pose
man in cape
Chinballs with Flag
twe pillows
cloudeheads and sheep
line man with rock
What sort of action are you interested in taking?
I always like to be quite vague when I talk about my work because I think the more you talk about something the less you see it. We’re so comfortable with language and words, and visual language has its own rules — to decode it, people always gravitate to a text, or an interview, or whatever is on record that can be used to quickly understand the work, instead of spending time with it themselves.
It’s kind of a consumer impulse — oh, I’ve heard about this work and it’s about that, so I’ll visit and see that, and I’ll have had the authentic experience.
Exactly, and so we really don’t even need to talk about any of it! Just see what you see and don’t see. There’s nothing that I should say about it, anyway.
With another power game in mind: Are you interested in painting as it’s contextualized by art history, in working with or against the historical grain of the medium?
I think it’s very difficult to maneuver effectively in that space. You can’t really design those things, or even be self-conscious of them. I think it’s best to be informed of everything, not just of painting but of sculpture, performance — all different kinds of work — to be your own best audience, so that your own work can surprise you. If you’re aware of everything going on, and your work still surprises you, then hopefully it’s moving somewhere fresh and it can add to visual language that is already so abundant.
I really don’t consciously think of trying to create a historical opening for my work. I think you just have to find the best form for your ideas. For me, again, painting comes from the fact that I need an abstract space for my ideas, because the physical space where I live is not conducive to what I want to do. The square becomes the variable space where any action is possible.
