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.

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

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

Peter is currently preparing for his upcoming solo exhibition in the at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts (DCCA) in Wilmington, DE which will run from April 8th through May 11th.

F: Can you talk a bit about your process with your paintings and drawings? How do you start?

P: I usually begin a small drawing (5×5 inches give or take) in crayon and colored pencil. I remember going to a fantastic Roy Lichtenstein retrospective and was blown away with how much of the final imagery of his paintings were all basically thought out in his little sketches, usually no bigger than 6 x 6 inches. When I do begin a drawing, I usually start with looking at older paintings for something that can be pushed further or commented on in a new work. Pizza slices, fingers, toes, arms, and legs have been populating my paintings and drawings for the last year. As a painter, I am constantly aware of my hands, and as an art handler, I’m on my feet most of the time, and I eat more pizza than I should. If I’m away from my studio, I try to make a drawing or two for the day, usually making them in front of my computer while glancing at past images of my work. Then I’ll tack up the more successful drawings in my studio and give them a shot on a 2 x 2 foot canvas, my current size of choice.

F: Your palette consists of bright unnatural colors giving off an alluring yet toxic vibe. Can you talk a bit about that?

P: Last summer I started using these neon orange, red and green gouaches. I dove right into using them to paint a series of works on paper, entitled “summer dudes” depicting fat, redneck men with pizza slice faces. I wanted to explore the use of garish, synthetic colors in depicting naturally occurring hues of grass, sky and skin. After completing the “summer dudes” series I began thinking more intentionally about the role of these new shades in my work. I began juxtaposing these lurid paints with my previous vocabulary of neutral and primary colors. Frequently I paint one arm or leg in a middle value, while the other is pulsating with an almost off the charts vibrant neon. These discrepancies in color emphasize the fact that the arms or fingers are striving to connect.

F: You work really thin and build up the paintings into these thicker surfaces. How long do they take to paint?

P: Most of my paintings get blocked in with in a two-week period, and then I will put them aside and revisit them intermittently for three or more months. Much of the time bringing these paintings up to my standard of finish is inactive. They hangout on my studio wall (or floor) with little or no progression. When something clicks while I’m lying on the couch, I make the next move. During this period, I determine what elements are resolved and what needs more attention, fully articulating the role of body parts and background in each painting.

F: How many paintings do you do at one time?

P: Typically, I work on up to ten paintings at a time. In any given week I will focus on three or four paintings to push. I prefer to work on multiple pieces simultaneously since it gives me time to think about the next move while not putting too much pressure on any particular painting.

F: Upon close examination I realize that they aren’t taped but rather meticulously painted free hand, allowing for the paint to lip up making this hard edge but juicy quality. Is it important to you to show the paint being paint?

P: Correct, the edges are free hand. In previous works I sometimes taped edges.
I’ve gone back and forth with using tape and what that means to the viewer. I’ve found that my hand does naturally want to tighten up the edges of things, but I’m beginning to slow down that intuitive process if I think a part of the painting can benefit from a brushy or softer edge. That juicy lip quality you mentioned is something I am consciously pursuing in my work. Similarly, Elizabeth Murray’s late work flirted with machinelike execution, while creating a deft comedic lightly-quivering line. This seemingly perfect yet intentionally flawed surface creates a visual reference for an exacting yet personal touch. While in the past, I have relied on a mechanical approach to how I build up my surfaces, I am now interested in creating a dialogue between stark seemingly taped areas and lighter, more fluid textures to show that the paint, is in fact, paint.

F: Some paintings are done in thin washes and others have really juicy paint. When do you know that the surface works in the painting? Does it depend on the image?

P: It often does depend on the image. Currently, I am enjoying the play of combining thick, juicy oil paint with areas of thin, washy acrylic and gouache. Often, it is the figurative elements in the painting, such as the paw-like hand (a nod to Philip Guston) that are painted with a juicier texture, while the background or a pizza pie wedge is painted with a lean, acrylic gesture. The reason I treat these areas differently is to focus as much attention on the figure as possible.

F: Do you use your drawings as a color and composition tool only or are you directly translating the markings into paint?

