NIKHOLIS PLANCK

Untitled, acrylic on linen, 24" x 18", 2012

 

 

 

 



What are you working on in your studio right now?


Specifically some things for the La Art Book Fair in February and a pop-up project so to speak here in Baltimore. I am always working, whether it is for an actual project/show or just working. Everything is riffing off itself. I do this to get to this and that to get to that; the collage work is in between actual painting and drawing goes on all the time. In general my work has been dealing with it’s own scale and size.
 


Can you describe your working routine?


Coffee, incense.…I tend to do work right when I get up in the late a.m. after brewing some joe and that means being in the studio, looking over work from the night before (or trashing it), maybe taking some pictures to chill myself out about the nocturnal atrocities. Late night I do much of the work, even if I am using my satellite studio (24 hour fedex-kinkos). I guess the combination of overworked senses really pushes me and I don’t have to worry about any appointments or text messages etc. I would consider myself of thee nocturnal markmaking variety.

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

Greatly so. Space limitation dictates the size of work and it is something I try to make my work about. Conceptually as a vantage and window. I would never want my work to look or act different than the place it is made, if I have a huge space I would make huge work most certainly and if my space were to become smaller I would make smaller work. This seems like a (one of many) concern for artists working right now and I think it can help an artist develop and in turn open more opportunities where you allow yourself to flourish within limitations, especially of your studio or space.

 

 

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

 

 

Usually I am always drawing. The drawing helps me to just always be working and I couldn't function without drawing every day, as lame as that sounds. But to just work things out and doing something over and over is really important and internal to my practice/process. I suppose I can’t stress how important it is to have a few different “surfaces” going on that activate each other literally and figuratively. For instance with some relief type “paintings” I end up using them to produce rubbings or relief prints before I may paint on them. This is like a very easy understanding of how my work is in constant dialogue with itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

 

 

The tired but true notion of something immediate. How to translate the hand that is evident in my drawing onto the canvas and or painting. What I deem suitable to be painted and not painted. Sometime something so called successful as just a simple drawing but when translated to painting fails miserably. That failure though is really what it is all about and resolving is sort of the process. You know I resolve to not succeed in a general way. Also dealing with my photographic interventions of my studio and documentation of work itself which feeds into my studio's dialogue. I try to approach the camera like a drawing utensil, not to get too burdened with a perfect image or a good painting, it just sort of happens and is already there so to speak. I suppose I do have some kind of setups but since they involve studio debris I can poke fun at the studio and myself. In general though I hope to never resolve anything or else it wouldn't much of a challenge or uphill journey. . .

 

But I guess I am having trouble resolving a horizontal painting, but who isn’t? 

Installation @ Sophiajacob 2012

 

 

 

 

 



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

Parameters are indeed set and very important to my practice and within those parameters there is rich variation. I use a simple set up of acrylics, mediums, general hardware (caulk, epoxy) and leftover prints/xeroxes from projects and books/zines. Recently I have been interested in even more semi found surfaces, rather than your normal old paper but material that is art historically charged (particularly phone book pages which are directly speaking to F. Kline...) and materials given to me by colleagues or ransacked from life drawing classrooms. I utilize xerox machines and a large format home printer for my graphic and collage work so I am constantly exploiting different parameters in this technology which is how I approach my painting as well within my simple pallette.

I have mockingly described my paintings as grisaille to cohorts.



What does the future hold for this work?


An honest response to this is that I don't necessarily consider a future for much of this work, or my work in general. . .I mean I don't want to have to consider the future of a work because that sort of pressure would cause me to not want to make it but just making it and the process is what really holds me in my practice. But sure, I would hope to present for instance, these collage works in some sort of setting, either individually or in a small grouping in some kind of group show/presentation. I like to imagine that the sort of surface driven and collage works would be this other look into my ventures and practice so they would be viewed and considered alongside other more straightforward painting work or my book work.

Untitled, acrylic on linen, 24" x 18", 2012

 

 

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

 





MARY ADDISON HACKETT

Front Row Seats at the Theater of the Absurd,
2012, oil on linen

 

 

 

What are you working on in your studio right now?

 

 

I'm working on paintings of still lifes, mirrors, interiors, and a self-portrait. There's a landscape and a few other things in progress as well. I'm also working on a series of watercolors for a separate project.

 

 

 

Can you describe your working routine?

