Evoking references to 19th and 20th century European portraiture, the female figure in all its glory is proudly on display in Julie T. Curtiss’s paintings but unlike traditional portraiture, their faces are intentionally obscured. Instead of voluptuous breasts, delicate gestures and a demure gaze, the female figures feature sharp pointy breasts, gnarled fingers, and bodies composed of a mesmerizing pattern of hair. At once intriguing and grotesque, the surreal paintings invite the viewers to consider these female figures as more than a one-dimensional archetype.

During our studio visit, Curtiss walked us through her process, her infatuation with hair and her strong kinship with Chicago imagists.

Julie T. Curtiss is an artist living and working in East Williamsburg/Bushwick. Her work will be in the group show, Post Analog Painting II opening April 7th through May 14th at The Hole Gallery. She is currently working on her solo show at 106 Green Gallery opening this upcoming October 2017.

F: Can you talk about your process?
J: There are several ways for me to start a new painting. Often an idea will spark out of the narrative I have constructed over the years. Or I will think of my visual vocabulary and pull out elements, try to assemble them until they form a composition and a story. More rarely, I will start from an existing painting I have seen or the still from a movie… Once I found an idea, I will capture the image on paper; sometimes I will work several sketches of the same idea, simplifying the forms and the lines, until the composition satisfies me. These sketches can be extremely crude. If the sketch doesn’t work, I have to put the idea on hold.

F: Where are you finding your references from?
J: I think I find a lot of my inspiration in French and European painters from the 19th and 20th century… because a lot of these artworks are very popular, I enjoy how they worked their way into people’s mind subconsciously. They became iconic and I love using that cultural/collective added material, in subliminal or explicit ways. It can be just hint, a fragment or by re-using the whole composition, in a pastiche like way… I have some very early memories of visiting the Orsay museum as a child with my parents. I was awestruck with the artworks, the sensuality to the sculpture gallery, the feel of the old train station. I believe my images are connected to this first intimate contact with art.

As for my approach, I feel a strong kinship with the Chicago imagist. I studied a semester at the art institute of Chicago about ten years ago, however I was only vaguely aware of them at the time… I don’t think I understood what they were about. Now, I relate to the pop and graphic aspect of their vibe, but also to the humor, the low key. I discovered Christina Ramberg and Ray Yoshida about 4 years ago. I feel the closest to them. I love Roger Brown too.

F: Can you talk about your studio space?
J: I feel so lucky I found an affordable studio space located only two blocks from where I live -East Williamsburg/Bushwick. I am on the floor of a large complex of old factories, converted into art studios. I like my landlords, they are high quality framers and they are very respectful of artists. My only regret is its convenient location next to a gas station, which means easy access to Dunkin doughnut and all kind of tempting junk food!

F: There is a sense of narrative that seems non-explicit, at times it seems
as though you are dealing with universal myths and other times, they seem like created specific narratives.

J: Yes, I am glad you picked up on that. I would use the word archetypes instead of universal myths though, just because in the myth there is the notion of hero and journey but the archetype is more focused on the recurring themes and motifs at the heart of the myths. I am fascinated with Carl Gustav Jung theories about archetypes particularly the shadow and the anima. I am interested in the shadow archetype because I like to bring forth what’s culturally repressed and kept in the dark in my images. And the Anima, which represents the feminine inside male identity, captivates me because of its projections are at the center of artistic imagination historically: the Virgin Mary or Eve for example.
But to come back to the seeming contradiction between general and specific narratives, I could almost say I would like to capture the language of dreams. Dreams can be extremely precise and general at once. Sometimes, details seem so charged with meaning; it leaves an impression on you even after you wake up, and more than often the explanation still eludes you. Ideally, I would love to achieve this feeling when I work. I’d like to draw viewers in, with familiar ideas or imagery, and half way into it, I kind of highjack the story with my own idiosyncrasies.

F: Can you talk about the sexual nature of the work exploring on gender roles. In particular, the braids elude to a notion of youth as well as a certain censoring of the female body literally binding the figure in braids.

J: Yes! For some reason, hair showed up very early in my practice.
Just formally, painting intricate braids is a way for me to space out and get into a repetitive action, a bit like knitting. Also, it’s a very malleable element to paint composition wise. Actually, from 2010 to 2012, I made a whole body of works depicting imaginary landscape, just by using a bush stroke, similar to black hair or wisps. The result was very organic and intuitive. Now I use the same kind of effect but more sparingly: with hair and bodies/objects made of hair. I enjoy the effect it has on the eye; it’s hypnotic and satisfying to look at.

As for the sexual or gender aspect of it, when I come to think of it, hair is a natural asset women use to seduce. Sometimes, assets can define you. Women can get trapped, or trap themselves in representations. Beautification can become constraints, in other words bindings. Women’s bodies are objectified/commoditized by men and women themselves, by cultures…etc. The tension between nature and culture is important in my work and I find the negative aspects of it just as interesting as the positives. There is something to the mane/the wild, as opposed to the braid/the domesticated, that captivates me.

F: It seems that you work naturally rather small and intricately with gouache and acrylic on paper, but you have been moving to larger scaled oil and acrylic paintings. How has this changed the work and image? Do you find that you are making different decisions?

J: I have been making works for sixteen years now and I have always alternated between small works and larger scaled works. I started the body of work you now know with a small series of gouaches on paper in 2015. It allowed me to work through ideas very fast. It was very fun and stress free, just sitting at my little table and painting my images. But at some point I felt I would have to challenge myself a bit.

I am not sure I am trying to achieve the same things on paper and on canvas but for one thing, the standing position forced me to be more physical and involved in the painting process. Also I find it hard to paint as detailed when standing up. So maybe there is a little less comfort and noodling around in my works on canvas. I also feel that some works don’t translate well on a large scale and that when things are blown up, composition problems are less forgiving. Transitioning to larger work was difficult, especially because I started to use oil as well. My art tended to be very graphic on paper and the addition of oil to my practice brings a softening touch, which balances with my hard edge, flat esthetic, and sets my practice more in the tradition of painting.

You can check out more of Julie T. Curtiss’s work at her website www.juliecurtiss.com.

Coming up shows:

Post Analog Painting 2, The Hole Gallery, New York (NY) du April 6th to May 14th 2017

Duo exhibition with Mathew F Fisher, Monya Rowe Gallery, Saint Augustine (FLorida) May 13th to June 25th 2017

Solo Show, 106 Green Gallery, Brooklyn (NY), October 2017

Austin Lee was in the process of getting ready for his two solo shows, “Pretty Pictures” at UTA Artist Space in LA and “Light Paintings” at BANK in Shanghai when we met up with him in his Long Island City studio. We explored topics ranging from living life through screens, his process of translating and moving from a digital space to a physical space and his 3D printed sculptures as he was in the process of creating two distinct bodies of work in tandem for his shows.

