Artist Interview: Evan Goldman

1. The title of your current show (closing March 29, 2013) at Kentlands Mansion in Gaithersburg, MD is "Worldviews." Why did you choose this title?

I like the title "Worldviews" because it has a double meaning. It could mean views of the world or perspectives of people around the world.

2. What kinds of places did you seek out when choosing what to paint. Why?

Rather than seeking out places to paint, I looked through my vacation photos and tried to figure out which were the most compelling images. I also thought about how they would look together.  The body of work references photos taken in the past six years in eight countries: China, India, Cambodia, Spain, France, Scotland. Norway and Canada. I also painted from my computer monitor because I could see more detail.

3. Your treatment of perspective draws the viewer into your compositions of places as diverse as dense urban India and remote Chinese wilderness. What do these places inspire?

I feel that these places represent the moments of awe in my life when I am so far from the familiar.  The most surreal place I visited was in China's Guilin Mountains.  The landscape looked as though it were taken right out of an ancient Chinese scroll.  In downtown Hyderabad, I climbed to the top of the famous Chaminar mosque for a breathtaking view of the city.  People, cars, and rickshaws flurry through the dusty streets and brightly colored marketplaces there.

Traveling abroad inspires a sense of adventure in me, and it also reminds me of the best times that I have spent with my family on vacation.  Painting this series has given me the opportunity to reflect on the most memorable time of my life.

4. There is a soft, ephemeral quality to your landscapes and cityscapes. Your portraits and figures (not included in this show) are much higher contrast. Why the difference?

When I paint a portrait or figure I prefer direct lighting to show form.  In my landscapes the lighting is diffuse, and my focus is on creating a sense of the atmosphere.

5. What does painting landscape teach that figure painting does not? How are the two similar?

Painting landscapes has helped me improve on the ability to look closely at textures and atmosphere.  I get immersed in figuring out how to best convey a crumbled stone wall in a Cambodian ruin or a tiled roof on Gaudi's architecture in Barcelona.  I am also drawn to the chaotic nature of places with large crowds as in my painting of downtown Hyderabad.

I believe landscape and figure painting are similar because places convey personality just as much as people do.  Through both genre, I am trying to understand and portray the unique character of a person or place.

6. What is the idea behind the "Worldviews" book?

The first book I made featured artwork from my 2010 solo show at the Orchard Gallery - "Impressions of Bethesda."  I launched it using the self-publishing website Blurb.com.  I was inspired to do this after attending a Portrait Society of America conference where I noticed that the most successful artists often make books and instructional DVDs to promote their artwork.  When I began working on my "Woldviews" series last year, it became clear that I should make another book for this show.

Artist Interview: Dennis Johnson

1. How would you describe yourself as an artist?

I am the type of artist who loves to try new things. I always experiment with new mediums and attempt to learn new techniques. I am well versed in many different ways of working. The need to learn new forms of art goes well beyond the visual medium for me. I want to learn all there is to know about other forms of art, including dance and the culinary arts. In my opinion, all art has the same root goal of making others feel something.

2. What inspires your work and what does your process look like?

I want to become an animator, so naturally I am inspired by motion in our everyday environment. I start with a base idea of what I want, and after deciding the subject, I begin sketching on a surface, adding flat colors to the linework. After laying down the flat colors, I build them up with highlights or shadows. Quite often, I have actually gone straight to the surface without a plan at all. It is easier to let my hand and mind wander freely than to plan a piece sometimes.

3. Character creation seems to be central to both your comics and your paintings. What do you have to consider when inventing a new character?

It is always important for the viewer to connect with a character in some way. Some of the best and deepest characters have very human qualities. I think about upbringing because it often shapes a person's decisions and mannerisms. From the moment you put yourself in the character's shoes and make choices for him/her, the character comes alive.

4. How does setting impact your characters or visa versa?

Our world would be stagnant without life interacting with it. Life would be nothing if there were no world. Setting plays just as important a part as characters. Some would argue that even the setting itself comprises a character. A person's surroundings directly impact his/her actions. The biggest challenge for a life form in the desert would be finding water. The moment you place a character in the desert, it will act to attain water. Some obstacles to gathering water would be found in the character's personality, but also largely in the setting.

In a more controlled environment, like a city, characters impact setting. A person might buy space to build a doughnut shop in Manhattan. As soon as that person's business begins to flourish, other entrepreneurs might grab space next to the doughnut shop. Next, what begins as a street of small shops becomes a hip hangout for the younger crowd. That one doughnut shop owner influences many people, but more importantly, he impacts the setting and changes it.

5. What are you looking forward to in the future?

I want to get myself back in school. I really want to go to an art college where I could study animation. In the not so distant future, I hope to enter more art shows and art contests. I want to sharpen my skills as an artist and become the best artist I can be. I am working on a graphic novel that I am writing and drawing, and I hope to have a portion of the book ready to show at SPX 2012.

Artist Interview: Glen Kessler

Glen Kessler's new series of paintings "Command-Shift-3," on view at the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery March 24-25, 2012, takes a close look at technology and how it shapes the way we see, look and feel.
(This interview has been edited from its original version.)

1. How would you characterize your work from 2005 - 2010?

I graduated with my MFA from The New York Academy of Art in 2005.  The curriculum at 'The Academy' was rigorous, both technically and conceptually.  For my thesis, I conceived of a painting that explored a surprising interaction I had with my wife (then girlfriend).  We were watching a news report on the Iraq War.  Later, we discussed it only to find that we had completely different takes on it.  I knew that it was our opposing political views that caused the schism and was intrigued by how much personal biases and preconceived expectations can shape our understanding of facts.  Being a painter, I found a visual equivalent of this distortion: 

Conceptually speaking, I took a topic like politics, beauty, oddity, combat and mined art history for an image that represented that topic.  I replaced the head of the lead figure in the found image with that of an analagous contemporary figure. I distorted the hybrid image through anamorphic distortion, which distorts an image from all possible perspectives other than one specific oblique angle.  Finally, I rendered the painting in a style that combined old world painting (glazing) and modern painting (thick impastos).  The resulting image was rife with dichotomies for the viewer to explore.  See the images here: http://www.glenkessler.com/Site/2005-2010.html.

2. You are showing recent works (completed in the past year) on March 24-25 at the Yellow Barn Art Gallery in Glen Echo, MD. Does this work represent a shift from your previous paintings or is there also a continuity that it encapsulates?

My newest body of work, 'COMMAND-SHIFT-3,' completed from 2011-2012, represents a shift from the previous series because I am concerned with different issues today than I was from 2005-2010. 