 

I wake up early and spend a couple of hours doing office work, going for a run, prepping canvases and anything else that doesn't involve a paintbrush in hand. Sometimes I get a late start, but after that I average about 6-8 hours a day of studio time depending on what I've got going on. I take a short espresso break at 2pm and continue working until I feel comfortable stopping. I usually take Sundays off.  My teaching schedule was spread out this semester, so I had shorter hours during the week and put in overtime on the weekends. I prefer having long, uninterrupted hours/days in the studio, but even just walking through the studio will prompt me to pick up a brush or think about the work from a new perspective. I try and change out of my pajamas before painting, but that doesn't always happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

I've worked in several studio spaces, ranging from barely legit live/work spaces in urban areas of Chicago, to a converted garage behind my home in Culver City, California. My work has evolved over the course of my practice and has been affected in subtle, and not so subtle ways, by my response to each location. A couple of years ago I moved into my childhood home to take care of some things, and in doing so my studio and domestic life became glommed together as one. The work became more representational, and I began using artifacts and observations from my surroundings as starting points for reconstructing personal narratives. I've been working moderately small, ranging from 7 inches to 5 feet. I can be fairly prolific  and paint quickly when I want to, though my current process is slower. I work on easels, tables, the floor, wherever. If it's small enough, I hold a painting in my hand or cradled in my arm and hover over my palette table while I'm painting. I use two adjoining rooms as the main paint studio, but I also move a small easel around to explore different settings. I work in the garage when the weather is nice. My studio is on a couple of acres- it’s not rural, but there's a sense of space and privacy. In a way, the work is feeding off the isolation and the entanglement of home and studio, but I anticipate a time when I may need to move on to a more standard way of working again, whatever they may be, and it's possible the work will shift again.

 

Transplant with Lady Painter and Prince Aha
2012, oil on canvas, 14 x 11"

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


It can begin with a memory, an object, an observation, something I read. Anything, really. When I was working abstractly, I would mentally store all of this information and approach a canvas using process as my starting point. Now that I'm working more representationally the hardest  part is choosing what to paint. After that gets decided, I'm freer to navigate off course, but I still like having a tangible thing nearby as a reference. I vary my approach to painting and don't think too much about how I'm going to paint something. The paintings are as much about the physical process of painting and the inherent possibilities within that process to generate meaning, as they are about what's depicted on the canvas. Much of my process involves trying to get something right and yet in the end I'm not concerned with correctness. Sometimes I think I've willed a painting into being.



What are you having the most trouble resolving?


I worry that I've become a boring painter and even worse, I secretly relish this. And then there's that thing between abstraction and representation I so often mull over. I angst quite a bit and can be full of self-doubt. I have trouble resolving that as well.







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


I'm pretty much a purist now



What does the future hold for this work?


One of my self-portraits is in About Face, a portraiture show at ACME. in Los Angeles (Nov 17-Dec 22, 2012), and I'm participating in the MAS: Attack (Mutual Admiration Society) show at the LA Mart in January. The watercolors are part of a temporary public art installation in the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX next year. I have a solo scheduled at a university art gallery in Nashville late 2013 or 2014. As far as the direction of the work, I have no idea. I trust my process, but I still have a sense of relief whenever a painting finally takes hold.



Is there anything else you would like to add?


1) I feel fortunate to have met many of the artists and painters whose work I respect.
2) If I had the time I’d write a love letter to Los Angeles. The painting community in LA is strong and supportive, and had a great deal of influence on me.
3) Thank you for inviting me to participate.

And Then DeKooning Said to Guston
2012, oil on linen, 7 x 5"

 

 

 



CHRIS MOSS

Amnesia Haze,

10 x 10" acrylic and hair on masonite, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

What are you working on in your studio right now?

 

 

I'm working on a series of paintings that are taking the shape of eleven 9 panel paintings. Each of the paintings is 8 x 8 inches with a lozenge shaped painting in the center. It's so new I don't even have pictures of any of them, nor have I really made sense of what they mean, though lately I've been thinking a lot about dogma, in particular what they call Russell's Teapot. I'm a skeptic, or at least I try to maintain a healthy amount of skepticism about everything. I can usually formulate a counter argument to any idea I have. Anyway the recent heads, especially the ones that look like Olmec heads or avatars, came out of one painting I made in 2007. At the time I made it I didn't know it would lead to these other paintings. I was working on a pretty diverse group of paintings, charting the territory that I've been exploring lately. Working serially is rather new to me, it's freeing in a way because it allows me to repeat ideas but remain inventive.

