UNTITLED

                 

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make small abstract works in acrylic on wood. 

What drives you to make work?

I don’t really know, I just do, it’s what interests me.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

When I first arrive at my studio I tend to just sit around, I’ll stare at what I’ve been working on the previous day, read things or listen to the radio. This can go on for a while as it takes me a long time to gear up to painting; I need to get myself into a certain mind set.

When I eventually get myself started I like to work without any pre set ideas. I like not knowing what’s going to happen, working things out and evolving the painting. I tend to only have two pieces on the go at any one time, any more and it becomes too much to handle. I’ll work layers of paint down and push them around before scraping them back. I do this until something interesting starts to happen and then try to follow this line until usually I ruin it, and the process begins again. Sometimes I’ll leave the work alone and allow it to set, I know I’ll go over it again but something about the structure may be interesting so this allows it to come through and inform the next layers. However a lot of this work is also buried in the final piece and doesn’t show through but somehow I feel it gives the painting a kind of energy and this is very important. I can spend a very long time on each piece, building it up and scraping it back again and again. It can start to get a bit desperate but this is what I find the most interesting. I love working in confusion and desperation as it makes me do drastic things that I wouldn’t think of, most of it can be a bit absurd but amazing things can come from this, mainly shit things but every so often something takes you by surprise.

How long have you been working in that way?

For a while now, I’m not sure it will change anytime soon and that’s ok.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

This is hard, so many have shaped my practice. I like artists whose works have a kind of defiance, like Phillip Guston, Rebecca Warren, Eric Bainbridge or those bird shit paintings Dan Colen did. I am also influenced by artists who take a more measured approach such as Thomas Nozkowski, James Siena or Varda Caivano, just a mix of a bunch of shit. However if I had to choose just one single artist I would have to say Frank Auerbach. It was through his work I realized I wanted to be a painter. I met him once on the street, we had the briefest of chats, and it was beautiful. 

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

When I’m working I try to block everything out and focus purely on the work, so I would have to say nothing. But when I’m not painting I’m interested in all manner of typical things mainly talking about art over a beer.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

By looking at it and getting excited by it.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Some of those ceramics Marcus Harvey made for his exhibition Tattoo. I never saw the actual show just some images on the web, but I've found myself thinking about them when I'm painting. 

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Not really, maybe a few shows or the pub later.

Roger White

                          





Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make oil paintings and watercolors, and occasionally I work with an airbrush.

I think of these as simple ideas expressed in a complex way, or vice versa.

What drives you to make work?

I’m always curious to see how things look in paintings.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

I do things over and over. I work out ideas in drawings and watercolors, and use these as starting points for paintings. I paint pretty quickly, over only a few sessions, but often I make two or three (or five or six) versions of the same thing before I’m happy with it.

It’s also important for me to have different kinds of paintings going in the studio at the same time—this allows for some unexpected crossovers. Lately this has meant: more abstract things together with more representational things. The connection to perceptual painting, however tenuous, is very important to me, and I think of even the most non-objective paintings I make as essentially pictorial—rather than schematic or process-based or conceptual, or any of the other ways abstraction can be understood.

How long have you been working in that way?

The paintings have changed considerably over the years, but I’ve always made them more or less the same way.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

I’m a big Jasper Johns fan. Richard Diebenkorn was an early formative influence. Fairfield Porter, Alex Katz. Luc Tuymans and Raoul De Keyser. Vija Celmins, Albert York, Giorgio Morandi, Paul Klee. Alice Neel, Lucian Freud.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

My grandmother is a quiltmaker; I have many early memories involving paper patterns and scraps of fabric, and this has certainly had a big impact on what I do. I also worked as a printer for a long time, and many of my studio principles are derived from aspects of printmaking: repetition, an economy of means, a step-by-step process.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

Most everyone I know is juggling multiple jobs, various creative pursuits, relationships, children, students, art collectives, blogs, bands, yoga…. So if someone carves out even a little time to go look at the paintings, I feel very honored.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

It’s nice to see so many Alice Neel paintings in circulation because of the retrospective. The Roy Lichtenstein drawing show at the Morgan Library last fall was fantastic—it focused on a few years in the early 60s when he was fine-tuning his inimitable method. It made me want to rush back to the studio. Joe Bradley’s new paintings are great, and I’m really looking forward to the Hurvin Anderson show at Michael Werner in New York.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Dushko Petrovich and I are illustrating a book-length poem by Andy Fitch called Island. The project will involve a rigorous program of walking and plein air drawing in New York, for which we’re currently in training.  