These new paintings focus on the unflinching march of technology into our daily lives.  I marvel at how quickly things are changing, as the internet, GPS, and miniaturization allows computers to creep in.  I use a lot of technology in my personal life and career.  As a painter, I try to maximize the potential of technology to make my work more effective.

Also, as a teacher, I interact with hundreds of people each week. Today’s high school students do not know a world without e-mail, phones with cameras and the immediacy of social media and information at their fingertips. Their world is a one of answers, information, accessibility, ease. 

As a culture we can ask how we, our children, and our children's children will be hardwired as a result of this new way of interacting? Are we aware yet of how this new technology-driven paradigm will continue to shape our minds, our beliefs, our philosophies and psychologies?  This is what my recent work explores. 

Observing how different generations perceive technology, I feel a bit like a cultural anthropologist.  If I were a writer or a researcher, I might publish my findings in words, but as a painter I convey my observations through paint. 

I believe these new paintings have much to offer the patient viewer.  They are layered, offering a depth of meaning. 

I operate with intellectual certainty, but also with a healthy dose of instinct. Both are essential for art-making.  If the work becomes too cerebral, all the mystery and all the empathy is lost.  If it gets too instinctive, the artist loses his way.

Overall, my work remains very personal to me and focuses on my observations of the world around me.  When I began painting in the mid- 90's, I was trained as a perceptual painter.  Initially, that meant painting literally what I saw in front of me, but as time went on, I became bored with the lack of conceptual depth in that mode of working.  Philip Guston captures my thoughts when talking about his studio practice in the face of world events:

"What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything - and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue." 

I sought to use my skills as a painter to convey a world beyond just the visual.  I wanted to give tangible form to my inner thoughts, with all the richness and depth of which painting is capable. 

I see my transition as a very logical progression. It would be odd to make the same work year after year as the world around me changes, and I change as a result. 

See my recent work here: http://www.glenkessler.com/Site/Recent_Work.html.

3. How does technology inform your paintings?

Technology is the backbone of the concepts in my paintings but also plays a major role in the making of the work.  A few years ago, I transitioned from printed photographs as my primary source to the computer screen.  I love the way the glowing pixels capture a luminosity closer to real life than the ink printed on paper.  I can also zoom in effortlessly and even use programs to tinker with the image in a seamless process of 'sketching.'  In my studio, I have a large monitor that I sync up to my smaller laptop screen.  This allows me to really observe details.  It is a great setup that I am sure more and more artists will employ.

Lately, I have been exploring how technology can improve my studio practice.  I 'sketch' and take notes on my laptop and iPhone.  I have not had a paper sketchbook in years. Utilizing all the tools at our disposal is where art is headed.

You might look at my work and say I am a traditional painter, but I love the way modern technology can assist in the artistic process. I am certain that if Velazquez or Picasso were alive today they would use the computer, smartphone and internet in their work.

4. What view of technology do your paintings express?

 When people hear about my work, they might assume I am cynical of the changes technology is ushering in. Not true.  However, I am also not simply advocating for those changes either. 

I have always thought of the artist as an eye - like Philip Guston's great cycloptic figure, a massive eye on an otherwise featureless head.

The eye's job is to observe the world around it and offer intelligent, well-crafted visual essays on what it finds.  I do not like art that hits you over the head with the artist's opinions.  It is small, and a waste of the great gifts of the history of painting. 

I am old enough to remember a time before cell phones, the Internet, VCRs, even remote controls.  I grew up as these technologies came into common use. I am also young enough to make use of them with facility and joy.  However, the incredible speed at which they make their way into every facet of our lives, makes me wonder how people adapt to think, act and believe in new ways. 

Today's high school students accept that information should be immediately accessible, that friends are always within reach, that one should never get lost and that every minute is an opportunity to accomplish some task.  I teach a lot of high school students at The Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery, and I can tell you that they have different expectations now than they did even just five years ago. 

An astonishing number show traits of ADHD. Is this biological, or are we hardwiring children to jump from task to task like apps on a phone?  Many students excel in technical exercises but have difficulty exploring concepts in greater depth.  Is this just youth, or are they being trained to expect answers quickly, without deeper investigation? These fascinating changes appear to be the initial indications of a societal shift.  The past generation tends to observe differences, even to label and treat those differences.  Ultimately, the next generation will shape our culture in its image. 

My work takes note of these seeds of change and communicates them through a beautiful and layered visual language.  I leave it to the viewer to evaluate the impact of these changes. 

My book, "COMMAND-SHIFT-3, New Paintings by Glen Kessler," which includes personal essays on art and technology, will be available for sale at my show on March 24-25.

For more information visit www.GlenKessler.com.

Artist Interview: J. Jordan Bruns

 
1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?

Image a tall stone tower.  Let's say 5-7 stories tall.  It will have a spiral staircase in the center, and at the top of the stair case, a big white cube-shaped room with tons of strategically placed sky lights and very nice track lighting that adjusts with the time of day.  White walls, very clean oak hardwood floors with comfortable benches placed around the hole in the center of the floor where the stair case emerges. Climbing the staircase would make the viewer a bit dizzy, which I think would be kind of fun.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?

Well, I'll answer this question as it applies to painting. Good painting asks questions.  It's at its best when the viewer has to work to connect the dots. This means that not everything is explained at first, and the viewer is forced to ponder, decipher and examine the painting to get the most out of it.  I get very bored when people try and paint a painting just like a photograph. It's equivalent to someone giving you $10,000 for doing nothing; the work would not be worth as much as if you had worked for the $10,000, except for the emotional worth. Good painting asks questions of/for the viewer, and when/if that happens, it is more rewarding and enjoyable.  People grow from art.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?

I don't expect anything, really. However, I do wish that everyone did not just see the post apocalyptic world in my work.  I don't deny that there are elements of destruction, but I still see the rebirth in it too. The themes I explore are akin to a yin and yang. I think everyone is just so depressed about the state of our economy, jobs, wars that everyone just looks for the negative in every situation.  At the same time, I don't want to be known as the guy who is "so cheerful in person, but paints such disturbing subject matter!"

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?

I would say, "Have fun playing chess for the rest of your life!" I remember going to Philadelphia and seeing some of his work.  Duchamp painted a painting for every art movement from Impressionism to Cubism, and Philly had one of his from each - all in a row.  It looked like he mimicked the movement, got all he could out of it, and moved on.  As if all of Cubism could be explained in one painting! This is not to say I don't agree.  I think that there needs to be a balance between retinal and thought-provoking.

