Tuesday, February 28, 2012

MARTIN BROMIRSKI

Untitled, acrylic, sand & paper on canvas,
20 x 16", 2012




What are you working on in your studio right now?




Small intense freaky little abstract paintings. I'm in a show up now at Storefront Bushwick (through 3/11) and next opening at John Davis Gallery later in May.





Can you describe your working routine?




I generally spend three to five hours at a time in the studio... usually four... it depends how many paintings I have to work on. My studio is not at home and I don't do anything else in this studio... no hanging-out or reading, there's no internet. When I'm getting closer to a show there is more sit and stare time.














Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?



I have a sort of narrow room in a barn. It's only a hundred bucks a month although I just got a note saying I owe four hundred oops. I don't necessarily think that the space affects my work... although yeah if I had a different type of space, or an at-home space, results and habits might be a little different. Last year I was planning on having a nice summer outdoor setup on this farm I work on, but I ended up having an opportunity to go to Istanbul for six weeks... so maybe this year. It is isolated... I think three people visited my studio in three years.





Untitled, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16", 2012





Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.



I order canvasses from Utrecht or Amazon.... making them myself is a pain, and I like how shallow these are, close to the wall... and also I guess because the quality is not that great they start to shred pretty nice. They are easy to handle and toss around, so light.
I work on many paintings at once... they are not started all together but ideally are in different stages. First move on a new one is usually to paint the canvas something solid... or glue some colored paper circles to it... or take a piece of mesh and create a grid of colored sand or glitter... or make a couple small slices. Something to disrupt the blank canvas.
 Most of them get taken to the sink and scraped at some point... much or all of the paper/sand/paint on a painting will come off... lots of unexpected things happen. Cuts and holes get created in that process... they end up as is, or get patched with canvas or old clothing, or become an important element and sometimes expanded. If I've scraped all the way down to bare canvas I can stain.










What are you having the most trouble resolving?



I don't really have that problem, or concern. Or I don't think about it that way anyways. Something always happens. Unsettling is better than resolved anyways.






Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?



I think the former. I mean, I use the same materials repeatedly... but there is constant experimentation and discovery. I like to weird myself out.





Untitled, acrylic, sand on canvas, 12 x 24", 2012



Tuesday, February 14, 2012

ALAN VAN EVERY

Gawkei, 60 x 50 cm, paintmarker,
glitter & acrylic on canvas, 2011



What are you working on in your studio right now?



I am epoxying some coconut shells together and just gessoed a new canvas. I need to buy some new materials, I tend to work too fast and use up paint way too fast for my economic standing. Coconuts are cheap and epoxy isn’t bad either.




Can you describe your working routine?


I tend to work on one or two things at a time. I work most days for about 2-14 hours. What I mean is, I try to work every day at least a couple of hours. I get kind of obsessed about finishing something when I get going on it and sometimes spend 14 in a row. I rarely ever finish anything in a day or so, though. I find painting a bit faster as you don’t have to build it first, sometimes I do one in the middle of working on a sculpture. They inform each other somehow and that helps me work.











Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?



I live in a row house and actually my living room is the studio. It is big enough and I always have done it that way since school (I mean my studio was part of where I lived and I didn’t travel to get there). I like the TV and computer on so I can waste time when paint is drying or I am sitting and looking a little distraction clears my mind and I like sensory overload. Being here in Thailand affects my work more than the actual psychical space that I work in. I do tend to work smaller than I did when I lived in a big place that I felt was my home. I like small work as much as I like big things so that isn’t really that important, some of my favorite things are not that large. I think a ‘big expression” can be gotten out of a very intimate piece.

It is a practicality too, as I feel I will move away and shipping is harder and more expensive with larger works. I do like it here but also think I will go to someplace that feels more like “home” again at some point. In general I did feel that way about NYC and I miss that. I really like some of the natural “trash or junk” here that I use in my work. Bamboo and coconut shells are kind of throw aways and they work well for me. Also there are craft items that I like to use, glass boxes, candle holders and such things for Buddha shrines that Thais use in their homes. There is a kind of folk or handmadeness that I like about these objects. I like that using them and feel as a non Thai contemporary artist it recontextualizes them. In my (relatively speaking) flat paintings, I have been using glitter for about eight or nine years now and years and I feel that one of the attractions of moving here in the first place was seeing the temples with the glass/mirror mosaics and the sort of stacking of forms.