F: Can you start with explaining your process?

A: Idea à Drawing à Painting

or

Drawing à Idea à Painting

Or

Drawing à Painting à Idea

F: Do you figure out all of the colors and composition on the computer and then strictly recreate the image or do you see it as more of as a sketch and a reference to create the image?

A: Best case scenario is both ways of working add something new to the image. I prefer the work to change and grow in ways I didn’t expect. I want to be inspired by the strengths of both mediums. Additive light color on the computer and maybe the texture and surface of paint for example.

F: There’s a certain amount of immediacy and quickness that comes naturally when working digitally. There is an unhindered effect of always being able to press ‘undo’. Do you find that when working in paint that you carry on that certain speed or you have to slow down the process?

A: I think some of this is a mental condition. The cliché of the blank canvas. I just never have that when working digitally. It’s like an endless sketchbook. I use it as a way to stay experimental and not think too much when drawing. I do the thinking later as I remake the work as a painting. So in that way the work slows down. Every mark suddenly an intentional decision. Do I keep this? What does this mean? For me it’s a balance between being keeping the work direct but also being introspective later.

F: Do you see the digital 3D and photoshop work as it’s own work or as a tool or sketch?

A: I see it as a tool for myself. There needs to be a specificity in how the image is presented to someone. Digital displays vary in size and color so much that it is hard to know exactly how someone will experience an image. Some artists take advantage of this and make work that plays with this in an interesting way but I am more interested in creating a specific moment for someone that will persist through time in a way I can anticipate.

F: What’s the relationship with the 3D printed sculptures and your paintings? Do they come from the same sources?

A: I had been trying to use 3d modeling in my work for about ten years and just couldn’t get it. Everything I would make felt couldn’t overcome the software’s aesthetic. Two summers ago, I had an opportunity to make a stone sculpture in Sweden and spent a few weeks working out ideas there. It was a huge inspiration and everything finally clicked. I then realized I could take the models I was making as sculptures and bring them into 3d modeled environments to experiment even more. I’m still figuring it out and that’s the exciting part.

F: How do you choose your colors ?

A:It’s an intuitive process. Color is so rich and complicated that I don’t think you can plan it out until you see it. Colors change so much when they are next to another. An idea you might have doesn’t quite work the way you think it might and you have to be sensitive to what it is doing versus an idea you have.

Alicia Gibson’s paintings take you back to high school where the margins of your notebook pages are lined with crushes and doodles of hearts and peace signs. Only these are made up of layers of built up paint, found music sheets, key chains and fake flowers with loaded sayings like “MARRY ME” and “DECADES OF DECEIT”. Drawing from her memory and subconscious, Alica’s work is raw and personal. We were able to get a bit of insight into Alicia Gibson’s process during our studio visit. Recently she has shown at Canada Gallery, Lyles and King and Rachel Uffner. She is currently in the group show ‘Fort Greene’ at Venus LA which will run through October 29th.

F: How do you start a painting?
AG: I start with a bit of loose content, paint, and a blank canvas.
F: There are a lot of similarities between your paintings and your drawings. Do you approach them the same way?
AG: They both share an adolescent color palette, meaning colorful/trapper keeper.
Of course with the paintings I have to invest a lot more time and money. The drawings tend to be slightly more representational but I do keep them around my computer and jot notes/ schedules on. I’m terrible at schedules. I do my drawings at home and paintings in the studio. Separation of church and state.

I know the drawings are probably more free, looser as it probably would be for anyone, but I really enjoy painting as well. Did you know Warhol liked his mother’s handwriting so much he often asked her to use her script for his illustrations. Don’t know where I was going with that besides the fact of the the use of typography to express emotion.

F: Your work feels almost like a journal entry. They come from a personal place with very specific narratives. Can you talk a little bit about that?
AG: Yes, the work is personal and diaristic. It just seems more honest to me. I’m kind of in my own head a lot and have a hard time grasping what people are actually saying. I’m often stuck in a negative space. Like I might totally minsterperate what someone says.

They could be saying the nicest things, but I take it as a diss. Then, I’ll obsess about what I think they said, get pissed off, angsty, and generally make a painting from this misinterpretation. But, by the end, the painting usually becomes funny, at least to me and my friends…an inside joke? A way to process a graver situation, that may or not be real.

F: Does the work start as drawing or journaling?
AG: I never journal, or keep a diary or anything like that. But I do ruminate or jot random notes to myself that I find much later. The drawings are a separate entity to me and I don’t believe I’ve made a drawings for a painting. Maybe I get a few Ideas after the fact, but I never make a drawing with a painting in mind. It would kill the drawing.

F: Do you have a phrase before you start your text works or do you start painting and it naturally occurs?
AG: I usually have a phrase, but it’s not really realized until I sit down to paint. It’s usually words that have been bouncing around my head. Then I’m able to paint. So, it’s pretty spontaneous. At the same time it comes almost from my subconscious, what I’ve been dealing with in my life brought to the surface. Memories, issues I’m dealing with at the time. They could be from that morning to past relationships months ago. The phrases are real, not fictitious.

F: There are multiple reads and layers in your work from the construction of the image and the text. Can you talk about how you build up the surface? There is a lot going on with an assemblage of burlap and muslin over the canvas. Can you talk about the different materials you are using in your work.
AG: I almost just said it’s ok to be arbitrary, but yeah nothing really is, even if we try. Everything comes from a memory(inside ourselves) or is a response to a given situation, personal or political. The paint handling is the voice. And I’m all about double-entendres when I can be. I’m just as confused as anyone else and I really respect the courage to be vulnerable in one’s work. Love it or hate it:) I try to put as much of me in the work as I can. By this I mean mainly the aura, but you can’t really force that one.

AG: I’ve always been interested in materials and the muslin and plaster of paris allow the paint to be absorbed, kinda like a freso. The burlap obviously allows for a rough surface, that kills the brushes, but adds a variant. I usually get into various materials through happenstance, i.e. people will give me the fabrics or trinkets:) As of late, I’m using mainly just paint on canvas.

F: The surface seems really worked up how many layers levels do you go through? Is there a call and response in your process?
AG: I always start on a fresh canvas except maybe once I painted over another patinging. I don’t like thinking about the older painting while I’m making a new painting on top of it. It’s kind of sad, like I’m killing the older painting because it wasn’t good enough. Yeah, it’s sad all around. I don’t really see my work as having layers, I mean I don’t old mastery techniques. I guess by using varying materials, it creates layers. I have no idea how many. Every piece is a variation. There is a call and response method in my paintings, but I don’t just dive in. Of course I have a working idea of what I want.