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?

I think it kind of depends on how artists persevere. When painting first had to deal with photography, everyone said that "painting was dead." Painting evolved, thankfully, and was more interesting, said more, and it truly was better off. Now, photographers have to deal with all the Sunday afternoon digital photographers.  Everyone is a photographer now, and the skill and craft loses some importance.  Not everyone is trained to understand what makes good pictures. I think that when everyone can do art as well as everyone else, art will cease to exist.

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.

How about the age old battle between form and content.  Which is more important?

Interview with architect Juergen Mayer H. / J. MAYER H. Architects

Danfoss Universe, Denmark, Jurgen Mayer Architects, 2005-2007

1. In past interviews you have discussed the shift from thinking/designing from material to form to thinking/designing from structure to material. What is the role of scale in this transition?

JMH: If you develop certain questions about the potential of architecture and how it generates a dialog between client´s needs, context and an inherent architectural discussion, you will find that scale is increasingly unimportant, in other words, to investigate certain concerns in different scales cross-references from the object to the urban context. The small objects and furniture pieces start with a specific material and develop their concept from there. Houses and larger buildings focus on an overall atmosphere, including light, sound, noise, color and texture. The way we detail and select materials is based on the specific requirements for each part of the building, a complex patchwork of material selection with a homogeneous appearance.

2. What is the relationship to technology in your work? Architects have to contend with technology on so many levels. They have to ensure that it aids work-flow and that it enriches an experience. 

JMH: One major investment in our work is looking at expanding the material of architecture, say beyond just building material. The influence of new media and new materials definitely expands our understanding of “space” as a platform for communication and sociocultural interactivity. We look closely at the site, critically rethink the programme and try to extract something that is special to the specific site. In case of Danfoss Universe for example the ground and outdoor quality was guiding the design process for the buildings as ground modulations. We believe that architecture should work as an activator to move people from a passive mode of expectation to an involved level of participation and attention.

3. The project that introduced me to your work was Cumulus for Danfoss Universe. I am struck by how accurately your statement that it "communicates between ground and sky" describes the project and outlasts the blink of an eye. How did you conceive of the form and most importantly how were you able to realize it? Does it constitute the beginnings of your recent book Arium? 

JMH: Danfoss Universe is a science park dedicated to opening eyes and raising curiosity to explore the world. With our buildings, architecture becomes a major component in the educational and pedagogical landscape of Danfoss Universe. The height of the church tower nearby is the marker for the height of all buildings in the city of Nordborg. First this seemed to be a challenge for the multi-purpose temporary exhibition space building. Surprisingly the church immediately supported the project and its educational agenda for bringing mostly young people closer to technology and science. The integration of landscape, nature and technology at Danfoss Universe is a perfect mix to think architecture as one component of a larger environment. Arium is a guidebook to Weather and Architecture. Examining the relationship between the atmosphere, built environment, culture, and politics, this comprehensive research project. The book offers an in-depth look at our contemporary understanding of weather through critical examinations of design and architecture.

4. Receiving feedback on a project is about creating connections between creators and end-users. As a site of cultural production, what kind of feedback can architecture elicit at the scale of the city and the individual? What are some of your firm's projects that are important in relation to this question? 

JMH: Architecture should work as an activator to move people from a passive mode of expectation to an involed level of participation and attention. It is my assumption that unconsciously we might built sculptural objects as buildings by challenging ourselves to invent new details in order to avoid details. For example, the project dupli.casa has a white coating. The whiteness envelopes the entire building and even extends in to the garden. From further away it all looks the same thing. However, when you get closer you might see changes in the materials depending on the specific requirements from stucco and polyurethan to rubber, etc. What looks easy and clear, is actually a very precise mix of various construction modes and material selection.

5. In Grey Grid you translate an object into an idea for a building. What is the most challenging aspect of this transition from a design perspective and from a logistical point of view?

JMH_ Formerly decorated with stucco ornament, this existant apartment building is transformed into 4 multistory townhouse units with a new roof top, and covered with a contemporary pattern. The grey color of the East German paint on the old building is transformed into pattern grids by multiple photoshop raster filter modulations. Facades, roof and courtyard show the same pattern in different materiality according to programmatic needs. Grey.grid overlays the regular window grid with an electronically generated relief.

6. This interview is about bridging between architecture as pure formal expression and architecture as an interactive environment, between architecture as icon and architecture as a sensory experience. Who are some important or interesting artists working at this intersection for you?

JMH: Architecture is a catalyst which is not a background to an everyday life, but something that provokes you to rethink spatial conditions. I always ask myself – how do we live? How do we occupy our spaces? I am looking for architecture that would foresee changes or even better – allow inventive social changes to take place. For that reason I really admire the work of Frederick Kiesler: "His unorthodox architectural drawings and plans that he called "polydimensional" were somewhat akin to Surrealist automatic drawings. (..) For it, he sought to dissolve the visual, real, image, and environment into a free-flowing space. He likewise pursued this approach with his “Endless House,” exhibited in maquette form in 1958–59 at The Museum of Modern Art." (Quotation: Wikipedia)

Artist Interview: Vian Borchert

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?

I would like my artwork to be displayed in metropolitan city galleries such NYC, LA, Berlin, Paris and other major cities, and in places like the Whitney Biennial, The Venice Biennale - Galleries such as the Allan Stone Gallery in NY and Gagosian Gallery to name a few. (This actually is my dream to show in such places).

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?

Art can make your senses wake up. Art can do many things. It is used as a medium of communication to convey a message - be it to shock, beautify or touch us visually. Also, art can serve as a form of therapy for the maker of art, the artist.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?

I would like my viewer  / audience / fans / public to appreciate and like what they see when they view my art. I like them to have a visual and an intellectual dialogue with my artwork. Also, I would like them to be visually pleased with this visual interaction.

For the second part of the question, I wouldn't like the viewer to know much or have any preconceived ideas about my artwork since I believe that artwork and in this case my artwork should speak on its own rather than me standing next to it and explaining it to the passers by or other form of explanation.

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?

I like Marcel Duchamp because he was a creative thinker, and he always had a driven hunger for discovering interesting ideas and subject matters such as "ready-made art," like his Bicycle Wheel. For his time, he was a pioneer in innovation inspired art. And, yes. I agree with his statement above: there is more than meets the eye in "thinking outside of the box" art; there is a lot of thought, imagination and creativity that goes into Duchamp-ian kind of art.

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?
Yes, as long as there are thinkers, there will be art movements. I actually think of myself or my philosophies on art, my views and making art as my own school of thought.