 

 

 

 

 

new work in progress (8 x 8" each)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you describe your working routine?

 

 

I wish it was more regular than it has been lately, I paint compulsively at times but this is not one of those times and I'm actually working on these new paintings very slowly. I do try to work every day but the kind of creative work I engage in varies from one day the next, right now I'm doing a lot more extra-studio work, work based on paintings. I've begun a few projects that are exclusively for an internet audience via my Tumblr page. One of those projects I've been posting lately is related to the toast heads, they're sort of opposite toast heads, made with photo editing software from photographs of the paintings, I've flipped and reversed the color of all 70 paintings. It makes for an eerie kind of negative picture. I like the idea of reversal, opposites - avatars, weirds and familiars. Also, looking at my work in reverse got me to open up my pallet a lot, I realized I don't always have to be so literal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Top: Biddy Early, 2011, 10 x 10 inches acrylic on masonite

Below: Thaitanic, 2012, 10 x 10 inches acrylic on masonite

 



 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

I rent a three bedroom apartment and the space that would be a spacious dining room for normal people is my studio. I covered the floor with pieces of masonite to keep floor clean. I usually work paintings flat on the floor so covering it was necessary if I want my rental deposit back. Living just down the hall from my studio has it's advantages, I can work whenever I have a spare moment, or I can just go to the studio to sit and think. It's also nice because I can make some moves and then walk down the hall to my office and do other work while they dry. It's just natural to me, living with the work while it's being made. The disadvantage to this relationship is that I've developed way of working that involves a little bit of tinkering, then wandering around the apartment doing other things, gathering the wash, checking facebook, reading a book. It's a way of working that's in a constant state of being distracted.

 

The other thing about working the way I do (on the floor) is it invites a lot of garbage and dirt and imperfections into the paintings, which I've come to like, even embrace. I sweep up a lot but  hairs and debris still get into the paint, and occasionally I'll keep hunks of paint from the bottom of containers or even from the floor to use in a painting later. I've even gone so far as sweeping up and dumping the dirt onto a wet surface. It gives the work a sense of having lived a life. I like the beleagured underdog, the defeated yet proud. So most of the figures in the paintings I make are losers.

 

 

 

 

Grid planning

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

Once you've been working as an artist for a number of years two things happen. 1. If you're honest about your experience and your work you end up becoming more and more yourself; less and less your heroes and 2. your work begins to flow naturally out of the work you've made in the past. I keep stacks of paper around and lots of half full notebooks and one of the things I do with them is get into hour long drawing sessions where I just make as many drawings as I can in an hour. It's constantly surprising to me when I look at old notebooks or old drawings just how long ago I first came upon a certain idea, just when I think an idea is really fresh I find it's been in one of these books for years. The exercise of making as many drawings as you can for an hour always produces new work somewhere down the line because at that rate you can't be totally aware of what you're doing, you can't give yourself a chance to edit. It's a good idea to make work this way, to be totally wasteful, just put it all out there and sort it out later (if ever).

 

 

 

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

 

 

This question took me the longest to answer, because I remember when I was younger being stuck and feeling like I couldn't resolve me and an idealized version of me. I gave up on the idealized version of me because I realized it was too encapsulated. It was holding me back. I'm pretty young but realizing I won't have time in this lifetime to make everything I imagine is kind of difficult and really there's no way to resolve this. Which ideas are worth pursuit and which ideas get scrapped, sometimes it's an easy choice, sometimes it's less easy to decide.

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 2010, 24 x 24 inches, acrylic on masonite

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

Nothing good can come of complete freedom, art needs parameters, even artists who we think of as being completely free had their own set of parameters. The closest I can get to complete freedom is challenging myself to make 100 drawings in an hour, or 100 photoshop documents in an hour. The results are always surprising and they always lead to insights into my process and how I work. But again, there is a restraint in this challenge, two actually: 60 minutes and 100 results. I don't think it's possible to work more freely than to spend 6 seconds on a single idea before moving on to anotheridea.  Of course even this exercise has its own parameters. 

What does the future hold for this work?

 

 

Well, I'll keep making it. I have a solo show coming up next year, I'm pretty sure what I'm working on now will be in that. If you really want to keep up with me you can follow me on twitter @mrhopthescissor or check my website. I'm also on facebook if that's your thing.

