(standard) INTERVIEW

Hugh Delap

2012-02-27T10:35:00.001-08:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make small abstract paintings on paper and canvas.

What drives you to make work?

I am interested in how I can visually articulate my experiences using an abstract language. For a long time I have been fascinated by how a painting is made. What drives me is the challenge of using the basic principles of painting (form, line and colour) to create a painting which reflects something interesting to me.

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

I paint every day. At the moment I am working flat out for an exhibition at the end of March. I have been working mostly on a heavy fabriano paper in oils and a small number of canvases. It takes me a long time to make a painting so I tend to have a lot of work on the go at the same time.

How long have you been working in that way?

I try not to make drastic changes, instead I try introduce new methods, techniques or ideas gradually. I started working in this way about five years ago and it is has been about three years since I started working on paper.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Tomma Abts, Thomas Nozkowski, Phillip Allen, Tal R, Thomas Scheibitz, Robert Bordo, Raoul De Keyser, Ronnie Hughes, Paul Doran and Mark Swords come to mind initially. To me these artists speak a similar language influenced by the Bauhaus and geometric abstraction. Early on as a painter I felt an affinity for this vernacular.

What outside of visual art informs your practice?

I think many things impact how I work without directly informing my practice. The space I am working in, the time of year, books, movies, TV series, everything really. If I find something interesting I will try to make a painting about it.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

When somebody looks at my work I hope they can interpret it using their own experiences. My work has no single meaning, instead I hope the viewer will make their own associations and allow their own meaning to emerge.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I recently re-read an essay by Jan Verwoert ‘The Beauty and Politics of Latency: On the Work of Tomma Abts’. I reckon it is a must read for abstract painters. I am also looking forward to Paul Doran next solo show in the Green on Red Gallery in Dublin, in March. I hope it will make an impression.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I am preparing for a one man show in MonsterTruck, Dublin opening on the 30^th of March.

Emmanuel Ballange

2012-02-23T12:52:00.000-08:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I am a French painter and I live in the southwest of France, in Bordeaux. I work on canvas (oil) or on paper (gouache) from preliminary, predetermined geometrical drawings (circles, triangles, trapeziums, peculiar shapes). My paintings are neither illusionistic nor demonstrative.

And, how long that you been doing that?

I have been painting series for the last 12 years.

What drives you to make work?

Shape is Thought. Pictures, paintings are the expression of Poetry which could shake the meaning of the world. An unprejudiced, and as much as possible - undetermined expression. Pissaro said: ‘my conscience became free as did my eyes.’

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

I work in series. I do not work every day since I teach in an Art School to earn my living. When I am in my studio I first work systematically on my drawings and then paint accordingly. Regularity and discipline are very important to me.

They prevent any romantic and/or sentimental drifts: one should paint even if one doesn't feed in the mood...

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Morandi, Bram and Matisse.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Roland Barthes (1915-1980) writer and art critic who wrote: ‘one must not seek to express the inexpressible, but to un-express the expressible.’

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I expect the viewer to feel free, tolerant and open to any visual experience.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

The Franois Morellet reinstallations exhibition at the Modern Art Centre (Centre Pompidou, Paris) in 2010 and most exhibits at the Jordan contemporary art Gallery in Paris.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

A large series of gouaches which I hope to exhibit shortly.

Matthew R. Murphy

2011-11-13T08:03:00.001-08:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I am a painter. Canvas and oil are a primary mode. However, I work with a variety of media. The constructions inherently express similar things differently. Depending on the necessities of the idea or my curiosities in material or presentation the work will take different forms. I find my work caught between the world of illusion and the object with no clear way to resolve this. I find some ideas must be objects posing as paintings and sometimes paintings posing as objects, while still other times paintings are simply paintings.

What drives you to make work?

I suppose there are a lot of reasons to make work. One may be simple curiosity, another may be a need to express something or perhaps to draw some meaning out of a particular kind of organization. Much of it is simply sorting through and organizing ideas.

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

I struggle for a concise answer to this question. It is difficult to find time for any consistency in a working process while trying to balance “real-life” and other responsibilities. So trying to cope with a fractured working sequence can disrupt the feeling of the day-to-day. Most days work begins with prepping surfaces. This could mean priming, sanding or wiping so that paint will stick. Sometimes it is shaping pieces for painting this can require a lot of plotting and measuring. Very practical things. At some point painting will happen so this means mixing colors, applying them, scraping and wiping them away and mixing again. Somedays work is simply drawing or collaging, or otherwise working toward generating ideas. I am usually searching for something that is hard to point to. It could be an idea or combination of ideas about color, composition, materials, or perhaps something I have read about or listened to or have seen.

How long have you been working in that way?

I am not certain.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

William Turner, Arshile Gorky, Blinky Palermo, Philip Guston and Chaim Soutine to isolate a few.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Many things. Teaching informs my practice. The carpentry/craftsman work I do provides encounters with new ideas and new materials that can set off or inspire new ideas in the studio. I read a lot and listen to a lot of music - these things help. I do a lot of thinking while riding a bicycle or riding a train. Mostly, I try and keep my eyes open wherever I am.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

This is an interesting question I sometimes think about. I feel that one cannot dictate to the viewer how to engage with a piece. People bring what they bring. But one can direct the viewer. After all we engage with an El Greco differently than we do with a Pollock. So I suppose I would like the viewer to slow down and look closely. I would like them to be actively engaged but receptive.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Imi Knoebel's shaped panels for Blinky Palermo.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Whatever it is I'm not ready.

William Bradley

2011-11-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings about abstraction. More specifically I’m concerned with how meaning is produced within abstract painting. To this end I move in and around various positions, combining many elements from within its history with external visual sources and quotations.

What drives you to make work?

A need to better understand what it is that fascinates me about painting.

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

I work in distinct stages. I will spend a few months developing ideas through drawing in ink and watercolour. I then select those I feel will develop into the most interesting paintings and transcribe the designs on to flat colour grounds. This marks the beginning of a few months putting together a group of paintings.

How long have you been working in that way?

For a few years, the move towards a kind of design process was a major turning point in my work.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

There are so many. Growing up close to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park meant that Hepworth, Moore and Caro made a lasting impression but it was an exhibition of the work of Eduardo Chillida which first moved me toward abstraction. I adore his sculpture but it was his work on paper and his ‘gravitations’ which sparked my first steps down this path. American Abstract Expressionism obviously has had a huge affect and I continue to react to their arguments as well as their imagery. British painters like Sandra Blow, Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron, John Hoyland and more recently Dan Perfect, Philip Allen, Danny Rolph and Stuart Cumberland. Probably the greatest impact has been made by Thomas Scheibitz. His approach of generating images from a vast number of sources has proved incredibly important in my practice.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Everything is fair game and there is no hierarchy in my approach. I am filtering many elements from things such as graphic design, advertising, cartoons, architecture, anything that I find useful.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

In their own way. I purposefully try to set up ‘ways in’ for the viewer. Some people can respond to a painting in a purely visceral way, others look for clues for interpretation or the familiar. I load my paintings with cues and quotations, alluding to the familiar in an attempt to set up a situation where the viewer utilises their own experience as a means of deriving meaning.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Some work by Sally Taylor. It wasn’t at all what I expected from the images I had seen and was, in the flesh, quite beautiful. Loved the work of Neil Ayling. The Sparrowhawk in the back garden, not uncommon but beautiful.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

The new body of work I’m developing, it’s the most excited I’ve been about a group of paintings in a while. Beyond that 2012 looks like it should be a good year.

