OtherPeoplesPixels Blog

GEOFFREY CHADSEY’s watercolor portraits on Mylar are amalgams of found images from chat rooms and hook-up sites geared toward men seeking men. His poignant and provocative drawings reveal both the specificity of their source material and the universality of donning plumage—in the form of performances of gender, race, persona and cultural affinity—to make ourselves more desirable and to communicate our availability to others. Geoffrey received his MFA from California College of Arts in 1996 and was awarded the prestigious Eureka Fleishhacker Fellowship in 1999. His numerous solo exhibitions include shows at James Harris Gallery (Seattle), Jack Shainman Gallery (New York) and The Contemporary Museum, now part of the Honolulu Museum of Art. His work will be included in the group show, Drawingroom, which opens March 7, 2014 at Galerie im Taxispalais in Innsbruck, Austria. The exhibition, curated by Peter Weiermair, will travel from Ursula Blickle Stiftung in Stuttgart, Germany, where it was shown in December 2013. Geoff lives and works in Brooklyn.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Do you consider these drawings to be portraits of individuals?

Geoff Chadsey: Each drawing is a portrait of individuals, plural. They are composites of photos taken from a number of social media sites—other peoples’ self-portraits (or should I say, Other People’s Pixels?)—that are further fleshed out with my own photo studies and images ripped from magazines. I spend so much time on them that they feel imbued with personhood. Frankenstein’s monster, but without the creator's god-complex or nature-challenging hubris?

OPP: The morphing of figures and the presence of multiple heads/arms/bodies is a richly compelling aspect of your drawings, and it seems to be used to different ends throughout your practice. Sometimes the extra body parts evoke potential motion, as with Reacher (2012) and Reacher, revisited (2013). In works like Vestigial Velasquez (2011) and Portrait (Pink Beak) (2011), I read the second face as representing a buried part of the personality trying to escape. Visually these remind me most of horror movie effects used when someone is possessed. Tinchy Klimt (2011) brings up the idea that our own personalities contain distinct elements of the surrounding culture, i.e. hip hop and fine art. I could go on and on—I haven't even mentioned Hindu deities! What does this hybridity of form and body mean to you?

GC: I have no grand narrative. I am no great revelator, although I enjoy and agree with your readings. I pursue the uncanny, but as a wary surrealist, who is suspicious of images that beg interpretation or that try to look weird or provocative. The multiple poses, limbs and faces—pentimenti—render indecision into full form. I read a review of a friend's show, which described her paintings as portraits of people who couldn’t make up their minds about who they wanted to be. That description of multiplicity, confusion, playfulness of identities delighted me. That's what the internet was supposed to be about when it became a popular medium. People were talking about how you could reinvent yourself in chat rooms and be whoever you wanted to be. It was supposed to be a post-identity space. Instead, people have become even more entrenched in their identifications of who they'd like to be—and who they'd like to be with.

The added limbs, faces and traces of previous poses also add distance between my drawings and the unseen source material of the screen and its frozen image. They add a physicality to the figure, as well as movement and the passage of time. Reacher, which quotes a Sports Illustrated basketball cover, and Marines, which evokes Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, both read like dance. Portrait (Pink Beak), a self-portrait, reminds me of spirit photography; the vulpine mask came from a moment of wanting to just SCRIBBLE. Tinchy Klimt is a melding of two common source materials for me: hip-hop and Klimt. There is no reason for it, other than those are images I am repeatedly drawn to: the riveting swagger, the rancid glamor, the spectre of murder. Theater, basically. Popular metaphor of the mask is about hiding, artifice, fakery. Popular psychology is about removing the mask, revealing the true self. But masks enable action. Giorgio Agamben writes that, “‘Persona’ originally means ‘mask’ and it is through the mask that the individual acquires a role and a social identity." He goes further to describe how, in the online era, this mask gets separated from the individual as a profile of online behavior, purchases and likes. Data mining companies collect this information in order to present further enticements or calls-to-action to the individual. You are what you “like.”

In online chat-rooms, you can see how men increasingly identify themselves with costumes that indicate a masculine archetype: the straight-acting (an overtly theatrical role that requires great skills in projecting illegibility), the jock, the leather-daddy, the preppy/ Abercrombie-and-Fitch collegiate, the scruffy urban-woodsman, the executive, the thugster, the punk. Each one calls out to other lovingly-detailed archetypes for a meeting of the masks. The hybridity in the drawings is about pursuing identities that aren't easily summarized as racial, gender, personality types.

OPP: I've read that many drawings are based on images from Grindr, an iPhone app for meeting "gay, bi, and curious guys" and other internet chat sites, although they aren't identified that way on your website. For me, knowing this source adds a distinct layer of longing to connect and to belong that might not be otherwise present in the drawings of single figures. Would these drawings be the same if you drew these figures from life? How important is the source material to you?

GC: “Curious”—isn’t that hopeful? Yes, Grindr is one source, Manhunt another. I have an archive of photographs from sites I have been collecting for over 10 years. I’ve been an active participant in these sites, by the way. These images are about longing and the self-presentation that goes into being longed-for. Men post themselves in an online bazaar to a fantasized other; it’s a peacock gallery. Maybe that’s the discomfort of these drawings. Here is a figure presenting himself to you. You are an implied part of the drawing. He is looking out at you, he is looking FOR you, but you are also not the original intended audience.

Someone asked me a few years ago if there was any empathy in these renderings. It’s complicated. While looking at so many beautiful men online, I find myself collecting the photographs where the performances are wonky. There’s some sort of excess that disrupts the aspiring hotness factor, like a bulging belly or an overenthusiastic hairdo. Empathy and delight enter in those moments. Popular gay iconography is all about desirability: beauty, youth, the fitness factor. I seek to capture a more disruptive figure, something you can’t take your eyes off of, something disorienting, alien, horrific like a movie monster that rivets the gaze. Let’s call it the aspirational abject.

OPP: All your drawings are watercolor pencil on Mylar. Why do you choose it? Is there anything about your work in this medium that doesn't translate well online? What are we missing as online viewers?

GC: The image ecology from screen to Mylar back to screen is largely how my work is seen these days. I joke that I am represented by the gallery called Facebook, and they give me a show whenever I want. It’s fun to gather "likes" and to see your work bounce around Tumblr. But the jpegs are pale ghosts of their originals—you miss the WORK involved in making it, the physicality of the line, the painterly goop of the melted scribbles, not to mention the size (some of these drawings are six feet tall). So then the question becomes: why draw? I have a Masters in photography, but I drew my thesis show. Call it digested photography, a reconstituted archive. Drawing is a sentimental attachment to the personal mark, to the mastery of the rendered copy and to the intimate privacy of mulling over images alone in my studio.

OPP: You are a 2013-2014 Mentor at Queer | Art | Mentorship, which is an organization dedicated to "pairing and supporting mentorship between queer working artists in New York City." Will you tell us a little about the program and why you decided to become a mentor?

GC: The program is about nurturing conversations between (roughly) two generations of participating gay male and female creatives. Because of homophobia, the closet and a generation lost to AIDS, these relationships have to be sought out, created and fostered outside of the university. This is my second year participating. Each generation of gay youth coming into their own has perhaps less baggage than the generation before. The generation before meanwhile has accrued experiences that might be summed up as wisdom—not just about being a thriving gay adult but about being a working artist in New York. The mentorship is about an exchange of ideas, readings, film recommendations, critiques. My participation comes from a desire to integrate my practice into a larger community, to share and receive new ideas about what it means to be queer today.