 

 

 

 

 

Top: Sleestack, 2012, 10 x 10 inches acrylic on masonite

Below: Cali Blockhead, 2011, 10 x 10 inches acrylic on masonite

 

 

 

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

 

One last thing, yes. Since you originally contacted me we've had a pretty devastating flood here in New York, I wrote a bit about it and I'm selling paintings and drawings to benefit flood assistance. For a reasonable price you can purchase something via my blog. All of the money from the sales will go to an organization called Occupy Sandy. They seem to be doing some good here on the ground, getting people the things they need to begin cleanup and recovery. The sale will conclude at the end of this year.

 

 

 

 

DERRICK QUEVEDO

"5 x 7 x 20", 2012, acrylic on hardboard, 5" x 7"

 

 

 

 

 

What are you working on in your studio right now?

Acrylic painting on hardboard panels, bristol paper, and wood strips of various small, intimate sizes. I normally do watercolor and gouache painting but haven't since summer. Color perception is my primary interest. I'm a very seasonal painter, and lately as winter is approaching I find the behavior of paint adapting to that.

 

 

 

Can you describe your working routine?

Monday through Wednesday are my full studio days. I'm in the studio by 11am drinking coffee, checking freshly primed surfaces, recently cut paper, dried paint layers, and pieces in various states. Almost immediately I'm compelled to put some fresh paint on something. I listen to "Bad at Sports" and other art podcasts in the studio. I'm working on several surfaces at any given time. During drying times I'm checking the work results, surfing the internet and looking at other people's work, reading theory & criticism, or playing old school Nintendo games on my phone (I still can't beat Super Mario Bros. 2.) Late in the afternoon I head to the coffee shop and write/blog for an hour or draw people. Despite a short dinner break, I return to the studio to continue working until 10 or 11 at night. By the end of the week, usually 10 to 12 pieces survive and are archived or continued into next week. Sunday is my supply shopping day. Once I refresh my materials I start priming surfaces, cutting paper down to size, scraping paint off my palette, and the cycle resumes.

 

 

 

 

 

Evening studio

 

 

 

 

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

My studio is on the top floor of the house and the wall tilts inward halfway up because of the roof. It is very encapsulating. It is one studio in a lineage of small, temporary studio spaces, combined with a history of predominantly small, temporary living spaces that have affected my lifestyle and my studio production. I live very minimally; I have a trunk that holds my clothes, books, and laptop (even when I have large closets.) There is not only a working and living practicality for small scale work; easel painting and watercolor painting were developed catering to a sense of mobility and temporality; there are forgotten formats like the portrait miniature... the small, mobile, painted surface has a stigma attached to it in our contemporary minds that I enjoy working against. A small studio with walls that can't host a piece taller than 3 or 4 feet works quite well.

 

 

 



Completed wood strips

 

 

 

 

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

I put different grounds on the surfaces I prepare; cool grays, warm grays, cool browns, warm browns, some blacks, white paper. I let the ground vibrate, I sense the incompletion of the surface, and begin mixing paint. I prefer straight edges, squeegees, and palette knives over brushes and pull a color across the canvas. Sometimes a single color gets put over the ground; other times I pull wet on wet and have colors mix on the surface. Those are my favorite moments of the process; when the earliest color interactions occur, when you observe the sensations on the surface and notice their effect on your condition, when you're tuning in to their frequencies like a knob on the radio. I'm an intuitive painter and love the uncertainty of pulling paint across the surface. It emphasizes paint as a separate entity from yourself, not completely under your control. The surface gets covered through teamwork; a developed interaction between the traits and trappings of a human and an inanimate substance.

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Acrylic on paper, sizes vary, 2012

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

I'm always curious about surfaces; how the paint surface and the painted surface handles itself and each other and how that affects color perception. I get moments using 300lb. HP exclusively and moments using everything but. The wood strips stem from a previous experiment painting on glass jars. Because of the differences between watercolor and gouache I like to mix different mediums and gum arabic in the paint. It depends on my primary concern at the moment and if I'm making progress with it. When you're digging a hole and hit rock, sometimes you need to dig elsewhere and sometimes you need to hammer your way through.

Nightcrawler, 2012, watercolor and

gouache on paper, 8.5" x 12"

 

 

 

 

 

What does the future hold for this work?