Guy Yanai

2011-10-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make works of art in projects. I want to change the world. It’s that simple really. I want my works to change the visual culture that we know. I want to create a new lexicon of visual processes.

What drives you to make work?

Anger, anxiety, more anxiety. Not creating and not working drive me into a very, very quick oblivion. Happy people do not make art, so I guess that is what drives me. It’s really a burning sensation that never leaves. Not very pleasant, but no other way, and it’s the only thing that makes life somewhat possible.

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

I wake up very early. I have two kids, Romy and Ava. I am in the studio all day every day. Usually in the morning I try to avoid working at any cost, knowing that I will soon be facing all my weaknesses is very scary, at some point I begin, sometimes as late as 12, sometimes as early as 9, it depends. Emails really help me feel that I am doing something ‘productive’. I only work in groups of works, near the end I will work 12 - 14 hours a day, in the beginning less so.

How long have you been working in that way?

Before I had kids I wasted a lot of time and somehow got a lot less done. Having children gave me a renewed sense of urgency, so it’s been about four years of working like this. The more I work the more I feel that I don’t work enough.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

All of the really good painters. I love them all. Piero della Francesca is still one of my favorites, same with Paulo Uccello. There are so many good artists working today as well. Really exciting; I like artists that have a real freedom to what they do, like Tal R.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

EVERYTHING. I consume it all, and in massive amounts, much more than I look at painting now. Films, music, magazines, women, internet, vimeo, youtube, etc. In some ways, I have started indexing all of these ‘sources’. Looking at all of this is very crucial for me. I like the way there are moving images everywhere now. On a plane now, from Newark to Chicago, I saw on TV that some restaurants have iPads as menus; that is a challenge for us, one more layer to be aware of and defeat.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I guess that I would like the first engagement, those first few seconds, to be an emotional response, something beyond cognitive thought. Then after you can go and understand it, the quotations etc. I just started a large work called Therapy, and with this work I would really love for people to look at it and just get very emotional and feel all of their personal baggage, to really confront their subconscious.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Last thing that really blew me away, and has not left in ANY way is Michel Houellebecq’s latest book, The Map and the Territory. I read it in Hebrew, it comes out in English Jan 3, 2012, and I’ll read it in English as well. The book changed me.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Yeah, 2012 is going to be great. I have a solo project at The George Maciunas Foundation in NYC, Noam Segal is curating something of mine at Yafo 23 in Jerusalem, with a large “re-mix” of Uccello’s Battle of San Romano and a lot of sculptures. I am also curating a show in Tel Aviv, at the Spaceship at Hayarkon 70 of international artists.

William Stein

2011-10-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings on chalk gessoed panels. This very particular ground allows both a light and vigorous approach, and so the works are layered, moulded, and excavated into their final incarnation. They explore an interior life, drawing attention away from the known, and towards our more essential selves.

What drives you to make work?

An ineluctable, nightmarish, selfish, absurd, niggling, errant desire. To function well and kindly I must make work.

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

I work on chalk gessoed marine-ply panels. I will prepare a number of panels over a period of days, which I will then work on over the following few months. The daily activity: In the studio by 9.30am, coffee, spend time looking, usually fifteen or so paintings will be hung around walls. All works are 53x40cm and are hung grid-like, organised, level; I may spend time moving works around, opening up new dialogues. Quite by surprise I will find myself making some urgent moves on a painting. I should continue with concentrated activity (painting, drawing, rubbing, scrubbing, sanding, looking, throwing, thinking, oiling, hoping) on various panels in rotation, until mid-afternoon .The day’s practice closes with the cleaning of brushes (rinse in spirits, cleanse with vegetable soap, put to rest), and some further time spent looking and re-hanging.

How long have you been working in that way?

With the specific work dimension and chalk ground: Two years.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Munch, Klee, Morandi, Guston

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Bleeps, basslines, shadows, the city, nerves, lack of sleep, wind, rain, corners, thoughts, words, my children: their clarity.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

With patience; I do not demand this though, it is my responsibility to draw this from them. I hope the image I present would encourage a viewer’s calm attention, carry them along, and eventually away from the visual and to then experience the work/themselves in its/their entirety.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

The spectacular garden at Upton House, Warwickshire

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

A show at Studio 1.1, in March 2012

Paul Pagk

2011-09-20T14:07:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I spend my time painting, even in those moments I am not physically painting. I am a studio artist as that is where I spend most of my time and where I principally make my work. I paint in oils but I also have a large drawing and works on paper practice.

What drives you to make work?

I do not see myself doing anything else other than working on, thinking about and looking at painting. However here are a few of the reasons that come to mind, which may give an insight into what makes me work. The dialogue that manifests itself between me, painting and the painting; between me, my painting and the art, some of which I have seen since a very young age, that I am challenged by; between me, the painting and the development of an ever evolving language of painting and by the continuous occurring metamorphic nature of the painting and painting.

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

My studio is adjunct to my living space, so when I get out of bed in the morning, the first thing I do is to go into the studio to see what I did the day before, only after that do I shower and have breakfast, I can be in my studio sometimes way past midnight, I have small lunch and dinner brakes. My studio has northern light and my painting wall is on the eastside of the studio and the door to my studio is in the west studio wall. I usually have one large painting that I will be working on mostly, but also have 6 or more on the go that are in waiting as well as there are many small paintings in different states of completion. I use dry pigments that I grind into oil paint on a large glass slab, that I use as my palette. I do not prepare my colors in advance but I grind the colors while I am working, changing the hue of the color to the needs of the painting.

I will be thinking about where this or that painting should go in terms of painting, I will be thinking about the last paintings I have just worked on or brought to a level from where I am able to move on to the next work. I spend my time adding and removing from the painting, finding the color, the light, removing an element, adding to remove once more, allowing the painting to slowly define itself.

My drawing practice takes place in the same space as my painting; I have two different ways of approaching my drawing time, one which is drawing on and off while I am working on my paintings and the other which is more intensive where I will solely work on drawing for as long as it comes, producing numerous drawings until I feel that I have worn out that precise moment of drawing activity.

How long have you been working in that way?

Forever.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Difficult to answer, as art is an all out and all receiving practice, like when we breathe (without a dust mask), whatever comes your way you take in, even the work that I may not like will have something that may inform me on my own work. And to define which artists and paintings had a great effect on me would be long, due to the fact that my interests are in many different pictorial forms and in many different artists; so here is a small list, which should be by no means taken as definitive as there are many that I have left out, Giotto, Vermeer, Titian, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Goya, Eduard Manet, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, Nicolas De Stael, Barnett Newman, Philip Guston, Agnes Martin, Eva Hess, Blinky Palermo, Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, Ellsworth Kelly, Joan Mitchell, Jo Baer, Donald Judd, my work is also informed by my close artist friends and my contemporaries, I have also spent long hours looking at Classical Chinese painting, Islamic art, as well as at Classical Chinese pottery such as Sung dynasty pottery.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Local light, air, local color, color, space, aura, the Hudson river through my studio windows, Merleau Ponty Phenomenology of perception, Baruch Spinoza, Gaston Bachelard Air and Dreams, Gilles Deleuze Difference and Repetition, Li Po, music of all sorts, films, life, the space in front of the painting.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

-Totally- mind and body. Totally is how I would like people to engage with my work.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

The Henri Matisse show, Radical Invention at MoMA, The Edward Manet, the Man who Invented Modernity at Orsay, The Blinky Palermo Retrospective at Bard College and the DIA Beacon, Donald Judd’s and Dan Flavin’s installations at the Chinati Foundation Marfa.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

11 large paintings as well as 29 smaller ones I prepared in July, with which I have my work setout for me for about a year.