To view more of Geoffrey's work, please visit geoffreychadsey.com.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in her cross-stitch embroideries, remix video and collage installations. She is an instructor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006, and was a 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibition I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) recently closed, and her solo exhibition Everything You Need is Already Here is on view at Heaven Gallery in Chicago until February 17, 2014.

LILY MARTINA LEE memorializes the forgotten, the discarded and the overlooked. She juxtaposes intimacy and anonymity in her embroidered and appliquéd memorials to unidentified human remains, her beaded scratch ticket medallions and her car hood portraits based on the tattoos of fugitives wanted for non-violent crimes. Lily received a BFA in Fibers (2008) and a BA in American Indian Studies (2009) from the University of Washington in Seattle. She received her MFA from the University of Oregon in Eugene (2012). Her work was recently included in Post-Racial U.S.? at the University Art Gallery at New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, New Mexico, 2013) and Across the Divide IV: The New Boondocks< at Center on Contemporary Art Georgetown Gallery (Seattle, 2012). She teaches Sculpture and Fiber Art at Truman State University. Lily lives and works in Kirksville, Missouri.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Your Fugitive Portraits (2011-2012) are based on the tattoos of wanted fugitives and the facts found in legal and news media documents. Some of the crimes the men committed are "escape from community custody," "burglary," “failure to appear: DUI," and "criminal endangerment." Was it a conceptual decision not to include fugitives for more violent crimes, like murder or rape? What makes you pick the fugitives you pick?


Lily Martina Lee: My decision to work with the narratives of fugitives wanted for non-violent crimes was a conscious one. Rather than sensationalize the criminal element, I wanted to make more intimate work, bringing attention to these individuals, where they come from, and the personal narratives and identities as constructed through their tattoos. Their stories may seem banal or even despondent, but they are also so evocative of our present day culture.

I initially researched most-wanted postings in the Inland Northwest region because that’s where I am from. But I also noticed a pattern in higher-profile, national stories: fugitives often seem to run to Idaho or are captured in this region. I always choose people who are wanted in jurisdictions outside of major metropolitan areas. I began to think of this body of work as cumulatively articulating a contemporary iteration of the romanticized west: anonymous and removed from authority.

In order for authorities to know and list tattoos in a Most Wanted posting, the fugitives must be a repeat offenders. These individuals often have lengthy histories of petty crimes. In pouring over the list of tattoos—information which is made public for the purpose of finding and capturing them—I couldn't help but imagine and try to understand the characters of the individuals who had made those specific choices. I read hundreds of cases, paying special attention to those fugitives who had enough tattoos listed so that I could create a formal composition. More importantly though, I became intrigued by the discursive combinations of tattoos, such as a pentagram and Tweety bird, as in Israel "Izzy" Rodrigues, Butte, Montana (Criminal Endangerment), or text in English and Spanish with a Thai name, as in Jimmy "Bam Bam" Rodriguez, Pasco, Washington (Escape from community custody).

Automotive decals and accessories share striking similarities with tattoos in both style and subject matter: flames, Chinese characters, tropical flowers, mythical creatures and religious symbols that are often cliché and rooted in cultural appropriation. Even as tattoos have become more mainstream, they retain their transgressive status, which the marketplace has capitalized on by generating a multitude of consumer products carrying these graphic styles. Despite the commercialization, individuals still permanently mark themselves with such graphics and attach personal meanings to these tattoos. I find this very beautiful; it transcends preconceptions of originality and meaning within a visual language.

OPP: You've used auto body materials like body filler, automotive enamel, fenders, chrome and tires in a number of sculptures, including Universal/Tramp Stamp Soldier (2011) and Nightbringer (2011). Did you have any experience working on cars before you started using their parts in your art practice? What's compelling to you about these materials?


LML: My experience with auto body materials was originally from an observational perspective. In college and during graduate school, I worked seasonally as a flagger at construction sites. I watched cars go by all day and naturally began to personify them as we occupied the same space. It’s a special situation to be clad in safety gear while standing out in a live lane of traffic, choreographing the movement of vehicles. To entertain myself, I began a list of the worst cars I saw each day, where I spotted them and who was driving. For instance, at an apartment complex in Renton, Washington, I saw a gold Nissan Pulsar wagon being driven by a young, Hispanic male.

When I began to use auto body products in my work, I was initially intrigued by the phenomenon of a cosmetic repair. In our society, it often seems like everything is produced for function and cost-effectiveness. However, the whole auto body industry is essentially aesthetic. It is this curious bastion of formalism practiced outside the context of fine art and is even endorsed by insurance companies. I wanted to explore and participate in this phenomenon by physically manipulating these materials to conceptual ends.

OPP: Could you explain the process of working with the body filler?

LML: I use resin colorants to dye body filler, and then apply these colored layers to the car hood. In some cases, I cover colored layers with a fleshy-colored layer (the default color of body filler when using a standard red cream hardener). I carve through the flesh-toned layer into the colored body filler using woodcut gouges and electric and air rotary tools. In other cases, I carve into a filled area of the flesh-toned body filler, and then fill it back in using body filler dyed to different colors. By repeating this process, I achieve a fairly high degree of detail and generate color gradations by controlling the direction in which I spread the body filler into the carved areas. An example is the rays coming out around the cross on Jimmy. I’ve also experimented with different solvents to thin the body filler in order to pour it into molds I make for casting forms like the masks on Izzy. In some cases, I achieve fine outlines by carefully carving the body filler, spraying on a black primer and then sanding it away to reveal the carved areas.

This methodology of inlaying is analogous to the process of tattooing and strengthens the connection between body and car; the body filler becomes flesh. I reaffirm the surface of the car hood by juxtaposing the inlayed imagery with decals, chrome emblems and fabricated steel components affixed to the surface or floating above it, such as the pentagram in Izzy or the numbers in Michael. I challenged myself to work completely with products and materials from the automotive industry. The body filler can be carved, thinned and dyed different colors, and it can be applied to itself or to the steel. The material affords me great flexibility in combining these techniques in each piece.

OPP: How did your Bachelors of Arts in American Indian Studies from the University of Washington inform your beaded work including Regalia, Skulls and Medallions, your series of beaded scratch tickets?

LML: I began doing beadwork long before college under the mentorship of the late Pauline Lilje, an artist of Chippewa descent, and my interest in beadwork partially led me to pursue a degree in American Indian Studies. I was very fortunate to study at a university that had such a department, and I was continuously surprised by the contemporary issues facing Native Americans. My understanding of our nation’s history was constantly challenged and reshaped during my coursework.

While I had done beadwork since a young age, it wasn’t until I became involved with the student group First Nations at the University of Washington that I started to make regalia for formalized events. During my first year in this group, I made a crown for the royalty contest at the annual First Nations Spring Powwow. Royalty are selected—primarily based on dancing, essays and interviews—to be role models in educational and career goals and for their strong connection to their tribal traditions and identity. The winners of royalty contests wear their crowns at all of the powwows they attend throughout the year they hold that title. It was a tremendous honor to make such a crown. Watching Carmen Selam, the winner of the first crown I made, wear it was rewarding far beyond any art-making experience I had previously had. I went on to make another powwow royalty crown and then began to make beaded medallions. At powwows, I often saw people wearing medallions as stand-ins for things that are typically printed on T-shirts, such as sports team logos. I decided to make metal band logo medallions like Slayer Medallion (2009) to function in a similar capacity.