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.
Most of the time, I try with my answers to cover the main picture that my art illustrates or conveys. Thus, in this regard, I can't think of a particular question that I would have liked to be asked.

Current Shows:

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 17, 7–9PM
Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Annual Strathmore Artist Juried Exhibition.
February 26, 2011 - April 2, 2011
THE MANSION AT STRATHMORE
Free and Open to the Public
For more information call (301) 581-5125
The Mansion at Strathmore
10701 Rockville Pike
North Bethesda, MD 20852-3324

Title: "Vian Shamounki Borchert's Expressionist Journey of Multi Media"
Artwork is on display at the City of Gaithersburg's Kentlands Mansion Gallery (2nd Floor) from January 27, 2011 until March 27, 2011.
The Kentlands Mansion is located at:
320 Kent Square Road in Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878
Gallery hours: Monday - Friday from 9AM - 4PM
For a viewing appointment please call: 301-258-6394 or 301-258-6425 

Artist Interview: Lou Gagnon

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?
Rather than pursue ideal situations, I prefer to stay open to opportunities to connect with others. I have had the good fortune to see my work hanging in a wide variety of settings. including alongside my heroes, and found value in each.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?
Both of the above and more. Art can engage us in shared experiences that cannot be explained or located. It is at it’s best when it resonates and moves us.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?
Nothing, it’s my job to communicate.  People typically have a visceral response to my work (positive or negative) and “knowing” or “meaning” does not change that reaction.  This is important to me because it's a chance to see their honest response and it helps me evaluate how the thing is working.

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?
We can excuse Mr. Duchamp for his ignorance regarding our contemporary understanding of the operation of our visual cortex. That he may prefer to tickle his pre-frontal cortex over his visual cortex is up to him and should not be used as a tool to isolate and or define art. His is more a political statement about exclusivity (still a powerful strategy) than an aesthetic statement.

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?
We have always lived in a pluralistic climate it is just that until recently it’s been isolated by geography creating the illusion of homogenous culture. Movements are a construct of art history and are best established with some distance. Artificial constructs will be seen in time for what they are, inauthentic.

That said, it would be fun to see a movement in art that parallels the locally grown, whole food movement. It seems we suffer from too many processed art products, impregnated with artificial nutrients and stabilizers vying for novelty and an extended shelf life. Enough with Twinkies!

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.
Where can we see it? Red Dot Miami booth 108B. Touchstone Gallery in DC and you are always welcome to visit my studio or website for my exhibition calendar.
Why do you sell it? A large percentage of the direct sales from my studio and adult workshops subsidizes private art instruction for young people.

Artist Interview: Betsy Medvedovsky

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?
I want for my work to be handled and interacted with. I want people to play with the things I make, to finger the magazines I put out, to want to own them as objects. Posters are fun too, in that they make people stop and gape, which I always like; sometimes in design communities they even get stolen, which is the biggest compliment.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?
If I use "art" specifically, to mean, art like in museums: I will be frank and say, I'm not sure, which is probably why I'm not an artist. At its standard best, art makes me laugh; in the extreme rare case, I am moved by it, but for whatever reason, I can't express, that's extremely rare. I guess I think art lets us express some sort of
general mood in a way not confined by language. I find language tough. It's fun to talk, but ultimately I don't think it gets at the gist of the things I'm saying. Which is probably why I gesticulate so so much when impassioned.

If I use art broadly to mean any sort of creative work, i.e. for me, design, I'd probably still stay with that idea: design lets us express ideas in ways that are not confined by language. So, there is an idea, but how can it be expressed not in a paragraph, but in a magazine, a website, an object, an experience? The great designers of Experimental Jetset say that they "turn ideas into objects." I cannot get away from that definition, really. Perhaps this can be extended to say that traditional, non-designed art turns moods or sensations into objects.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?
Honestly, I don't want to expect anything from them. I know in my experience that a certain kind of viewer likes my things better--people who are more educated, perhaps, or more bored with straightforwardness and like a certain sort of decoding work. But for me: the brunt is on me, whether in art or design, to communicate. The greats--they made amazing work that communicated with people no matter the baggage they brought to the table. The form was that great, that engaging, that the content shone through.

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?
That I must run to the dictionary!

But actually, I probably agree with him. More and more the sort of art I enjoy is experiential. I go to museums not so much to see the paintings or objects on display but really for the experience of being in a designed, (more or less) non-commercial environment. I almost always don't like anything in museums--but I still go, because I enjoy that theatricality. (And it's nice to know what one is talking about before launching into an anti-art screed.) Dance and performance art installation art are probably my favorites right now, because they are inherently are temporal, give you that experience, that theatricality. I love theatricality of any sort, no matter how created. But also, why I love temporal arts: _That's_ when you know something is sincere: when it is beautiful and then gone.

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?
There's always room. One makes room. Or I don't know enough art history to weigh in.

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.
What are the inspirations of your life?

Lame question, huh? I used to think so, but I've gotten really into this stuff during a couple of problematic projects and the general increasing realization that I'm my own worst stumbling block.

Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit talks about creativity as work in a concrete way and yet is quite soulful about it. I really do go back to this book quite frequently. Natalia Ilyin's Chasing the Perfect makes an argument against modernism that one may or may not be interested in (hint: I am) but interweaves art on a personal and a historical level quite effectively, coming to the conclusion that one should do design out of love, not out of fear. Nothing groundbreaking, I guess, but it's a point I try to come back to, and she makes the case quite poignantly.

Artist Interview with Clement Valla

"Mechanical Turk is also twisted," said Clement Valla, who uses the interface to engage people creatively. He has written a software program that enables Mechanical Turk workers to create collaborative paintings made of up 1600 discreet one-square-inch pieces. He titles these works Seed Drawings because they emanate from a single tile that multiplies iteratively. Users are asked to copy the tile that is next to their own assigned blank tile, but because each new copy is essentially made by hand or an inexact process, each newly-filled tile ends up looking slightly different than the previous one. Sometimes a user decides not to follow the instructions, and whole new patterns evolve in the paintings.

Mechanical Turk is an Amazon.com platform for employing human users to perform tasks that a computer is unable to carry out. In an interview with Artists Speak, Valla explained the origin of the name. An 18th century contraption, the Mechanical Turk was a chess-playing automaton that appeared to be a robot. A reputed chess-champion, capable of beating most human opponents, the Mechanical Turk was actually a human disguised as a robot. Behind every automaton lies a human hand.