Emily Gherard

2011-09-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I have been painting and drawing distilled images of rocks and walls. I tend to work in a limited palette and use the physicality of materials to define the space, form and tension within the piece.

What drives you to make work?

I always need an idea/concept/theme to begin. The painting or drawing begins with an idea of a particular form and how it might fit in the space of the painting but as the work continues what keeps me in the piece is manipulating the materials. So I try all sorts of stuff: sanding, scraping, layering, degreasing, buffing, engraving, pouring, subtly altering the color, value, temperature or composition. I look for when the use of materials adds more information, clarity and definition to the original idea.

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

I tend to work in a series based on the materials. So I do works on paper for a few months then work on canvas for a few months to a year. Right now I am painting so: I have about 25 paintings in a range of sizes. I work in my studio 3-4 days a week. I find that there seems to be a rhythm to my studio day. I start out organized and systematic. I begin by cleaning up from the previous work day. I lay out colors, mixing huge piles of paint. I’ll mix colors for an hour or so, this gets my eyes and thoughts warmed up. Once I am painting things fall apart. The paintings always start off hideously. This seems to be part of it for me. By the afternoon, I am scraping and smearing paint- trying anything I can think of. By the end of my studio day- the place is always a complete mess- left that way for the next morning. When I begin a group of canvases- I work on all of them at once. After a while, I spend more time with fewer paintings. I’ll work on a group of canvases for about 3-6 months.

How long have you been working in that way?

I have been working this way for about 5-6 years, with the exception of small changes depending on my schedule and studio. I moved into a home studio a year ago, that combine with more days off has been wonderful.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Goya, always Goya. Piranesi’s Prisons, Fan Kaun, Brueghel the Elder, Claude Lorran’s ink drawings, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Guston, Auerbach, Kossoff, Morandi, early Georg Baselitz,

Lately: Edward Burtynsky, Abakanowicz, Julie Mehretu, Manolo Valdes particularly his sculptures, Richard Serra.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

I live in Seattle, and love the gray rainy weather. The coast line and dark rain forest of the Olympic Peninsula, a few hours west of me. I listen to various NPR radio programs while I paint- I don’t know their direct impact on my work but they are always there.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

Although it is always evolving, one of the core issues that I return to is how the viewer moves though the space of the painting. So I hope that those ideas come through. It is also important to me that the piece feels like it just exists- that the viewer is not made aware of the hand.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

A friend showed me a book the other day of photographs of water towers. Half of my studio floor is covered with a thick layer of plaster and the light falling on the bright white floor is really beautiful and harsh. The Herzog’s movie Cave of Forgotten Dreams reminded me of something that I have always loved. An interview with the poet Irina Ratushinskaya about poetry and politics. The sound recordings of Tony Schwartz.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I have a show in February at Francine Seders Gallery in Seattle. I am trying to make new work while forgetting about the looming deadline.

Emily Auchincloss

2011-08-24T01:05:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings. Labels are unwieldy and weird. I don’t very much believe in a hard line between abstraction and representation. But I guess I am more concerned with calling attention to moments when symbols and gestures come into being, and when they fall apart.

What drives you to make work?

The painful and wonderful feeling that comes when you see what you want to make, and you try to make it, and you fail partly, and something comes out that is a result of both trying very hard and giving in. Perhaps like giving your ego a series of hugs and slaps.

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

I work on two or three paintings at a time, most of them are large- usually one will completely take over and then I reach a sort of plateau and then others start calling out. When it’s really good they all could perhaps be talking to each other. When I do drawings with oilstick on Duralar it is very fast work, and I have to be really conscious when I transition to the slower process of painting on canvas- I’m definitely still figuring that out. There is usually a lot of waiting, and then fast moves, and then some long slogs.

How long have you been working in that way?

About a year or so…I recently got a studio in Bushwick where I finally have everything where I want it to be, more or less, in terms of materials and tools, which is helping enormously.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

A selected list: Poussin, George Stubbs, Turner, Whistler, Johannes Itten, Francis Bacon for his stages, Phillip Guston, Elizabeth Murray (her early work very, very much), Charlene Von Heyl, Al Taylor, Keltie Ferris, the amazing and under-known sculptor Phyllida Barlow, Alisha Kerlin very much, Celia Gerard, Linda Francis. My amazing fiancé, the sculptor Joshua Hart.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

The ocean and the sky: how the clouds and waves stand in for things vast and unseeable in their totality. Also Navajo Blankets, Gees Bend quilts and knitted patterns. Somehow I feel they are akin to the computerized aesthetic of fractured spaces and digital readouts. There’s a connection there that is compelling to me.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I’d like them to suspend their disbelief. I’m starting to feel we live in a constant state of disbelief…that’s sad. I sure don’t want to. I’m a believer.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Being in a glider plane at 9,300 feet made an impression. That was in the California desert, where I was recently. We did what’s called a Wing Over, which is a trick where at one point you are completely upside down and the cockpit is filled with just mountains and sand, and you’re weightless for a moment… Also flying home to New York and looking out the window made a big impression too: seeing the irregular circles, lines and squares of crops and irrigation ditches and desert roads…I am sure they are going to make their way into my paintings. This country is a very beautiful thing from up above.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I have a solo show in New Jersey in September and a group show in NYC. And hopefully a lot of studio time.

Selina Foote

2011-08-15T12:34:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make small scale paintings on canvas and silk. I work with a rule based system to develop each painting, borrowing information from reproductions of historic paintings.

What drives you to make work?

Lots of things.

I am interested in reproductions of artworks. Living in New Zealand it can be quite isolated in terms of seeing particularly historical painting. So, much of the painting I am interested in I have encountered primarily through reproductions which have an interesting quality quite different to the art objects themselves.

I look at books a lot, and art journals and online documentation of shows.

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

I’m in studio after work from about 5 o’clock everyday and as much as I can on the weekend. I spend some time preparing canvases and making drawings that will then inform paintings. I usually have several paintings on the go at various stages.

I always start with a drawing of some sort first, and then apply various rules that build on these drawings to produce the final composition.

How long have you been working in that way?

About a year.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Edouard Manet, Frank Stella, Robert Ryman, Mary Heilmann, Gordon Walters.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

I watch a lot of films. At the moment I’ve been watching Louis Malle and Elia Kazan films.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

My paintings are all developed through a series of rules which overlap, so they can be viewed as individual works or in pairs or groupings. I like the idea of paintings forming conversations between themselves.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Patrick Lundberg’s shoelace works

Richard Bryant’s works on paper

Sriwhana Spong’s silk works at Sue Crockford Gallery

And R. H. Quaytman’s new work (although I’ve only seen this online).

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

At the moment I’m working toward a solo show for next year.

Magalie Guerin

2011-08-09T03:47:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

At the moment (08/2011) I make non-representational paintings that look like abstract art

What drives you to make work?

It’s an interest/engagement in fluidity, attentive looking (visual puzzles) and spatial/social relationship as well as shape invention and in slowing down the pace

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

My studio hours are usually 10-6PM. A lot of time is spent sitting and looking at the shapes and surfaces on the canvas. I usually build them with gesso and have to sand down multiple coats, which is time consuming. There’s a lot of removal in my process.

How long have you been working in that way?

Hard to say, but 2 years ago I was exclusively working with ballpoint pen on paper which was quite different.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Mary Heilmann, Thomas Scheibitz, Amy Sillman, Nicola Tyson, Charline von Heyl, Susan Frecon, Brancusi, Morandi...

…Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith.