P: Initially, the drawings were meant as simply a color and composition tool. That was the idea over a year ago when I began painting directly from the drawings. However, right now is a really exciting time for me in the studio because I am making it a point to translate the crayon and pencil marks into the paintings themselves. It is interesting to blow up a pencil or crayon mark that began within a 5×5 inch square onto a 2×2 foot canvas. I recently began a few 4×4 foot canvases, to explore reproducing the markings on a larger scale. For a long time that didn’t occur to me as something that was acceptable for my paintings, but now I’m using crayons and colored pencils, in conjunction with paint to further reference their origins.

F: The paintings make allusions to phallic objects, hands, feet, arms, legs and greasy late night pizza. There’s a built in narrative, journaling or chronicling certain events or ideas. How does this play a role in the work?

P: Yeah, there are some weird things in these paintings. For the last few years, I’ve been interested in referencing the body without having to paint the whole thing. I mean once you paint something resembling a hand or a foot, there’s the body. Sometimes I like to use a pizza slice as a stand in for a head or a torso, but it’s also clearly just a stupid slice of pizza. It happened by chance that I kept rounding the ends of my “legs and arms” and they then resembled phalluses. I often paint late into the night, and that’s as good a time as any to think about failures and triumphs in love and friendship, these paintings deal with a lot of those experiences. How these hands and feet touch each other, or fail to touch each other, are taken from my own life and helps me process relationships.

F: The square orientation of the canvas is reminiscent of a pizza box or record album. At the same time they relate to a small portrait. Are you consciously making a reference to these other objects with your paintings? What about the square format interests you and what is its relationship to your imagery?

P: I wasn’t initially thinking about the shape and size of a pizza box when deciding on the 2×2 foot canvas, but I think it’s great that it came to mind when you looked at my work. The fact that the canvases could be a reference to a pizza box, which is usually resting horizontally (on a table or my chest), but then mounted vertically on a wall is something weird and funny to think about it. Also, interesting that they remind you of the scale of a small portrait. Whether there is a more blatant reference to a head or not, these images are portraits to me. It’s also a conscious decision that the hands, arms, heads, etc. are close to human scale.

As for the square format, I’ve always just found it to be a very pleasing shape to populate with my imagery, but it became important for my body of work entitled “One More Slice” that I created last spring. In this body of work, I repeatedly placed a large circle in the center of the canvas and then carved it up as I saw fit in order to reference parts of the body, a slice for a head there, a slice or two for a plaid shirt here. I wanted each carved slice, in the center of the picture, to immediately draw the eye to the outer corners. The best way to do that was to use the square, and now I’m too stubborn to change.

F: There’s a great deal of humor in the way you paint as well what you paint, this kind of signature heavy-handed mark that describes your
“hands” grasping for things. How much does humor and the role of the hand matter in your work?

P: My wheelhouse is a brand of humor in the vein of the tragically sad Charlie Brown. My characters and their hands never quite resolve their desires or know how to express themselves fully, but they still want the chance to succeed! These grabby hands are happy to take center stage, but then find it difficult to simply clasp the other just three inches way. When one paw does actually manage to locate and press its nuclear glowing skin onto its more subdued counterpart, there isn’t any clear evidence of reciprocation, only acquiescence. The tenderness and vulnerability coming from one claw to the other is coldly shut down or at best, acknowledged with only apathy. Humor matters a lot in my work, it’s what makes the complicated life experiences palatable enough for me to depict on my canvases.

Peter is currently preparing for his upcoming solo exhibition in the Art Lounge Project Space at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts (DCCA) in Wilmington, DE which will run form April 8th through May 9th. You can check out more of his work on his website at www.peterschenck.com

Located in the Brooklyn Fire Proof building, Mike Schreiber’s studio is found just beyond a wall, inside the Group Club Association (GCA) gallery. The front half of the space acts as a gallery space that he runs with his partner, Mary Kosut. To get to Mike’s studio, we first have to walk through the gallery. When we visited, the show ‘Viewing Room’ with work by Cooper Holoweski and Clive Murphy was on view. In keeping with the shows theme of domesticity, we walked over pristine white high pile carpeting specifically installed for the show. Beyond the gallery space, we entered Mikes personal studio. In contrast with the white space that is GCA, Mike’s studio is clearly a workspace with multiple “stations” located around the room where he can drill holes and paint.