Over The Under, 40 x 30 cm, paintmarker,
glitter & acrylic on canvas, 2011

Detail



Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.



Well, first of all it really isn’t where I start that is important, it is how I finish things that counts for me. I work pretty improvisationally, but I change up how I start things from time to time. Sometimes I will just drag my brush over a prepared canvas while I am working on another to start it, I really like to use all of my paint and not waste it. Painting to me is about build up and mostly about addition, I think that is why some of my work is completely 3D but I still consider it all as painting. I realize that strictly speaking there is no doubt they are sculptures and that does have a different mindset in the doing and viewing of them but I am a painter first and the sculptures are made to be covered with materials in a painting way. Even the building of them is more like collage to me, which I think of as a painting process. The works are sometimes thought out, in that I have a vague notion of what I want out of the materials and what I am going to do to achieve it but I find working with too much of a plan constraining. I tend to find most of my processes involve some sort of stacking; either forms or illusions or paint. It is kind of about showing how I got to the spot I am at when I finish but also about making it look just right to me. I spend a lot of time looking at things.







What are you having the most trouble resolving?



Usually I have trouble resolving works when I am into like the 4 or 5th thing in a series of related works. I sometimes like to switch up too fast because of that and when I do, a year later I will come to the conclusion that “this work sucks” and paint over it. I try to give that process and time limit a chance, as thoughts about what I did before and work I have done over has changed too. I usually have a notion of what I want out of a piece but I like to surprise myself, so if I don’t feel that as I work, I tend to have more trouble getting trough it. I like the struggle for the most part though. If I just pop one out, I always think the work has kind of a superficialness. It may or may not, in fact but I trust my instinct on that. There are times I just hit something right and quickly but they are few and far between.






Taxidermy Puff, mixed media, 2011




Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?


Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. I do try things out and see where they lead me. It took experimenting to get me to the processes I use now and I change them sometimes but in general I know what I want when I try a new thing out. In some ways at least technically, I know what I am going to get if I try something new out. It may take a bit of time to perfect it and then develop ideas that come from doing it.






What does the future hold for this work?



I am always trying to grow and learn new things, that is in general what I get out of working, practice and of course, exchanges with others. A bigger audience and more support would be great and I hope and work towards that. I like to work to learn. It usually develops in a kind of cylindrical way, I do new things and find how they work with ideas that always seem to repeat themselves in the work. Most of the time it is not an intentional thing. I think most artists do that after years of working. I hate to be concrete about any statement I might make about the future though.




Is there anything else you would like to add?


Thank you for asking me to talk about my work. It is so nice when people take an interest. It is an honor and a pleasure. I love that the Internet has given rise to this kind of exchange and appreciate your doing this Valerie.




Embryonic Fluid, 40 x 30 cm, paintmarker,
glitter & acrylic on canvas, 2012

Monday, February 6, 2012

IAN WHITE WILLIAMS

Crossdown Dragit, oil on linen, 9 x 12 ", 2011



What are you working on in your studio right now?


I am currently working between two studios.  This summer I moved into a rented studio in the city (Philadelphia) that I share with friend/painter Tim Schwartz, having previously worked exclusively in a studio set up in my home.  It takes about 40 minutes for me to get to the city studio, which means I am not there as often as I would like.  So, I keep the home studio set up for aqueous or mixed media works on paper and smaller projects, working whenever I can steal a few minutes, while the city studio is set up for oils and/or larger projects (“larger” being a relative term).  Right now I feel that I am finding some traction in my oil paintings.  These newest paintings begin to capture the immediacy of my works on paper.  This has been something I have struggled with for a while, reconciling the work I make on paper with my more “formal” painting.




City studio





Can you describe your working routine?