Visual artists engage and challenge perception through their working process. For me, it's the perception of paint and intimacy; developing a symbiosis with a physical substance that is somehow a kindred spirit. For some of us the ideal romance is falling and being in love with our best friend; if there was an effective analogy it'd be that.




Is there anything else you would like to add?



This growing internet community of painters and artists is really fascinating. I'm really looking forward to your show next spring in Connecticut, Valerie, and I thank you for the opportunity to do this!



"5 x 7 x 20", 2012, acrylic on hardboard, 5" x 7"





KRISTINA LEE

Night Fight, oil on canvas ,40”x42”, 2012

What are you working on in your studio right now?


I just finished a couple of medium sized paintings that I’m really excited about. There are a lot of small works around the studio that help me to push through new and old ideas, but working larger is the best in terms of the amount of energy I like to put into a painting.




Can you describe your working routine?


Aside from the standard paint mixing and canvas preparing, my routine changes all the time. I can say that my best days happen when I’m in full uniform: baggy jeans, hoodie, Pollock-Crocs and headphones. I’m not the tidiest painter, and when I’m in all my gear I can work without being self-conscious. Music is important too. Having an uninterrupted play list can put me in a really focused place, which is why I like listening to electronic music in the studio. Donato Dozzy is an amazing DJ, and Eric Cloutier’s recent “Driftwood Records Mix” is great.

 

Long Island City Studio

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

My studio space is really interesting right now. I just moved to a live/work space in Long Island City, and I share a space with another artist. We have these “pod beds” that act as one of the walls in our studio, so essentially our sleeping quarters are smack in the middle of our work environment. It’s super convenient. During the hurricane I was stuck at home all week and I got a lot of painting done. I work a full time job at the moment, and it’s great to not have to commute to the studio at night. It makes an enormous difference to have everything in one place. The wall space isn’t very big, so I find myself working on the larger paintings one at a time. This makes each piece feel more independent and less serial.

 

 

 

 

 



 



 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

I have an archive of screenshots from action movies and YouTube clips that I was referring to a lot in the past. The images are of women engaged in physical and violent acts like wrestling, boxing, and “girl-fights”. Watching video and looking at video stills allowed me to focus on specific actions that represent the kind of movement I’m interested in, which is very physical, yet choreographed and graceful. I was making a lot of drawings and paintings directly from them before which helped me generate ideas, but I’ve become less dependent on the images lately. The work is more suggestive and fragmented now, and I finally feel like I’m in a “free play zone” rather than a game of mimicry. The process in making the paintings is very layered. I start with a ground color that typically gets covered in the end, but it gives me a starting point and something to work off. Everything from then on is a series of reactions.

 

 

 

 

In progress

 

 

 

 

 



What are you having the most trouble resolving?

 

 

It’s hard for me to reach an interesting place in a painting that involves both abstraction and imagery. If it were easy I probably wouldn’t pursue it though. Sometimes I fall in love with a crazy face or a strange zig-zag, and I’ll make that element really pronounced. I prefer a balance and it’s very hard to hit.

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

Oil paint on canvas always.

 

 

 

 

 

Suz (Slap Slap), oil on canvas, 11"x14" 



 

 

 

 

What does the future hold for this work?

 

 

More future.

 

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

 

Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 





EZRA TESSLER

Dim kinship
 Oil on linen, 2012

 

 

 

What are you working on in your studio right now?


I’m working on two main bodies of work – smaller oil paintings on linen and three-dimensional constructions made from the remnants of the painting process and other debris. I move back and forth between the two kinds of work quite quickly. As for the paintings, I keep a lot going at one time, which is helpful for momentum. There are probably three or four separate series, each connected loosely in my mind by a theme, gesture, or size. The recent paintings and constructions begin with an idea or motif but almost immediately the process takes them in new directions.





Can you describe your working routine?


I spend a lot of time in the studio and my work is very much the result of this extended time fighting through materials and ideas. When I’m not at the studio I think about what I want to do at the studio, so when I get there I’m eager to start. Usually it’s fixing a problem that I’ve thought about since I last left the studio. The fixing process creates new problems and so on. Reading literature or history at the studio also informs my practice – an idea or turn of a phrase will spark something or make me stop. I’ve recently been rereading old favorites like Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and work by Hannah Arendt, Kenneth Burke, and others. When things get underway though I’m impatient and work on numerous pieces at once. I originally started to work on the smaller constructions because I thought they would be more manageable. But these pieces quickly took on a life of their own. It’s easy to get carried away and lose track of time in the studio.

