Thank you so much to Blum & Poe, who, I mean,
this is like the third time's a charm.
This is the third big project I've done with Blum & Poe in LA and
it really is a culmination of more than 20 years of
my sort of working through,
my unexplained attraction to figurative art since I was
very young. And,
when I was a young art historian, really starting out,
and I was working at the Centre Pompidou,
the very first exhibition I did there was called "Dear Painter, Paint Me:
Painting the Figure Since Late Picabia,"
and at the end of the nineties and the beginning of the two thousands,
figurative painting was not embraced as it is today,
especially within the academy, within sort of,
discursive and critical art circles.
And that exhibition was my first attempt to kind of reckon with
why I thought figuration was important and was an
important conceptual vehicle for artists and an enduring form of art making that
could still have political content and be an antagonist.
But I was sort of haunted over the years, the last 20 years of how,
you know, it, it had some transgressive, artists in it,
like Bernard Buffet and, and different figures who kind of rubbed the,
certainly the European sort of, canon the wrong way.
But it was an extremely white, Eurocentric, American-centric point of view.
And I think I've grown a lot and my intellectual curiosity has really pushed
me to sort of look past that and think about the humanism
that undergirds my interest in this,
genre of, of,
of painting and also the primacy of the painted image and the
painted image of, of human subjects. So without further ado,
this exhibition really sort of was, is an,
is another draft of thinking through these, these issues.
And it's a really a huge pleasure to bring,
Andrew, Clarity, and Chris here on stage with me,
because I've worked with all of you at different moments and have been on a
panel with that clarity organized at CAA. And,
I really was excited to sort of start the conversation to ask each of
you how you sort of, you know, your process,
but also your story of how you started to make art and how you
specifically, because you all kind of,
the Venn diagram of all of you is portraiture. So,
beginning with Andrew,
who has a very interesting sort of trajectory as a self-taught artist,
can you talk,
talk to us a little bit about how you started making your series of Creole
portraits and your delving into history and your background a little bit?
Yes, of course. I'm from born originally in Mobile, Alabama,
which is very close to Louisiana.
And like a lot of children, I love to paint watercolors, play-doh,
make stuff.
and my parents and family was like,
I was kind of a jittery child, so when I was painting,
they wanted me to do that. Never thought of it as a career,
but I've always did it. And, and as a small child, I loved history.
I loved, architecture.
And sometime in my teens in, you know, growing up,
the black experience in America was not good during that time,
18th and 19th century. So, you know,
it's like if you were black during this time, you were a slave.
So probably when I was 14 or so,
I discovered free people of color,
in the Mobile area also in, in Louisiana.
And also discovered on both sides of my family that I was descendant from
Free Blacks, the French and Spanish, well along the Mississippi, well,
the Gulf Coast.
And they thought of slavery a little bit different from the rest of America and
gave slaves more opportunities to be free. And,
these people 'bout early 19th century,
some of them were quite wealthy and lived just like their white counterparts.
So I was like, wow,
this is a just a different take on what I've been taught in school.
I want to dedicate and learn more about this and depict the lives of these free
people of color, you know, going to France and,
and wearing the latest French fashions and building properties and,
and you know, a lot of French culture on the, on the Gulf Coast. So,
kind of like in my early teens,
I got––fell down a rabbit hole of Creole culture,
which comes out a lot in my art and, and also in the painting here in this show,
"the Creole Duchess".
Thank you, Andrew. I think we'll get back to some other follow up questions.
I want everyone to have a chance to give, to dive in. So Clarity,
would you maybe give us a little
Sure. Yeah. first of all, thank you so much for,
this amazing show. It's such a beautiful show. It's,
it's such an honor to be part of it. yeah, I, I actually also,
always knew I wanted to be an artist,
and I got pretty serious about it and in high school,
and then my life just kind of took a different turn and,
I just went down some hard, I had some hard times. And,
and it was really in my late twenties,
that my life started getting back on track. And,
so I hadn't gone to art school by that time in my late twenties,
and I started painting again. And,
that's when I started doing portraits of torsos
And I called it the "Breast Portrait Project".
you can also call it the Chest Portrait Project. and it came out of my own,
sort of desire to heal some kind of relationship with my own body.