Can you talk a little bit about your process? Your work seems to tread between printmaking, painting and sculpture.

I’m a painter. We take a lot for granted. However, I believe that every aspect of an object
must be considered. For example, painters tend to make major decisions without stressing the things a sculpture-oriented person would be concerned with from the start – like scale, materials, placement, and space. I care about these things more and more. All of it nags at me. I’m always playing with ratios and the way my work interacts with the viewer, and connects to other works, and the way it changes the space it occupies. My recent stone paintings solve a lot of problems for me.

Immediately when I walk in the room, I’m confronted by these slabs hanging on the walls but I’m not sure what the materials are. In closer examination, I realize that they are all marble slabs. Is the material intentionally obscured with the process?

I love that idea of obscuring. I hadn’t thought of it that way. The slabs are actually a quartz material used in residential kitchens. And these lozenge shapes are the cutouts of sinks. The stonemasons around here have no use for them, so they put them out on the street. That’s how I originally found them.

There seems to be this built in narrative with the materials. Can you explain your process with the slabs?

I’ve been calling them tablets. They started last summer when I used a lot of this stone cutoff for an installation “Counter Culture,” a floor mosaic people had to walk on in order to view the other works in the show. It was for the exhibition ‘In Every Dream Home…’ here at GCA. The show was about the rapid turnover happening in this neighborhood, materiality vs. materialism, and loss. While making the mosaic I kept noticing the recurring shape of these sink cutouts. They’re like tombstones, or vanity mirrors. Each one represents some kind of void.

Holes and rivets open the surface of the tablets. Are the holes already present when you find them or are you creating them?

I add the holes. The quartz is just soft enough so that I can get through it with a hammer drill. The holes are paradoxical in that they literally represent absence but they add up in other ways. I think about them as negative points, or locations. Each painting has three points and together they create an invisible shape – a triangle – the simplest shape. The invisible triangle is a constellation, a kind of map. Then I add these grommets as value referents or correctives. The reflective metal shows the brightest whites and the darkest blacks. I use grommets because they’re typically used on fabric and these refer to the printed image of fabric on the stone. They also make me think of drain holes, or bushings that act as guides for your eyes and thoughts.

How do you achieve the black paint patterns on the surface? The buzzy texture that occurs reminds me of the Moiré effect seen in multiple screens overlaying each other.

The image is mono-printed. I use matte black gesso. I paint the gesso onto the surface of grid textured foam carpet padding and then press the stone onto it with my full body weight. If I do it well I get a very crisp image. But no matter how well I do it the image is always unique and singular. It becomes a snapshot of itself, or a record of a moment captured in stone, like a fossil.

Do you see this body of work as an extension of your other work on canvas or as a separate entity?

It’s definitely an extension. Different materials, same sensibilities. Different bodies of work, but maybe they’re more like limbs on the same body. Lately I’m freeing them up or liberating them – seeing what the hands have to say to the feet, or what the feet want to do with the head.

Your studio is split into two distinct spaces, a gallery (GCA) and your work space. Do you find your curatorial projects in GCA influencing or informing your studio practice? For instance with the floor mosaic piece or your tablet paintings?

Absolutely. GCA has been really generative that way. And the spatial arrangement here has worked well because there is a direct link between public and private. The GCA side is like a test-site for artworks and exhibitions. In turn, the studio side has somehow become better equipped for making things. In a tangible way, I’m in conversation with my artist friends. My studio is a private space, but I don’t want to work in a silo where I am shut off. I guess this is why I deal with the innumerable difficulties of living in NYC. Its important for me to be surrounded by my peers – and that includes not only painters, but musicians and writers as well.

I’d say what’s been most informative personally is the challenge of doing right by other artists. It can be difficult to talk about an artists’ work and do it justice. I’m sure you can relate. And getting it wrong or misrepresenting someone is the worst thing you can do. I’ve had nightmares about it.