F: It seems like a lot of stuff is created in the moment and very personal. Do you ever step back after completing a painting and have the urge or need to self censor?
AG: No, but my mom tries to make me sometimes. I mean there is probably only one person besides myself who would know what the work is about and that is the person whom the work is about. It’s really pretty cryptic. I have had many panic attacks feeling everyone knows this and that relationship described in the painting, but they don’t.

F: Can you describe the narrative in creating the work.
AG: The work often comes from ruminations. Phrases that stick with me after I leave a conversation. A lot of the time the imagery isn’t linked to the text. Or maybe subtly. It often starts from a dark place and the work is a way to process and by the end of the piece I’m usually laughing at the previous ‘serious’ situation.

F: You just recently moved studios. How was that process? Were you able to pick up where you left off?
AG: I’ve never had windows before, so that was a huge change. Actually I’m not a real fan of sunlight and kind of miss the grittiness of my last studio which I’d had for 8 years. But it was time to change and this studio has more wall space and is a bit bigger. Give me another month and it will be just as grimey:) My studio mate is great and we’re supportive of each other. It is about a 10 min walk from home as opposed to the two miles.

F: Can you start with describing your process? How do you start your paintings? It feels like you are not painting from observation. Do they start with sketches and sources or more from memory?

J: My process usually begins by reflecting upon recent paintings made within the last year and looking at what the larger narrative might be. I usually start by drawing directly on the canvas working from my imagination. Nothing is precious in the studio, and I allow myself to build and destroy anything that doesn’t feel right. This most recent body of work started by feeling compelled to discuss the current political atmosphere and its relationship to certain tropes of heteronormative masculinity. It’s a strange time in our human history and it frightens me. Most of the paintings evolve through the process of discovery and when all the figures and scenes feel right, then I begin working in details from some pictures or preparatory sketches, but mostly it’s out of my own head.

F: Your work explicitly confronts a male point of view. There’s a conflict between excessive masculinity and also a (non-literal) castration of the figures. Can you talk a bit about this and where you see your paintings going from here?

J:For many reasons, the male point of view is a wellspring of creativity for me. There’s a mythology wrapped up within a gaze that is forever fascinating. I began making these portraits because I wanted the audience to come face to face with the angry male populism that is pervading our cultural and political environment. I believe it is a larger influence than what most of us want to imagine.

You’re right to pick up on a non-literal castration. I keep thinking of what Nicole Eisenman said about gender (She’s one of my favorite painters), how she wishes gender would just go away, and I agree basically. However, gender has shaped so much of our history, and it still pervades in so many ways that I feel compelled to paint its flaws. The castration of the figures is a wishful nod to the obsolescence of male superiority. And this at times has taken on an implosive, or self destructive quality to the figures. However, with the recent larger paintings, I felt the need to illuminate the outward destructive forces as well. It’s 2016 but in many ways our systems are medieval.

Where will I will go from here? After a body of work has been completed, I always want to completely change my direction and paint something else, or make sculpture. But so far, I always come back to the body in painting. I ruminate constantly on how many people there are in the world and what impact were having upon it, and I have a compulsion to discuss our modern conflicts. There was an article written a year or so ago that spoke of the body as a failure in art and the wonderful things that come along with those “failures”, and that imperfect challenge always engages my creative mind.

F: There’s a non specificity in the places and subject – the figures climbing over a fence could be an airport or a shopping mall. The group of male portraits could be off duty police officers or southern farmers. Do you feel that by paring down the specifics you can get closer to describing the characters and places?

J: I find that a bit of non specificity can be used to engage the imagination of a viewer. Each person brings their trunk of experience when analyzing an image, and this subjectivity helps feed the core of our continual interest in a work of art. Most places I’ve seen in the world have the similar, human-made landscapes-all from the 20th century. Parking lot buildings, old factories and airports all have that same utilitarian look. We are all familiar with these places. Portraits, too, have this ability to make us try and identify the individual, either from memory or picking up on visual cues to familiarize ourselves with that “type” of person.

F: You create characters placing them in certain scenarios or loose narratives that sometimes border on magic realism. Where do these narratives come about? Are they based on news stories? They seem very American like from American folktales.

J: The narratives usually begin to formulate from outside events, both fictional and real. If I’m reading the newspaper or a book and there is a moment that strikes my imagination then I’ll use that as an entry point to begin a painting, but I don’t fixate upon it. I let it unfold and evolve over time. Some of the recent work plays with themes of American folklore and our fascination with shows like Duck Dynasty. This myth of manifest destiny that has pervaded as a dominant narrative in our country is terrifying how it keeps moving through time as an influence, like some ghost we can’t get rid of.

F: What is a typical studio day like?

J: Once I’m in my studio, I try to unplug from the world to keep the wheels spinning. I’ll get some music playing or a podcast going and suit up with gloves and my apron. I have to trick myself into picking up the paintbrush, so I’ll start by looking at what needs work, adjustment, change of color. I’ll fix a small thing, and once I’m painting, its leads to an escalation of engagement with the material. There are frustrations abound, but leaps of enjoyment speckled here and there.

F: How long does it take to produce a painting?

J: I think every painter wrestles with this question and I don’t think there is a given answer. Some paintings can happen quick and fresh. But it can be suspect. You work on something and it looks great….too great, and you have to come to terms with its existence. Then there’s this point where you have to bust it up, and at that moment, you reach a place within a painting where there’s something deeper that comes to fruition. For me, a challenge of building the unknown and bring it into the world is more important than obsessing over its aesthetic. Some paintings take years, while others are made in a few weeks.

We visited Sarah Faux just as she was getting ready for her solo show at Stems Gallery in Brussels. Her studio, in the massive 17-17 Troutman building, we talked about her exploration in texture and color in her work and the analogous relationship between the body and paint.

In addition to her solo show, Sarah Faux’s work will also be shown at the Stems Gallery booth at NADA on May 5-8th.

F:I noticed that there are exposed parts of the painting where it seems that you dyed the ground and other parts where you left the canvas completely exposed. Can you talk about how you start a painting and how you determine what kind of ground you start with?

S:I try to work on a lot of paintings at once start each with different ground preparations like absorbent gesso that shows the texture of the canvas or slick, resistant oil ground or dyed fabric primed with something clear. I typically have an image in mind or at a minimum a color palette that functions as a jumping off point for figuring out the ground. Lately I’ve been drawn to brighter, more resistant surfaces, so that I can use paint more like watercolor, with the surface itself glowing through transparent layers. One thing I really get off on is watching a color change as a single brush mark passes from an impermeable surface onto an absorbent one. I prime most of my canvases with mixed surface preps so that the ground will shift beneath the image.

F:In several paintings the same image is used with different color palettes. Do you start from sketches or is it more organic where one painting leads to the next?