so that's why there's no no head, which,
which I think is an interesting thing to think about when you think about
portraiture, and how, you know, we, we think of the face as being the,
the place that holds our identity.
and when I did a self portrait of my torso,
I felt some sense of,
just some sense of belonging and just I saw my humanity and,
instead of all the stuff that I had taken on from, you know,
patriarchal society and, and I also was queer,
so I was coming out as queer in the late eighties. And, and I, you know,
the AIDS crisis was also going on,
and I feel like that really influenced my feelings about the body as a queer
person coming out. It was very intense. so yeah, and, but,
but this project evolved, not, not because I necessarily had a plan for it,
but because once I had done my own self portrait,
friends started asking me for portraits of their torsos. And before I knew it,
I was always kind of being pulled into situations where people were asking for
portraits,
and often they felt like the experience of getting a portrait
was transformative or healing or an opportunity for them to kind of work through
something or celebrate themselves in a way that hadn't,
they don't get a chance to normally. So, so over the,
that was in the late nineties. That was 1997 when it started.
And over the years,
I've done portraits of several hundred people, and I've documented that,
process by having them write after each portrait.
and so they're always from life, and in the past 10 years, they've,
or a little more than that. They've been larger than life paintings,
like the one in this show, called "Miriam".
and that's an opportunity to really think of the body as
more of like, on the scale of a landscape, but also to,
have a relationship with the models that is, you know,
longer term friendship. And in general, it's,
it's a very kind of intimate experience to to,
to kind of be allowed to portray that part of a person.
somebody was recently saying it's sort of like the vulnerable underbelly of
the animal. We don't usually show it that much. and so I feel very,
like I wanna create a safe space for people when they, they pose for me.
and the model for the painting that's in the beautiful pink room over there,
is a non-binary trans person. And,
kind of on the masc spectrum. So one,
one thing that's interesting to me is sort of like the,
the things that come up when people see a body with breasts.
the assumptions that we have are often not at all reality.
so,
and I was thinking about this show and how it's based on this Willem de Kooning
quote, and Willem de Kooning, I love this quote,
said that flesh is the reason why oil paint was invented. And,
I definitely like, relate to that.
but Susan Stryker, a trans scholar, says that,
sometimes the flesh can be made new, and I'm always really interested in how,
the body can be a site of culture and self-expression and
transformation and, stories, you know.
so I've been fortunate to lately do some portraits of some amazing artists who
have already done work about their bodies. So like Genesis
Breyer P-Orridge, I'm doing a portrait right now of Jonathan Lyndon Chase,
who's also in this show. and so,
I'm constantly just expanding my understanding of,
of sort of what it means to have a body through this project.
That's a great quote from de Kooning. It's a, it's nice to, because I,
I always was hesitant about not wanting to overly demonize de Kooning.
But anyway, back to that later.
Chris,
would you be so kind as to tell us a little bit about your journey towards
becoming an artist and, and speak to us also–– Well, I mean,
we can get into it more in detail,
but the work that Chris made for the show is really,
this sort of entry portal,
into art history that hangs here at the gallery when you walk in.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me on, in this show and on this panel,
especially with Andrew and Clarity, they're very inspirational,
artists. and, I guess my,
journey as an artist has taken a lot of unexpected turns.
like,
I've been making art all my life, starting by drawing,
comic books, copying illustrations out, encyclopedias,
kind of just trying to find subject matter that I felt connected with.
and then like a lot of artists too,
I turn to myself as a subject matter because
it's very accessible to make a self portrait. and then,
over time I've continued that search for a type of subject matter
where,
I realized I wanted to explore how the art
experience can stir different emotions in a viewer.
and one inspiration I had was working with found
objects. Mm-hmm. I initially,
it came from kind of a destructive place where I wanted to really shake up my
art practice.
so I went on a limb and just looked for things around my studio and
my living space as inspiration for things to paint on.
The first object was a IKEA dish towel.
and I wanted to somehow transform this,
kind of refuse of life into something that
could be cherished.
so one challenge that I just impulsively decided on was to paint,
da Vinci's drawing of a virgin in a three-quarter view.
I had a museum print from the Met, in my studio.
