it not also be relevant to the visual arts? Within my own work, I often appropriate certain formal concerns – as is consistent with a post-modernist methodology. But I don’t want to duplicate what others have already done. So, this necessitates a working knowledge of Art History. My poetry analogy from earlier is also really always important for me in my work… every element is considered and goes to serve multiple roles and purposes - even if one of those purposes is to obfuscate its true meaning on an initial read.
How do you see the relationship between emotional and intellectual perception of your work? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience?
While we may separate the emotional and intellectual for the sake of analytics… but I really consider both equally. We have an immediate and visceral response and relationship with things we share the physical world with. Sharp, smooth, round, rectangular, bound and constrained - or loose and flowing… these, and a virtually infinite set of other qualities, are intrinsically considered when I make work. How it feels emotionally is as important and perhaps the same thing as how it looks. We all have a pre, or subconscious relationship with every form, every material, or color. That visceral, emotional exchange with the work is then honed through a more cerebral processing of its symbolism. While I am certainly aware that my cultural experience may be reflected in the content I choose, that unstated and immediate physical response is perhaps a more universal quality that we all share. We all have basal relationships to objects in our immediate environment. And while that physical exchange is always at play with sculpture, I also often try to get the same from painting... to give it a physical presence that is felt as much as looked at. I often try to undermine painting’s early history as a window onto the immediate world beyond. To this end, I deconstruct and segment, overlap and fragment, not only the image – but the actual physical support it rests on as well. As to the intellectual perception? I really have to leave that up to the individual viewer. Their associations are a product of their very specific existence and history. But I do have intentions and a certain subject matter in mind. Often I leave clues, like breadcrumbs, in the work as to my conceptual intent, should the viewer wish to follow the course and dialogue I have initiated. I hope to run the gamut from the general to the specific, so the concerted viewer will be rewarded. It really is only in forums such as this interview, that I more fully flesh out my intentions and thematics. Since I often choose abstracted imagery, I have to respect the fact that every viewer will conceptualize the content differently. I have to feel the viewers’ interpretations are equally valid, whether intended by me, or not.
Before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?
That is a complex question for me… I will say though, that I am always conscientious of the viewer when making work. While I play the role of viewer when making pieces, I am always aware that others will be looking at it. Its role isn’t just to gratify me… it is to communicate to a larger audience in a very specific way. I will often have a somewhat contentious relationship with the viewer and that has been in place from early on. I think it is really a result of forming artistically in a postmodern world. I seek to question, not to tell. I wish to confront, not appease. My intention was never to make warm, fuzzy work. But my stance has softened up on that somewhat…. I, much like the art-world on a more general level, have started to embrace the term and concept of metamodernism. It seems a comfortable fit for me and the logical next step. I found my work and goals changing somewhat and then discovered that term (metamodernism) and premise – almost by accident. I have to admit, I am more enamored with the visual language of modernism than I used to be – but still question its intentions and methodologies. I allow beauty into my vernacular more now and was really surprised to see there was a shared movement towards that within the international art community. Those who once only challenged as postmodernists, now acknowledge and use some of the more positive tools of modernism… saying not all of it is bad and beauty can have a place. Perhaps I am just softening up as I get older…
Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Daniel. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
Like many, I have more work I want to make than the time to make it. I spent quite a while developing the concepts, language and symbology I felt comfortable with to move forward artistically… Now I have to put it to use in the various forms and pieces I envision. The “Project Monarch” (colored squares) series has come back to the forefront for me, but they take an awful lot of time to complete. So, I envision adding to that series for awhile as well as trying out other forms and formats to break it up a bit. I want to investigate the black butterflies more in a variety of different contexts. They are tragic, poetic and loaded symbolically for me and I think superimposing them onto a series of different surfaces and images will work well conceptually - and hopefully equally well aesthetically…. We shall see. Certain new materials and devices will also be making an appearance… so that process of conceptualizing, establishing and then honing - repeats itself over and over.
I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about my work, my intentions and methodology. I don’t often get to address these issues in any great detail with a larger audience and have enjoyed it very much.
Until others see it, artwork is not truly finished. A dialog about a painting brings it to life for both the artist and the viewer. These conversations allow me to see more deeply into the work, to realize the subconscious elements I may have added. For instance, I painted a barren gray landscape with strange, colorful plants growing in clumps on the surface. I thought it was just a scene from a dream. But, my husband looked at it and said it reminded him of middle school. As soon as he told me, I could see it too, the image resonating so much stronger for me than a simple alien-scape. I can remember that day, at eleven years old, starting at a new school, feeling so alone and alien in a gray world, while the other kids huddled together in their social groups.
Each person who looks at "Middle School Cliques" will have a different reaction to it, a personal story or experience that describes the painting for them. I don't want to define it for them, but instead, have each of us share our ideas with the other.
ht one. Once I have the pose that strikes me (YES!) I take it from there, drawing up a rough sketch adding patterns and geometrical shapes which contrast the lines of the main silhouette.
From there I sketch my plan on to a blank canvas (always making changes and additions to the new layout). Once I am happy with that I start to add colour. My fine lines are all executed without masking; using a small brush, even hand, and steadfast concentration. Then I apply layer upon layer of colour until I achieve beautiful unyielding saturation and impeccable print-like quality.