S:Lately I’ve been making pairs where I’ll use the same image twice. The pieces aren’t quite diptychs, but I do intend for them to be hung next to each other. I don’t think of this approach as switching palettes, although that’s part of it. My real aim is to complicate one sensory moment by depicting it with two different emotional tenors. Like in a recent pair, “Prickly Things” and “Blacklight”, someone is licking her own nipple, but each painting is a totally different recollection of the event. One’s bright, airy and dizzy, the other gritty, acidic and lurid. The image is conveyed in two different painting languages as well, with varying levels of legibility.

F:There’s a certain amount of sexuality and semi-autobiographical narratives built into the images. Can you talk about the subject matter?

S:I think a lot in analogies between the substance of paint and bodily fluid. Like oil paint being a physical oily skin, or poured pigment reading as blood, urine, semen… The physicality of paint and the experience of living inside a fleshy mass are intertwined for me. And I experience the dichotomy of my own body as both an object and agent when I’m in a state of heightened physical sensation. So, sexuality comes into play a lot.

I’m also painting from a distinctly feminine perspective, and in the real world sexuality and the sexual agency of women is often policed and controlled, put into neat categories. By painting between figuration and abstraction, I’m embracing ambiguity and the knowledge that sex is complex: calm, violent, pleasurable, sad, joyful… I think the unpredictable nature of oil paint can get closer to what real sexuality is like.

F:One thing I notice immediately is the vocabulary of marks you have built up on each canvas but something that also stands out is the different surface textures in the work. Can you talk a bit about the variety of surface texture in your work?

S:For a long time I thought of the canvas as completely analogous to the body, one surface equaled one person. I wanted to create surface depth within that body that could mimic this imagined person’s psychological depth. People have their own areas of openness, points of resistance, aspects of themselves that are on the surface, feelings that are more hidden. While I am less rigid in my compositions these days, I still want the surface itself to be analogous to the content, so that propels me to find new textures to respond to.

F:The scale of the painting is about the size of the body. Is scale a big factor in how your work is produced? When you work small vs large do you scale up the size of the marks?

S:I like working large these days, on painting that are taller and wider than me. This scale is full of possibility, like a wide open field. When I work small, I inevitably end up thinking of the paintings as objects, and so I’ll paint objects on them, eyes, hands, scissors, etc. I do like that on a small scale, if you don’t scale down the marks, suddenly one brush stroke takes up half the canvas.

F:Can you describe your studio space?

S:I’ve got my own space with 8 ft. walls within a shared larger room. Its got great natural light, about 300 sq. ft., lots of folding things and movable parts so I can rearrange according to my work flow. I move things from the wall to the floor or to sawhorses a lot and work on many pieces at once, so things are constantly shifting position every day. A lot of times I’ll leave my paintings hanging upside down overnight so when I get back the next day I can see them with fresh eyes.

F:How long have you been here and what do you look for in a workspace?

S:I just moved in in September, and I’m subletting from a friend. It seemed like the perfect fit since it’s private enough that I can feel totally alone, but I’ve got inspiring, respectful studio mates who make awesome lunch dates. I’m pretty adaptable though, I look for privacy, wall space and light. After catching tons of colds this winter, I’m realizing that warmth should also be a factor!

F:What does an average day in studio look like?

S:I usually come in the late morning and dick around a bit while I stare at whatever work’s in progress. I’ll drink tons of tea and eat lots of trail mix until I can finally put some music on and concentrate. Whenever I do settle in to paint, I end up getting so engaged that I’ll want to make a move on every single painting that’s in progress, so I’ll jump from one piece to the next. Ultimately I’ll end up staying kind of late and leave exhausted, emptied and starving.

F:What can we see from you in the future? What projects are underway?

S:I have an upcoming solo show, my first ever, at Stems Gallery in Brussels. That opens on June 2nd, and I’m finishing up the work for it now. I’m also doing a booth with Stems at NADA in New York in May.

We met with Josh Sperling in his Industry City studio in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. To get to his space, we passed through a furniture studio and walked into his meticulously organized studio reflecting the precision in his work. Each piece is carefully planned out to the wooden structures underneath to how he stretches the canvas on top. There were pieces in mid-process laid out on the tables like puzzle pieces as completed interlocking canvas works hung on walls. We talked to Josh as he was getting ready for his two-man show with his childhood friend Sam Friedman at Joshua Liner Gallery.

‘From the Cradle to the Grave’ opened January 7 and runs through February 6, 2016 at Joshua Liner Gallery.

F: What is your process?

J: I start with an idea and then begin drawing it on the computer. I do not hand sketch. Once the overall composition is finished each individual piece is designed to minimize weight while maintaining strength. All the pieces are layed out on a 4’ x 8’ file and sent to a cnc machine to be cut out of plywood. I receive the shapes, assemble the parts, and then stretch the canvas by hand. This is the most challenging part of the process. After the canvas is stretched it is painted and varnished with acrylics. Finally each part is attached to others to assemble a whole painting.

F: Do you see your work as more sculptural or painting?

J: If they live on a wall and are viewed head on they are paintings. If they live in the middle of a room and are viewed from multiple angles they are sculptures. Up until this point I have concentrated mostly on wall pieces made of acrylic on canvas over wood. I consider these paintings.

F: Does the wrapping of the canvas dictate what the shapes will be or the scale at which they can exist?

J: Yes. Any shape is possible to stretch with canvas if you cut the sidewalls. I have been opposed to this because it has helped me better understand the stretching process and it is cleaner. I design my shapes to be able to stretch without cutting the sidewalls. This in general means larger, curving shapes.

F: I notice that you do not paint the sides of your objects, keeping the the unprimed canvas exposed. Why is that?

J: I do not paint the sides because I want my work to be considered paintings. This is an older tradition in painting. It also shows off the craftsmanship of the stretching.

F: What’s your process for the larger interlocking works? How do you take in consideration wrapping of the canvas within the interlocking structures?

J: I design the shapes with the slightest bit of play between them. When the canvas is stretched it fills these small spaces between shapes and the pieces interlock perfectly.

F: Do you see the shapes that are created by the stretching of the canvas as linear moves almost akin to drawing?

J: Yeah. Certain shapes, especially the squiggles, definitely give that feeling. The movement they create is a direct reference to drawing.

F: There is a certain amount of satisfaction that I get by seeing the structures pre-wrapped, Obviously, I have the chance to see them this way in your studio but have you ever thought about presenting them without the stretched canvas? Or would this change the conversation you want to have about painting?

J: At this point in time I do not want to reveal the structures underneath. I feel that I have yet to fully explore or simply get bored with the canvas wrapped structures. I have thought about exposing them at a certain point down the line but not yet.

F: Do you determine the colors in the digital stage or do you construct the objects first and then determine the colors?

J: I determine the colors digitally but inevitably about a quarter of the colors change once I begin to see how the colored shapes interact in real life.

F: The local color of the object and the shadows are determined by the lighting situation. Some colors seem flatter; the neon colors seem to flatten out the whole shape while other colors give more depth. How do you determine the color and depth you want in each painting?