I later referenced the form of the beaded medallion in Medallions. The series explores the relationship between decoration, value and labor, as well as the cliché themes—Gold Rush, Buck$ and Dough and Asian Riches, to name a few—of the scratch tickets. This work has a clear relationship to tribal gaming enterprises, but I’m most interested in drawing an analogy between the status of decoration and the status of Native Nations. Much in the way that American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes are legally defined as “domestic dependent nations” by the U.S. government, decoration exists on the surface of an object. It’s often defined within the context of its surface instead of being a thing unto itself. The analogy is in the struggle to define both tribes and decoration; neither is given full autonomy under the power structures of U.S. law and the art historical cannon. In many critical legal cases where tribal sovereignty has come into question, ambiguous phrases like "quasi-sovereign" or "semi-independent" become law. In conjunction with this body of work I wrote an imaginary court decision in which I use key language from historic cases in Federal Indian Policy that define the legal status of Tribes to talk about the status of decoration in fine art.


OPP: Unidentified is a relatively new series of embroidered and appliquéd memorials based on "police sketches and photos of unidentified remains." On your site, you say, "My designs are made using computer-generated graphics relating to grieving from social networking, such as Imikimis and Facebook cover photos." What are Imikimis?

LML: Imikimis are a brand of pre-made, photo frame graphics. There are a lot of sites out there where you can upload personal images into a computer-generated photo frame for posting on social networking sites. Most of these sites have collections of different themes such as holidays, romance, the seasons and “In memory of.” This paradox of “personalizing” a one-of-a kind photo with a pre-made, computer-generated graphic is intriguing. I have observed the use of these images in social media by individuals who are celebrating a relationship or mourning a loss. I am interested in how grieving through social networking forums can be impersonal but also enables people to have these public conversations about very personal and emotional topics.

OPP: How does the immediacy of grieving on social media relate the slowness of embroidery?

LML: The instantaneous nature of social networking, including the photo frames, makes it impersonal. I am using the slowness of embroidery to complicate that. I pair the police images of unidentified individuals with the computer-generated photo frames in a way that is almost camp. Then I recreate it with appliqué and embroidery to make this digital image physically tangible. The work is both deeply intimate, and yet the subjects remain anonymous. As an artist, I devote my time, labor and thought to these cases of unidentified remains and contextualize them within the historical tradition of memorial embroidery. I am fascinated by how a person could be deceased for decades yet still remain unidentified, especially since there is ample evidence such as what clothing they were wearing and what objects were found with them. I wonder how anonymous their lives were to leave them so unknown. I use embroidery to commemorate their lives, even if I’m the only person to take the time to think about them.

To see more of Lily's work, please visit lilymartinalee.com.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in her cross-stitch embroideries, remix video and collage installations. She is an instructor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006, and was a 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibition I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) recently closed, and her solo exhibition titled Everything You Need is Already Here opens tomorrow night at Heaven Gallery in Chicago. The opening reception is from 7-11.

BECKY FLANDERS' photographs of feminine archetypes peeing while standing up playfully and provocatively comment on cultural constructions of gender, while her photographs of vaginas with mandalas nestled inside add nuance to the political by introducing the possibility of relating to the vagina as a site of the sacred. Becky received her MFA in Studio Art from the University of South Florida in Tampa. In 2013, her work was included in the group exhibitions Post Coital at Mindy Solomon Gallery (St. Petersburg, Florida), Subversive Narratives at Balzer Art Projects (Basel Switzerland) and Ransom at Wayfarers (Brooklyn). Becky lives and works in Tampa, Florida, where she owns the Mermaid Tavern with her partner and is in the process of renovating an abandoned, mid-century warehouse to house artist studios and workshops.

OtherPeoplesPixels: In general, do men and women respond differently to your work?


Becky Flanders: The work definitely sparks a lot of dialog about conceptions of gender, sex and bodies. I especially love when the work opens the door to talking openly about female genitalia and the way women touch, interact with and relate to their bodies. While it’s no longer a Victorian-level taboo subject, it’s still not so often broached, particularly in a professional situation or with complete strangers. I love it when people I’ve just met tell me interesting stories about touching themselves now and as children, birth control mishaps, squirting, bathroom politics, personal gender gripes, the shape and size of their labia or, if they’re trans, what exactly they have in their pants and how they feel about it.

I get objections to the work from both sexes, but truly more often from women who feel that the work is somehow a debasement or a betrayal of the feminine. I’ve never felt that the act of exposing any part of my body was ever giving anything away or taking anything away from me, but some women feel disturbed by the exposure. Some think that it is a rejection or a cheapening of femininity. Some reject it as being too second wave, but they’re missing my point. One of my most basic goals is to expand and refine the conception of the feminine to include my own experience of it. I’ve always felt like a gender outsider, and yet I’m happy with my body and very comfortable in my skin. I know I’m not alone in that.

With men, it runs the gamut as well. There are always people who want to poke holes in anything feminist, and I’ll debate with them. But if people are into my work because they are turned on by it, that’s fine, too. It’s not my explicit goal to turn people on sexually—although I’ve considered making porn-related work at some point in the future. But now, I want the work to be luscious and titillating in a broader sense. The sexual is sacred to me and that is part of it.

OPP: In almost all of your Female Standing Urination photographs, the face of the figure is either off camera or masked. Sometimes it's a result of the angle of view, as in pieces like Stomach (2013), or the photograph is a close-up, as in Methods 1, 2, and 3. But then there are studio shots like Pan, Egypt, and Venus of Willendorf. Was your choice to mask the peeing figure a practical or conceptual decision, or both?

BF: That choice initially arose from my irresistible desire to mask my own face and faces in general. It’s like the seventh veil. Growing up, I always felt more social anxiety about the exposure of my face than that of my body. Facial expressions have never come naturally to me. They are willful, conscious, often painstaking acts. On the contrary, sex and nudity comprise a space in which I could remain naturally blank-faced, yet not invisible or abject. That space has always been a palliative. As a young person, it was a real confidence booster, almost therapeutic.

But conceptually, the face is a site of the dispute of power. We cannot even legally mask our faces in public now. Facial expressions are daily acts of submission or resistance, a daily game in a culture of spectacle and persona. I always fantasized about being free from this, wandering in public like a ghost. In the work, I wanted to contend with the realm of the body, separate from this facial dialog. I want to consider the figures as archetypes, icons, goddesses. They are not specific individuals.They are platonic forms, abstractions.

OPP: I assume that the peeing figure is you, but the identity doesn't matter in terms of the content. Still, it makes me curious about the practical concerns involved in these photographs. Part of the implication of the entire series is that it isn't that difficult for a woman to pee standing up. But is it difficult to photograph?

BF: Yes, it’s usually me, mostly because I prefer to work alone, without communicating verbally or directing as part of my process. And no, it’s not difficult to pee standing, though you should practice in the shower first to learn how not to drip. Though if you have trepidations about touching yourself, you might be out of luck.

Some of them are exceedingly difficult to photograph because I am both in front of and behind the camera. This is important both conceptually and practically for me. I’ve sometimes worked with another photographer, or an assistant to help carry equipment through the swamps and look out for park rangers. But my ideal shooting situation is alone in the studio with a set that I can manipulate slowly and take my time on. I shoot with a Toyo 4x5 field camera, and I use a cable release, which is the only thing I’m not hesitant to remove from the shots in post production. I often take a lot of polaroids to perfect the setup, and position myself within the shot.

The first person perspective photographs of the Omniscient Sadistic Fantasies series (Heart, Mirror, Stomach, Baby) are the most difficult to shoot because I’m basically trying to put my body in the same location as the gigantic tripod and camera, and none of the equipment can get into the shot. The camera must go where my head should be, and my head is bent backwards and off to the side. This is uncomfortable, and I can’t see where I am aiming. The cable release goes in my mouth because my hands are busy in the shot. It takes a lot of concentration and multitasking. Also, I have to constantly drink water and take vitamins to keep the pee somewhat yellow. I had to learn how to tolerate impartially emptying my bladder over and over again for hours at a time. It’s kind of fun actually. When I’m in the zone, I can’t even feel the mosquitoes biting me.