I would hesitate to call my working process a routine.  In many ways my work has evolved from my inability to establish routines or regularity in my life in any significant way.  I began painting right around the same time I was first hired as a high school art teacher, about five years ago (previously, I went to school for sculpture and for a time after graduating I maintained a studio practice as a sculptor).  Early on, out of necessity, I would take a minute here and there to throw a few marks down on a found scrap of paper while on hall duty or waiting for classes to change.  I started scanning these little pieces and posting them to a blog as a way to force myself to keep making.  This was my routine for years, if you could call it such.  Eventually, I set up a studio in my house and was able to work for a couple hours after school before cooking dinner, cleaning, spending time with my wife, etc.  I remember having a conversation with another painter about how excited I was to have two whole hours to paint, to which he dubiously responded, questioning how I could get anything accomplished in such an insignificant amount of time. Recently I have begun getting up early so that I can have a half an hour or so to paint before going to work.  Additionally, I get to my studio in the city a couple nights a week.  My routine continues to be sporadic at best, which I embrace. I see my provisional approach for the reality it represents: the compromises, constraints and imperfect nature of any emerging artist’s life and practice.  My work attempts to engage the imperfections of the everyday as opposed to overcoming or ignoring them.











Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?


As mentioned before I have two spaces where I work (not including the work I make while I am at school teaching).  My new studio is in a converted Catholic high school.  I am in a space that most likely was originally a storeroom or closet, much smaller than the studios around it, which are converted classrooms. I share the space with the painter Tim Schwartz, with whom I have been a friend for close to twenty years.  I am rarely in the space without him there, making our conversations, observations and critique an essential part of my process.  My space, like my life, is far from pristine.  It is much the same in my home studio.  A messy mix of clutter, sounds and smells, ideas, memories, phone rings, cats and interruptions, coffee or whiskey, songs, tape, pencils, paint, paper, an uncomfortable chair, a view out the window; all of which contribute to the making of my paintings. 






  29 Missing ,ink & gouache
on polypropylene, 9” x 5.5”, 2012



Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.


A few years back, attempting to figure out my process, I adopted a sort of mantra: fill the space.  I thought if I could reduce the process of painting to its most essential practical operation it left enough space for something uniquely personal to be left behind; a sort of trace fingerprint of authorship unencumbered by formality, narrative or intent.  It was from this initial idea that my work has evolved.  When I sit down to paint (or stand up as it may be) I am intention-less.  I attempt to be wholly receptive, adopting a sort of neutral buoyancy, so that the faintest of influence tips the scales and starts my process.  This influence could be something I see, think, hear, or remember, the more mundane or under-considered the better.  From there, my process is one of action and reaction. Sometimes I take it too far, other times not far enough.  When influence is hard to come by, which is quite often, I may run through any number of standard operations: fill the space, draw a line from left to right, draw a line from right to left, make a shape and fill it in, make two marks and connect them.  These operations may end up as the work itself, or may lead to an unfolding of responses.  Recently I have been including text in many of my paper pieces.  This is just a way for me to connect or pair observations.  The text is often something heard or thought while the painting is being made.  It is meant to reinforce the marks with which it shares its origins. 





 The Burden of Counting, ink & gouache
on polypropylene, 9” x 6.5”, 2012




What are you having the most trouble resolving?


I struggle with the physical differences of painting with oil on linen and painting with ink, watercolor or gouache on paper.  I want to translate the lightness and quickness of my works on paper to my paintings, yet retain the presence afforded oil paint as a medium. 




Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?


I love playing with different materials and methods. My current work evolved from a process of using scraps and materials leftover by my high school students during a normal school day.  As a sculptor I used anything I could get my hands on and much of my work was performance based.  In grad school I spent most of my two years taking photographs.  I have been painting for the last five years and now I teach ceramics everyday.  I typically don’t find myself too constrained by parameters, at least not for too long.  I genuinely believe that whether it is a drawing, sculpture, performance, photograph, painting, or pot, anything I make is made with the similar motivation of acknowledging the everyday as sublime.




We Are Sailing, ink & pencil
on polypropylene, 5”x 6”, 2012




What does the future hold for this work?


Well, my biggest hope for the future is that this work finds an audience.  I struggle at times with the confidence and commitment necessary to build a career of painting, but I believe with opportunities such as this one I am gaining momentum. 




Is there anything else you would like to add?


This has been a great honor and pleasure for me, and I want to thank you for the invitation.  I have been incredibly fortunate to find support for my work through primarily online forums.  I think we are experiencing an amazing point in history, that through technology we are able to connect instantly and intimately with artists across the world, trading ideas and critique (and sometimes even trading work).  Your blog serves to inspire and inform, thanks for your hard work Val!





Half Awake, oil on linen, 10” x 13”, 2012