Before developing the software that would spawn his Seed Drawings, Valla elicited the help of distant human artists for his Master's thesis at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he studies and teaches in the Digital + Media MFA program. Encouraged to work in an unfamiliar medium for an assignment in a theory class, Valla took on the challenge by ordering custom paintings from Chinese artist villages. What started out as an experiment would transform into an entire body of work for his thesis.

Fully embracing the digital paradigm of instruction-based art, Valla asked the Chinese painters, who all had Western names, to paint the view outside their window. Unlike most of the orders they received from other clients who asked for copies of famous Western paintings, like Monets and Van Goghs, Clement's instructions sought to humanize the process of ordering copies from a production studio accustomed to mass customization in an outsourcing economy. For the 2009 Wassaic Project arts festival, Clement ordered an oil painting that combined three different contexts and eras from the Wushipu Chinese Painting Village in Xiamen, China. Set against a background sky of a painting by the Hudson School painter Frederick Church and a Google Earth relief of Wassaic, NY is a building in Xiamen. The building just happens to evoke the stature of the Wassaic Mill, which is where the arts festival is held each year.

Drawing from the minimalism of Sol LeWitt and Mel Bochner, Clement Valla explores the structural potentials of form-making. His work examines repetition in a digital medium within the confines of a pre-existing system. When ordering paintings online from China, in order to communicate with artists, Valla subjected each image that was produced to a digital critique. He would send instructions to his overseas workshop by email, and with each exchange, a copy of a copy would insert itself into the internet-based feedback loop and ultimately make its way into the final object. The difference between the Wushipu paintings and the Seed drawings is that the former participate in an additive process where each new layer masks what was there before, whereas the latter record and divulge each additive transformation in horizontal and radial format. Nonetheless, for his thesis show, Valla had ordered copies of copies of copies of copies of paintings from artists working in China, and structurally, his commissioned, instruction-based collection looked a lot like the more abstracted and minimal Seed drawings that were to follow.

Digital production and hand-made craft combine nicely in Clement Valla's work, whether he is crowdsourcing the production of his Seed drawings or outsourcing his MFA thesis. The results are beautiful and document a modern-day palimpsest of working class creative output through a critical-productive framework.

Read Clement Valla's Master's thesis Original Copies:
http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_65/7166000/7166262/2/print/thesis.pdf

Artist Interview at MoMA - PS1: Debo Eilers

Debo Eilers Live at PS1

It's amazing how much you learn from talking to an artist. At PS1 I spoke with Debo Eilers about his sculpture work, which he recasts as recycled prop until someone decides to purchase it. From rebuilding Kanye West's sunglasses after a performance in which they were being handed out to children in Union Square in Manhattan, to hiring a 13-year-old to go shopping on Canal St. and then perform alongside him at a PS1 performance involving his work, Debo creatively reuses his pieces and reanimates them in various contexts. The canvas-size palette, on which he mixes his oils and resins, doubles as a wall hanging and a picture frame showcasing a photograph from the performance Secret Faggot, which was performed by a band of his friends.

In speaking to Debo, it is easy to see how malleable the vision of the artist can be. He nods and listens carefully and responds with new details related to the migratory nature of his work. On August 8th, during the well-attended PS1 performance, all the pieces he had set up in the space he shared with Tamar Halpern were moved or altered. The stage he had built for Secret Faggot was split into its constituent pieces and turned upside down. The broken mirror floor covering from his studio, which he had transposed onto the floor of the exhibit space, was stacked against a wall in pieces, and three of his mixed-media paintings had new plastic figurines of animals and fish stuck to them. The 13-year-old had made all the changes: she was empowered to alter the artist's vision as part of the performance.

Debo's work bears references to the aesthetic of Richard Hamilton, Cy Twombly and Gerhard Richter. He questions power dynamics in constructed interior environments, works with sculptural cutouts that are relatively two-dimensional and superimposes photography on painted cast plastic.

Artist Interview at MoMA - PS1: Franklin Evans

After reveling in watching a few others being playful, including a young girl and a group of 20-somethings running around in a frenzy, bouncing yoga balls, I clambered up the PS1 front steps and into the museum entrance. Feeling inspired, I asked the desk attendant if PS1 accepts proposals - still continuing to hope that she did not smile and shake her head no - as I bought a ticket and disappeared into the hallways of the former public school building. The first room I stumbled into absolutely floored me. Trust me, this is not a bad pun. The artist, Franklin Evans had covered floor, ceiling and walls in a labyrinthine pattern of tape, notebook paper and thread.

Franklin Evans     

I could not help but take my shoes off when I walked into Franklin Evans's painting. It was like walking into someone's memory unraveling itself in still time. A chromatic masterpiece of tape, printouts and notebook paper, Evans's walk-in painting evokes a deconstructionist palimpsest space with the celebratory pomp of Constructivism. While easily conducive to hours of scrutinizing his writing, his small, pixel-based watercolors, which read like mini-landscapes on ruled notebook paper, and old printouts of critical reviews of his work, the work as a whole presents a formidable trompe l'oeil. Strips of color dance around the PS1 room his 3D painting inhabits: they take over the parquet floors, the white walls and even the ceiling, slicing their way through recursively. Some hang precariously, ready to snap off their axis and curl up on the floor. I wanted to use it as meditation space, but I am not sure if that is what the artist had in mind.

Arttists Speak interviewed Evans about his work:

AS: You are primarily a painter. What made you create an environment you can walk into?

FE: Paint is one of the primary materials I am working with and with Painting historically.  The walk-in aspect is linked both to an installation space composed of a traditionally flat medium and to the interior painting space that exists in what I perceive as a multi-dimensional brain.  I hope the installation reads as thinking painting that exists as object, dissolution of object and peripheral information (history, criticality, process, failures) that are part of making things.

AS: Work/Play/Space - where did this exhibition name come from and how does it relate to your work? I know that space is an important concept for you.

FE: Workplayspace is akin to timecompressionmachine whereby dissimilar elements are contextualized by one another, equal and unequal parts the seriousness of work, the free-for-all of play and the multidimensional of space (implying a non-linear time), space that is both literally and informed by past and future space.

AS: Are Marc Chagall and Frank Stella two of your influences? How have they influenced your work?

FE: Chagall not at all.  Although I recently saw an amazing Chagall in Prague.  Stella, quite a lot.  In particular, Stella predetermined way of working in the Black Paintings and in his cosmologic spiraling forms of recent wall reliefs.