GCA is run by Mike Schreiber and his partner Mary Kosut. Their next exhibition Deep Space/Shallow Grave opens Friday March 27th. More info at groupclubassociation.tumblr.com

More of Mike’s work can be viewed at his website www.mikeschreiber.info

Walking into Austin Eddy’s studio, you get the impression that he is constantly producing. There are stacks and stacks of drawings, piles of in progress and completed paintings on canvas and sculptures lying neatly in piles in all areas of his small studio space. Even though his studio is a relatively new one since his move from Atlanta, it is evident that there was no time wasted in making work and there is a general sense of energy and movement in the studio.

Austin Eddy’s work is composed of different assemblages from old paintings and drawings that he reconfigures into a new piece. The way in which he works transcends beyond just painting into drawing and sculpture. The same sensibility in how he approaches his bleached and adhered scraps of paper and canvas paintings is reflected in 3D through his metal and ceramic sculpture pieces.

During our studio visit with Austin, we got to talk to him about his day to day and how his work in different mediums inform each other.

F: Can you start with describing your process?

AE: I ride the train a fair bit, and on the train if its not the L first thing in the morning I like to get a seat. I draw a lot on the train and fill up note books with lots of thumbnail sketches of shapes and figures and ideas for paintings and sculptures. Eventually I go to the studio and bring those note books with me, somedays I make sculptures and refer to the shapes in the books. Other days I make lots of drawings using scraps from the paintings or just drawing or taking the sketches and using those as the drawings. gluing them down, finding lots of ones that are similar and combining them. Most of the time I make paintings, sometimes I look back at the sketches and the other drawings and use those and starting points for the paintings and other times i just start with no end goal. I can’t really tell which I like better, since somedays it’s hard to get started with out the sketches and drawings other days they feel too much like a crutch. Once the ball is rolling regardless of the medium its all very intuitive.

F: You work a lot on raw canvas and using different materials to define color and texture through additive and subtractive processes. Can you talk about that?

AE: I do work on raw canvas. It’s very unforgiving, there is often no going back. I like that about it, it creates an environment for creative problem solving.

I also do use a lot of materials to provide colors and textures. I let things be what they are and am not trying to hide the materials, but make them work together. Recently I started working with bleach which is one of the few ways I have figured out how to start and work with reductive surfaces since the process is so additive.

F: We’ve noticed that your work is mostly monochromatic but there are some pieces that have specific uses of color. Do you lean on the materials in your painting in terms of color direction?

AE: Often the colors are determined by the materials. Pinks from pencil erasers, yellows from wood glue or the reaction of gel medium and news print a whole range of colors from various linens and papers and how they change with the gel medium or bleach, whites from bleach, blacks from charcoal, grays from charcoal dust residue in the gel medium. I will sometimes use white paint, and I often mix blacks to be sprayed.

F: Does the different processes affect the color such as the process of gluing paper to the surface? Over time do you anticipate this and repeat certain found processes?

AE: Yes, most of the time the process affect the coloration of things. Before when I was making the work a lot of the yellowing happened accidentally, but now I am consciously looking for those mistakes to reference color and time.

F: There are several pieces with simplified bird shapes, abstracted plants, and figurative shapes. How do you land on the imagery you use in your work?

AE: The simplified shapes are usually drawn from my life. Often autobiographical or referential to a personal felling or situation. Sometimes though I like a shape and I work through it over and over again, looking for some sort of understanding.

F: What role does figuration play in your work? Is it a launching point or does it evolve into these different subjects?

AE: I have always wanted to be a wild abstract painter like Motherwell, or DeKooning or something like that, but I could never do it. I have a hard time letting go of something solid right now. I am in this weird limbo between wanting to represent a figure while also trying to let go and push the figure into obscurity. But at the heart of it all, the figure is ever present and always the armature for how the painting is constructed. The figure is always the launching point to some degree, but there is always a decision being made about wether or not to tell a story or just make the shape in the most interesting way possible.

F: Before you had a live-work space but now you have a strictly work studio. How has changing studios changed the way you work?

AE: I had a live work situation for a few months when I was living in Atlanta sharing the studio / apartment with my Girlfriend Shara Hughes. Before then, and during, I had a studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. So for those few months when I was not living in BK and walking for an hour each way the live / work was kinda nice. It was also a little bit of a drag. Living in the studio makes it harder to turn off. I felt at times when I was living where I worked the work was never done (it never is, but..), like I couldn’t wash my hands and walk away and try to forget about it. On the other hand no commute and constant immersion made it so starting work was less of a process, no transition from studio time to home time to commute time or anything like that. But it never really changed how I worked, It just affected the amount of time I did work.