It's a piece that I really like, and it was very difficult,
but, it spurred a,
very interesting journey into
trying to explore how,
different objects could be made into something new and unexpected.
so the next object was a running shoe. I love to run. And,
after a while,
I started running out of things to paint in my studio and at home, painted all,
all my stuff. So I started,
looking into these Renaissance paintings as inspiration for things to work on.
And one,
reason why I was drawn to that era and art,
is I really was drawn,
I was drawn to the depictions of the natural world. And,
that meaning, that is can,
can be found in many cultures and different,
ways people express a spiritual practice beyond Christianity.
so,
it's definitely been something that I've,
will probably pursue for a while.
The art historical subjects that you,
or that you reprise found imagery from the history of art.
Is there like a, a large range?
Like is there a time period that you go between or is it ever evolving?
Well, the first pieces that I would
paint, it started around 2016.
I was just looking online Google image search for different details of
the renaissance that I was drawn to and I wanted to depict.
And after a while I realized that I was really more interested in the Northern
Renaissance Flemish primitives.
and I, it kind of went down a similar rabbit hole,
where I,
I just got really fascinated by the history of that art and following
the different provenance of these, pieces. And,
I stylistically,
I like the delicacy that's found in these,
in the severity of emotion that is often found in these paintings.
Yes, I, I share that with you because the, the Flemish,
Uh,
primitive Flemish painting of the 14 hundreds and the early 15 hundreds,
this, this whole genre of the "Andachtsbilder", which was a German term,
that is an image that's meant to make you emote and have
affect.
So it a painting that is designed to make you cry or to feel the pain of
Christ, or, you know, just to connect with that humanity. And,
I guess that's a, a great segue into the next sort of round of questions,
which is really about choices of subjects and who gets portraitized in
your work. And I mean, I've always thought that art history,
and I think one of the reasons why figuration to me,
was just intuitively something I was always attracted to is the fact that,
the, these
visual narration through painting is really like a time machine.
Because if you really, you know, get sucked into a painting of whatever period,
it's a,
a way of preserving something of a human experience,
what not just the image with the images depicting,
but also the emotion and the making of, and all of that.
And when I invited Chris, I was telling him about my current research about,
women artists from the 1500's until now.
And the question of self-representation and how "Pictures Girls Make" actually
is a nod to the fact that women artists were the first to
invent in the early renaissance. The,
the palette self-portrait showing to assert one's identity and one's agency
as an artist holding a palette. And,
and this is really something that was first done by women,
Catherina van Hemessen, and then Sofonisba Anguissola,
who's self-portrait you so beautifully rendered on, on the window. So I guess I,
I just wanna throw the question out there about like how you,
you all kind of deal with this historicizing through the act
of painting and how sometimes your subjects, like with Andrew, for instance,
your subjects oscillate between like real people
from history, but also fictionalized portraits,
and maybe you could each kind of speak to that.
Yes. My muse was a very powerful,
in fact,
people believe she was the most powerful woman in 19th century New Orleans.
her name was Marie Laveau. She was the voodoo queen and, and lived,
she was born in 1801 and died in the 1880s.
and she was a Creole of color. She was mixed race,
but highly respected by whites, blacks, everyone there, which was,
you know, women were just not thought of that way,
whether you are white or black during that time period.
there is a portrait believed to be Marie Laveau, that I use.
And I painted Marie hundreds of times due to the fact that, you know,
this black woman was highly regarded and looked at
in Louisiana in New Orleans.
there was no other place like that in America during this time.
So I paint her a lot. and as you say,
Alison, you know, there's so many interesting,
other fascinating people like that in Louisiana.
And when I hear their stories, when I read about them,
families will tell me about various women were very kind of just
ahead of their time in Louisiana. I guess that was because of the French.
They did a lot of things that women in other places in America were not doing.
So when people tell me their family's history,
that will inspire me, I want to kind of bring that person back alive.
And then we know somewhat,
some of my imagined people would, would be queer Louisiana. And, you know,
that those people were there, it's harder to find them,
but I also represent them in my work and kind of bring them back as well.
so the imaginary people and, and,
and the people we know that were there,
but their story really wasn't documented or told at that time.
And then very famous people.
Yeah. I love, like most recently, Andrew's Instagram is a must follow and,
you, when you are painting, whether he always prefaces,
whether he's in a Creole or an Anglo-Saxon place.
And in Anglo-Saxon Savannah, he was recently painting the Face Jug artist.
