NY under the umbrella of such a great jury was very appealing and challenging to me.

Untitled, Felt wall installation, 15' x 20', felt, thread, pins

BS: Svetlana, tell us about the work you submitted. Why did you decided on those five images?

SR: I chose these five images because they best represent the scope and range of my work in the past year. I create installations from fabric, mostly felt, drawings, and paintings. The installations are inspired by architectural elements in the space I am working in. They can be wall pieces or floor pieces. I also wanted to include a drawing to show the repeated themes in different materials and approach, my attention to detail, the importance of repetition and rhythm.

BS: Svetlana, can you recall when you first decided that you wanted to be an artist? Feel free to share any early memories that have directed you on the path you are on today.

SR: As a child I studied classical piano and then trained professionally as a dancer in NY before going to college. Dancing left me with a sensitivity to the physicality of space. I understand movement and am able to choreograph shapes in space very instinctively. i am also inspired by the structures of music. This informs the sense of rhythm and repetition my drawing.

Untitled, Cut and hand sewn felt installed to wall, 10' x 8', felt, thread, pins

BS: Svetlana, tell us about your educational background. Where did you study art? Who were you mentors?

SR: I studied Art History at American University in Paris and graduated from Parsons school of Design on 1996. Since I started art school in Paris, my education was very academic. Lots of painting and drawing from the model and still lives. I painted in oil from life religiously. It took me many years and a return to dancing to come into my own language.

BS: Svetlana, what artists-- or art movements-- have influenced your work?

SR: The Support Surface Movement in France. Minimalism, including Fred Sandback, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, and Sol LeWitt. Also Gordon Matta-Clark, Barry Le Va, Diana Cooper, Jessica Stockholder. i appreciate the rigor with which these artists deal with their form and content whether it is conceptual, formal, or intuitive.

Untitled, Detail of thread drawing, 10' x 8', felt, thread, pins

BS: Svetlana, what else has influenced your art?

SR: Looking at and experiencing the architecture n NY from Art Deco to present day. Also Soviet and eastern Block era architecture and Gothic architecture.

BS: Svetlana, can you tell us about your artistic philosophy? What are the motives... the thoughts... behind your work?

SR: When I start a piece, I want to satisfy my impulses. I want to capture a moment or feeling in a piece but also something that feels as if it always existed in the space. Walking the line between fiction and honesty.

BS: Svetlana, tell us about your studio space? Do you work in silence or do you listen to music? Do you follow a routine when you are working on your art? What is it like to be in the studio of Svetlana Rabey?

SR: I have recently moved into a studio space in L.I.C and am still setting up. I like to keep my space empty. I have almost no furniture. I work on the floor.

Untitled, Two 32 inch mirrors- one covered in felt, felt and mirrors

BS: Svetlana, can you tell us more about your artistic process? How do you start a piece?

SR: I spend time in a space, looking for clues and impulses. Then I lay out fabric and think abut the structure of how a piece will unfold. Then I decide where the piece will be installed.

BS: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art or the artworld?

SR: I can't wait to see the space for the show.

Thank you reading my interview with Svetlana Rabey. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Elana Gutmann

Elana Gutmann was recently listed in ARTnews as an artist to watch. Reviewer Kevin Nance captures a sense of her Tales of Enchantment works as follows: "Elana Gutmann’s beguiling suite of abstract paintings brought to mind the weirdly vivid but imperfect reconstructions of dreams one recalls in the morning." The commentaries are consistent – evocative, dynamic, synaesthetic.

Of the series "La Passagiata" it is written: "Elana Gutmann's paintings are sensory landscapes whose climate and topography are mapped via color and gesture - her interest lies, as she says, in "infinite arrangement, pairing, sequence. Does orange lie lightly on cream, infringe on blue, incite red and if so, what happens?" One might think of these images as flowcharts from a dream-state, or choreographic notes for the imagination-- their imagery is full, tangible, yet fugitive, buzzing with synaesthetic scent and tone.

In addition to numerous exhibitions in the United States, Elana's work has been exhibited in Berlin, Paris, Düsseldorf, Valencia (Spain), Stockholm, Saigon, and Pescara (Italy). Her work can be found in the collections of the , Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, Wingspread Foundation and the University of Chicago, as well as in corporate and private collections worldwide.

Feathers, Oil on Panel, 7 x 9.2", 2004

Brian Sherwin: Could you tell us a little bit about your background and how it is reflected in the work you do today?