I choose to shoot in film for technical and aesthetic reasons, but I think this process is a good metaphor for a woman’s relationship to her genitalia. It’s “complicated” (not really), tricky to work, sometimes painful, very analog, incredibly performative, and she can’t really see what she is doing without external reflection of some sort.

OPP: In 2012, you did a series of photographs called of Gorgons and Ana Suromai. Each photograph of a vagina with a mandala peeking out from behind the folds of the labia is titled as a numbered Daily Meditation. Could you address the idea of the vagina as a gateway to sacred space?

BF: Think Kali, a creator/destroyer, or Medusa. The gorgons with actual eyes are both. They might swallow you up or turn you to stone, they might settle feuds or calm the angry sea. There are countless fascinating myths about effect of the sight of a vagina.

I think of these photographs as icons, almost in a religious or meditative sense. They represent a platonic aspect of the feminine and consciousness diverted to the genitals rather than the head. There is also a relationship between yoga and meditation and the poses and forms that I use. These images came to me whole; I just had to get them out. I’m always mining mythology and symbolism for content in my work, also history and natural history. It’s not fashionable anymore to work with religions or mythologies other than those you’ve inherited, but I love Joseph Campbell. However the original impetus to do ana-suromai work came from reading The Story of V, A Natural History of Female Sexuality, by Catherine Blackledge. It’s a goldmine of a book. 

OPP: Your Hurricane paintings from 2013 broaden the read of the Gorgon and Ana Suromai photographs by drawing visual connections between our personal experiences of our bodies and the bodies of others and our understanding of the larger weather systems on the "body" of this planet. What does the eye of the storm have to do with the vagina?

BF: I currently live in Florida. Hurricanes are a reality here. Like the alligators, you get used to them after a while and may even begin to feel somewhat fond of their power to destroy. A hurricane is a weather system that has become so large, so singular that it is given a name. In Florida, the destructive power of nature is right there in front of you on a daily basis, along with the extremes of beauty and exhaustion. The feminine is often equated with nature. Though this is a trope that feminism has long since rejected, I definitely continue to mine it, sometimes mockingly, sometimes in earnest. I grew up close to nature, and it’s dear to me: the wild, the feral, the willful, headless power.

I suppose you could say the hurricanes are another aspect of the gorgons, like a goddess who changes aspect. They are a similar metaphor, and very much a meditation for me to make. I made these drawings during the summertime, when thunderstorms are a daily and powerful occurrence in Florida. They take over the landscape, not only during the 30 minutes of deluge and surface flooding, but also in the aftermath. The summer rainy season is a time of sisyphusean striving to keep nature from swallowing what humans have built. Whether by vines or by mold, leaks or floods, she will eventually have you one way or another.

The drawings are based on photographs taken by satellites. Until relatively recently, it wasn’t possible to see these storms from above. There’s that metaphoric connection to female genitalia: the storm cannot see itself completely unless externally reflected. This also applies to feminine persona in general. The human power to reflect is one of our greatest, like we are the way the earth has of looking back upon herself and reflecting.

OPP: It might appear to the average viewer that your hand-embroidered Aphorisms from Nietsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra were made by another artist, but there's a connection to your photography. What is it?

BF: The work may only be related to the body and feminist pieces in that it is political and somewhat anarchist, but I suspect there are other links which will be revealed over time. I’m beginning to explore the political in a broader sense: the relationship of individuals to the state, the language of extremism and revolution and Americana and its symbols and icons. The What is Value? pieces are also part of this process. The embroideries started with translations of Nietzsche quotes from a particular chapter in Thus Spoke Zarathustra called “the State,” but I have branched out to other quotes and language, some of which I write, but most of which I gather.

I’m interested here in the language of memes. I studies memetics in the earlier days of the internet, but it has taken off with the public at large in recent years. I’m at once fascinated and horrified with the effect that the conscious use of memetics seems to be having on language usage and thus on the transmission of thoughts. The current supposed dividing lines in popular American politics, i.e. the deep polemics of the right and the left, serve mainly as an obstruction to dialog. They seem to be a tool created to control thought and keep people divided and distracted. I think the whole thing is a big charade, and I’m trying to see through it.

Stitching is more of a commitment than the posting or sharing of a Facebook meme. The sheer amount of time it takes to render these texts (about an hour per letter) runs me backwards and forwards, questioning my belief about the statement. Do I mean it in earnest, in irony, in nostalgia or sadness, or in a complex combination of ways? Or perhaps I don’t even “mean” the statement at all, but put it out for consideration alone and as part of a constellation. It’s an attempt at grounding.

These pieces are also a bit nostalgic in terms of their relationship to technology. I sometimes have nightmares that we are being fog-marched via silicon valley into a fascist-capital-slavery state (loosely quoting Willie Nelson here), into a technological age beyond human utility. I am not generally a luddite, but lately I’m gripped with the feeling that we are speeding into a progress trap, and I can’t help but attempt a feeble protest with my meditative embroidery.

To see more of Becky's work, please visit beckyflanders.com.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in her cross-stitch embroideries, remix video and collage installations. She is an instructor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006, and was a 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibition I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) recently closed, and she is currently preparing for another solo exhibition titled Everything You Need is Already Here (Heaven Gallery, Chicago) in January 2014.

Drawing on the stages of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth, LAVAR MUNROE assumes the role of trickster "to confront and disrupt disparities faced by the excluded and marginalized poorer-class blacks in the ghetto." He frames the economically disadvantaged as heroes and villains, kings and queens, gods and goddesses in his painting, sculpture and installation. He repeatedly blurs the line between the two-dimensional and the three-dimmensional just as he blurs the the line between honor and shame, rich and poor, man and animal. Born and raised in Nassau, Bahamas, Lavar moved to the United States in 2004 to attend Savannah College of Art and Design, where he received his BFA. In 2013, he received his MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis and was awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and a scholarship to attend Skowhegan. In 2014, he will mount solo exhibitions at Segal Projects in Los Angeles and The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas. Lavar lives and works in Germantown, Maryland.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Could you talk about your chosen role as "trickster?" Are all artists tricksters?

Lavar Munroe: As an artist-trickster, my role is more amoral than immoral. It’s neither blasphemous nor extremely rebellious. It is my duty to blur the lines between what society dictates as right and wrong, since most societies are managed in a way whereby the dominant class benefits more so than the majority. In reference to the subjects my work targets, I speak with the voice of the ghetto, as the ghetto has little if any voice outside of its own confines. I embrace the idea of being a rebellious force against what is considered normal within the larger constructs of society. My duty is to be a champion of sorts for disadvantaged people who call the ghetto home.

I am the embodiment of cultural and societal hero. When considering the roles of the trickster, the folktale hero Robin Hood comes to mind. The idea of robbing the rich to give to the poor is parallel to that of the disruption of rules, boundaries and the status quo, all of which are attributes of the trickster. In The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell states, “for the mythological hero is the champion not of things to become but of things becoming; the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo.”  



My work rebels against the status quo. It contradicts societal norms, and it celebrates what the mainstream dismisses. My art favors the disadvantaged and fights hierarchy. I intend to visually lure mainstream society with my work, allowing me the opportunity to further engage and educate people who look like me, who have lived the way I have and outsiders who could benefit from gaining a more realistic and broader understanding of the stereotypes I examine. It also affords me the opportunity to use the institution as my message board, exposing the taboos and preconceived ideas held against those most desperately in need.