J: I choose the colors based on their interaction without taking into consideration their individual ability of showing light and shadow. I am beginning to understand individual colors ability to reflect and absorb light but have not fully reached a complete understanding. In general lighter colors have more contrast with their shadows and darker shadows have more contrast with their highlights. This aspect of the work is extremely interesting to me and I strive to create the most dynamic shades within each color.

F: With the wall piece are they each individual shapes or are they recurring? Is it considered one piece or multiples (like prints)?

J: The squiggle wall piece is considered one piece. Each piece was designed individually but arranged on the wall specifically to interact within the whole. After this the colors were chosen also taking into consideration the whole piece. It is a giant painting made up of individual marks that just happen to be paintings.

F: Can you talk a little bit about your studio? How long have you been here and what do you look for in a studio?

J: My studio is in Sunset Park, Brooklyn in a complex of large buildings called Industry City. I have been in my studio for a year but I have had other studios in Industry City before this one. I share a large wood shop with a group of cabinet makers. Within that wood shop I have a private space. These 2 spaces are what I look for in a studio. A dirty wood shop space where I can build my structures and a separate, clean space where I can stretch, paint, and store my work.

F: You work alongside furniture and cabinet makers, do you feel that that has influenced your work?

J: In a technical way. I observe the materials, tools and joinery techniques they use and occasionally adapt one of their building methods.

F: What is a typical day in studio like?

J: Typical is sipping on small black dunkin donuts ice coffee and listening to outlaw country music

F: Your work is very concise and methodical. What’s the most satisfying part in your process?

J: The most satisfying part is finishing a painting and seeing it for the first time. My paintings are made from multiple parts that do not get assembled until the very end of the process. I see the separate parts progress but I never see them assembled on a wall until the last step. After all the hard work suddenly having your idea come to life is the best.

Morgan Blair’s live/work studio is located in a converted two-story garage in Ridgewood, Queens. The neighborhood is quiet and the building is largely inconspicuous despite her recent foray into murals. We talked about her process where texture and masking dominate and where she sources her imagery from (Youtube tutorials, Seinfeld and Cheetos to name a few). In our short time in her work space, we got a glimpse into her massive VHS collection and a few of the quirks in her studio including a CD rainbow that occurs at 3pm everyday.

Morgan Blair has shown at Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, Nudashank, and White Walls Gallery. Her work is included in the group show “Pattern:::Chaos” at Cinders Gallery which runs until Oct 2.

F: First, how do you start your paintings?

MB: I often start on the internet looking around for an image that I think could be interesting abstracted and/or repeated in a pattern. I go through phases of collecting screenshots from people’s homemade tutorial videos on youtube where someone is demonstrating how to do a craft project or cook a certain food. There are usually some good close-ups on the person’s hands doing something where the whole situation becomes slightly obscured and ends up looking like mostly abstract shapes but with some recognizable elements like fingers or fruit or something. Sometimes I look specifically for tutorials on fruit-based projects, like how to make your own edible arrangement, or how to carve a flower out of a watermelon. There’s also a website I love where people post photos with step-by-step instructions for how to do really specific things. Some of them are amazing because they’ll be like someone’s blurry photos unironically showing how to make a piece of toast which looks like total shit in the end. I found one, I forget what the end result was supposed to be, but the instructions involved soaking a smashed brick of ramen noodles, crushing up a bag of cheetos and then dumping the waterlogged noodles into the bag of crushed up cheetos and squishing it all around together until it was a paste, and then like rolling it into a log to eat. I think it was someone’s totally earnest, alternative burrito invention. So, part of my process is getting distracted by stuff like that in the beginning. Then I play around with the image in photoshop and come up with a pattern, project and trace it onto my surface, and start filling in the shapes. The rest of the time, when all that planning out feels unsatisfying, I just draw a pattern piece by piece onto the surface without knowing what it will be, which is a lot harder for me and makes me spend a lot more time looking at it and thinking.

F: There are these textural elements to your paintings that feel very organic and painterly that contrast with the hard edge gradients. How does that fit into your process? Do you start digitally and then paint? How do the painterly textures come about within your process?

MB: The sandy textures I sometimes use are there to interrupt and contrast the flatness of the rest of the painting and introduce a different kind of space. I also tend to use the airbrush to make scribbly, mottled-looking but flat areas of pattern that might end up looking like they’re in from a second-life scene or video game. I like using that kind of texture to mimic sections of blurry background from whatever image I’m referencing. I usually think a few steps ahead about where the sections of texture will be, so I don’t forget that I want them in there and just plow through them with flat gradients.

F: The shapes in your paintings are very reminiscent of 80s and 90s textile patterns with some pieces like Helen Hunt’s 1968 Snow Globe Containing Vision of Future 1994 Grocery List, Mariah Carey CD and Quack is Wack actually having a repeating pattern. Even the color palette feels very retro. Can you talk about how the abstract shapes are formed as well as how you choose your color palettes?

MB: The shapes in my work are either abstracted from whatever screenshot or still I’m working from, or made up out of nowhere as I work, as in the two pieces you mentioned. In the latter case, it usually happens more easily if I have the pressure and parameters of a specific encroaching deadline with a topic attached (such as, “ducks”), that forces me to come up with something without over-thinking it. Otherwise, if I’m working off an image from the internet, I usually trace and retrace the shapes in the image, first in photoshop, then onto acetate, then onto my surface, so they get looser and more morphed every time they are retraced. That way I can start to let go of the original image any impulse to accurately reproduce it. Color palettes are generated somewhat randomly without too much thought. I just kind of shuffle around bottles of paint until I have a combination that feels new. Or, sometimes I lift color palettes off of video covers or clothes I have.

F: There are a variety of different shaped panels that you use for your paintings including squares, rectangles, and circles. Can you talk a little bit about this decision?

MB:I started using shaped panels when my friend offered some to me that he had made and didn’t have a use for. I don’t have any conceptual reason for using them that relates to my subject matter, but I like switching up the format for variety’s sake and being able to hang the circular panels so the imagery and patterns on them can be more immediately recognizable or less, depending on the orientation of the circle.

F: Since this is a studio visit blog, can you describe your studio space?

MB: I share a live-work space with my boyfriend, in Ridgewood, Queens. It’s a two-story garage with a side room that we made into a kitchen. Out front is a big driveway that houses all our landlord’s junk, and where Nick built a shed and a quarter pipe and a compost bin and some garden beds for tomatoes. Inside, the bottom floor is our studio. The front wall has sections that open up barn door-style, and in between those is a section of glass bricks that let in some good light. We’ve kind of divided the room into our own halves, with my half towards the back.