Brooke Moyse

                    

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make abstract oil paintings that could be landscapes.

What drives you to make work?

I have to solve an unsolvable problem.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

I work full time, so my studio hours are relegated to a few nights per week and full days on the weekends. I work best with long stretches of time in which to get situated, be excited, be bored, and then to just work and forget where I am. I have a lot of painting books in my studio, which I refer to regularly. I know a lot of artists never look at other artists work, but I need to. Not only is it fun, but it keeps me feeling like I’m contributing to the very long conversation. I often use drawing as a way to enter painting. I don’t really do full sketches of potential works (I find that doing so actually closes the painting off for me), but use it more as an exploratory tool to examine a particular aspect of an image, or to take a deeper look at something that has been ruminating in my head for a while. For the past several years my drawing has just been in notebooks, but I have been trying to expand beyond the notebook, and to think about drawing as a more substantial counterpoint to the paintings.

How long have you been working in that way?
 

I have always been pretty structured in my studio practice, but have been working in this particular way since finishing graduate school almost 5 years ago.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

The first artist who really gave me an actual understanding of what art meant, was Piet Mondrian. The Museum of Modern Art had a major retrospective of his work while I was in high school, and had just starting digging into art. I think that because it was the first big “ah ha” moment, Mondrian’s work is very personal to me, and holds a place within me that I need to keep protected. Another major influence was Philip Guston, who I discovered as an undergraduate. His work is complicated, rebellious and immediately personal, which is kind of a dazzling combination. I think that what I finally took away from Guston is the urgency.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Film, literature and music. The films of Jean-Luc Godard have had a big influence. I am interested in the way that his films are so sculptural and painterly, with an interesting tension between spontaneity and extremely deliberate structure. I am always surprised by the way that color and sound combine and combust in his work, and I think that this has influenced my understanding of collage in my own work. I read a lot of fiction, and recently began with Haruki Murakami, whose fibrous tales have been sneaking into my work. I have an interest in words, and love novels in which there is a sense of the spaces between the words.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

My work takes time, and I feel like a piece is successful when it keeps bringing the viewer back, and giving them a different experience/story each time.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I keep thinking about a painting I recently saw at White Columns gallery by Gregory Edwards. I haven’t seen his work any place else, but I can’t get it out of my head. I was also very impressed with the Chaos and Classicism show at the Guggenheim, which was a very scholarly and non-commercial exhibition. A nice refresher from so many of the museum shows.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I will be in a show at Storefront Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn in October 2011.

Andrew Graves

                

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings and drawings. I usually use oil paint, but sometimes tempera, mostly on panel. They are abstract, but for me always contain a certain figurative reading. A geometric grid in a painting may be derived from the textile of a shirt, or an outline of a landscape. My paintings work through an understanding of abstraction, specifically in the context of European and mid century American painting.

What drives you to make work?

The language, formal qualities and conventions of painting fascinate me. My work is an engagement with the anatomy of a painting and the conceptual practice of the painter. I am interested in the point at which the work comes into being. I try to make works that contain within them the precariousness of their making.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

I go to the studio, work things through, try to keep doing it. I am usually working around a cluster of paintings. However, I have a painting wall with one painting on it and that is my focus for the day.

How long have you been working in that way?