 Maybe subconsciously all artists are tricksters, but my undertakings are all executed consciously.  

OPP: You grew up in the Bahamas. Did your upbringing inform the work you make now?

LM: Born and raised in the “impoverished” community of Grants Town in Nassau, Bahamas, I grew up challenged with a lot of stigmas and stereotypes that were associated with the community that I lived in. Though many people lived by meager means of survival, my family and I were economically more privileged than the vast majority of people in our community. There was simultaneously a sense of pride to be from the ghetto and a sense of resentment towards those who were afforded better lives outside of the ghetto.

Over the past nine years, I have observed many behavioral similarities between the mainstream society and the ghetto in the United States, a place that has constructed its own myths and stereotypes concerning race, poverty and hierarchical social structures. I have an advantage of having experienced both mainstream society and the ghetto, so I am able to use the stereotypes that exist in each sector to measure the strengths and downfalls of the other.

OPP: I'm curious about the manifestations of poverty in the Bahamas versus the cities you've lived in since moving to the U.S. What are the differences or similarities in your experience?

LM: There are similarities between the Bahamas and the United States in regard to societal structures and economic deprivation among poorer class blacks who reside in the ghetto. Like the ghetto in America, the ghetto in the Bahamas is an unstable place where many people are undereducated, mis-educated, uneducated, and left unfit to compete in the larger job market. As a result, many turn to lives of crime.

I retain my sense of pride to be from the ghetto and have learned to use the negative stereotypes of the ghetto as fuel for my visual investigations.

OPP: What are the benefits of addressing real-life "societal divisions dictated by wealth, class and race" through fiction and myth?

LM: Like mythological practitioners of ancient cultures, I use myth as a tool to further understand and evaluate societal disparities and my own existence. I use personification and allegory to narrate and elaborate on real life events. 
Though framed in fictional narratives, my forms and images are all based on real life occurrences that I have either personally experienced or encountered through research (readings, documentaries and real world conversations).

In mythological narratives, beastly hybrids and animals function as allegoric substitutes for humans. The intersection of the paradigms of historic, civic and contemporary notions of the animal serve as a trajectory of investigation in my work. My intentions are to evoke a sense of power and employ social hierarchy, while also pointing to Otherness. In so doing, the animal is metaphor for the human Other. In particular, I am interested in contradictory understandings and the idea of skewing meanings as it relates to the animal in pre-modern and contemporary societies. 

OPP: Shank=Survival is a series of sculptures that are also functional shanks. It seems counter-intuitive to make these make-shift weapons pretty, but then I think of bejeweled swords throughout history and the sacred moment in every quest movie I've ever seen when the hero/heroine forges his/her own weapon. Could you talk about aestheticization of tools of violence in this body of work?



LM: Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth, or the Hero’s Journey inspired this work. I was interested in the mythological stages of initiation, survival and the return as they relate to time served in prison. In many ghettos, having served time in prison is considered a rite of passage. I metaphorically align prison with the stage of the "Belly of the Beast" where, through violent and heroic acts, heroes are either born or reborn.



Aesthetically, I used material and color as a vehicle for revealing prison as a simultaneously violent, heroic and homoerotic space. I thought of the shank as trophy, the shank as weapon, the shank as phallus and the shank as relic. I was also interested in the notion of concealment through disguise. Pearls, flowers, pink cloth, thread, among other “feminine” materials, were used to make weapons which belong in the arguably male-dominated space of the prison. 

This body of work was executed at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. The environment there fueled the early beginnings of the shivs; my studio metaphorically and psychologically became the confines of a prison cell.



OPP: House of Indulgences is your only performative work to date. While in residency at Atlantic Center for The Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, you recreated a dilapidated building used as a crack house from the street you lived on as a child from memory and performed inside it. What was your personal experience performing like? Do you think it was very different from what viewers experienced?



LM: That experience was surreal. I was intentionally under the influence of a substance and temporarily became that person that I grew up seeing. Putting myself in that state was important to the performance and to the message I wanted to portray. Becoming THE addict engaged both the audience and myself. I got a first hand experience of being crippled and watched, but not helped by able members of society. During the opening, visitors got to experience what it is like to peer into a crack house littered with broken glass and debris and to see a person in a hallucinogenic state desperate for help. As people looked over my lifeless body, I heard a few somber sobs and words such as powerful, touching, sad, compelling and moving. Many people also speculated that I was someone brought in off of the streets. Comments such as “that is not the artist” and “is that the artist?” echoed across the space. 

OPP: Where Heroes Lay is a series of “bed” sculptures made mostly of brown cardboard, evoking the cardboard boxes that many homeless people sleep on and in. Tell us about this series.

LM: The series grew from a material exchange with a homeless person. Periodically, I removed soiled cardboard pieces from the homeless person’s sleeping quarters and replaced it with clean cardboard. In a sense, I became a maid. By serving him as the trickster, I inconspicuously inducted the homeless person into the role of the Hero. Secondly, presenting the Hero’s soiled bedding as a consumer good in the art-market allows the objects to serve as weapons of critique and ridicule targeted against mainstream society.

To see more of Lavar's work, please visit lavar-munroe.com.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in her cross-stitch embroideries, remix video and collage installations. She is an instructor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006, and was a 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibition I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) recently closed, and she is currently preparing for another solo exhibition titled Everything You Need is Already Here (Heaven Gallery, Chicago) in January 2014.

Multimedia artist STEPHANIE PATTON uses humor, word play and an attention to materiality to address the universal human experiences of suffering, comfort and healing in her quilted sculptures, videos and installations. Stephanie is represented by Arthur Roger Gallery and is a member of the artist-run collective The Front, both in New Orleans. Her numerous solo exhibitions include Private Practice (2013) and Diffuse (2010) at Arthur Roger Gallery, as well as Upkeep (2012) and General Hospital (2011) at The Front. In 2013, her work was included in group exhibitions at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University (Malibu, California), Biggin Gallery, Auburn University (Auburn, Alabama), Vox Populi (Philadelphia) and Acadiana Center for the Arts (Lafayette, Louisiana). Stephanie lives and works in Lafayette, Louisiana.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Could you talk about the relationship between pain, healing and humor in your work?

Stephanie Patton: Healing takes many forms, both physically and emotionally. Painful experiences can lead to creative expression and are often the impetus behind some of the most engaging work. What source material would a stand-up comedian have if it weren't for strange life experiences and painful moments?

I believe the same is true for many visual artists, musicians and performers. There have been many instances in my own work when I was drawn to an idea, material or image for no particular reason. Then later the relevance became clear to me. One example is Life Saver. In 2006, while in residency at the Vermont Studio Center, I kept envisioning a grid-like pattern of multiple inner tubes covered in white vinyl lying on the floor. I wasn't quite sure why this image kept entering my mind. I later realized that this was in fact my own reaction to Hurricane Katrina and the devastation that it had caused here in Louisiana. This idea was not completely resolved until 2008, when I decided to suspend the inner tubes from the ceiling instead of placing them on the floor. Instead of white vinyl, I used mattress quilting—a material that I continue to use today—for the first time because of its multiple references.

I have heard that an artist has one or two great ideas in a lifetime, and the core of my work is based on striving to empathize with and understand those afflicted with physical and mental health issues. Certainly, we are in a day and age in which mental health is a growing concern, and it is luckily not as taboo as it was in the past. I am particularly interested in how physical ailments often manifest as extreme stress and/or traumatic emotional states and vice versa. I strive to illustrate connections between physical and emotional states in my work. This is especially the case in the white vinyl pieces that I have made in recent years.