F: What is a typical studio day like?

AE: A Typical studio day… usually involves waking up getting it together enough to go over there. It’s close now, so its easier, but once i get there i putz around for awhile, sweeping, wiping things down, un-stretching the paintings i made the day before, re-stretching blank ones, once things are in order and clean again i like to try and go for a run, I’m not in the best shape, but i do it and when i get back i drink some water and then i jump into it. What i work on sort of is just a feeling, a lot of gut decisions are made and i work. I spend the whole time there, i don’t leave once i go in, and i don’t have any chairs so i don’t sit down. continually moving helps me keep my brain from slowing down i guess. So I work usually till i burn out and cant make any more good decisions, and then i sweep and wipe things down and throw away dirt rags and paper towels scraps from the paintings etc. take the trash out feeling frustrated and knowing i am going to go back tomorrow and fight the good fight another day.

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

AE: It really depends on the day or the week or the month. When I am going to work a lot at my day job, I get less done. The paintings take longer to make with less time spent working on them. But usually I try and spend 8-10 hours working in the studio. On those days sometimes i can manage to finish a painting in a sitting. But most of the time the works takes a few days to feel resolved. I feel like I have slowed down and am taking more time with the paintings. Now that there fewer elements in them, I spend a lot more time considering how things lie.

F: In terms of your drawings and sculptures, do you see them as separate practices or do they all influence each other?

AE: They are all one practice i think, they are all made with a similar sensibility. I think a lot of it is trial and error especially when it comes to the sculptures, I am not a sculptor, I am a painter making sculptures, so there is way less pressure and that feels freeing to me. I try and bring that mentality to the other works, always try to use new tools materials marks etc. to make the paintings and drawings. I’d like to think I take that from the sculptures. As far as the paintings go, I am working on making paintings with out paint so there is a far closer relationship with the drawing. Mostly similar in materials and process used to make them, but not so much in scale or anything like that. But that could be subject to change. It all kind of is right now, really feels like a period of fluctuation.

You can see more of Austin’s work at austineddy.blogspot.com

We had been following Shara Hughes’ work for quite some time but had never seen her paintings in person nor met the artist herself. It was by chance that we ventured out for Greenpoint Open Studios and walked into her shared studio space where we instantly recognized her work. During our studio visit, we talked a lot about her paintings and her drawing practice and what it was like to move studios from Atlanta to Brooklyn.

Shara Hughes’ work draws you in to look longer and investigate deeper on what is going on in each painting. Each piece is loaded with layers of colorful combinations of paint and a variety of marks making up the abstract imagery of figures, portraits, and objects which are all loosely based on Hughes’ life. What is also interesting to see in conjunction with Hughes’ paintings, are her stacks of crayon drawings which feel very much “finished” and complete in their own way. Hughes uses her drawings on paper to make “formal decisions” in a more immediate and less precious way and to inform her as she paints. Shara Hughes is a RISD graduate who has also gone to various artist residencies including Skowhegan. She is currently living and working in Brooklyn. Her work has been exhibited in MOCA GA as well as exhibitions internationally.

F: How do you come up with the imagery? Can you walk us through your process?

SH: The imagery is all based on what is happening in my life, but I never know where it’s going to go when I start. I start very abstractly with some kind of wash background and begin to pull out shapes formally. The painting begins to take a life of it’s own and eventually some kind of story comes out of where it’s going and pulls it down to a solid idea. This may not happen until the middle or end of the painting. Some times I’ll have a title in mind when I start the painting and it builds around that idea, but most of the time that changes too. Working abstractly until the painting is kind of ready to take on a life is a way for the work to be more open and evolve organically as opposed to some idea I just come up with and then execute.

F: How long does each image take to build up? Do you ever revisit a painting once it’s “completed”?

SH: If I work on a painting for a week and have enough time in my studio to stay in there all day, an image rarely comes up immediately. It usually takes a day or two of me flip flopping on how much ‘fun’ I’m having when I ‘don’t care’ about where the work is going and how terrible I think it’s going. The extremes of those two thoughts are pretty frequent until I’m in a gray zone of something I can work with.