AS: In reference to freakout, the Jeff Bailey gallery press release describes your paintings as both "celebratory and psychedelic." What kind of planning goes into achieving these effects? What struck me about your PS1 walk-in environment was the simultaneous unity and chaos of the piece. It seemed to be in process. I almost wanted to pick up the threads on the ground and start adding to it myself. At the same time, there was a logic I did not want to disrupt.

FE: I appreciate that you did not physically disrupt the allusion to my working process.  It is almost enough that you wanted to think about it and possibly take away from it to your own practice.  The planning in my current work is quite active now.  In “freakout” days, I was process oriented but only in the allowance for chance elements to watercolor on paper.  Now I have many processes that I juxtapose in the hope that cross-contamination will lead to new processes (painted tape on wall grounds infecting the reframing of foundational viewing of art exhibitions, etc.)  It is definitely not a free-for-all.  For example, my floor piece composed of all the press releases from exhibitions I saw last year (extracted of the image) wore during the summer at PS1, particularly during the busy Saturday WarmUp Sessions.  I was away all of August and upon my return, much of the paper had torn and scattered through the installation.  It was exciting initially to see the change, but after a few minutes I read a chaos that didn’t connect to my intent.  Thus I decided to reorder the torn piece back into the initial path but under a protective layer of bubblewrap.  The path return to its initial form and the entropic process was highlighted.

AS: What kinds of collaborations have you participated in the past and what kinds of collaborations do you seek?

FE: I have collaborated performatively with writers and choreographers, both in visual design and in content of the performance.  I have also collaborated as a curator with others.  I look for collaborations that involve ideas that I cannot develop in my isolated practice.  And I hope to stretch the boundaries of my practice through these collaborations.

AS: Tell me more about how you collected material for the PS1 exhibit.

FE: “Timecompressionmachine” came out of the work I started to develop in fall 2008 at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program in DUMBO.  I wanted to use the entire studio as a working laboratory of space, idea, material, architecture.  It was a place as much for isolated reading as it was for exploring materials.  I documented this activity daily with still images for 12 discrete points in which the life of the studio would begin and end because of the know duration of the program (1 year).  Much was open in what I could explore, but it was clear that the studio would only have a 1 year life.  I described the year that in reference to Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking” a coming to terms with the end of a life.  I called it “Component System Sub-System: A Year of Magical Thinking.”  Component was objects like watercolors, wall marks, brushstrokes, books, diaristic notes.  They were arranged into sub-systems, usually wall or extensions from the wall – “turningtime” “treetarget” “friedrichspastfromthefuture”.  And these became the overall system.  This passed onto my solo show in Sep 2009 titled “2008/2009 < 2009/2010” the past always being less than the present (given the assumption of the lens of subjectivity as filter to anything that has occurred in linear measurement of time).  I re-presented some of the elements from “CSSS: A Year of Magical Thinking” but had new architectural consideration in the gallery space and I was addressing more directly ideas of time and duration rather than time and closure.  All this was brought forward to MoMA PS1 where I literally had to compress my working process of nearly 1 year into something that would be built in 3 or 4 weeks.  Moreover, I was compressing one and half years into something that would be show for 5 months.  My hope is that the piece is transporting on multiple levels (literal, fantastical, historic).

Artist Interview: Lauren Kotkin

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?
I've always liked small, cozy spaces. So an ideal gallery space for my artwork would feel like a home -- an architecturally interesting and intimate place. And since my work is small, just 8x10 unframed, in an
intimate space each piece would have a chance to settle in, like getting comfortable on a couch, and not get lost on otherwise expansive walls.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?
Art eliminates the need for words. It shares emotion and is provocative in an image. As the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. For me, it's a way to express emotions without having to find the right word to explain what the feeling. It can turn negative emotions into an image of beauty.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?
I'd like viewers to know more about my paper and current process since the back story adds a complexity to my work. In 2006 I took photographs of the sidewalks in Prague: mosaic tiled sidewalks, not slabs of cement. Later, I became interested in who or what was "falling through the cracks" and remembered the sidewalks; I created my own paper with the sidewalk photographs. From that, I cut small pieces of roughly the same size though different shapes. The pieces get mounted on colored pastel paper and rearranged into an abstract design based on a visual representation of emotional metaphors. So, I create mosaic images from mosaic images--after first separating them. It's a bit meta.

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?
I say keep retinal art; it is here to stay. Art cannot be completely divorced from the visual. Entry point models validate varying ways to experience art. One can see a circle as a circle, or as pain or joy. If the former experiences the work as a simple circle--it's what is seen--who are we to say that what s/he sees or experiences isn't valid?

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?
Hasn't art always been pluralistic? There must be forms of expression which did not evolve into movements though human expression is as diverse as humankind. As an arts educator, I highly value creative expression. If we allow as much room as possible for creative expression, movements will be born or not born -- but the bottom line is people are making art of some form.

Artist Interview with Melissa Lauren

If you have seen the Arcimboldo exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, you will like Melissa Lauren's latest work. I visited her in her North Potomac studio, where large finished and in-progress oil paintings lean against walls and furniture. Her latest commission is a large bluish-green crab against a sandy background painted meticulously with daubs of white and burnt sienna. After discussing a career as a muralist and illustrator, educated at Parsons, Melissa placed three of her signature pieces next to one another. These unlikely portrait-landscapes are difficult to pin down. They are part of a series called Fantasy Faces and combine elements of landscape, portraiture, animals, fruit and objects framed against an easily identifiable and familiar background. The paintings are suitable for a plethora of contexts, and Face of the Bible is located in the Ratner Museum in Bethesda, Maryland. In this series, Melissa explores the boundary between traditional figurative painting and Surrealist techniques of distortion and uncanny superimposition. The artist describes these works as timeless and eternal - without a need for historical specificity. She is interested in their symbolic value and their potential as narrative devices.

The uncanny narrative in her work is not lost in some of her more traditional realist paintings. Whether she is painting crabs, canoers, children playing golf, window shutters or children watching television, Melissa composes her works with the viewer in mind. She wants her audience to be entertained and also to ask questions. Why is the crab off-center? What are elephants doing on a TV screen? Why do you paint evergreens in the fall? In Sunday Afternoon Football, two children are laying on their stomachs, and their bodies are foreshortened toward a TV screen. Their iridescent skin tones are reminiscent of Norman Rockwell's lanky figures. The painter's scrutinizing eye, with an almost unwholesome predilection for details, is evident in the treatment of the striped rug, the hardwood floor underneath, the neo-classical mantle and the children's feet.