OPP: The patterns in pieces like Strength, Valor and Meeting in your 2013 exhibition Private Practice evoke the raked patterns in Zen gardens, and I see a connection between the handwork of quilting and the contemplative state associated with the Zen garden. Is this a visual reference for you?

SP: Zen gardens were not a direct reference for me, but I see the visual and conceptual connection. In researching visual symbols relating to the emotions, I was very drawn to the Adinkra symbols of West Africa. These symbols are very simple, yet visually powerful and could easily translate into the material of vinyl that I continue to explore. The emotions they represent are conceptually appropriate for what I was trying to convey in Private Practice. Some of the white vinyl pieces such as Strength and Valor were taken directly from the Adrinkra symbols.
 
OPP: I imagine from the shapes of these pieces that quilting vinyl is unwieldy and difficult. What is it like to work with this material? When did you make your first quilted piece?
 
SP: Yes, working with vinyl is quite a challenge. I have often described it as "wrestling alligators"!  Years ago, I first used quilted fabric pieces for various installations. Satin was my fabric of choice. I made quilted satin walls for my 1996 thesis show while I was a while a graduate student at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. These quilted walls lined a lingerie showroom which showcased fantasy lingerie products such as the Heart Filter™ and the Anxiety Guard™ by Renella®. In 2004, I used quilted satin to reconstruct the interior of a minivan for a project entitled Custom Built. Although I was still very interested in the idea of padding or cushions, I later discovered that vinyl was a more appropriate choice both in terms of its physical properties and its conceptual impact. Certainly the idea of padded walls comes into play. For me, these pieces allude to protective environments whether that is a reference to mental health and/or any soft, protective, physically-comforting space. My first stuffed, white vinyl piece, Protection (2008), hung flat against the wall. In 2011, I made Center Piece, which was more of a relief sculpture that pulled away from the wall. Today they continue to take various forms. I am interested in pushing the materials in ways that I have not yet encountered.

OPP: Your videos Conquer (2013), Heal (2011) and Diffuse (2008) are embodied metaphors for emotional experiences that use language as a jumping off point. I also see a relationship to the trajectory of feminist performance art. Are you influenced by pioneers like Martha Rosler, Janine Antoni, Hannah Wilke and Marina Abromovic? If not, what has influenced you?
 
SP: Although I highly regard all of these amazing pioneers and their great contributions to performance art, I cannot say that I was directly influenced by them. I consider my main influences to have come form various musical personas such as Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. I've also been inspired by female comedic players such as former members of the cast of Saturday Night Live including Gilda Radner, Molly Shannon, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey and Amy Poeler. I LOVE the SNL men as well! I've been making videos since 1995 and had the opportunity to study various types of performance in NYC between 2000-2002 at the Upright Citizens Brigade, Gothum Writers Workshop and the New School. This amazing experience has informed my more recent video work.
 
Funny enough, another major source of inspiration for me was actually the mail order catalogs that my grandmother kept next to her recliner, such as Old Pueblo Traders and Dr. Leonard's. I grew up looking at these catalogs when I was bored as a child visiting her in the country. The gadgets in these catalogs inspired some of my earliest work, as in the products that I made for the lingerie showroom that I mentioned. They also led me to the idioms that I have used in my video work including "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" and "walking on eggshells.”

OPP: Do you have a favorite piece of your own work? Is it the same as the piece you consider to be most successful?


SP: That’s a hard one! I am very attached to the white vinyl pieces at the moment. One of my favorites is Center Piece because of its visual simplicity and the discoveries that it has led me to. This piece was in fact the springboard for all of the white vinyl pieces that I am continuing to make today. A few of my other favorites are my video Diffuse and the sculptural works, Life Saver and Bronze SAS Shoes. Although it is hard for me to judge which of these would be representations of my best work, I do feel that Diffuse is one of my most successful videos. The others that I mentioned are successful to me in the sense that they are all very true to my visual and conceptual intent.



OPP: You mentioned Renella as part of your MFA work. She’s your alter ego, a country singer, who, when asked in an interview what was inspiring about her trip to the Palace of Versailles, responded, "It's all about being fancy." She doesn't appear anywhere on your artist website, but I discovered her on your Vimeo page and found that she has her own Facebook page. It looks like she's had numerous public appearances in and out of the art world. Does she still perform? How does this character relate to your more recent sculptural and video work?
 
SP: Renella is actually taking a well-deserved nap at the moment. . . she’s a character that I began to develop in 1992 when I did a performance of a fictitious wedding with fellow artist, Jack Rivas. I needed a name for the bride and Renella Rose Champagne was born! She married Junior Rivas on April 17, 1992. This was a huge collaboration for me. It involved an eight-month engagement, many traditional parties and bridal events along the way, and the wedding itself was attended by 150 guests. I have pursued several major projects and have done many performances in and out of the art world as this character including the lingerie showroom I mentioned.

In 2005, I chose to devote my creative energy to my multidisciplinary studio work. Although Renella is not visually present in the current work, there is a sense of her ongoing spirit throughout my sculptural and video work. I am certain that she will find her way more directly into my work again someday. Renella has a way of making an appearance when least expected!

To see more of Stephanie's work, please visit stephaniepatton.com.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in her cross-stitch embroideries, remix video and collage installations. She is an instructor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006, and was a 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibition I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) just closed, and she is currently preparing for another solo exhibition titled Everything You Need is Already Here (Heaven Gallery, Chicago) in January 2014.

Drawing, whittling and shredding paper are all forms of mark-making in BENJAMIN LYON's time-intensive art practice. He seamlessly unites both natural and manufactured materials in mysterious altars and monuments, revealing reverence and curiosity about time, chance and the nuanced experience of change that only occurs through ritualistic, haptic repetition. Benjamin earned a BA in Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice with a minor in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University. He continued his artistic development at City College of San Francisco, and is in the process of applying to graduate school. Benjamin lives in Brooklyn.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Could you talk about the presence of repetition in your practice and in the resulting work? I see it in the india ink drawings, the paper-shredding and the whittled pine branches, which are all forms of mark-making or marking time.

Benjamin Lyon: Repetition drives my practice because it brings me into the moment of making. Usually it gets me started and keeps me going. The work often begins without a plan. I think it grows out of a faith in the power of chance; I let go of control and rely more on the experience of making to guide me instead of its outcome.

My work is an intimate conversation with time. Time is fascinating to me because it's both abstract concept and a real experience. It's hard to define in an concrete way. There are so many different interpretations of it depending on what, who and when you are.

All of my work is handmade, and often I choose the repetitive act because it helps me become comfortable with anxiety and boredom. It's therapeutic for me. I dedicate a lot of my studio time to making marks, whittling sticks, shredding or braiding paper. Ultimately, the marks and objects function as witnesses that tell a story of change, and that story is written in nuance.

OPP: You repeatedly use brown kraft paper, wax paper, newspaper, construction paper in your works. What draws you these particular types of paper? Could you talk about using a two-dimensional material as a sculptural material?

BL: I've chosen these items because they're accessible, inexpensive and often taken for granted. The challenge for me is to take an object or material that is not precious and to inject meaning into it and express something important. And since my work often appears whimsical or other-worldly, I anchor it in reality with the familiar papers we find in our houses or on the newsstands.

Paper is a magical material. When I was a kid, art was always two-dimensional. My dad was an architect/engineer, and all of his work was prepared with different types of paper. I trained as a draftsperson with him for a handful of years and learned his quirky and efficient methods of constructing working drawings. These sheets contained layers upon layers of ink drawings on tracing paper. They were glued, taped, whited-out, xeroxed. They contained pasted notes and hand-drawn details that were repeatedly removed and replaced with the old torn edges of other sheets of paper. Each stage of the process remained subtly visible on the original, but would disappear once the paper was xeroxed on a copier set to a low sensitivity. The sheets were neatly organized but wilted by the end of the process. They had a lot of character. If you looked closely, you could see that they documented all of the changes over time.