MB: On my back wall is a glass door that opens to a very shallow alley between our building and the next building, where there’s a bunch of bricks and other refuse. We started seeing an awesome orange cat back there so we dragged a tv cabinet off the street and wedged it back there and made it into a cat hotel with little nest-beds, two egresses, plastic sealing it all in, the works. Duffles, the orange cat, hunkered down there a lot this past winter, which was super cool because we could watch him nap through the glass door. And once a huge raccoon came through. Other than that… there’s just a bunch of ordinary art stuff around – lots of shelves with supplies and books, paint, etc. My flat files miraculously fit exactly, like within a half inch, against a little stretch of wall between the bathroom and the end of the wall next to the stairs. The surface of the flat files is the main resting place for stuff on it’s way to a more permanent location. Currently there are Pat Berran and Ben Sanders paintings waiting to be hung, a few small paintings of ours, a jar of red sand from Utah, a bone, a bike light, a dish of rocks, a bag of sage, three disposable cameras, a deck of cat cards, and two piles of books. There’s a cd on the little window sill in the corner of Nick’s side of the studio that casts a big rainbow onto the wall and ceiling every day around 3, which is cool. Overall the whole place has a good, do-whatever-you-want feel.

F: How long have you been here and what do you look for in a workspace?

MB: We’ve been here one year now. Before that, I still lived in Ridgewood but had a studio in our friend Maya’s space in Williamsburg, which was fun, too. But, since I got a job a few years ago I started wishing I could have my studio at home again (or, live at my studio?), so it would be easier to get into my own work at the end of the day without debating with myself all the time if I had the energy to go to the studio after work. With our situation now, I like being able to work late without then having to bike half an hour home when I’m already tired. And I like having access to my whole vhs collection to watch while I work if I feel like dragging the tv/vcr downstairs. Being in New York, of course the most important thing I look for in a workspace is a good price per square foot, which is so hard to find now and inspires rage every time I have to look for a new spot. But, this place is pretty cheap and all the outdoor space and our weird and quiet surroundings are nice. The light and temperature are decent, too. If I was in a place where I had choices beyond the most basic functionalities, I might allow myself to indulge in the fantasy of some additional studio features such as 5,000 more square feet and a cat sanctuary.

F:What does an average day in studio look like?

MB: When I have the whole day to work and am in the middle of a painting I pretty much just hunker down and spend all day going between cutting and sealing contact paper, filling in those shapes with the airbrush, peeling off the contact paper (my favorite part, maybe even the true secret motivation behind the whole endeavor), and continuing on the next layer of shapes. When I’m not in the middle of a painting, I dick around a lot with other stuff like emails and plants and cleaning and other projects before I can force myself to start something new.

F: What are you working on next?

MB: I just painted a mural in Prospect Heights, went on vacation in some western states, and overhauled my website which were all long-impending projects, so now I have to face my plans of starting a painting based on someone doing a weird strawberry finger-puppet thing on youtube. Then I’m in a little group show at Good Work Gallery opening in early October. Then I’m going Portland, Maine in early/mid October to paint a mural there, and then I have to think about making some new work for a small group show I’m in at Left Field in CA, in March.

You can check out more of Morgan Blair’s work at her website www.morganblair.com

In conjunction with curator and artist, Steve Mykietyn of Orgy Park, we visited Robin Kang‘s spacious studio located in Ridgewood, Queens.

Focusing on weaving, fibers, and collage, Robin Kang utilizes these various techniques to transport the viewer to a place where the abstract and real meet with all of its plans and imperfections. Enlisting techniques of photoshopping imagery, Robin systemizes this with a high tech loom machine that tells which parts of the threads can go up or down according to the imagery. Her practise takes on modes of research in very tactile ways that absorbs the viewer into touch or ideas outside of fine art and into craft and pattern. We talked about her process, the history of weaving and how digital technologies have played a role in her work.

F & S: Can you talk about your process?

R: As in all weaving processes, there is a considerable amount of time and work that goes into the setup of the loom. Warp measuring, winding, and threading can take months. Usually, I wind on very long warps that will then be used for several projects back to back. With the loom set up, each work begins with a research and digital sketching stage. Source material from my research on early computer hardware and historic ethnographic weaving symbolism become a jumping off point for my digitally generated images. After I’m satisfied with an image, it gets translated into a series of weave structures made up of black and white pixels. This is the binary language that my loom understands, either the thread lifts or stays down. Currently, I am using a TC-2 digital Jacquard loom, which utilizes an exciting mixture of contemporary technology and hand weaving. Then, I hand weave a series of tests for the file with different potential yarn colors, textures, and variations. Each weft thread is woven by hand, so there is creative freedom for changing colors and using unusual materials as well. Selections from these tests will become the final works.

F & S: What inspires your interest in making artwork?

R:I’m very interested in the history of weaving and its connections with memory, technology, and communication all conglomerated within an object of usefulness. Additionally, I find satisfaction in the rhythmic and repetitive process of creating the cloth. Cultures all over the planet have engaged in various forms of weaving for centuries, so it is a deeply rich craft to study.

F & S:How did you go from working with collage and printmaking into weaving?

R:My background with creating compositions digitally is very important for working with this particular type of loom since there is a considerable amount of process that goes into the file set up. In a way, it lead me to it. I found myself creating prints that were referencing patterns inspired by textiles and pixelated grid related structures. Learning to weave was a logical next step. There are many similarities with the two process-heavy mediums that still allow for a wide range of improvisation. Now I’m able to create digital images with interlocking threads instead of ink!

F & S:The reference images that appear in your wall pieces come from early technology, can you talk a bit about your findings and decision process?

R:The Jacquard loom has a historical relationship to technological development, and argued by some to be an ancestor to the invention of the computer as it was the first machine to use a punch card system. Additionally, there was a moment in computer history when computers stored data in woven copper wire grids called Ferrite Memory Cores. Researching these beautiful and often hand woven early computer parts became a source of inspiration.

F & S:You recently bought a loom, what new things do you think it will inspire you to create?

R:After utilizing similar looms in another location for several years I decided to take the plunge and get one. Having access to this amazing tool whenever I want has proved so far to be invaluable for the amount of works that I have been able to produce. Additionally, my loom has a capability to weave projects up to 58” wide, which opens tons of possibilities for future projects. It still very much feels like a shiny new toy for me with so much to explore!

F & S:You are also involved with organizing and curating art shows can you talk about your ideas with these? How do you feel that informs your practice?

R:While in grad school at SAIC I ran a small apartment gallery called the Carousel Space Project. I learned so much from that experience and really enjoyed working with other artists that I admired. When I moved back to Brooklyn, I looked for ways to engage with the flourishing Bushwick community in the same way. When a space connected to my studio opened up, I was in the setup stage with my loom so I decided using it for pop-up exhibitions would be a much needed creative outlet. That project space, and also my loom, have been named Penelope. Curating is something that I really enjoy, and I think it’s important for the artist community to have non-commercial exhibition opportunities that encourage experimentation.