Yes. And so, you know, he just,
these incredible images that are not part of, you know,
you don't walk into the Met and see these people represented. And,
Well, speaking of that, the portrait in this show,
I love to also reverse history because I was always a museum nerd
going to museums. I didn't see me being represented.
And I realized one of the most powerful things I could do as a artist was to
reverse that history and, and show,
blacks in the past in positions of power like the Black Duchess.
I don't really look at tv, I kind of do my own research for my paintings.
But a few years ago,
a lot of people on my pages were saying, you have to see this show Bridgerton.
'cause it's, it's, it's your art coming in. And I mean, you know, people,
you have to tell me that 20 or 30 times. So after the 30th person,
they were like, they're showing black aristocrats. Your paintings are in this.
So I, I like,
looked at the whole series when I did look at it like in two or three days,
and I'm like, this is just fabulous. This is,
Well, in the same vein, I think Clarity, you too,
sort of are an artist who has started to push into the
cannon to assert, you know,
these subjects that have been systematically left out.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, like fat bodies, gender,
non-conforming bodies, old bodies, disabled bodies,
are just not seen. And if they are, they aren't seen with the kind of,
esteem and respect that they deserve. So yeah, I,
I don't, you know, I I'm also just interested in, I, you know, there,
there is that impulse as an artist when you don't see something out there to put
it out there. And so for example,
actually next week opening in New York is a show that I've been fortunate to
co-curate and, and also have work in called "Can You See Me Now,
Painting The Aging Body," which has Joan Semmel and Emma Amos,
and a lot of amazing artists as well as,
some artists that are a little bit younger.
and it really is, you know, it's another way of,
I do think it's kind of a feminist act, to,
to insist upon a body that is not specifically for the,
the male gaze consumption.
and that's always kind of been at the heart of what I'm interested in doing.
Right.
And Chris, you have like a, a different kind of,
type of image like subject selection,
and I was wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about the thread that
runs throughout your various works. I mean, here,
you, you know, made this work for our show,
which I think really brought to life the argument,
but maybe you could walk us through a little bit how you, like,
what is the connecting and what is your connection to your subjects?
Sure.
I guess one concern that I think about often is
kind of the mysteries behind human existence and the different ways that
people have been describing, that relationship with the natural world.
Um,
oftentimes I'll choose an image based on the
object that I'd like to,
to paint on and try and connect unexpected threads between maybe what the
object symbolizes and what,
how the relationship between the detail that I wanna use for that object.
sometimes the design of,
the object will also dictate what I want to paint on,
off and on in these Renaissance images because of this
attention to, almost this,
you could call it like a sacred geometry. They,
really fit things like antique window caning, right.
Or shells like Exactly. They're a very beautiful shell that the natural world.
and its geometry that we've appropriated for our, our, you know,
kind of classical purposes. Mm-hmm.
finds its way back into your art.
Yeah, definitely. And then,
thinking about the natural world and our relationship with it,
there's that big question of, you know, life and death,
and often that becomes epitomized in this idea of a
mother goddess. the earth is represented by a woman,
the earth and sea is where things are born, and when you die,
you return to that.
and definitely the aspect of time and our relationship with time and how things
change over time is a big point that I try and connect with.
And I think you were alluding to something earlier,
where there's a kind of interesting tension in your work because you're
borrowing normally from,
like let's say Flemish and Northern Renaissance imagery,
which obviously is generated by Catholic theology or
kind of archetypes coming out of that tradition. Yet you made an illusion that,
you know, maybe your work is informed by other, belief systems as well.
I mean, like,
just what you're saying now about nature and a return to the earth, it,
I think it's a,
a very interesting tension in your work that you're bringing back to life these,
you know, sort of, canonical,
narratives coming from, European culture,
but yet you're transposing them onto objects that then like
complicate that.
Yeah. I definitely see the Renaissance as this,
kind of window into a deeper pass into ancient cultures where
so much has been lost over time. And,
the scholarship and being able to find these paintings and rediscover
who made them in the guessing at the meaning behind them,
is a way for us to reconnect with maybe,
some ideas that the Renaissance were drawing upon,
that Christianity was drawing upon.
one could think of the Christ figure as a reinvention of Apollo,
right? The Virgin is,
I mean like the secular humanism that oftentimes is very present even when
you're representing Jesus or, you know,
Marian and the Madonna and Child. I think that there,
some of those artists, as we've learned through scholarship, you know,
were subverting or, you know, injecting,
subversive readings that, that deviated from like strict Catholic theology.