Paper was such a large part of my development as an artist, that it seemed only natural to use this traditionally two-dimensional material, historically used for documentation, to create three-dimensional sculptures that document change over time.

OPP: Paper is just wood in a manufactured form, and the presence of shredded paper makes me think of the absence of wood shavings that must have been produced when the fallen pine branches were whittled down. Was it the process or the material that drew you to wood-carving and whittling?

BL: I'm glad that the pieces produced such imagery for you. Through the visible marks of the tools, I'm trying to evoke the presence of work and its energy. In those pieces you're seeing manufactured forms as well as my own marks. Present are the many stages of transforming a specific material by machine or by hand. All of this is possible only with work. Tom Sachs is an artist that I admire. In an interview with Gaia Repossi, he says: “I'm trying to communicate transparency. I'm looking to show the scars of labor and the evidence of construction.” I relate to his sentiment. There is something truly satisfying about the act of creating. From cooking tasty food to building a sturdy book shelf, if a thing is made well and the process is satisfying, it makes all the difference for the maker and user.

I can’t say that it is either the process or material that draws me to these practices because it’s almost always both. I use a material in a way that illuminates the actual work done over time, but I also often choose acts that the viewer won't ever see in the final product. For example, I frequently go on walking adventures through the city and its parks in search of a material to gather. Or, in the new drawings that I'm developing, I've made a gazillion little, repetitive and beloved marks that I call “ink scratches.” I'm not using pens with ink cartridges but instead dipping a pen with metal nib into an ink well after every few marks. It's a little bit ridiculous. . . but enjoyable. It slows everything down for me.

For each piece, I chose materials that represent both nature and culture. I mix the two symbolic artifacts to address a perceived dichotomy. Time-intensive work allows the two symbols become more similar than they are different.

OPP: Many of your pieces, including Fortune Teller (2012), Befriending 5,000 Splinters (2012), and Dendroclimatological Meditation (2012), evoke altars for me. Others, like Tangle Ish (2013) and Wishing Well (2013), are like monuments, sites of human longing or reverence. Does this reading echo your intentions? If so, what are these sculptural altars and monuments for?

BL: Observing the work through someone else's eyes can be really valuable for seeing new things! After considering what you've said about the 2012 pieces appearing as altars and those from 2013 resembling monuments, I think that the two different years mark different stages in a process of conjuring the energies of both natural and cultural elements. The altars from 2012 were made with the intention of awakening the ideas. I wanted viewers to feel as though they had stumbled upon a ceremony in an unknown world. I created my own rituals that could induce magic, bringing me closer to understanding nature, culture and time. The imagined ceremony itself was distant from the site that remained. It felt distant for me, too, because it was new.

Perhaps the altars did work as I intended, awakening the energies to produce the monuments in 2013. Reverence is a great word that I also use to describe those pieces. I have a deep respect for the world around me with all of its experiences and interactions. The respect that I try to maintain adds mystery to everyday situations. Life is rich with possibility when you allow the unknown to exist instead of desiring full control.

OPP: How does your experience as a teenaged graffiti artist in San Francisco relate to your current work in sculpture and drawing? What did you learn in that time that affects the work you currently make?

BL: Graffiti was a rush of excitement. It was a tight community that admired and hated each other at the same time. We shared secrets, tricks of the trade and lived and worked by a code that's hard for everyone to understand. But the code is heavy and present. It's an interesting subculture that I still have a lot of respect for. I think that writing graffiti did not so much transfer into a visual style for me, rather it developed my interest in the process of creating.

I started writing graffiti when I was in middle school. I still have old drawings of my first pieces on paper dating back to '91. The pieces are so funny with their letters filled in with brick patterns and their star-dotted letter "i"s! We'd go out walking in the streets searching for new spots to plan our pieces before heading to the wall, or we'd explore the streets while bombing, which is what we called tagging. But what's most memorable to me is the practice I put into perfecting my moniker. I must have filled hundreds—I mean hundreds!—of spiral notebooks with my name. I'd write my tag over and over and over, slightly varying the styles or the spelling in search of that perfect combination. This is where I developed my fascination with repetition, the nuance of change over time and the never-ending exploration of my surroundings.

To see more of Benjamin's work, please visit benjaminlyonart.com.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in her cross-stitch embroideries, remix video and collage installations. She is an instructor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006, and was a 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibition I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) recently closed, and she is currently preparing for another solo exhibition titled Everything You Need is Already Here (Heaven Gallery, Chicago) in January 2014.

Japanese-born KYOKO IMAZU has been fascinated by fantasies of small animals like cats, rabbits and rodents overthrowing society. Her etchings, artist books and cut-paper installations are equally populated with real animals and legendary creatures from Japanese folklore, as well as fictional rabbits from novels and cartoons. Kyoko received her BFA in Printmaking from RMIT University in Melbourne. In 2013, she was an artist-in-residence at The Art Vault and the Australian Tapestry Workshop and had four solo exhibitions: Feathers and Fur at Odd One Out (Hong Kong), Animalis at Port Jackson Press (Fitzroy, Australia), Adore at Bird's Gallery (Melbourne) and Mammals from Melbourne Museum at the Consulate-General of Japan (Melbourne). Her work is on view in a group show called Tiny Universes at Tooth + Nail Studio Gallery in Adelaide, South Australia until November 22, 2013. Kyoko lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Have you always been drawn to animals as subject matter?

Kyoko Imazu: Yes. Images of animals have always given me pleasure and excitement, and I have always loved drawing animals. In fact, I don’t remember any time when I wasn’t drawing animals, even as doodles in textbooks at school or on letters.

My mum loved animals, and I enjoyed showing off my drawings to her. Growing up, we always had pets: dogs, cats, fish, turtles. I watched any and all TV programs about animals. In a way, nothing’s changed in my practice since childhood.

OPP: Etchings of real animals, such as the northern pika and the sugar glider, and legendary creatures from Japanese folklore, including the Nue and the Baku, populate your work. It's like the real and the fictional live together in one world. Is it the world of your private imagination or is the coexistence of real and fictional creatures in your work a metaphor for something else outside of you?

KI: Nue and Baku are Yōkai from Japanese folklore. Yōkai are creatures/ monsters transformed from animals, as well as formless, natural phenomena like wind and thunder. Some can be household objects, or even live in rooms like kitchens and bathrooms! As a child, I was convinced—and very scared—that there were Yōkai and other creatures lurking behind me or hiding in the dark corners of the house. They were as real as my dogs and cats, on the same level of existence.

My work is a continuation of that memory. I like mixing real and mythical animals together because I love imagining what it was like to live in the world before all animals were named and categorized. There was a time when rhinos were as fantastical as unicorns.

OPP: You made an artist book called I want more rabbits! (2013). But actually, you already have quite a few rabbits! They recur persistently in different styles throughout your work in different media. Sometimes they are realistic, sometimes comical, sometimes combined with other animals. Then there are the rabbits that have parts from different fictional rabbits, like Fiverus Bokko Rabbit (2007), which has the face of Fiver from Watership Down and the ears and tail of Captain Bokko from The Amazing 3, and Rogerous Bugsy Rabbit (2007), which has Roger Rabbit's ears and Bugs Bunny's foot. Could you talk about why rabbits are so significant to you personally and in your work?

KI: My first drawing was a rabbit, and my primary school art project was of rabbits. I probably just enjoyed drawing their long ears and cute, round tails to start with. But, by drawing them over and over, the image of rabbit has become almost like a personal emblem. My eyes seek rabbit forms everywhere, in logos and packaging or in the shape of cloud or a stain.