F & S:Are these designs created on photoshop or another digital process? How do you anticipate the translation between the digital set up/digital drawing and then the process of physically weaving them?

R:Though I usually use photoshop, there are several ways that you can approach creating files that are compatible with the loom. The process involves a series of steps that translate digital images into weave structures. These determine the way the threads interlock and which ones are visible on the surface of the cloth. Then, the hand weaving aspect is actually very similar to that of a floor loom, using shuttles and bobbins of chosen weft yarns. The exciting part of the process is that, the translation from computer to weaving is never exactly what you expect. Every step has a surprising amount of variables that can drastically change the outcome of the final weaving.

F & S:There is a long history of weaving and see a juxtaposition or even an inherent conflict between the process and application. Do you see it as a conflict between this digital and physical thing or more of an extension of a long lineage of weaving and a logical next step?

R:I see what I’m doing as highlighting the relationships that have already existed between two seemingly unrelated fields. For me, it feels like a logical next step that blends processes from the past, present, and potentially the future. Manifesting something tactile from the digital is really exciting.

F & S:In our visit you hinted at certain traditional ‘correct’ ways of going about weaving in order to achieve a certain amount of ‘good craftsmanship’. How do you navigate through this with the long history of weaving and still have the ability to explore the the material?

R:Compared to lifelong weavers, I’m still relatively novice in terms of certain aspects of craftsmanship that takes years of considerable practice to develop. So, I decided to embrace my mistakes as part of the beauty produced by a handmade process. Sometimes I choose to even highlight these errors by leaving dangling broken threads or wild messy selvages on my finished works. They are handmade glitches, and sometimes I find the mistakes are the best part.

F & S:Your work hangs on the wall reminiscent of antique rugs, very much objects found in craft or collectables, how has your dialogue developed working alongside these sets of formal composing ideas?

R:So far I have used the mode of presentation to play with various ways a viewer may have interacted with textiles in their past. For instance, a precious antique cloth at a museum might be framed under glass or carefully hand stitched to stretched linen, while a folk art tapestry might hang in a home from a dowel rod. Different works seem to call for different presentation modes that fit their personality.

F & S:What can we see from you in the future? What projects are underway?

R:I anticipate a long summer of quality loom time weaving some new projects that I’ve recently designed. Additionally, there are a few curatorial projects currently on view in Brooklyn (Static Cling 2 at BAM, Neo-Craftivism at The Parlour Bushwick) and an upcoming one in the Upper East Side. The fall will also be busy with an amazing group textile exhibition in LA and a great lineup at Penelope. Details for all of these can be found on my social media outlets.

You can see more of Robin Kang’s work at robinkang.org.

As an artist, Jennifer ties in ‘bad humor’ through the use of found material and working on top of it with an almost academic execution. She appropriates these different vocabularies like inkjet printouts and cartoons found online, and combining them in the work. At first, these different vocabularies seem haphazard but on closer inspection the work is extremely meticulous and specific. Jennifer’s work talks about proficiency and brings about a sense of nostalgia by her use of appropriating these high school drawing aesthetics and twisting it with a bad joke.

Jennifer Lee is an artist living and working in Bushwick, Brooklyn and you can take a look at her Sister window project across the street from the Maria Hernandez Park off the Jefferson L stop. ‘the beautiful room is empty’ featuring the work of Daniel Fairbanks is currently on view until May 17th at Sister.

F: Can you talk about your process?
J: My process is varied in terms of how it starts out. Sometimes its how something is going to look, sometimes it starts with the object itself. I always try to find humor in my work. It gives me a sense of perspective and a clear way to understand the relationship between art making and the way it is received. One of my early pieces I did in high school was this bad pastel drawing of Dr. Kevorkian. It was kind of accidental in that it ended up looking like a joke, but there was this light around his face that made him look god-like, and doing the portrait in pastels made this association more clear. It wasn’t meant to be irreverent towards him but for me, it ended up being pretty funny. I do love bad jokes!! I guess you could say that cliches enforce a type of complacency and working with the obvious “bad-joke” type of material you are dealing with that complacency in some way, or at least calling attention to it.

Image courtesy of the Artist

F: Your work is very meticulously and academically done but at the same time, you’re appropriating objects such as cardboard from a cat food dispenser and giving it the same amount of importance. Can you talk about that relationship?
J: I wouldn’t say that I consciously affect an academic style, more that I am trying to paint neutrally, which I guess has that kind of history to it. Although I will say that I think academia was something to rebel against in the early part of modernism, then it went back to academia i.e. Baldessari style in the late 60s, so maybe I feel like we have had an “academic moment” in this stage of art history. It is hardly as defined as that for me though; like if i find something peculiar at a thrift store, or on the internet, then I might want to add to it or accentuate its weirdness via superimposition. Like the cat food dispenser juxtaposed with a medieval video game image, I really have no idea what the relationship means, but it struck me as I was culling images alongside this cat-box and it seems to work intuitively. As far as the tightness in my work, again I strive for a neutral style, but also enjoy the contradiction in appropriating or collaging an image “by hand”, like it would be so much easier to just stick the photo on the box or silk screen it or something but it gains a humanness that I think has more potential for comedy.

F: Where are you finding your references from?
J: I’ll take materials from anywhere really but I love searching at thrift stores for bric-a-brac and of course random google searching.

F: Can you talk about your live/work space?
J: I live in a two bedroom apartment that I share with my partner Zuriel Waters who is also an artist. We sleep in the living room and use the two bedrooms as separate workspaces. We have lived here for about 5 years, we moved to NYC after grad school in 2010 and this was our first apartment.

F:Can you talk about your ‘Sister’ window space gallery?
J: Sister lives in my studio window which is ground level and facing the street. It is on the corner of Starr and Irving in Bushwick. At 5pm (4pm in the winter) we have a light that turns on which is technically when the gallery opens. At night the window lights up and the artwork becomes very easy to see and illuminates the street almost like a beacon. The physical gallery space is remade for each project but the window itself is about 30” square, so obviously the work we show has to be pretty small. Because of this the shows end up being more collaborative and site-specific. Also that means we are limited in terms of what we can show (small things) but on the other hand we can very easily do projects with artists that live far away since the shipping is so affordable.

F: How does this project relate to your own work?
J: I think that the first impulse for me to make Sister was actually humor, the old ‘NY real estate is so expensive we could rent out our window’ thing; like it could be a new yorker cartoon or something. Now it has become much more than that but the absurdity about it is still there which is important. More importantly though is the act of collaborating and connecting with other artists which is a really enriching experience. The fact that I can go on with Sister really without anyone’s permission and that I can offer shows to people who I think deserve them is amazing and genuinely uplifting!