Elana Gutmann: I’m a first-generation American, my parents from Eastern and Western Europe, my mother born to parents from Ukraine and Bella Russe, my father’s family from Latvia and Germany. They both spoke several languages but my mother was still learning English when I was young so English was rarely spoken in my early years.

Our home life was lively -- filled and informed by the multiple languages and perspectives of an extended "family" of émigrés – friends from a broad variety of countries and cultures. The line between conversation and debate was often blurred and it was always an adventure for me as a child-- trying to make sense of what they were saying -- to figure out, intuit -- the content and intent expressed. I grew up interpreting, sorting and synthesizing life and information counting on my sense of things.

The fluid, fluctuating nature of what I came to experience as history has also informed my curiosity and appetites. Since there were little or no written documents surviving the war, and few members of the prior generation to contest "the truth", everything I learned of our history -- my roots -- was subject to change and interpretation, relying heavily on who was telling the tale and circumstance for its content and message.

Pond, Watercolour, 9.2 x 13.5", 2004

My current body of work, the Contes et Merveilles and One Thousand and One, works with these areas…colour and form as evocative language and content. The new work has as much to do with oral tradition, the telling and tellers of tales, with multiple perspectives, one’s sense of things and the transmission of culture through the individual’s experience. In it, I am the primary source, the interpreting, originating lens and hand that invites the "other".

The Contes et Merveilles will be presented in June of 2008 in France. I’ll be presenting a series of works -- paintings and works on paper -- with Tales of Enchantment: The Seeker and the Search, a limited edition print folio that focuses on the nature of the individual and imagination, and on the universal – the heroine/ hero and the quest for the sublime. The exhibition will include readings from various texts that have been authored in response to my images and within the frame of this inquiry. Each of the authors viewed the same seven images; each of their texts – in poetry and prose – is unique.

I am hoping to find the support to travel the exhibit in Europe, Asia and the Americas and to work collaboratively on an installation that engages the works and this process in other media.

Stroll, Oil on Panel, 25 x 15", 2003

BS: Can you tell us a bit about – about your working ritual -- how you work? What goes in to the making of a painting…

EG: How the work is made is a matter informed by my dailiness just as much as it is by the time in the studio mixing color and making marks on the surface. What I see, listen to, experience, what happens --by choice and by accident – what I recall and what I leave out or "forget" are all a part of the work.

As for ritual in the studio -- the first part is to become truly quiet, to come to the place where I am receptive and can attend to the work. I walk, I pace, I meditate…from there on it is the conversation between me and the piece that’s developing. Sometimes I lead, sometimes it does.

Bridge, Monotype, 13.5 x 25", 2004

BS: Speaking of listening, do you ever listen to music while you work?

EG: Yes, -- all kinds of music, recorded texts, chants, lectures, public radio from around the world. They become a kind of subtext to the work.

BS: Your work spans from paintings to works on paper and prints. Can you talk about the relationship between these bodies of work?

EG: My paintings are on wood panel, often they take a diptych or triptych format. With the exception of my print editions, the works on paper are primarily on rice paper or on printed matter – often on the pages of books. Many of my works take a diptych or triptych format or semblance of it.

They are two quite different extremes – the solid, substantial nature of the wood and the ephemeral, floating nature of the rice papers, yet they share an important quality. Each surface is prepared, designed, to have a high fidelity in terms of accepting my mark, each having the ability to be "truthful" to the intention and to the moment when those marks are made. My print work – stone lithography and montype -- has that rigor and an exquisite quality: your mark as you make it, your intention in that moment recorded. From there on each medium has it’s own affordances – it’s challenges and delights.

The paintings on wood panel allow me to use my whole body. I like to work with my hands, to press -- to rub --as much as I do enjoy working with the brushes and pigment. The substantive nature of the wood panels allows me to use the full force and range of my body – to use as light or as extreme a touch as I wish.

Las Ventas — La Bella Fortuna, Pigment on Rice Paper, 19.5 x 15.7", 2003

The works on rice paper have been made almost exclusively outside of an urban setting where I can work for long stretches of time undisturbed. They are original pigment on paper works, whose fundamental layers must be produced in a single session. Here, uninterrupted time is essential. One layer floated upon the next, they are a kind of meditation for me, borrowing from my work in lithography and often informing my paintings. The process holds both rigor and magic – far from the dailiness of my life – working toward a moment – transferring portions of imagery, teasing the imagery through as the layers of sight in the sea – building it, peeling it, moving back into it. While this process takes me out of the studio in New York, it later comes back to inform the painting.