And closer peers such as Angela Dufresne, Dawn Clements, Jenny Vogel, Sunny Payson, Lea Schleiffenbaum, Michelle Grabner, Timothy Bergstrom and Sean Ward (to name a few) with whom I’ve had countless conversations regarding art and everything else.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Everything. But mostly it’s the dynamics in relationships and psychology. Then there is furniture design, architecture, literature, nature…

How would you like people to engage with your work?

With lightness, trust and humor. And with an irresistible desire to live with!

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

There was a show this summer at Harris Lieberman in NYC of influential women artists that got me very excited about painting.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Yes, I will be a fellow at the American Academy in Rome… one day.

Alice Browne

2011-08-06T02:08:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I look, think and make paintings. The paintings are a sum of their parts: layered spaces made from colour and brushwork. They are influenced by a history of represented space (in painting, photography etc.) and my perceptions.

What drives you to make work?

Curiosity

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

I keep lots of things on the go and don’t plan any of them. It seems to be quite important to not care too much about any particular painting. Caring makes me too cautious. This way I’m always ready for failure. I put things away and come back to them sometimes a day later, sometimes 3 months later. My process varies – some paintings are quick and made of only 2 or 3 layers and others take 6 months.

The hardest decisions I make are about colour. Recently I’ve been choosing from a range of dry pigments as well as ready mixed tube colours which has really changed my palette.

I aim to get to the studio for 9am and work on between 5 – 10 paintings. Or sometimes I make drawings on paper. I often fail to complete more than 3 clues on a crossword at lunchtime but persevere for an unnecessary amount of time. I leave whenever I’ve stopped being able to see and think about what I’ve made (before I get too destructive) which is anytime between 3pm and 7pm.

How long have you been working in that way?

I’ve been making paintings the way I do since the final year of my BA at Wimbledon College of Art, in 2009.

My routine is still forming and changing as my studio time has increased since I started working with Limoncello Gallery earlier this year.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

This is a greedily long list….Masaccio; Philip Guston; Francis Bacon; Prunella Clough; Pieter Claesz; Jeff Wall; Mary Heilmann; Max Beckmann; Mali Morris; Antoni Tapies; Juan Sanchez Cotan; Philip Allen

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Literature eg. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Cinema eg. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou by Wes Anderson; Dr Zhivago by David Lean; Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick

Mythology

Music eg. Wild Beasts; The National; Pixies; Explosions in the Sky

Architecture eg. Churches

Mountains

How would you like people to engage with your work?

With curiosity and acceptance of the validity of their thoughts about it.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Edward Thomasson and Lucy Beech’s video of their performance Holding It Together

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Yes! Very exciting…I’m currently working towards a show in the Jerwood Project Space in September and my first solo show at Limoncello Gallery in November

Michael Callaghan

2011-08-05T02:51:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I use acrylic paint and vinyl cloth tape (aka 'gaffers' tape), and to a lesser extent, masking tape, to create non-objective images on stretched canvas (sizes varying between 6" x 8" (canvas board for sketches) through and up to 72" x 84" currently). I do not start with a pre-determined image in mind; however, I build an image in layers initially based on tape and paint sketches. I like to gesture large in the beginning. To that end, I start with either an elaborate grid of tape or paletted paint swatches. I continue with several composed - almost 'action' - layers of tape or paint. Most works have upwards of 5 layers or more. The process of layering is what excites me the most. The final textured image hopefully delays the resolve of the viewer's eye to see space in an interesting way.

What drives you to make work?

For many years I worked in the film industry as an assistant cameraman, and we had all this tape left over. It fascinated me by its texture, color, strong adhesion quality, and flexibility. It is fairly toxic to the environment if thrown away and I wanted to find a different use for it. I actually used to 'sketch' with it during down-time at work on various media. I often recycle tape from one painting to use in others.

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

I'm lucky that I seem to wake up every morning with enthusiasm to do work. I'm a morning person and if I don't start something by 11 am, it will never happen. Sketching with tape and paint is important pretty much every day, and I put some of them on my website to demarcate between sections of similar images to help viewers see my progression.

How long have you been working in that way?

One year with the current full-time method. I have been taping and painting intermittently for 10 years.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

I look at a lot of high-end photographic images of fashion and architecture - mostly elaborate, big, flowing clothing and vibrantly colored, yet very minimal architecture. The fashion and architecture images help generate my gestures and influence my final color choices, sometimes monochromatic. Names: Newman, Judd, Malevich, Kelly, Diebenkorn.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

My wife's drive, professionalism, and happiness in her job inspires me. Ambient music. I try to cook a lot of complex dishes, full of color, to appear simple and elegant.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

Generally, most people see grids or maps or some kind of relief that seems familiar, something to latch onto and try to resolve. Those final images are not my intention but usually start an interesting conversation.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I just discovered Minus Space in Brooklyn which deals exclusively with Reductive Art. I also saw a show at THEODORE:Art in Soho (NY) with Andrew Seto, Damien Flood and Joy Garnett. Andrew Seto is infinitely inspiring as he tweets his daily travels with amazing photo images which clearly inform his painting process.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Hopefully a baby.

Clare Price

2011-08-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make large scale abstract paintings, the basis for which are digital drawings created on an antiquated computer programme and projected up with transparencies and an overhead projector. This drawing becomes the skeleton or "grid" for the painting, which is either meticulously adhered to or rebelled against using spray paint acrylic gouache and household lacquers. The paintings explore the intersection between something that is very visceral and painterly, and something that is much more controlled and designed. In some parts the paintings are spare, stark and graphic; in others, the paint washes voluptuously over the tightly restrained framework exploding into action painting.

What drives you to make work?

A gnawing, irrepressible, all consuming compulsion.

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

It varies from stretching and priming of canvas the drawing up of the pixelated drawings which takes a few hours; the steeling to commence battle with the canvas to make it work or hang together in some way; the spray painting of the initial marks that mirror the pixelated lines and then the complete immersion in the painting where things happen that are outside of you that you don't expect where time goes by and you don't know what happened to it, where you are outside of yourself, usually in a haze of paint fumes. That’s what I do it for, those moments (not the paint fumes, the being outside of yourself [although no doubt the paint fumes help]).

How long have you been working in that way?

I have been working like this for the past five years. I came back to painting after a long absence so it still feels very new and old all at the same time as I painted when I was younger. I think a lot of the insane hunger to paint is the making up for lost time.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Patrick Heron, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Albert Oehlen, Peter Lanyon, Blinky Palermo, Wilhelm de Kooning, Ingres, Turner, Andy Warhol.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Music, lyrics, sound, popular culture, reading, landscape urban and rural, film and cinematography, architecture.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

Preferably in a large white space with plenty of room to stand back.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I saw a room of late Picasso paintings in Barcelona. The compositions and colours were so effortless and perfect: they were delivered with such ease and almost flippancy but were so utterly serious, profound and charged. They moved me to the core.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

In November I am returning to Cortijada Los Gázquez, where I did a residency two years ago. I'll be in the mountains in Andalucia with nothing to think about but painting for 10 days. I also have a show at Studio 1.1 next year which I am making work towards and am very excited about. The studio is also really both exciting and overwhelming me at the moment. Things are in flux and wide open.

Paul Behnke

2011-08-04T02:35:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make non-objective paintings and drawings. Through my process I arrive at a unique pictorial vocabulary in which high key color plays a significant role. There is a suggestion of flux, in my work, and a strong sense of arriving at an image rather than the creation of a fixed representation.

What drives you to make work?

The feeling I get when I look at great works of art---part envy, part pride and a desire to compete with my heroes.

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

I paint everyday, usually starting around noon and stopping at six.