I mean, that's, I think,
also very apparent when you repaint them and you revisit them.
Yeah. I, I can't remember their name, Marsilio Ficino. Mm-hmm. He was,
definitely a theologian,
responsible for translating ancient Greek text that had been rediscovered and,
revitalizing a lot of ancient practices. And he,
even though he was a Christian, he, practiced hermetic magic.
So there's definitely,
ways that intellectuals,
were able to explore things that might've got them
locked up.
Yeah, I also, wanted to sort of,
because we're sitting here in this room where we have works from different
periods. It's not just, the contemporary or the post-war,
but we also have a work by Mela Muter,
a Polish artist who lived in Paris from, the,
self-portrait there at the beginning. and obviously Sofonisba,
her ghost is here with us.
And I'm wondering if I could ask each of you to maybe talk about how
the show,
the contextualization of your work and the history that is sort of
winked at, I mean, unfortunately we couldn't, you know,
borrow things from the Getty and the Met too, but,
we tried to bring that question of genealogy
into the show. And I should say that for instance, with Andrew,
he's flanked, his work is flanked in the,
entry gallery on both sides with historical works,
one of which comes from your collection. There's Joshua Johnson,
and then the work of the Louisiana School of a Creole Gentlemen. So I,
I guess I just wanted to kind of have hear you riff on the histories that,
and the context and the relationships that your works are,
having in this show.
I, I love the idea of showing, you know,
newly created art along with the past,
along with older works and of different, you know, the, the works that,
like you said, that flank my art. Joshua Johnson is the first known,
African American artist.
He was born in Baltimore in the mid 18th century.
His father was a white man, and his mother was enslaved.
and there's not a lot known about him,
but he created a body of work of over, you know,
over I believe a hundred portraits that have survived of middle class
and upper, you know, wealthy white people. Yeah. That,
I think there's probably one portrait of,
a black person that he's painting. Yes, I think so. Yeah. But he was painting,
you know, major people in the politics and very wealthy families in Maryland,
and he was self-taught.
There were other artists in that area that were more
academically trained, but, you know,
this black man crossed over into this white world and was quite
successful and creating this art.
and then again,
the portrait of getting back to the Creoles from my collection,
of the, the Free People of Color. And,
we also had an artist in New Orleans, oh goodness,
I'm blanking out. Julien, Julien Hudson. And,
and it was almost the same thing. Julien Hudson was actually born free.
His father was white, and his mother was a free woman of color,
and he was somewhat self-taught. He did go to Paris,
but his paintings were very naive.
And there's a smaller body of work by Julien Hudson, but,
including a self portrait by him in the state museum.
I, to me, going into this exhibit is not like an art gallery to me,
this is a museum. When I walked through here,
seeing the older works next to the newer works,
it was almost like I'm in a museum setting.
And I love that ideal of pairing the old with the new
Clarity.
There's a whole kind of queer art history running throughout the show,
and I'm wonder, I'm really dying to hear your thoughts about this.
yeah, I, I mean there's so many things. There's,
there's like, looking at that painting right across the way there.
what is her name again?
Mela Mutter,
Like right in the middle. Oh, Agata Sløwak. Yeah. Like, you know,
there's just so many amazing,
just stunning also kind of confrontational works in the show,
which I really appreciate. and,
in the room that I'm in, which is pink, I mean,
I love that color and I've done a lot of work around that color,
so it feels very appropriate. I'm right,
my painting is right next to Jane Freilicher's self portrait, I think.
I think so. I think it's a self portrait. Yeah. And, you know, it's just,
I'm really interested in, ways in which, like,
whether it's Paula Modersohn-Becker or Jane Freilicher,
who's more of a recent artist, have portrayed themselves,
specifically the body.
And I love the way her breasts are just kind of like hanging there right above
the, the bottom of the canvas. And,
and then Jonathan Lyndon Chase I just had in my studio last week because they're
sitting for a portrait and we are also both, alumnis of the,
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
So it felt very special to also be kind of having a dialogue with their
work. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's really overwhelming and I agree. It's,
it's a museum quality show. It's stunning.
and I also just love, this is just probably not very art historical,
but I love the way you paint the walls, these colors,
and it just brings out the colors of the paintings.