I have always had a studio-based practice, I have made films, taken photographs but these things were always concerned with painting. I tend to work from two types of source material; either abstracted from a figurative source or derived from a kind of hand made geometry that can be mine or borrowed.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Those I have been thinking about recently are Bridget Riley, Marcel Broodthaers,  Joan Mitchell, Bronzino, Bram Van Velde,

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

I am a cyclist, watch films, listen to music, read; when I am in the studio it is these things that help me in that search for something to paint.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

Affectingly and intimately.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Bridget Riley exhibitions always leave an impression, the current National Gallery show impressed me and brought back fond memories of the Serpentine Gallery exhibition some years back.  

I saw a Phillip Guston drawing accompanying an interview with him in a book I am reading, the drawing is barely two lines and the quote has the same economy as the image. He says “… But the ones that work are, of course, where there’s a double thing going on. I mean, they’re lines but they’re not lines, because the spaces are brought into operation.”

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Yes I am planning a group painting show this year.

Max Mosscrop

               

                 

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make things, mainly paintings that hang on the wall, but also objects, usually painted, which don't. And I teach. For the last ten years I've had a studio in Brixton, in South London, but I’m in the process of moving to Camberwell so everything is in boxes while I get the next place sorted.

What drives you to make work?

I’ve no idea. But no one tells me what to do, I can do it while listening to music, and I've got a comfortable chair to sit in to look at what I've done. At the moment I'm missing it because everything is in boxes.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

I work mainly with watercolour on gesso panels or paper. I make the panels to paint on, from wood, mdf and gesso, which is time consuming and messy. I also make structures to support the panels that don't go on the wall. I’m not sure where painting ends and everything else begins, but I spend more time getting ready, clearing up, and working out what to do with what I've done, than I do actually painting.

How long have you been working in that way?

About five years. Before that I was working with a broader range of media, including photography and video. I wanted to simplify my practice. 

Which artists have had the greatest effect on your work?

As a child I was a big fan of George Stubbs. We used to go to the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, which owns A Horse Frightened by a Lion, and to Manchester City Art Gallery, which has Cheetah and Stag with Two Indians. I had a print of the Manchester painting on my bedroom wall, mounted on hardboard and covered in transparent sticky-backed plastic! These days I think I’m more influenced by a small group of friends than by any famous names.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

"Love is A Highway", the title of my 2010 solo show at Five Years Gallery, came from miss-hearing the lyric in a song by Kimya Dawson.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

By buying it?

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I enjoyed George Kuchar’s films about the weather in the Berlin Bienalle last year. And Norbert Prangenburg’s paintings at Ancient and Modern.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

My new studio, when I finally get moved in, has a great view of the railway tracks.

Clem Crosby

                   

    

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I’m a painter. I paint oil pigment on a plastic laminate surface, Formica. The laminate is purchased in thin sheets and then glued to an aluminium support using a contact adhesive. I buy my brushes from either building supplies or the usual art stores. I only use Michael Harding paints and I never use mediums apart from a little linseed oil once in a while and double rectified turpentine. My paintings range from 98 x 49 inches down to 18 x 14 inches in size.

What drives you to make the work?

Painting anchors me to this earth and it gives my life a sense of grandeur.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day work practices?

I go to my studio almost every day, even when I teach. This continuity is important because it’s easy for me to forget. I can forget how to load the brush, how to draw with the paint, how to start, or how to make a mark. Most of my process involves starting again, either erasing or obfuscating.

My whole practise is really a huge rescue operation, a process of attempting to save the work. I don’t have any natural aptitude for making art. I have little or no imagination and its such a hit and miss process that I need to be there quite a lot. From the minute I enter my studio I begin to push the paint around until I get the green light to proceed, this can sometimes be a few days or a few weeks.

How long have you been working in that way?

 I’ve tried many different ways of working and it seems that even though my painting arrives via loads of experience and tenacity, I have at least found a way to work that allows the optimum chance for that occasional success to manifest.

Which artists have had the greatest effect on your work?