Fall Pines is another of Melissa Lauren's paintings that arrest the gaze and tickle the intellect. Instead of painting golden fall leaves, she sets two rusting ornate garden chairs against a delicately-handled moire of evergreens. As usual, the composition does not center a subject but weaves an unsettling context. Three orange pumpkins figure prominently in the painting, but it is hard not to look beyond them at the pines and the low horizon line. The passage of time or a gust of wind could easily alter this precariously designed moment that is filmic in its off-center deadpan crop. Who designed this stage? Well, I can tell you the artist photographed it herself and then worked from the photograph to complete the painting.

Whether new or old, there is always a story behind Melissa's paintings. Her skill as a former muralist and illustrator, her sense of humor and her quick imagination are all there for our enjoyment. We just have to open our eyes and look and question. Voila!  

Artist Interview: Preeti Gujral

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?
I'd like my work to be displayed in a small gallery with excellent natural light. Someone who is passionate about the genre of art that h/she shows would run my ideal gallery.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?
Just as expository writing informs, and geometry help to position in space, art makes us feel. Art draws the mind and soul of the viewer away from the surroundings and into itself. For the moment of viewing, the viewer becomes part of the piece. Art helps the viewer to momentarily transcend his surroundings.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?
I would like the audience to be aware of the multicultural aspect of my work. My work comes from the confluence of east and west and is about retaining what uplifts and letting go of what shackles, whether physically or emotionally.

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?
 I agree that art should appeal to the mind and not just to the eye. In addition, I think that it needs to touch the viewer on a very visceral level. I feel that if it doesn't make you feel or think, it is not a true piece of art.

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?
 I think that there is. There are many small niches within the art world, eg, street art, fantasy art, and culture- specific art.

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.
How does my art make me feel when I am creating it? It absorbs and fulfills me at the same time. Physical time stands still for me when I am creating art.

Artist Interview: Ai-Wen Wu Kratz

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?
As a professional artist, I would like to have my work exhibited in museums and respectable galleries.

My basic desire is to have them viewed in a large, uncluttered space. My large works need to be viewed at a distance. To fulfill my role as a visual artist in relation to society, I am most happy to exhibit my works in a public space, so as to bring art to the life of others. I think the arrogant attitude of Clyfford Still is wrong. Like elected government officials, artists should have servitude at heart. Still regarded his own works as being holy. He proclaimed that all those who wish to view his works ought to travel (so as to receive the blessing of seeing HIS art!) Art is in the field of humanity. How could Clyfford Still fulfill such a serious mission?

In group exhibitions, I want to see my work among the good company of strong works.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?
The apparatus in art is the power to evoke and to connect; to speak without words; to reach without extending our hands. The hidden yearning, the basic goodness, the silent murmur in everyone's heart comes across in art. (Perhaps, an additional social dimension would be to reach out to social outcasts - so sad and sorrowful).

Imagine driving along a highway with a median planted with flowers versus one with a plain solid
concrete bank. With the hope of lowering the crime rate, Lady Bird Johnson initiated the wild
flower project along the highway and parks. In a way, this is the contribution of art to society.

Visual art, like its sister arts, holds the magic to heal and to respond to spiritual needs.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?
I hope the viewer is able to recognize that I have a poetic and fluidity in my gestures. Aesthetic could be a "bad" word in our time, but those who respond to my work are most likely drawn by the aesthetic direction that my works project. In addition, my creativity might intrigue them.

I would like to share that my works come from the purity of my heart, and from the much-treasured memories that sustain an internal fire that it will never die from obstacles.

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?
"Enough with retinal art!" could be an exclamation of Duchamp's personal dismay at what he saw around him.

Retinal art cannot and will never be cleanly wiped out from our society. Some, in fact, the majority, will always keep the tradition of retinal art alive. Blessed are those who find it a pure joy! Other artists follow suit because they do not know any better: they are not versed in art history, or do not have a sense of duty as a practitioner in relation to the passage of time, or have no interest in intellectualism .

How can one escape "retinal art" when one eats from a plate and sit on a chair everyday. Art and its applications are all around us, from a pair of shoes to a pitcher that pours out juice. "I don't know art, but I know what I like." Unknowingly, this frequently-heard proclamation is an acknowledgment and validation of "retinal art."

I admire Marcel Duchamp and am grateful that history is dotted with intelligent minds like Duchamp's and
Joseph Beuys's. The majority of common practitioners in the art will sleep through the centuries.

"Enough with 'retinal art'!" could reflect a decision of Duchamp's not to go the route of "retinal art", but rather to delineate a new direction with serious thinking, thereby, enacting a different attitude he dared espouse.

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?
There is room for art movements at any juncture in the history of art. Yes - even in the pluralism of our time.
Great thinkers give birth to movements. Each movement needs an unselfish thinker who has a pure interest in
intellectual exchanges. An unselfish thinker is someone who is dedicated to intellectualism and not personal glorification.

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.
Where will you be going from here?

Recently, I told a fellow-artist that in our studios, we need to keep "pushing." I meant we should not to give up or worry, but keep working. Here is a story; perhaps it is my version of an original. An old thrifty man prayed his heart out: "Lord, let me be the one who win the l o t t e r y this time! Just once, please!"
His earnestness evoked a voice from above: "You need to spend the money to buy one ticket, at least!"

The same is true for me: if I do not invest the time to do my studio work, I will never find my way.
My way is to attain what I want to see in my works when they are up on the wall. So far, mine are still in
the arena of "retinal art." I hope to develop as an artist through continuous working and thinking.

Artist Interview: Krishen Khanna

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?
I would like to show my work when I think there is something worthwhile to show, but if the work is too private, then I don't think I would like to show it at all. There is an impersonal elements in art - ie. that which is given is also capable of being shared. There is an objective element, which correlates, maybe on many levels. I have had innumerable shows here in India, in Europe and the USA, and I felt marvelous when people whom I did not know saw and understood what I had tried to say.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?
I am not sure that analogies help. Art has the capacity of drawing the artist right out. One can become oblivious to the effects one's own art have, and as we call it, one might transcend oneself and strike a note quite outside of one's own limited experience. One may thus be quite surprised at what came out of the work. Discoveries can be made, even small ones, which enter the experience of art.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?
There are different levels of understanding and all are valid. A spectator's understanding is conditioned by his experience, which can, of course, grow until it surpasses his experience. This applies as much to poetry and music. Therefore, the spectator is happy even if there was a glimmer of a small meeting place in the experience of the work. It is rare that there is a total comprehension.