I think that's really hard to do, and it's really fun and it's just so rich.
Like, it's all about, I mean, paintings are about, you know, it's visual art,
so it's all about, the visual.
And I feel like you've really pushed that in this show to such a beautiful
place.
Thank you. Chris, do you have any, thoughts? I mean,
I know we're, we're actually, I think, is it Sally back there? We're sit,
we're Sally Han's painting,
double Self Portrait is right behind us and Chris and Sally show together in
New York.
And I'd love to hear your thoughts about the whole kind of context and how your
work relates to other artists in the exhibition.
Yeah, definitely. well I'm,
I'm really thrilled to be in showing with Andrew and Clarity in speaking on this
panel because I feel like we, both share,
attention to detail and delicacy in our work, that has bold results.
So, I think that there's a nice dialogue going there.
and definitely Sally's work, really speaks in the same vein.
Yes. And, one person I'm really freaking out about is Alice Neel,
because she was a very early inspiration for my own,
journey as an artist.
and I feel like her self-awareness is something she was very in tune with and
also brought that out in her subjects.
and that also speaks with Sofonisba Anguissola, who was,
so inventive and self-aware as well.
And I think a lot of her celebrity and fame and success came from that.
Yeah.
Anguissola,
really becomes such an important artist for me because,
as anyone who's read,
Linda Nochlin knows the kind of godmother of feminist art history.
the reason why there were so-called no great women artists was that art
education was not really accessible in any kind of serious and systematic way
until the mid to late 19th century. But there were,
of course, throughout time women artists and,
most of them were the daughters of painters and Anguissola and
her sisters who were all artists,
were educated by a father who is not a painter.
They are completely an anomaly.
And her whole work is actually about erudition, like the,
the learning that is always depicted in her paintings.
so there's a number of godmothers in this show,
and she is definitely is the oldest among them.
And I'm so glad you talked about Alice Neel because, between Mela Muter,
who was sort of Alice Neel before Alice Neel, and Alice Neel,
who basically her,
her communist beliefs really drew her to
subjects, radical subjects to representing the working class,
to representing, you know,
just like all of you representing people who were not normally depicted
on canvas.
so I guess this kind of draws me to maybe the last question before we open up
to, to the,
questions which would be, you know,
there's this cliche that a lot of people say,
and a lot of artists say that all portraits are self-portraits.
Do you agree with this question, this answer, you know, or, or not?
What are your thoughts?
I, well I think it,
the, the essence of, you know, they're not all physical,
but there's pieces of you that go into portraits when
the artist is painting it. Yeah.
I think for myself, I would disagree with that. I really,
I guess I really try to kind of flip that paradigm of the idea of the,
the painter as creating like this heroic, you know,
auteur creating this rarefied aesthetic thing.
and more just about like,
this is actually an experience that I want the model to have.
and I wanna really look at and learn from the people that sit for me.
So I've been so lucky to just spend like, my whole life,
just like sitting with people. And when I started,
they were often a lot older than me and I learned a lot about stuff from them.
And now I'm often sitting with,
people that are younger than me and I'm passing on information that isn't passed
along in the, like, the mainstream. And yeah,
I do kind of feel like I'm not aware of it if it is like I'm putting myself to
the side and trying to kind of offer a service and, and also
be faithful to what I'm seeing, which is not me, you know? Right.
You're the tie-breaking vote here.
Well, definitely, painting Sofonisba's portrait, yeah,
I could relate to her. She is, an artist,
who was putting herself out in the world and depicting
herself and putting her talents on display.
And I think as artists we often do that. She's using a Mahl stick,
which was really dismissed as,
a feminine practice and,
To study the hand so that
Yeah. Yeah.
And so people were dismissing fine details and going for like big-brush energy,
you know, so it's definitely, I felt a connection to her in that respect too,
where I, it's okay if I make small, delicate, pretty things, you know? Yeah.
So always still learning from Sofonisba to this day.
There's a great book called Sofonisba's Lesson, and it's all about,
this story, her exceptional story and her sisters. But, I mean,
I don't know. I think this might be a good moment to open it up.