Influence doesn’t happen to me the way it used to. When I was a student I painted in the manner of a different artist every week. I read most of the key texts and visited the library to read back issues of Artforum and the like every day. Soaking up everything was the beginning of my education. I no longer feel influenced by any single artist but occasionally I am liberated by the courage of others. To name a few contemporaries; Jessica Stockholder, Phyllida Barlow, Ross Bleckner’s work of the 80’s.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Making music, I am in a band called Kunstkick, I also frequent the Young Vic Theatre here in London and the courage and energy of the actors is so completely edifying. Anything ‘live’ with a chance of failure is exciting. I love the old tapes of Sunday Night at the London Palladium staring Bruce Forsyth and Norman Wisdom, both flying by the seat of their pants. In some ways I wish I had been around for Music Hall. The common theme here is ‘fear’.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I’m just happy if people engage at all.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

My son, Stanley Bud Gould Crosby, who was recently born on the 20^th December 2010. Nothing compares.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Last year I had a sell-out show in San Francisco, a first for me, this year I have been offered a show at Rachmaninoff’s, a London Gallery run by Maggie Smith and Matthew Arnatt, during March – April 2011.

Sharon Butler

           

Can you briefly describe what you do?

My art practice comprises painting, blogging at Two Coats of Paint , keeping an online photographic sketchbook (Sharon Butler@West End & Pearl), and making studies in a set of traditional sketchbooks. My process critically involves paying close but freewheeling attention to daily life. The ideas in my recent series, “Brightly Colored Separates,” are drawn from everyday objects and imagery, like ships-in-bottles, car dealer flags, construction materials, mind maps, fireworks, floor plans, the number eight, Lily Pulitzer dresses, geometric motifs from my father’s old paintings, vomit, cage-like crosshatched lines, and, of course, images from art history.

What drives you to make work?

I’m not sure. I don’t question why I do it. I started twenty-five years ago and haven’t stopped. I can’t imagine how I would fill the day if I weren’t thinking about art in some way.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

Basically, I have three types of days that all start the same way. I grab a cup of coffee and head upstairs to my attic workroom where I check e-world – stats, comments, email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. If something strikes me as blog-worthy, I’ll post it and then walk the dogs.

Day 1: I put the computer to sleep and start looking at the paintings in progress. Clean the palette, organize my workspace, and read my notes from the previous visit to the canvas to pick up the thread where I’ve left off. If I think of something that I might like to Google while I’m painting, I type the search terms in on my manual Royal Safari typewriter. Generally I find if I let myself look up everything that crosses my mind, I waste a lot of time. At the end of the day, when I review my typed list, most of the things I was thinking about weren’t very important. Every so often I check Twitter and email, but I try not to get too engaged. As I paint, I take notes about the process, and I use my phone to photograph the paintings. Sometimes I open the images in Photoshop to experiment with different color ideas, then I go back to the canvas. I wash the brushes at the end of the day.

Day 2.  Once a week I go to exhibitions, meet people for coffee, have studio visits and talk about art.

Day 3. I teach two 10-hour days a week (30 weeks a year) in the Visual Arts Department at Eastern Connecticut State University. I’ve been teaching there for eleven years.

At the end of each day, I walk the dogs, have dinner, and then settle in for some reading and television. Right now I’m in the fifth season of Lost. I often work on the sketchbooks while I watch TV.

How long have you been working in that way?

I’ve been working like this since 2007 when I turned the attic into a studio and started blogging.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

When I was growing up, my parents loved abstract painting and hung posters of Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, and Pablo Picasso throughout the house. I’ve always considered abstraction my primary visual language probably because I was surrounded by it as a kid.

What, outside of visual art, informs your practice?

Film, theater, literary fiction, emotional conflict, childhood memories, living in my hometown, academia, parenting a twelve-year old daughter…every aspect of life informs my practice. I think, at bottom, that’s the case for most artists.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I try not to have any rigid expectations, but I hope they are able to sense from each painting the energy and focus that goes into it.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Right now I’m interested in painters who ignore standard Bauhaus tenets of good composition and color and opt for a more idiosyncratic approach. Thomas Nozkowski, Cordy Ryman, Dana Schutz, Jered Sprecher and Mary Heilmann are good examples. I’m also drawn to painters who incorporate text – like Richard Prince, E.J. Hauser, Mel Bochner, Austin Thomas, and Mira Schor

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Yes, but I can’t talk about it yet.