Dumbo Studio, NY







 

 

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

 

My studio is in Dumbo, Brooklyn. The studio isn’t big but it has enough room for several workstations, so I can move from the easel to the wall to the floor and back again. It also lets me have a lot of work going on at once. I’ve set up rolling tables so I move easily between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional work. The debris tends to pile up and I spend a lot of time sifting. The studio has no windows, which makes it feel homey. But I do quite a bit of sanding and use some intense materials, which means I sometimes have to move the working process out into the street. More recently the neighborhood has been undergoing pretty drastic change. When I moved in, my studio was on an old cobblestoned street with empty warehouses and old factories. These buildings are now being turned into lofts. The construction probably has had an effect on my work, which has become increasingly three-dimensional. I’m always finding amazing byproducts of the construction process that make their way into my studio and occasionally into my pieces. Whether I’m in the studio or out in the neighborhood, I try to keep my eyes open.

 

 

 

 

 

“Holiday labor”
Wood, cardboard, glue,

staples, gouache, acrylic, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

No matter how much planning goes into my work, the painting process takes over. Still, I spend a lot of time reading and looking at art and ideas emerge from that process. I get very excited by seeing what other people are making. I also sketch and take photos of things that catch my eye and jot down color combinations. All these things tend to get thrown into the mix and form the backdrop or concept for a painting or series of paintings. The starting point differs drastically depending on the work in question. Sometimes I’ll start with a gesture, color, or shape – other times I’ll put down a quite literal image from a photograph or still life in my studio. Occasionally I’ll see a painting in a book that I like and want in my studio so I’ll start making it. Either way, things quickly go haywire. Matisse, the cat who lives in the building, enjoys knocking paintings over and walking on their surfaces. He’s a good reminder to have a sense of humor and make the most of accidents. I try to stay open to surprises. A color from one painting will make its way to another, a figure will disappear, or a shape will develop. Scraping and sanding sometimes brings something to light. With the constructions, it’s equally chaotic as I puzzle the pieces and move from the parts to the whole and back again. All in all, it makes for hours of solving and creating problems.

 

 

 

“I should have been more strange”
 Wood, glue, staples, cardboard,

 acrylic, oil, 2012



 

 



What are you having the most trouble resolving?

 

Where to begin! On the one hand, a big challenge is avoiding the temptation to resolve things too easily. I’m always fighting the urge to address a problem piece with a graphic solution. With the constructions, it’s easy to resort to anthropomorphism or other quick fixes. On the other hand, it’s tempting to work a piece to death, so letting go is key. Having a lot of work going at once helps with that challenge. It also helps me avoid treating the work too preciously. Found objects are almost always better when I find them than after I get done with them, and I’d like to know why. I hope to learn to walk the line between precision and messiness better. And, of course, I hope to get better about trusting my judgment.

 

 

 

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

Oil paints are at the center of my practice but I experiment quite broadly. The material itself tends to set the parameters, so I like to think there are infinite possibilities, although I stumble toward them through the material at hand. Recently, I’ve been using everything from oil on linen to gouache, Gorilla glue, hot-glue, wood, Xeroxes, acrylic transfer, found objects, trash from my studio floor, and just about everything in between.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the studio 

 

 

 

 

 

What does the future hold for this work?

I just got back from an amazing residency at Ox-Bow, where I began to work bigger for the first time. I’ve always worked quite small for a host of reasons – ethical, practical, and otherwise. Since returning I’ve continued to push the scale of my work. I’m very lucky to be in a building with other artists whose work I really respect. They work very large and quickly. Seeing their paintings in the hallways has made me want to take more risks. The constructions themselves have an internal scale, but they’ve been growing in size, and I see them continuing to grow alongside the paintings. Occasionally I have thoughts of doing something wild like casting them huge. But in the meantime, I hope to keep plugging away and pushing the boundaries of what is comfortable for me.

 

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

Thank you so much for inviting me to participate. I really enjoy the blog and have learned a lot from reading it. For anyone interested in seeing more work, it’s online at www.iloveyoukraus.com Thank you again, Valerie!

 

 

“Tied to the tail”
 Oil, acrylic, cardboard, paper, staples, glue,

wood, foam, plastic foam dispenser

2012