'cause there we have other artists in the room.
we have Elisabetta Zangrandi who came all the way from Verona to be with us.
her work is upstairs.
I don't know if anyone else is here 'cause I don't have my glasses on because
please forgive me, but please don't be shy. Ask,
you have an incredible opportunity here to ask questions to this illustrious
group of artists. If, if you wanna
Raise your hands, I can. Yeah.
When, when you do. Thank
You, by the way, everybody, when you're doing your artwork,
whether it be portraiture, otherwise, who's it for?
Do you wanna jump in? Clarity?
Okay, sure. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, I feel like,
I feel like it's really, this is gonna sound kind of crazy, but,
I think it's, it's for like my community, you know, it's for my community and,
that is like LGBT, feminist, trans and Queer People.
And often I think people don't
understand some of the cultural references. Like, for example, I had somebody,
a curator come to my studio and say,
"but why are they wearing necklaces but no shirt?" And I'm like, well,
if you have spent some time with dykes, you'll know that we will,
we will spend social time without shirts on and we'll be proudly wearing our
favorite necklaces and a belt. And, you know,
and so that is a cultural reference that you kind of have to know, you know,
that, and there's also,
I think in that community a lot more just like acceptance of a lot of different
kinds of body types. And not just acceptance, but like love, love,
yeah. So that's kind of what I'm trying to portray.
I paint my
Paintings for everyone. I don't know,
like 20 years ago people would, I didn't understand it then,
but the number one thing people would tell me about my paintings was that
it made them happy. And I didn't understand that then,
but grew to understand it. So now I know that like,
the colors I use and the subject, you know,
different art gives you different emotions.
And so I feel as I paint, my paintings are for everybody.
I guess as a loner and recluse,
I often paint it for myself. To be honest,
I haven't seen anyone in weeks. And,
I like to think of a audience at large in this kind of nebulous group of
people that like, I want to make things for them as well.
it's hard for me to connect 'cause I'll make something, put it on the internet,
not really know what people think about it. So it's,
as I grow as an artist and do things like this,
it's nice to be asked very important questions.
I,
it's interesting just to say something that can comes to mind that you also all
share is that social media has become an important part of, like,
the agency around your work because you all sort of put your work out there on
social media, and I know that I, even before I met all of you,
I'd seen all of your work, that way. So that's like a,
another interesting thread of this kind of 21st century way
of speaking to your community, but also, you know, yourself or it's,
it's a really, interesting commonality.
And I just wanna say that there's censorship on social media for a lot of
artists, and that's something I deal with a lot. And it's really,
it's been debilitating over the years. Yes.
That's how we met. 'cause Clarity had organized a panel about,
censorship, social media and,
feminist, and queer discourses around that and ways of thinking through that.
Anybody
Else?
Thank you. I guess for our artists,
are there further explorations or
meditations that kind of,
I guess intrigue you that might further dictate maybe future work or
something of that sort
In relation to portraits. Sorry.
For me, it is just, you know,
people come and tell me the story of an ancestor
of a strong black person that lived a hundred years ago, 200 years ago.
And I'm fascinated by that. And, and, you know, I want to explore that.
I wanna paint that. And now I'm finding, you know, I live between,
I've always kind of did the Creole, Louisiana thing and I'm recently
discovering, actually Creoles in Savannah, Georgia and the Gullah culture.
And so, the Gullah culture,
paralleled to Creole and, and I didn't know a lot about it.
And so now that I'm spending more time at my house in Savannah,
I'm kind of going down that road of, of this parallel fabulous culture.
you know, in the Carolinas and the Georgias.
During the pandemic, I, I couldn't work with models. And so I was,
I was working on these still life alter paintings,
but I also found myself looking at Instagram and just getting really attracted
to the,
the Instagram birth community who I first encountered because they were also
experiencing censorship and people are sharing their graphic birthing videos
and photos. And I started just like drawing and painting them.
And, soon people started offering me their own birth photos.
And a friend even had her parents bring over a photo of her being born that her
father took. And then I, so I did a painting of her being born. And,
and then her face, even though she was a baby,
it still looked like the structure of her face was still very similar.
so it was like a, it was, it was like another way of doing portraiture.
and just thinking about, so,
so I have a whole body of work that I'm developing that is,
about that moment of crowning.