A part of the current body of works are the paintings on book pages. These works on printed matter began with a series -- my visual "text"-- layered upon the pages of an antique volume of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. I am a bibliophile – a lover of reading and books. They accumulate around me wherever I go. Printed on a substantial and fine book stock, it was both the Vanity Fair text and the sensual nature of the paper that compelled me. In a political climate wherein the voice of the people seemed no longer to be heard, I was spurred by the need to take some personal action. It seemed just right to me to put my intimate hand – watercolor, pencil and brush, close–up as one holds a book – on to this treatise (or satire?) of absolute right and wrong. That instinct initiated a series of works on printed pages that ultimately took me to the Thousand and One and the realms of creation, cultural congress, storytelling, transformation and quest.

I pursued the notion of text both written and visual – of the retelling of story – the invention and alteration of narrative by virtue of memory, emotion, the physical, personal, cultural, imaginative. These works informed the paintings that followed and they in turn provoked the next series of original works and limited editions on paper. A whole new body of work has evolved -- a kind of abstract visual narrative that confounds the lines between text and subtext, of inspiration, origin and response. It responds to the formats of the thousand-and-one nights – the never-ending tales. Within it my paintings and works on paper "converse" – image sparking image, color instigating form, one "story" informing the next.

Metamorphosis, Monotype, 13.5 x 25", 2004

BS: Where do you work outside of your studio in Manhattan?

EG: My work in residence began in France and continues there till today. I have a second "family" there, a community of support, of critical thought and inspiration. Over the years I had the privilege to edition my work there with master printer Yann Samson in Paris, and soon will begin a new series of prints with one of the oldest and finest ateliers in Paris: Clot, Bramsen & Georges.

I work in the studio in residence in the south, in the Drome, in the Cevennes, and more recently in Umbria in Italy, in Delhi in India and near Morelia in Mexico. While I’m in the States I most often go to the studio in Connecticut where I can work undisturbed, "off-the-grid", where the quiet and light are exquisite and time seems to stop to accommodate my rhythms.

It’s through my travels, the experience of different light, sounds, scents, the varying skies and seasons and the individuals I have had the pleasure to share my time with, that a whole new body of work has evolved. At first it was my travels that created the necessity for a way of working that would be portable – that could voyage along with me. Overtime, I’ve adapted my work so that I can carry it with me – continue my train of thought. I’ve come to the point where I can work almost anywhere, if the conditions are right. I need quiet, light and beauty – which comes in many forms.

I have the good fortune to work in a marvelous studio in Connecticut, near to the border of Massachusetts. I travel primarily between Europe and America, but I’ve also worked in residence in Mexico and more recently in India and Italy. I think it’s in my blood, the traveling and appetite for other cultures, languages, sounds, and sights. Each place evokes a different palette and resonance – uncovering, exploring, awakening, experience layering upon and informing experience. I continue to enjoy working in this way and hope to also have the opportunity to return again and again to those places and also to work in Japan, in Africa, and near to the sea.

Proximity, Monotype, 16.6 x 12", 2004

BS: Can you talk to us a bit more about your traveling and how it relates to your work?

EG: One of the treasures of travel is the refreshment of "the other" – language, sound, the taste, light and rhythm of life. To read, speak and live in the language where I am. It was in preparation for a residency in France, that I first searched for a volume that I could read and then work on. I found a wonderful old volume of Les Milles et Une Nuit (A Thousand and One Nights). The engravings and typography were compelling and the paper itself had a generosity – a great density to it. Some of the pages were tattered but many of the quartets were in perfect condition. They provided the foundation and inspiration for a whole new body of work which I continue on today.

They brought me from the initial engagement with painting on the texts of books (Vanity Fair" to an intimate and practical, corporal relationship to the whole. My love for travel and my need to keep working, to continue my train of thought, created the necessity for a kind of portability. Initially, I carried the "stories" with me, working with them and painting -- retelling –my stories upon their pages as I traveled from the cities to the countryside outside the cities and beyond. Later, I brought them back to the studio to continue the tales… The resulting works are inspired by the framing story of A Thousand and One and the character Scheherazade. They are informed by the notion of initiation, metamorphosis, transformation. They are abstract yet evocative, my own "telling"of the tales…

Plein Lune, Pigment on Rice Paper, 15.7 x 19.5", 2003

BS: Who are the collectors of your work -- what do you think engages them in your work?

EG: The collectors of my work are diverse – they’re scholars, doctors, anthropologists, conservationists, designers, teachers, architects, heads of industry, inventors, other artists…What they have in common is their own curiosity, an openness—an appetite for new experience, knowledge, ways of seeing – of knowing life. I would like to believe that it is this appetite and capacity that resonates and engages them with the work.