I never begin with a preconceived idea or image. I choose a color and begin. When a few forms begin to present themselves I scrape a layer of semi-transparent paint over the composition. This allows forms and spatial relationships to be seen in a different way. The process is repeated until I arrive at a nearly final state. Often at this point I begin to edit forms and make color changes until the painting feels complete.

How long have you been working in that way?

With a few minor variations, for about two years. Before then there was not much paring down involved and the final painting was much more busy and frenetic.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Morandi and the New York School in the beginning. For the last six years I've paid a great deal of attention to the work of the British abstract painters: John Hoyland, Gillian Ayres, Albert Irvin, and Patrick Heron.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

I think literature influences how I see myself as a painter and the romantic way I view art in general and this in turn informs my practice. I'm thinking of books like The Masterpiece by Zola, The Horse's Mouth, and the Sound of Sleat by Jon Schueler.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

Ideally, I would like an educated viewer. With that as a given, I hope there would be many ways to approach my work.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Yes, recent shows by Thornton Willis, Kimber Smith, and Norman Bluhm. And John Hoyland's work in the Independent Eye exhibition at Flowers gallery. There was also a terrific abstraction by Alfred Leslie in the Ab-Ex show at MoMA that I'm still thinking about.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

This October I'll have work in a group show curated by Jeffrey Cortland Jones at the University of Dayton in Ohio. And on the distant horizon I'll have a one person show at the Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia in 2012.

Louise Belcourt

2011-08-03T03:09:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I am a painter.

What drives you to make work?

The need to feel centered and the need to find joy.

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

In the studio by 10 am, lunch at 2 ish, leave at 6pm. Six days a week, minimum.

How long have you been working in that way?

A long time. 12 years ago I had a part time job on the weekends but otherwise it was 5 days like that.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Phillip Guston, Matisse, Van Gogh.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Gardening, garden building, mornings and long walks.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I want them to feel desire and love looking at them. It would be nice to think that they would want to touch them too.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Greens that are so far away they appear blue. My black dog running thru fog.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Fall is coming.

Don West

2011-07-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I paint. I use a number of different mediums and approaches to paint. I struggle for mastery. I fail a lot.

What drives you to make work?

The satisfaction I get from doing it, although I abhor failing.

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

Painting often entails making the support or finding the support or stretching canvas or a combination of all these while conceiving of the work. Making drawings or studies where necessary. Assembling materials. Scraping palettes, cleaning brushes. Mixing colors. Often I make or stretch a group of things or supports on which to paint conceiving of a full series of work, the individual pieces of which inform and relate to one another, one a continuation or a contradiction of the next. These may take different shapes and forms and various dimensions. Nothing is off the table. I work with all sorts of materials. I recycle a lot and have done for years. I’ll use anything and everything that comes to hand or mind, whatever the piece dictates. If I don’t know how to do it, I learn how. Anything that will contribute to the piece is fair game. I also contemplate and consider making frames where applicable. Some works are about line, color, composition, gesture, etc.; some are about process, some are about challenge, some about image or surface or space. Whatever presents itself to me gets a hearing. Each work finds its own way into existence with its own set of rules and demands. When actually painting, I do more looking and thinking than painting. But wherever it begins and wherever it ends, it is always and ultimately about illusion. I play mostly. Watch hummers at the window feeder. Burn incense. Listen to music, make and drink coffee. Run the vac, do some calisthenics, lift some weight, write in the studio journal. I’m always working to put myself into the receptive state through which the artwork appears, engaging the painting dialogue that is ongoing and evolving when the work is coming.

How long have you been working in that way?

I present myself for work in the studio everyday. Studio life is solitary. I put in 6 solid hours at my job, sometimes 7 or more. It used to be 8 or better, every day, until I turned 60. But now, at 65 years of age, I’m usually only good for about 6 hours; after that, it’s non-productive. I’ve been working this way, for 35 years.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

The only artist who hasn’t been a profound influence in my work I haven’t discovered yet. I’m constantly on the prowl for another great artist’s work to see. I learn something even from the bad ones. It doesn’t matter what type of art it is. I copy to learn the most interesting and applicable techniques and processes from the greatest artists I can find. I try things out and practice to make them mine.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

The world, the universe, other people, museums, galleries, beauty, truth, honor, love, existing. You could take every other interviewed artist’s response you have on this website to this question and insert it here in my interview. It would be applicable.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

However they want. I try to create something that is drop-dead beautiful to me. Remembering that beauty comes in many many forms. My work is not about expressing something to the viewers. I’ve no agenda, social, political or otherwise. I’ve got nothing to tell or express to them. My work gets me through my day. That’s it. It’s all about making it for me. It would be good, of course, for them to love it enough to buy it, as that’s I how I make my living. But they will get out of it what they are willing to bring to it. Only art made that way will grow more profound over time for those who have made the commitment to live with it.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Aside from terrific difficulty or top-notch craftsmanship apparent in a certain work, not a whole lot of stuff impresses me anymore. I’m absolutely worn out with the tons of “important” mediocre conceptual flotsam/jetsam that is stuffing the galleries. I will say that many of those great paintings, traditional and/or contemporary, that I’ve seen over the years, the best ones, continue to impress me. And I just saw a small, very traditional seascape by DeAnn Melton here in Tucson that was extremely pleasurable to view.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

Two new galleries and a one man show of new work coming before the end of this year.

Sarah McNulty

2011-06-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings. I also make drawings, objects and projections in relationship to the paintings. They are primarily abstractions, often with ties to the physical world and destructive elements of it, though ultimately I’m far more concerned with the materiality than any subject.

What drives you to make work?

The possibility of immediate, physical images that may alter experience and reveal greater truths.

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

I spend a lot of time in the studio surrounded by my paintings, maybe 15 or so on varying surfaces, as well as images, drawings and found/made scraps. I go back and forth between surfaces and scales, which vary between human and handheld. The surfaces of the paintings (their solidity, depth, edge and detail) play a strong role in the development of the images.

A good deal of the time is spent looking and rearranging various constellations, making dumb work, photographing them to view them differently, reading, listening to music. The paintings are often worked over, layer after layer, built up and scratched back. Sometimes they form out of the remains of previous paintings, by re-use of materials or refinement of certain elements of imagery.

Action comes in frenetic bursts after long periods of stillness. I am interested in materiality taking over, when images and objects turn and deceive, suddenly becoming foreign. This happens when they writhe and jerk, as though outside my own physicality. Braced by the tension of making and ruining, they frequently become something not foreseen as an end-point, where a linear route of actions recedes.

How long have you been working in that way?

For about the last 5 years the work has become more focused in the particular direction it seems to be heading.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Guston never ceases to have a wild impact upon viewing. Also Mary Heilmann, Raoul de Keyser, Richard Tuttle, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Manet, and Velazquez have been important recently. I think the other artists that I spend time in conversation with on a regular basis have the greatest affect.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Natural and manmade disasters, uninhabitable landscapes, decay, absence. I’m also quite fascinated with the idea of beasts.

I watch a lot of film, and am partial to the uncynical beauty and awkwardness of Herzog’s, and Villi Knudsen’s volcano films are some of my favorite footage.

I’m also interested in linguistics and translation, whether words or images, and usually studying a foreign language. It’s been Danish for the last couple of years.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I think that looking at work should be an active process. Ideally, I would like it to really take over when viewed.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I keep thinking about the scene in Jean-Pierre Melville’s ‘Doulos’ where Maurice digs out a hole in the earth under the lamplight to hide the stash. It’s a beautiful scene, so tactile, all thrashing hands and flying dirt under the glow.