F: The idea of a window is to look out of and instead, your ‘Sister’ window gallery project is allowing people on the street to look in. Can you talk about how this idea came about?
J: My neighbor a few windows down started putting things in his window like an Elvis bust, and I always thought it was a funny idea, and impressed at how actually visible it was as a thing. I thought that it would be conceivable that a small space lit up with some of the signifiers of a gallery could possibly exist in a way if it took itself seriously enough.

F: You personally don’t get to see and interact with your window project works. Do you keep these pieces in mind when you work or do you consider it a separate entity?
J: I do consider them separate when i am in my studio, only because there is a glowing box in my window that feels more like a giant lamp. But every month I have to start preparing for the next show which does take a lot of studio time.

F: How do you choose and curate the work that goes into the window gallery?
J: Well the project sort of originated with conversations I had been having with my friends Terry Young and Christina Fisher who were the first two shows. Not all artists would be interested or have a flexible enough practice for the window so whenever we see something that would work we try to pursue it. So far we have shows lined up through the end of the year including Peter Wilson, Lisa Cobbe, Faith La Rocque and Cooper Holoweski who are all people that we happen to know socially or through school, but we are not opposed to submissions either.

F: Can you share the response you’ve been receiving with this project?
J: All the responses so far have been great, especially from my landlord’s mother

You can see more of Jennifer Lee’s work at jjlee.org and learn more about Sister at sisterbushwick.com

F: Can you talk about your process and how you start your projects?

C: I’m interested in thresholds and boundaries, both psychologically and physically. I look for behaviors that express a duality, a subtext – when a gesture appears to be dominating, but is ultimately an expression of vulnerability; when a person appears under control, but you can sense an unraveling; sexual desire that hovers between violence and pleasure – the moment or space when a behavior changes from being exactly what you anticipate, to the complete opposite.
I find these dynamics in everything; I seek them out. I guess that’s the beginning of everything. I think I am most comfortable in those states— high intensity, uncertainty, with an implied boundary.
I write about these experiences, and try to understand their origins. I perform sketches, and make drawings and photographs before I start experimenting with more people in rehearsals.

F: You start your projects with movie stills, drawings, sketches and photos that you have taken yourself. How do the films evolve throughout the project?

C: I talk about the scenes a lot.  It’s all very psychological and I intuitively understand it sometimes to the degree that I no longer see it. The way people don’t see themselves. Talking about it and performing it, even having someone repeat it back to me in their own language helps me to understand it. Those conversations shape the piece in progress, and that is really what rehearsals are—a visual conversation.

F: Is it as much a collaborative project with the performers and people that you work with? Can you talk more about that?

C: It has to be collaborative when you are working with so many people.  The performers bring themselves to the work, and that is important. I choose and direct them to a certain point, but I don’t want to control every detail. I’m interested in communicating the idea and I like to remain open to the different interpretations of that idea when I watch people in rehearsals. It would be boring if everyone translated a task or a feeling in the same way.
I learn more precisely what I want by watching it unfold, which is the nature of my work.
When I work with a crew, they are as much a part of the collaborative process as the performers. It’s a small crew and everyone has multiple roles to fulfill.
I work with people that understand the power dynamics at play in my work. I like being able to work with all of these really talented people, who bring something different to the table.

F: It seems like a very demanding process and very taxing to the performers. How does this play into your work?

C: Are you relating the challenging physicality involved for the performers to the challenges involved in producing the work? I’ve realized that I am actually performing the same thresholds as a director that I am asking of the performers in the work.
Because I’m not performing in the work as much these days, I think I recreate that physical challenge by pushing myself as a director. It’s become about the process of making these videos and testing myself- how far I can push myself physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.
Of course, there’s the belief that asking people to perform physically exhausting tasks is sort of sadistic, but I think a lot of people like that challenge – it’s gratifying.

F: Some of your earlier videos include you as one the performers. How did this change the overall piece and why have you decided to not include yourself?

C: Since grad school I’ve been in most of the work, but not usually in obvious ways.  I tend to hide, but I wouldn’t say that I’ve decided not to include myself. I am still performing in the recent works. I’ve become a director because I’m working with more people.
I still come up with the gestures, positions, and choreography by practicing and then photographing it.  I like figuring things out that way, because I intuitively know something is good when I am physically doing it. Unfortunately for the performers, I usually know it’s good when it hurts.  

F: The performers backgrounds are mainly in dance. How does this change the way you communicate your ideas or convey what your concept is? Does this change the overall feel of the film?

C: I approach the films as a visual artist and generally everything I ask the dancers to do is something I have done.  I think we bring different things to the work because of that.
Everyone uses their body to communicate, it’s universal. As a woman and an artist performing in images, I’ve always been very attuned to that language.
My ideas are based around communicating emotions through the body, and that is a very human thing. Dancers and actors are trained so they are more aware of the nuances of this communication.

The main difference is that dancers and performers are more familiar with the physical discomfort that comes along with this kind of work so their threshold is often higher. They know their bodies. If something is wrong for their body, they figure out a way to do it so it works.
It’s important working with people that are able to let go. You really have to be able leave parts of yourself out in order to be present. Or maybe I mean hold back–holding back parts of your self. That’s when it gets powerful because you begin to see the threshold of the body, and the person, beneath the surface of the performance. It’s more honest.

F: The video you are currently working on was shot in Skowhegan using artists and instructors. Was this different from your other projects working with professional performers?

C: I’ve only been working with dancers/performers since 2012. In my other work, I’m usually performing along with my friends and lovers.  The majority of my work has been created with people in my life who are not performers.

F: How long does each performance take from early development to completion? Do you work on multiples at the same time? Does the time between filming and edit change how you look at the project?
 
C: It takes a while. I’m working on several things at once, until it comes time to do a big shoot and that completely takes over everything.
I can’t dig into editing the footage right after a video shoot. I need some time away from it. There’s such an adrenaline rush while doing it–all the production, the rehearsals, the meetings, the scripting, the photos, the equipment sourcing and scheduling. It all comes together for 6-8 hours, and then it’s over. It’s sad when it ends.

F: How do you find the places to film? What are the logistics of finding the space, renting the space out and finding costumes?
C: I’m scouting locations constantly. It takes a lot of searching to find a place that will host a shoot with a very small budget. And then it’s all about the schedule – getting 15 people together at the same time the space is available is actually the hardest part. Costumes are usually from my closet.
The props are sourced from all over. I just bought 100 wine glasses for a video I shot, and now I have milk crates full of glasses in my apartment. I don’t know what to do with them.

 
F: Do you see your photographs as a separate body of work than the videos? Do they inform each other?
C: The processes are really different for each. The photos generally come first and inspire the videos—not always, but that is the current process. It’s that thing again where I have to see it to know what to do next. I’m a photographer at heart I guess.

You can see more of Cortney Andrews’ work at www.cortneyandrews.com