How do you see the relationship between emotional and intellectual perception of your work? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience?
The emotional and intellectual relationship of my work always begin as two very seperate things. At first glance, my art may seem frivolously aesthetic .The colours are vibrant, and deliciously arresting. But then you look a little closer, even through the simplicity of the block colour and basic lines of geometry and pattern, there is always a story within… and that is when the emotional and intellectual perception of my art merge and the true beauty is discovered.
olted by the Thought of Known Places… Sweeney Astray” by Joan Jonas was one of the first performance installations that really made a huge impact on me. I was living in Paris during this time, in the early 90s, with a lot of influences from different cultures. It became the starting point of my own work. Joan Jonas practice has explored ways of seeing, the rhythms of ritual, and the authority of objects and gestures. Jonas continues to find new layers of meanings in themes and questions of gender and identity that have fueled her art for over thirty years. She is a great inspiration still today.
It is impossible to avoid the topic of body consciousness, embodied emotions and the image of body and personal identity that we see in your practice. What is the function of the identity appearing in your artworks – is it a canvas used to present your ideas or rather the subject of the art? What inspired you to use this as a theme in your practice?
I have been developing my visual imagery since I began studying art and film - from conceptual thinking, composition, using light and colour in different ways, through all the different techniques I've utilised over the years in my work and in my collaborations with stage artists such as dancers, musicians and actors. My approach is always developing through exploring these things. Visual imagery in essence is your way of experiencing what you see and transforming it. This is my world that I want to share and express through my art. The body consciousness, embodied emotions and the image of body and personal identity is part of this visual imagery, the emotional essence in my practice. Always present and always developing in different themes and projects.
Marina Abramovic stated: You see, what is my purpose of performance artist is to stage certain difficulties and stage the fear the primordial fear of pain, of dying, all of
which we have in our lives, and then stage them in front of audience and go through them and tell the audience, 'I'm your mirror; if I can do this in my life, you can do it in yours.'Can you relate anyhow to these words?
de-identify myself, by losing my roots, my culture, I would be very happy. Unfortunately the human being does'nt choose the place where he is born. He grows up in a society that automatically identifies, through education, culture, family... More than ever I think it's more important to go on a way of self-knowledge with the aim to meet “the other”.. This other without which we can not exist. It's the same for the artist. It is more important for me to be focused on my practice than to try to define it according to esthetic criteria of identification. It's probably the reason i like to remember the painter Matisse who said or wrote that an artist must never be prisoner of himself, prisoner of a style, prisoner of a reputation.
Would you like to tell us something about your background? Could you talk a little about experiences that has influence the way you currently relate yourself to your artworks?
All my way is influenced by encounterings.
It began by the meeting with my professor of literature at school. More than giving French or Literature classes, she brought us to discover texts, movies, plays, visual artworks and to think about on what we saw or read.. Thanks to her that I met Pierre Vincke, a theatredirector who was worjink in the tradition of Grotowski ... Both of them have led me to go to theater school. In this school I had meetings. Meetings with artists but also and especially human beings that made me discover. I always need o discover rather than to master a practice. It's probably the reason my encounter with Monica Klingler and Boris Nieslony was decisive for me and led me on the path of Performance Art which is a form still difficult to define. Each performance artist has a different definition of what it is...
Could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about race and ethnic identity in visual culture?
No I don't have a specific artwork that has influenced my artistic practise but many.
I'm influenced by some philsophers as well as poets or musicians or dancers or visual artists but also by some places or landscapes or atmospheres ... For some years, I was used for example to go to India where I was used to follow some traditionnal muscians or to learn bharatanatyam and practice vipassana meditation... Of course this experience has impacted my art work.... This brought me to think and work differently... My experience in India brought me to discover traditionnal strong art and paradoxally to the way of Performance Art. But there I see one common point: to make no separation between art and life and to be here and now, without projection on the future.
It's difficult for me to speak about race and ethnic identity. But I can say that today we miss more and more this notion of “to be here and now” which is more present in some cultures ... By practising Performance Art, it's my way to be connected to this way of thinking. And even in this field actually it's more and more difficult. The society and the art world brings us more and more to plan in advance, to define our work, more than to do. Just to do. To do what we deeply need.
And of course, my encountering with Black Market International and later the notion of Open Source or Open session via PAErsche have also a big impact on my work. When we go on that, each of us perform by sharing time and space but without trying to convince each other on some common way. This is for me a wonderfull way how we can meet each other, regardless of our origin, our race or our “identity”...
Many of your works carry an autobiographical message. Since you transform your experiences into your artwork, we are curious, what is the role of memory in your artistic productions? We are particularly interested if you try to achieve a faithful translation of your previous experiences or if you rather use memory as starting point to create.
My memory is clearly a starting point to create. I don't have any autobiographical message. I use my personnal experience ( what I feel , what I see, what I learn, what I ear...) to work. It's a motor or a material. I'm not able to paint, so I can't do something with red or white or yellow or black colors. All I have is life, a body alive. And I need to do something with that...
My sensation about life sometimes is too intense then I need to transform this intensity in some action. Some artistic action... If people can take something from this action this is great... but I don't want to give them “a specific message” or to control the translation of my experience.