And so I'm thinking about Courbet and "The Origin of the World" and,
and what does it mean when we actually use paint, which is a liquid pigment,
you know, to portray these multicolored liquids that are shooting
and splashing out of the body while this human being is coming out. I mean,
I'm just surprised more people haven't painted that subject in art history,
honestly. So we'll see how that goes over when that gets shown. But yeah,
that's my sort of current obsession.
Yeah. And, in regards to my own work, I guess,
while working with the Renaissance, I've been more interested in,
in aspects of history,
thinking about kind of that time and,
how information had been transferred between,
very isolated regions. thinking about like different trade routes,
like the Silk Road and how things came to Europe from the east. and
in a way trying to find a connection between my own unexpected
obsession with the, Northern Europe,
trying to connect it, with my own ethnicity, being Korean.
And I, I guess at this point it's kind of, I'm noticing there's,
that practice of alchemy has been,
shared between, those two sides of the world.
Yeah. Right.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
Hi. I'm,
I apologize for being late and maybe you've already answered this question, but,
I wanted to direct this question to all the artists,
and particularly Andrew. Hi Andrew.
but to ask, as you look at your work moving forward,
what is inspiring you today that is different from what inspired
you, say a year ago or two years ago,
and our current events factoring into any of this future
work? Thank you.
Let me think about that.
I mean, I think that the, the question of politics, you know,
is something that,
is a light motif here in the show and how different types of
representation read more politically now than
they might have, you know, 10 years ago.
So maybe that's kind of the question of like,
how does the contemporary political, sociopolitical landscape sort of influence
what you're thinking about and how you're making your work?
Yeah, my works are mostly historical. The portrait in the show,
you know, depicts a 18th century,
the black Creole Duchess. And so,
which I usually don't do in a lot of my paintings,
but if you look at the pendant,
it's a modern man painted on the pendant that she's wearing.
So it's like, which I, again, I usually don't do a lot of modern stuff.
Most of my paintings are historical,
but when I was getting the idea for the show,
I wanted to do something that reached back into the past, but also brought it,
I don't really get political with my paintings 'cause they're mostly based on
what was, you know, going on 200 years ago with free people of color. But,
you know, I kind of updated it by adding this modern portrait on the portrait.
Well, I, I think all
artists working today are inherently political because,
we're living in this time. In regards to my own work, I think I,
try and still use symbols that have been––
are relevant today and,
found in paintings of the past.
and especially just being in this show when there's so much,
still oppression going on and a, a backlash to,
the sign of the times, which is a uplifting of people's, of,
feminine power and people,
expressing themselves as being different.
it's exhibitions like this that are,
so meaningful to our present times.
Yeah, and I would just add to that, just,
I feel like through the work that I've done with the torso portraits,
so much of it is about bodily autonomy. And,
and so just thinking about what's going on with, you know,
Roe v. Wade being overturned and,
trans rights and queer rights being, challenged, you know,
and sort of "Don't Say Gay" going on,
I'm really glad my Instagram [handle] is "a lesbian gaze". So,
I it's very important to say gay because of that.
And I think five years ago people were like,
why is your Instagram "a lesbian gaze"? And it's like, well, this is why.
but yeah.
this is a time when I think medical autonomy and bodily autonomy is
really threatened for women and especially trans people and also queer people.
And, so it's interesting to see the connection,
like as I'm doing these birthing paintings,
the connection between reproductive rights being threatened and, you know,
the importance of trans kids being able to get gender affirming care is,
you know, it's like really a life or death thing. So,
but I've always felt that way about it. It's interesting how like with the,
the changing times, you know, when I first started doing the torso portraits,
people did not have the same understanding of gender,
so it was really hard to talk about them in a way that made sense to people in
general. And now it's much easier.
And there was like shame around breast cancer, which is not the case now.
So I've seen so much change and it's been amazing.
But then there's also so much backlash, as you were saying. So, yeah.
Anybody else?
So I guess we will stop here on that urgent note actually,
and I think it's a good one, given the fact that we're about to,
you know, have to show up and represent at the, you know,
not just on the canvas, but at the ballot box. So, let's conclude here.
And thank you so much to the three of you. And thank you to Blum & Poe.
Thank you Alison.