Ufizzi, Monotype, 13.5 x 25", 2004

BS: Can you tell me if you’re represented by a gallery and about your next upcoming exhibit?

EG: I’ve been working with Perimeter Gallery, a wonderful gallery with wonderful people since 1989. I show with them in Chicago and I’ve also shown with them in New York. In our last show there we received a very positive review in the New Yorker but they have since closed in Manhattan. So, while I continue going strong with them in Chicago, I will be looking for representation in New York, the city where I live.

In Europe I also have the good fortune to have long-term relationships. I work with Cilla Lowenhaupt in Paris, Margrit Gass in Basel and Boris Brockstedt in Berlin. It is through their efforts that I have had the opportunity to present my work in exhibitions in Asia, Scandinavia and Europe.

The next exhibition coming up will be in France in June of 2008 at the Chateau de Brantes in conjunction with the Festival at Avignon. It is a wonderful venue, where I will be presenting my Tales of Enchantment folio along with new works. The show will travel in France and Switzerland and at the end of 2008, beginning 2009 I will be presenting in a new solo exhibition in Chicago with Perimeter.

Saetia, Monotype, 6 x 10", 2004

BS: Thank you, and finally, where can we see more of your art?

EG: You can see my art at Perimeter Gallery’s website (www.perimetergallery.com) at my own site (www.elanagutmann.com) and at upcoming exhibitions (see my site for dates and exhibition sites as well as additional venues).

BS: Thank you so much.

EG: Thank you, it is my pleasure.

You can learn more about Elana Gutmann by visiting her website-- www.elanagutmann.com. You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page-- www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin

Art Space Talk: Ruth Pastine

Born and educated in New York City, Ruth is a classically trained artist who believes that art is life changing and that life changes can dramatically influence her art. Ruth considers herself an "essentialist"; her focus is light and color. Her desire is to confront the viewer viscerally and optically-- to confound the viewer with light and color. It is her hope that we start to re-think the way that we see upon viewing her paintings-- that we re-train our eyes in order to absorb her work in the moment.

Equivalence Blue Orange #3, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in., 2005

Brian Sherwin: Ruth, you earned an MFA from Hunter College of the City University of New York. Who were your mentors at that time?

Ruth Pastine: My painting process and the principles that structure my painting methodology have always been the greatest teacher. I was fortunate to work with Sandford Wurmfeld, Robert Swain, and Vincent Longo at Hunter, as they were all invested in perceptual painting. Sandy Wurmfeld introduced me to color and perceptual theory, which fueled a deeper insight into my painting process, and a greater understanding of my work, which continues to inform my studio practice.

Blue Orange Series- Lady Lake, Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 x 1 in., 2006

BS: Ruth, Can you recall any early experiences from your childhood that impacted the work you create today? Did your family support your artistic growth?

RP: Having been born and raised in New York City, the major art institutions such as MOMA, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, and the Met were essentially my back yard. My mother was educated in art and art history, and we went to museums and galleries as a part of our daily life. My H.S. of Music & Art painting teacher, Yvette Berlowe, was very influential in inspiring me to be a painter. She taught me how to see, and challenge preconceived notions about what we think we see, because of what we think we know. This was the onramp to investigating essential content, which I realized years later.

Tribute (SW) Saturated Warm, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in., 2004

BS: Ruth, you have been reviewed in the New York Times, Art in America, New American Paintings, Artforum, and several other publications. Did you expect your work to be so successful?

RP: I’m always pleased to have the work reviewed and acknowledged in the press, and participate in the discourse. As a painter, one spends an inordinate amount of time alone in the studio, and it is always rewarding to hear an echo in response to the work. I always expected success from the work, as I am diligent and true to my vision. I expect the work to receive more recognition as it’s acknowledged as a significant participant of the greater dialog of experiential painting.

BS: Ruth, your Black Light Paintings investigate the presence of light and color through exploring the darkest values of the color system. How did your work evolve to this point? When were you first interested in this study? Can you discuss how it has advanced from the early stages- to where you are today?

RP: The work is rooted in the perceptual experience of color, light, and temperature. Working serially has been instrumental in evolving the work. I began working serially my last two years at Cooper Union, and this has structured and evolved the work since. The Black Light Paintings evolved as a direct response and juxtaposition to my prior series of White Paintings, which diffuse the materiality of the painted surface into immaterial perceptual experiences. In contrast to the White Paintings, I was interested in the Black Light Paintings investigating the spatial tension between the solidity of the iconic structure and the density of an experiential space. The ‘black’ is a perceptual field fueled with color, light, and temperature, that resonates from a ‘nameless’ place, yet to be defined.