Also some interesting work by Phil Root, Paul Housley and Lydia Gifford in recent shows.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I’ve moved into a new, bright studio not long ago so am looking forward to getting to work in it now that it finally feels like a space I understand. Also the second half of a recent show I was in in Munich will take place here in London early next year.

Trevor Sutton

2011-06-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings, prints and other works on paper.

What drives you to make work?

It’s the activity that feels most real to me.

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

In recent years I have once again returned to working with grids, after a long period of making glazed, atmospheric paintings that often employed a square or circular format. My latest paintings are constructed and painted with oil and paper collage on board. They refer to solid architectural surfaces – facades and interiors in preference to the skies and smoke of work made in the 90’s and for most of the last decade.

I go to my London studio most days, where alongside making work I read, think and listen to a lot of music.

How long have you been working in that way?

Since I gave up teaching at Chelsea School of Art in 2000.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Roger Ackling, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Jeremy Moon, Mark Rothko.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Being in the landscape, being by the sea, being alone, being in Ireland, being in Japan. Music.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

Slowly, seriously and enthusiastically

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

The Giant’s Causeway, County Antrim.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

An exhibition has just opened in Austria.

DOUBLE VISION: Carol Robertson + Trevor Sutton

Ritter Gallery, Klagenfurt, Austria

16 June – 30 July 2011

Peter Blundell

2011-06-18T02:36:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings in oil on canvas on a domestic scale. I use handmade stencils cut from card to create compositions that I cannot fully anticipate. The paintings are built up in layers over time, sometimes I try to ignore what is on the surface at other times I will re-trace the forms onto a new layer. The intention is resolve the painting into a concrete pictorial form. It is very open to begin with and goes through many changes but after a time the painting determines itself.

What drives you to make work?

Painting for me is an outlet, a release that helps me channel thought, experience and allows for an element of risk to be taken into an on-going activity. I enjoy the feeling of being immersed in a prolonged exploration of my own making where I don’t know the outcome.

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

I work on around fifteen paintings in the studio at any one time. I select a painting to work on for the session. Sometimes I begin painting immediately, at other times I may loosen up by drawing or cutting out a stencil to use. I most often paint flat on a table and begin by wiping down or painting over a previous layer.

How long have you been working in that way?

I have worked in this way since studying at Central St. Martins in 2006. Prior to this, I made more systems-based paintings that were completed in a single session. I used grids and structural motifs worked out beforehand in studies to regulate the flow of paint. My current work is a reaction to that way of working in that it evolves organically and is resolved over a longer period.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

I don’t feel directly influenced by any one artist when I am making the work in the studio, however after a while I see aspects of other artists work emerge in mine. Recently I might have recognised Jean Fautrier, El Greco and Jessica Stockholder, although maybe not all in one painting!

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

I guess playing bass guitar and vocalising in Temperatures informs the painting practice in some way. We fall in and out of grooves and patterns in the music which is all improvised so there is a clear element of risk added to a real-time live performance.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I’d be just happy if they engaged with it at all, but I guess equal measures of puzzlement and joy would be good.

Karl Bielik

2011-05-14T03:05:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make oil paintings on canvas and board, alongside this watercolours, inks, drawings and collages on cardboard and paper.

What drives you to make work?

I chose to paint 15 years ago and I am going to stick with it, it’s a long road to become a painter and I’ve got some distance to go. The feeling that painting is a frustrating and fruitless exercise is never that far away - but when one comes together it makes the hanging-in-there worthwhile.

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

I keep long and irregular studio hours. I begin by looking for connections between some of the 30 or so paintings which scatter my studio walls, floors and tables. I move paintings around to form smaller more digestible groupings, turn them upside down, turn some to the wall and decide where to start. I’ll choose a painting, a colour and mix some paint and start to change things, paint over ones that aren’t working, scrape the paint off of others and start the process again. The works feed each other and slowly start to form connections, which offer temporary solutions to problems and then themselves become problems further down the line. My paintings have no hard and fast direction and while sometimes making a painting can be quick process, others will take months. The ones that I cannot find anyway of adding to and don’t destroy, will be moved around the studio untouched until I realize they are completed. If I can’t find a place to begin a painting I will start making some marks on some old card or paper knocking around the studio, or just sit, look, think, drink, smoke or read, till I can work out what needs doing.

How long have you been working in that way?

It is around 6 years since I stopped using words and collage in my painting, reduced the scale of my work and started working in oils. Before that my studio was in my flat, or my flat was in my studio and I had a totally different approach to making work.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Kurt Schwitters - as a 20 year old ex-electrician and drifting graphic design student who was making collages from found materials, my tutor Charlie Laycock told me to go to the library and look at his work. That started things rolling(slowly) and during the following years I made some work but was never truly focused on it until I had my first studio at the age of 28. Since then the list of artists I like is long but recently Diebenkorn, Sillman, Baselitz, Kippenberger, Tarkovsky, Ballard, Bukowski, The Fall and Daniel Johnston.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Everything but nothing directly, bar photographs I take that can offer me a way into a new painting, an iron gate, a rust stained walls, washing lines - the photographs only function is as a starting point. Film, literature and music play a huge part in my life and may somehow inform my work. I also make music under the name Lark which functions as a solo project and a live band, we have had a full band album and singles released on Care and the Community Records, which is being followed up by a solo album release sometime in the next few months.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

First of all by looking and then they can take that where they want… preferably by discussing, exhibiting, publishing and buying it.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Paintings in recent London shows by Varda Caivano, Patrick Galway, Philip Allen and Pheobe Unwin. The films of Bela Tarr and Wim Wenders.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

A group show at The Drawers Gallery in London in October this year. The people at ‘Abstract Critical’ saw my work in the Marmite Painting Prize have been to my studio and filmed a documentary on my work which once edited will be online in the coming months. Phyllida Barlow has chosen my painting ‘Father’ for the Creekside Open 2011 in June. An Artist in Prague, where I lived some years back, is going to curate a solo show of my work in November this year. The 6th Terrace Annual is a one day show I curate, it is held outdoors on former wasteland at the back of my studio and will be on Saturday August 27th this year. Painting.

Dustin London

2011-04-23T03:23:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make impermanent, site specific, small-scale wall paintings.

What drives you to make work?

Making work is the by-product of my need to penetrate as deep within myself as I possibly can. I was five years of age when I first tried to imagine nothingness while laying in a bathtub. It made me keenly aware of myself, my existence as a human being, and my connection to the universe. Making work keeps me close to this place, maintains this connection and makes my life feel most worthwhile.

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

For me seeing and thinking is as important as making, and of course informs what I make. So, simply being present in the world and seeing things around me with a clear mind is probably half of what I do. I also make thin smooth shapes on the wall with joint compound and then paint on them. The decisions of what shapes to make and what marks or compositions go on these shapes is largely intuitive and made with the other shapes and compositions around them in mind, as well as what has come before on the wall. Documenting the work also takes up a significant portion of the day and is hugely important since it is all that remains once a work is destroyed. It can sometimes take longer to photograph a piece than to make it.

How long have you been working in that way?