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?
Duchamp, great as he is, and interesting as he is, still belongs to a category of artists and thinkers who narrow down the art experience to the detriment of seeing and experiencing the whole. He may have been questionably annoyed at the emphasis on the visual element. I would then move on to another resolute element. Today everyone is shouting for the idea as the main mover. I am sure this will wear out. Ideas are always important, but people have forgotten the many other factors, which are equally important. We can learn with discretion, but we should not confuse it with the whole experience.

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?
Art movements are specific - generally against the values held by the previous generation. So, a belief comes to be established that the new truth is the only truth. There is nothing absolute; there is no progression in art.

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.
I haven't given this thought! Maybe at the very end of discussions I would want a more resilient attitude, which would even take into account that which is not so good. There is always a long way to go and why should anyone be denying of even a poor start.

Artist Interview: Malati Shah

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?

Different works show well in different spaces, of course.  There is not that one gallery that would always work.  For my recent watercolour paintings, I would like nothing better than to show all twenty of them in a natural light-filled atrium gallery, but I don't know of any, and 'any' don't know of me. Not yet.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?
Art does so many different things; mainly, it triggers a cerebral or emotional response from the viewer.  Sometimes it wrenches the gut, sometimes it soothes a broken spirit, sometimes a work of art challenges all that has gone before and opens a window to other possible ways of expression.  So, the apparatus that art affords us is this: it allows us to be in touch with our most distinct human spirit.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?
If someone appreciates my work, I feel on top of the world; what else could I possibly feel?  If someone wants to buy one of my paintings, I feel - good heavens - do they like it that much or is it just me they like?  Oh, it must be me, I tell myself, and then I don't feel as bad as you may imagine I should. I feel - heck - there are reasons and reasons to buy art, and if liking me is one of them, so be it!  Then, if they display the picture they bought in their living room or some favourite place, my heart leaps up like Wordsworth at the sight of a rainbow. On the other hand, when I see it behind the toilet seat, I beg the buyer to please hang it in front of the toilet at least. This happened to me once. And - oh - that was such a subversive move on my part. Sitting there on the toilet seat, the buyer saw the painting everyday - every day. Low and behold, now it hangs over the fireplace in her living room in the high Himalayas. Ah, my heart leaps up, it does!

Another nice thing is when someone I don't know and who doesn't know me buys one of my paintings.  Then, it is as if I have communicated in a larger way, somehow.

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?
I feel dazed and confused reading what Marcel said.  He must have been having a 'bad retinal day' or something.  Excuse my ignorance - I am just making pictures here and minding my own business.

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?
Yes, I think there are.  Indeed, there seems to be a movement to expand the vocabulary and tools of art to include the many new means of expression there are nowadays - from Lascaux to Adobe. Moreover, this pluralism itself is a movement, as I see it.  This doesn't mean everyone has to engage the latest trends: one just does what one has to do and is compelled to create.

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.
Ask me the question: What do you think of Art as a commodity?

My answer: It is a tragic loss of independent assessment that people purchase and admire art because someone else told them to.  Real art embodies the spirit of freedom, and for people to love it for reasons such as investment, or 'the Jones Effect' as I call it, well, that is the very reversal of what the work set out to do, or should have set out to do.  The best purchase of art is when it is bought or acquired because there was something in the way it moves you and you don't want to lose it now, don't want to lose it now, to quote the Beatle's song.
The End.

Artist Interview: Nihal Kececi

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?
In an ideal situation, I would like to display my art at the professional art galleries. There are not many of them in our area.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?
I have learned that a painting can create a great connection with another soul in a second without knowing anything about it. Expository writing does that as well. It is matter of interaction time. In addition, the creative processes can be supported by explicit or implicit intelligences of writer and/or painter. Paintings are a form of the creative process. I create without knowing.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you
like them to know about your work?
I am an intuitive artist. I do not look at an object and then paint. I do not make a plan before painting. I do not know what I am painting until the painting is finished. The titles and meaning of the paintings comes after the canvas is completed. Don't ask how do I know when the canvas is completed. I do not an answer for it.

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?
Love it...... good art should touch viewer mind, heart and soul.... not only the eye...

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?
Talking about today's art movements is a challenging task for me. I do read Art Collector Magazine on a regular basis and follow up with what the leading galleries, coast to coast, tell us is hot in their gallery and with the latest trends in their city. Based on this knowledge, I would say it is possible to have art movements today.

I also like what Marcel Duchamp said: "I don't believe in art, I believe in Artist. "

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.
Why do I paint?

Nihal has current shows at the National Children's Hospital, the Touchstone Art Gallery  in DC, the Blueberry Art Gallery in Alexandria, and the Howe Street Art Gallery in Vancouver.

She also has several shows coming up:

1. Bistro Blanc...Restaurant and Wine Lounge.... Solo show /Opening in September 30.
2. Art on the Avenue...Alexandria... October 2
3. Art Market...Alexandria...........November 6
4. Solo show at the Touchstone Art Gallery (DC)   ....January 2011
5. Solo show at the Blueberry Art Gallery (Alexandria/Virginia)......February 2011
6. DC Metropolitan Art Expo/ Gaylord National Hotel at National Harbor  ... March 26 - 27, 2011

Artist Interview: Eliza Bishop

Eliza Bishop documents her performative process-gifts through photography.

1. Where and how would you display your work in an ideal situation?
My art-meditations are a collaboration with mother earth and human beings. My creations are not independent of their surroundings, but in fact, a revealing of the interdependence of all life. Therefore, they can be viewed anywhere and anytime.

2. If expository writing is good at elucidating and proving a point and descriptive geometry gives us the tools by which to map objects in space in relation to one another, what kind of an apparatus does art afford us? What does art do best?
Art accomplishes itself when it is shared. The process of sharing is a tap-root to experience to the mysteries of the cycles of life on this blue planet.

3. What can you expect from your audience/fans/viewing public? What would you like them to know about your work?
I expect nothing. My art is an impermanent offering, an act of rejoicing.

4. Marcel Duchamp said - "Enough with retinal art!" What is your reaction as an artist to this statement?
Duchamp insisted on matter as mediation, which is part of the process of art becoming what it is now - form that melts form - to be here now, experiencing this experience of eternity.

5. Do you think that there is still room for art movements in today's pluralistic climate?
This pluralistic climate of art is a multi-layered communication from multiple points to other points, like a flowing current, uncontainable.

6. What is one question you wished we had asked you about your art? Please feel free to answer it.
How is your art universal? It is an environmental awakening.

An artist who practices internationally, Eliza Bishop has two upcoming shows in Berlin - a performance this weekend at a festival called BELOVED and a show at Let It Bleed gallery at the end of September. She also has an upcoming show at the Miami Art Museum.