Paradise Eyes, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches, 2000

BS: Ruth, you seem to work in series-- White Paintings, Black Light Paintings-- where will your work take you next? Can you give our readers some insight into your next body of work? Also, is there a ladder of sorts in regards from working from one series to the next? Are your series always connected in some manner?

RP: I never know from one series to the next what will evolve as the successive series, until I’m in the thick of it. As I work toward completing a group of paintings, there is always some recognition of a point of departure, which defines the next series of paintings. This is discovered, I never know in advance. One series always influences and informs the next series of paintings. Usually a pivotal painting is the threshold and door to a new group of paintings. This painting is key and mercurial in that sense, as it’s able to define the closure of one body of work, and offer a potential gateway to a future series.

Every painting is connected in the series, and there is a greater continuum that links series to series, and the work as a whole. Working serially advances the work within such close parameters, and offers me great insight into that which is unknown.

As I’m nearing completion of the Black Light Series, I can share that my next body of work is in between black and white, and might be perceived as Gray.

Yellow Magenta #8- Triangle Skies, oil on canvas, 28 x 28 in., 2000

BS: Ruth, tell us about your painting process. How do you start a piece and when do you feel that it is finished?

RP: Although the paintings appear as a smooth seamless skin, and the hand is virtually undetected, the paintings are rigorously painted with a brush, composed of numerous layers and hundreds of daubs of paint. I approach each painting with a sense of direction, but with no end in mind. They are somewhat brazen and scrawl like, the first few layers, but gradually I work towards a certain perceptual resolve, that each painting reconciles on its own terms.

I love what Andy Warhol said when he appeared as a special guest on the TV Series "The Love Boat," and was asked by the crew director how he knew when a painting was finished, his reply being "When the check clears in the bank!"

Equivalence Blue Orange #2 (Yellow-Orange), oil on canvas, 30 x 30 in., 2005

BS: Ruth, can you tell us about your studio practice? What is it like to be in the studio of Ruth Pastine? Do you follow a routine? Do you prefer to work alone or with company? I find that the studio practice of an artist is often just as interesting as the work that is created since the two are connected in so many ways.

RP: They are inextricably connected. I need to paint everyday. I get anxious and agitated when I’m not painting. Painting connects me to what I am. You’ve heard of the fish out of water. I approach working in the studio and paint everyday like it’s my job, but it is so much more. It’s my greatest challenge and pleasure. My studio practice is methodical. I’m systematic and focused, and have to be alone. My process is very demanding and I have to work uninterrupted for 5-7 hours a day. There is always something to learn from the actual process of painting, which is what advances the work. On the one hand my practice is like a laboratory, on the other hand, it’s very active as I’m working on up to ten paintings at a time. I start working each day by blasting the music to bust the clutter of any thoughts racing through my mind, that distract me from my focus on painting.

BS: Ruth, can you discuss some of your influences? Have any artists from the past inspired you?

RP: Heroes are very personal, and although there are several artists, thinkers, and musicians that have been a beacon in my life, I don’t look at art for inspiration. I look at art because it connects me to greater humanity and to the greater humanity within myself. Painting and working in the studio has been the greatest source of inspiration.

Equivalence Blue Orange #3 (Red-Orange), oil on canvas, 30 x 30in, 2005

BS: Ruth, where can our viewers observe your work at this time? Are you in any public collections?

RP: I have a few solo shows coming up at Peter Blake Gallery in Laguna, CA: and at Gallery Sonja Roesch in Houston, TX, in May 2008; and at Brian Gross Fine Art in San Francisco, CA, in June 2008. Unfortunately my work is not in more public collections, which I hope to have rectified. It’s an on going challenge to have the work endorsed and installed in the public psyche.
BS: Do you have any advice for artists who are just starting out?

RP: Be honest with yourself in the studio and stay true to your vision, and keep a private studio.

BS: Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your art or the artworld?

RP: Painting is my life, and the art world is the world I live in. I grew up and lived in New York City until just prior to September 11th, when I moved to Southern California. I got to the point where I wanted to work from a much more private place outside of the hum of the market place, and enter the art world when I wanted, not because I was living in the midst of it. This has been important to the work, as the paintings are hard won, and my process is rigorous. I don’t like being sidetracked from my focus.

You can read more of my interviews by visiting the following page, www.myartspace.com/interviews.

Take care, Stay true,

Brian Sherwin