One year. Though before that I was making oil paintings on canvas that had similar imagery and was based on very fleeting peripheral visual experience. I was accumulating my own stockpile of paintings that took less and less time to achieve the freshness I wanted, which became kind of ridiculous after a while. So, it seemed to me that the process of it, that basic visual thought, was the important thing and that the work could actually be impermanent rather than referencing something impermanent.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Pierre Bonnard for his intimacy, buoyancy, and the way everything he sees feels like a nerve ending exposing all his feelings and thoughts. Philip Guston for his bluntness of mark and form and his deeply felt sense of magic and mystery. Edward Gorey who shares a love of dead trees against overcast skies.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

The centimeter rainbow cast on my wall by my front door's sunset peephole. The cheap clapboard of an old white house against a slightly cooler white sky. Icicles refracting. The moon's slow motion across the lens of a telescope.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

In person and in time. Unfortunately, documentation is the only thing most people will see, but hopefully there is something to be gleaned from that in its own way.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

The opening sequence of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives was one of the most amazing filmic intros I have ever seen. It's a very slow, still, dark scene of a water buffalo in the jungle at dusk. Also, a scene toward the end of Kurosawa's One Wonderful Sunday where a despairing poor couple finds themselves in a desolate amphitheater and Numasaki tries to cheer up his lover by jumping onstage to conduct Schubert's Unfinished Symphony to an imaginary orchestra, only to be squelched by the howling of the wind. Absolutely beautiful.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I'm going on a residency to Millay in June, followed by a nomadic few months of camping, and then spending a year in the desert in New Mexico to focus on my work. Very much looking forward to it!

Philip Miner

2011-04-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings, drawings and collages. I am interested in how I can make paintings that reflect the momentary with a clear acknowledgment that it’s not important to be novel or new, but that there’s so much to build upon and consider.

What drives you to make work?

The uncertainty in our time; everything today seems so tenuous, hard to get a grasp on. Making work is a way for me to intellectually process the material experience of living today. Painting exists somewhere between the see-able and the say-able.

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

I take snapshots that mix into a wide array of source materials ranging from art history to images downloaded from the Internet. In the studio these images act as starting points for works. I’m always looking at and drawing from these images. I like to try to make paintings that have a historical awareness. Each move relates to something that already exists in the world, and I like how that ties into a larger construction of the universe.

How long have you been working in that way?

I would think with acute awareness that I was working this way only the past four or five years, but actually perhaps as many as ten.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Matisse has really taught me to think about the relations between scale and color, Robert Ryman took that down to the wall, Mondrian keeps me within the picture plane, while Blinky Palermo and Josef Albers are about interrelations. Recent curiosities in still life subjects have led me to 18^th century still lifes. It’s interesting to me how the scale shifted from the Baroque to intimate paintings. And I really love to see non-representation in works prior to Modernism, as in Celtic manuscript illumination.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

I look at a lot of design, both graphic and architectural. I like to see what industrial designers are inventing. Lots of reading – lately I’ve had a lot of interest in the classics – Homer, Plato. With that in mind, I’ve also been listening to a lot of 20^th and 21^st century Classical music, composers like Glass, Riley Adams, Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, Edgar Varese, which is totally new for me, but so richly complex.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

What I like about paintings is that they can be short or long experiences, but the viewer can hopefully repeat viewing the work and find something different each time.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

There was a recent show of Picasso that I took in – the drawings and collages that he did at the point of breaking into Cubism. It all hinges on his guitars. I found that level of engagement with something compelling.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I’m working on new drawings and paintings that follow my recent show.

Lauren Portada

2011-04-16T03:17:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I paint and draw.

What drives you to make work?

Making work is an active relationship with seeing the world around me and the need to articulate those observations.

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

I am in the studio about half the week. I teach part time at a few different institutions and that keeps me in constant motion. I work on gessoed linen and panel, and while waiting for paint to dry, I make drawings so my ideas do not get stuck. I think Hemingway said it best in A Moveable Feast:

"The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start."

For me, it's important to come to a working place of knowing what needs to happen next as well as being surprised by what could happen next. I'm in constant negotiation: present-future, studio practice, work, loved ones, responsibilities, yoga, art-viewing, hiking, composting, day-dreaming, commuting.

How long have you been working in that way?

I've been working pretty consistently with a palette knife for 7 years. I abandoned the brush for a harder edge and ability to layer and scrape paint. In 2005 I received a Fulbright to India where dust and cross-contamination was inevitable. (I would open my studio door and a whirlwind of dust and debris would plow through). It helped me to be less precious and precise with my edges, which changed the space of the paintings.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Giotto, Jasper Johns, Hans Hoffman, Piero della Francesca, Charles Birchfield, Vija Celmins, Raoul de Keyser, Alex Katz and, oh yes! Morandi: his color relationships continue to baffle and impress me.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Expansive landscapes, horizons, voids and icebergs. I'm currently applying for a grant to go to the Antarctic to study glacial dynamism and alpenglow - how light translates space and shape in an environment with 'little' color and lots of reflection.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I'm satisfied when someone is able to engage with my work on the work's terms. Maybe that seems somehow arbitrary, but I think it can be quite difficult actually; the work is always changing, whether due to lighting, environment, time, current conditions of our society. The work is connected to all of these aspects and also outside of it.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Christian Marclay's The Clock. It was at Paula Cooper Gallery this February. What a feat of sound and visual collaging.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I'm a member of Regina Rex, and we co-curate and look at artists for shows in our space. We are a thirteen-strong artists' collective nearly one year old. This has afforded us the opportunity to have a dialogue with many artists and writers. I'm also very excited about what is now happening in the studio; I'm in the middle of finishing an 8 x 18 ft painting, the largest piece I've made to date.

Jonathan Allmaier

2011-04-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make painting-reality-based paintings.

What drives you to make work?

I try to be a better person.

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

I make the paint from pigment, because this is already almost a painting. I build and re-cut flat-front stretchers so that the stretcher is the foundational drawing for the painting. I stretch and prepare the canvas as an extension of this drawing, re-stretching the canvas if the stretcher is re-cut, or if the painting appears on the other side of the canvas. I want the paintings to make themselves, so I am the studio assistant for the paintings.

How long have you been working in that way?

I started making paint in graduate school. The working practice is really newer than that, though, because now the paintings make their own painting-context too.
This is important for me because every painting needs a painting-context, and it’s ridiculous for me to try to provide it ‘myself.’ I think it appeared that artists could do that at other time periods, but I think that is an illusion fostered by a certain kind of historical momentum, which is not the kind we have now.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Goya, Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Paul Thek. Of course Velazquez, but I am on the Goya-Warhol side of Velazquez, as opposed to the Manet-Picasso side (although I love those artists too, I’m just not on that side). Dona Nelson, who was also my teacher. Thornton Dial, Joe Zucker, James Ensor, Giotto, Harriet Korman, John Marin.
There are many artists I admire that I would like to have an effect on it, but I think this is only partially up to me.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

I like to read, and I keep a notebook. I don’t read much art-philosophy, but for metaphysics and philosophy of mind I like Derek Parfit, Saul Kripke, Thomas Nagel, Nietzsche, and Kant. Also folk tales, like Native American stories and the Arabian Nights. I also like to read literature, but I don’t clearly know how that informs the practice, except for maybe indirectly. Maybe it’s because literature is a metaphoric medium, because it really stays in the (referential) language, that keeps it away from objects like paintings. I like Proust because his book is almost not a book, it’s too long and the sentences are too complex. It takes so long to read that it’s a physical entity.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I would like people to be in the same room as the paintings, preferably with furniture so they could sit down. Preferably this would be regular furniture, not the usual pew-style gallery furniture.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

There is a Thornton Dial exhibition up now that I thought was very moving. It was also interesting as a critique of a lot of contemporary art – the work has so much clarity with regard to its subject matter that it’s not aesthetic.

There’s also an interesting exhibition uptown comparing Malevich to later American artists – it’s supposed to show a lineage. It’s interesting because Malevich makes a lot of the American art look silly, if you do want to compare them – we (Americans) cleaned it up, we tried to de-culturize it. We thought we could be free. And that actually left the work open to be inhabited by culture in an unintentional way, so that a lot of the American work looks dated in comparison to the Malevich.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I’m in a three-person show this summer in LA.