SH: I have revisited a painting once or twice after it was completed and it was kind of a disaster. If it doesn’t really work in the first place, I think I just suffocate it. If I revisit the piece a year or so later once I’ve kind of moved on from the first, it turns into a not so great painting. I think it’s hard to let something die, so there’s some kind of hope in revisiting something but for me it usually just makes it worse. In a way, the ideas are always getting revisited, so it makes less sense to work on a mistake when I’ve already gotten over it.

F: The drawings seem to get looser, exploring more of the mark and color relationships and less about a defined space. Can you talk a bit about how your drawing practice influences your painting practice? Do you paint from your drawings or use them as exercises informing the painting later? Do some of the same marks internally work their way from the drawing to the paintings or is it by chance?

SH: I keep the work on paper practice separate from the painting practice because my state of mind when I’m working on both is very different. There’s a feeling of looseness with the work on paper partly because I haven’t made many drawings in the past few years and also because theres an ease of getting rid of paper whereas a stretched and prepped canvas seems more important. The drawings are a really great way for me to get out of my head and think about formal decisions in a more immediate way. I’ll make drawings for a month or two and then have them around to inform the paintings, but I rarely work directly from one drawing to a painting. Actually, I have one painting I just finished that I made directly from this series of drawings. I think there’s an interesting connection between the two but they also seem different.

F: The imagery in some, especially the larger works, seem disconnected when you look at each specific image. They look put together almost like collage because of the breaking up and confusing of objects and subjects but also from the textures and colors that create a multitude of different vocabularies. I see a lot of different types of textures and marks in your paintings other than marks that obviously look like they’re made from oil paint, what other materials do you use?

SH: I use oil, acrylic, spray paint, paint chips, airbrush, and oil bars. I like the thought that one specific instance in one painting can be something like a hat, but if placed in the painting next to it, it may turn into a hallway or part of an arm. This kind of idea speaks to how thoughts are formed. Much like a sentence to a story … you change one word, and it means something different. You change one thought pattern and it feels different. You change one thing formally, and it looks different. That kind of awareness is something I’m interested in.

F: Do you have a “vault” or grouping of different painter moves and marks that you use in a given canvas? How often do you find a new one? Is it through the description of objects that you determine the mark? Are you more conscious of how you set up your vocabulary to the point of “Wouldn’t it be funny to paint fingers this way” or is it a process of more unconscious decisions?

SH: Actually I feel like sometimes I use certain things too much. I think there is a large vault of painter moves that maybe everyone uses but to find something that surprises yourself is interesting. It’s nice to have something to use throughout the body of work to make it consistent at times, but I think it’s good to make sure you know why you are using it and not just as something to lean on. I think it’s tricky to get out of thing things you know that work, and I don’t think you have to. I guess since my work is particularly made up of different types of marks, I’m especially aware of being ok with using something predictable and being aware of it’s over use.

F: You recently moved from Atlanta, GA to Greenpoint. How was that move?! Moving your studio and apartment up here probably was a shock in terms of the small spaces. How did you find your current space and how long did it take you to settle in and start painting?

SH: I feel like I’m still settling in. I’m sure my experience will all reveal itself in the work at some point. Last time I lived in New York I was making work about being trapped and crammed in small closets. I’m hopefully out of that feeling this time around as I definitely feel more regular as a person. The space thing is different, but something I was expecting. Theres a shifting work around dance that happens too much and I think would take up less time if there were more space, but it’s not a huge deal. I really love being back in Brooklyn but miss Atlanta as well.

F: What are some things you had to do to make your studio, your own?

SH: Well, I’ve done a lot of residencies so the moving around thing to make work is something I’m pretty comfortable with, but the permanent move feels different than the thought of leaving in a few weeks. I have a big rolling palatte my moms neighbor made back in Atlanta that is really nice. Otherwise, I just bring my dog to my studio.

F: Have you seen any change in how you are working in your studio or has your work changed at all since the move?

SH: I haven’t seen much change yet, but I haven’t really been in there too long. I think the drawings are different and I will probably make more of those this year.

You can see more of Shara Hughes’s works at www.sharahughes.com