I’m also excited about work in the studio. A lot of paintings need other paintings, and I’m very excited about what the new paintings will be.

Susan Post

2011-04-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I try to find ways for paint to ‘behave’ rather than depict

What drives you to make work?

A sense that there are universal truths and a conviction that I can add to an understanding of them.

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

I am fortunate to have a lovely studio in a cooperative not far from my home, where I spend between 0 and 10 hours per day - probably 30 - 40 hours per week on average. Stretching and priming canvasses is a great way for me to enter into a productive frame of mind. When working out a composition I draw with pencil on graph paper or with ballpoint pen or Sharpie on sketch paper, and use gouaches to make color studies. Sometimes it is important to work out in advance the order in which I apply the colors, but generally I'm loose enough with what I'm doing that I can start a new painting without too much pressure, as the colors will shift in response to what's come before. If I get lucky I experience periods of concentration - intense and meditative - where I lose track of time.

How long have you been working in that way?

I went to graduate school about 5 years ago when my youngest child was almost out of high school, and since then have been able to work more consistently and without dividing my attention so much between home and studio.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

Elizabeth Murray was a visiting artist when I was an undergraduate at Princeton - I remember being encouraged by her example as an artist who was kind and caring and also a mother. My mentor in graduate school, Jodie Manasevit, provides me not only with spot-on critiques but is also a model of persistence and integrity. Other artists whose work I respond to include Joel Shapiro, Howard Hodgkin, Sean Scully, Jeff Wall, Agnes Martin, Lee Bontecou, Anne Truitt, Stephen Westfall, Jim Campbell, and Dan Walsh.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

My relationships with the people in my life have brought empathy, understanding and some wisdom that I hope informs my work.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I hope that they will make the effort to see them in person so they can appreciate the surfaces directly, as participants - there are optical effects that can take time to experience. I also hope that viewers will respond to the language of the edges so that they can read the emotional content.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

In the opening sequence of the movie "I Am Love" (dir. Emma Recchi; starring Tilda Swinton) it suddenly becomes clear that what appeared to be a black-and-white pan of a wintry Milan is actually shot in full color. I loved that sensation of shifting perception and also how it draws attention to the fact that black and white are colors too.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I will be exhibiting my most recent work in one of two concurrent solo shows at The Painting Center gallery in Chelsea, New York City, in February of 2012. Next week my woven line pieces will be part of a celebration of the environment of the outer shore of Cape Cod in Appearances: Provincetown Green Arts Festival

Liz Ainslie

2011-03-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make oil paintings that begin with color relationships and develop spatial relationships between forms that become proxies that can move in and out of contexts.

What drives you to make work?

I’m driven by the want to see something new come from my hand. Over time I have developed parameters for working that allow me to be intuitive each time I paint. I need my work to surprise me.

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

Mixing color is very important. As I lay out the paint on my palette, I begin to formulate the general outline of a painting in my mind. As I put down an under-painting, I decide which color to begin with and what form it will take. Since I work within a set of parameters (scale, form, action and material) I can let each decision lead to the next.

How long have you been working in that way?

I began working this way in grad school in 2004, though the paintings looked quite different. I’ve let my practice change slowly over time, but the basic elements remain.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

I love painters, of course- I still can’t get over the late Bonnard paintings that were shown at the Met in 2009. Gauguin was one of the first painters whose color really struck me. Paul Klee became a huge influence because of his seeming willingness to let one thing lead to the next. I’m always drawn to medieval paintings with the very shallow space the figures inhabit and the strange forms that you see in the background landscapes. I also like minimalist work from the 60’s and 70’s- Donald Judd and Sol Lewitt. I love the materiality of James Ensor. I like the rhythm of Guston’s marks and how he described objects with paint. Tomma Abts’ paintings really surprised me when I was able to see them in person. She makes clever decisions denying a view of some parts and revealing others.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

I appreciate the structure of music and how directly it can affect me. Growing up, there was always music playing on the stereo and I still cannot go long without some kind of background noise. My taste in music is eclectic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not specific. When I’m painting I could be listening to Charles Mingus, Outkast, Terry Riley, Gillian Welch or Jawbreaker, but I take time to choose the right music every day. I also like reading philosophy, but I wouldn’t say it directly relates to my work. I like it because some philosophers create their own logic that can spiral into an abstract series of relationships. Reading it can change the way I organize my thoughts.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I like to think that paintings can be autonomous for at least that moment when you first view them. I hope people take advantage of their right to judge art. Too often we want to be told how to look at work. When I finish a piece and display it, I want it to exist outside of my intentions. Then we can argue about it!

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I recently saw the Blinky Palermo retrospective at the Hirshhorn. I appreciate the way he just kept reworking the rectangles and yet each painting holds up as a striking object. Seeing them together also worked well because his attention to scale is so apparent. And the use of color is just so succinct and smart.

Patrick Howlett

2011-03-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make paintings that I hope are novel in some way. I like the transformative nature of making a painting, and I am conscious of that idea when creating an image. I mostly make watercolours and temperas but I also experiment with gesso and stain on plywood.

What drives you to make work?

I would say it is a combination of the experience of seeing other painting and the experience of making work myself. Both are very rewarding activities for the most part. I get a lot out of looking at other art, but then I get something different from working in the studio - it generates new ideas and approaches that I would not have had otherwise. Surely there are other things too, some deeper, some more shallow.

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

Day to day can really vary. It depends on what else I am doing, deadlines or lack thereof. I make my own gesso and egg tempera paint. The process can be a lot of labour and so I break it up into stages. I might be preparing a group of panels for a month or I might be working on a group of paintings or I might be reading and working on the computer. I like to be trying different things at the same time and generally I really like to sit with work for a while. I feel more than ever the need for a studio routine that can fend off other demands. If I am away from the studio for too long I can get a little lost, but on the other hand it can also help to have new approaches, because you sort of forget where you were.

How long have you been working in that way?

The last five years. It probably changed after I taught full-time for a few years. On the other hand, it's probably more similar to how I've always worked than it is different.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

This is actually a really hard question. Early on some painters that really interested me would have been Paul Klee, David Milne, Georgio Morandi, Philip Guston. More recently, what I was doing led me to look at particular artists such as Jean & Sophie Tauber-Arp, the Vorticists, Arthur Dove, Lawren Harris, Bertram Brooker, and Joseph and Annie Albers. In thinking about series of works and processes I have looked a lot at Sol Lewitt, Blinky Palermo, Robert Mangold, and Richard Tuttle.

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Literature, philosophy and writing in general are important for me. They have suggested a lot of content, and influence ways that I approach making the work. For recent work I have been reading Henri Bergson. Music is really important too, for thinking through visual problems I often think of music - mostly because I really like working with it and it is almost always on. I was really into dance, but I haven't seen much of late. The internet and photoshop have also played a part. Oh, and cooking too.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

It don't really have an interest in prescribing how people should be looking. It is just nice if they take the time to look. I definitely appreciate that. I hope people can enjoy painting in way similar to how they might listen to music.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I have seen a couple of Robert Mangold exhibits that really made me think about his work more: work from the mid-80's and more recent stuff. I've run into a few Lara Owens paintings that were really charismatic. Also, a couple of shows by Amy Sillman that I keep thinking about. Last time I was in Berlin I was blown away by the hanging of two Chardin's on either side of a Watteau at the Gemäldegalerie. The Brice Marden retrospective a few years ago really surprised me and left an impression. There was a Thomas Nozkowski show last year at the National Gallery of Canada that was really great to see.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

The horizon is exciting.