When I relocated from Japan to Australia, I learned that rabbits are considered to be vermin and an environmental disaster, despite also being domestic pets. In Japan, they are fetishized and show up in traditional arts and crafts, as well as popular culture. I thought this difference between the two countries was striking. I am fascinated by the fact that a tiny, cute animals like rabbits can multiply so fast so that they become a threat to people and the environment. I love imagining a society overthrown by small animals—cats, rats and birds, as well—that we usually don’t find threatening.

45 x 39.5 cm

OPP: Do you have a favorite fictional rabbit?

KI: Rabbit from Chōjū-giga is my favorite. It's a famous set of four picture scrolls made by monks in Kozan-ji temple in 12th century Kyoto. It's considered the oldest manga in terms of techniques. Chōjū-giga depicts anthropomorphic rabbits, monkeys, frogs, foxes and so on without any words. It was probably a caricature, but I can imagine the monks having a chuckle while drawing them.



OPP: You have used accordion-style cut paper in both installations and very small artist books. Will you pick your favorite artist book and tell us the story since we can't hold it in our own hands?

KI: I like to keep the narratives open and ambiguous so that viewers can make up their own stories, but I imagine a basic tone and theme.

Rabbit Hunt begins by showing people trying to catch rabbits with nets and ferrets. A group of small rabbits attacks a hunter while another hunter with dogs is pointing at the group, seemingly trying to set his dogs on the rabbits. Some rabbits are caught, but the rabbits fight back by turning themselves into a Cerberus-like creature. It ends with a large rabbit roaring against a machine-like structure.

OPP: Rabbits and other small, non-threatening animals become symbolic of the idea of power in numbers, especially when it comes to disempowered groups of people. Thinking of it that way changes I want more rabbits! into a rallying cry. Now I’m imagining the rabbits as workers organizing for their rights. Have you ever thought of your work as political?

KI: I draw ideas and inspirations from memories and stories. Similarly, I encourage viewers to bring their own memories and associations to my work. They can decide if it's personal or political.

For me, this idea of non-threatening animals becoming huge in numbers comes from my memory of growing up around rice paddies in Japan. There are thousands of tiny green frogs singing throughout the night during the summer that made me unable to sleep. To this day, I have nightmares about my house filled with frogs from floor to ceiling.

OPP: What do you love about cut paper as a medium?

KI: I love being able to see small worlds emerging out of strips of plain paper while I’m cutting. It looks abstract from afar, like decorative lace, but there is a narrative upon closer inspection. It becomes quite intimate once it’s in the viewer’s hands.

I also love the physical act of cutting paper with a surgical scalpel. It takes a while to come up with drawings for each scene but once the design is finalized and the cutting starts, it demands concentration. Or else I get blood on my work! It is quite meditative; I can usually forget about everything else when I’m cutting paper.

OPP: You recently spent two months in residence at the Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW). You worked on several new artist books there, but also learned to weave. Will weaving become part of your toolkit? Any plans to make new work in this medium?

KI: I hope tapestries will become part of my work. The great craftsmanship that’s required to create a tapestry is quite similar to printmaking and bookbinding. I’m intrigued by the weight of the history attached to those media.

I want to create tapestries with my animals and monsters, but tapestry weaving requires years of training. I wouldn’t dare exhibit my tapestries any time soon, but I’ll continue to practice. Weavers at ATW still employ the same technique from 15th century. It is so magical to imagine people now still using the same technique from medieval times in totally different environments for different purposes.

To see more of Kyoko's work, please visit kyokoimazu.com.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the emotional and spiritual significance of repetition in her cross-stitch embroideries, remix video and collage installations. She is an instructor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006, and was a 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibition I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) closed recently, and she is currently preparing for another solo exhibition titled Everything You Need Is Already Here (Heaven Gallery, Chicago) in January 2014.

NATHAN HAENLEIN’s graphite drawings of old ladies at slot machines, the willingly-hypnotized, car engines and snow storms use the geographic region of the Rust Belt as a container for exploring universal ways of coping with the life’s difficulties. His gel pen drawings, on the other hand, employ an arbitrary analog system that leads to complex, colorful patterns. The underlying connection for these disparate ways of drawing is an investigation of patience and repetition. Nathan received his MFA from the University of Iowa in 2002 and is currently a professor at Sonoma State University. His work has been included in Shifter magazine (2006 and 2009) and the forthcoming international drawing annual Manifest (2014). He has had solo exhibitions at Visalia Art Center (2008), Cleveland's now defunct Exit Gallery (2006) and The Ridderhof Martin Gallery (2003) at Mary Washington College. His work is included in the group exhibition Deadpan (the art of the expressionless), which closes on December 7, 2013, at Whitdel Arts (Detroit) and in a juried solo exhibition at the online exhibition site Gallery Gray. Nathan lives and works in Santa Rosa, California.

OtherPeoplesPixels: What do the seemingly unrelated subjects of your meticulous graphite drawings have in common?

Nathan Haenlein: This body of work began with the collapse of our economy in 2008, the bankruptcy of GM and subsequent bailout by the government. I was raised in Michigan and Ohio. The majority of my family was employed or benefited from the auto industry. I was distracted by what I read and heard in the news and the reality of the people living through the lowest point in an economy that had been below the national average for decades. My graphite drawings are broken into conceptual subgroups that expose the complexity of a geographic area and the varying possibilities of experience.

The willingly-hypnotized are a metaphor for the Rust Belt. For years, the people in this area watched as economies constricted and changed their cities. Works depicting food, vice and escape shine a spotlight on how we cope. Additionally, the drawings elicit a small amount of shame followed by guilt. These feelings are powerful motivators that can cause either change or stagnation. The factory and its products are the gems in my work. I focus on the product and how they make it. I think of them as science and the genius of engineering. Lastly, the environment is always present. The weather and landscape shape a community. I am interested in natural beauty and the human impulse to control it.

OPP: Are the human subjects in your drawings individuals or are they just symbols of unwavering consumption? Do you relate to them or feel compassion for them?

NH: The human subjects in my drawings are archetypes. Since I have lived in California for ten years, I have become more and more removed from the day-to-day experiences I have taken on in my work. I purposefully avoid the use of friends and family as subjects. The distance, both physical and personal, allows me to build a narrative without conflict. I am absolutely empathic to the individuals in my work. I come to them with a sense of loss and hope to somehow elevate them from struggle. I take extreme care and patience producing the drawings. I am at times conflicted about the act of consumption. Why we consume and how what we consume shapes our personal economies, class and perceived wellness. Where does this lead us?

OPP: What are your thoughts on patience and repetition in the digital age?

NH: As I answer these questions for the blog of the company that hosts my website, the obviousness of the digital age is too apparent. It sounds moot to use the term, but the speed of change has an impact on how I work and experience art in general. I fall victim to the constant distraction that technology affords. My studio practice is a counterbalance to these distractions.

Since childhood I have been a model of impatience; my daily life is a battle of impulse control. These struggles have led me to hone my working habits. There are now long periods of exaggerated patience. I have yet to understand my ability to focus completely on the production of art works. Additionally, the daily act of working satisfies my compulsions/obsessions and brings about a state of equilibrium. I am curious about the act of repetition. Whether it is revisiting the same ideas or repeating the same physical exercise, this need for repetition in our lives somehow reflects the human condition in a non-narrative way. What propels these acts and thoughts?

OPP: In my opinion, it's about a spiritual need. Repetition involves a way of comprehending the world that is beyond the intellect, especially when it includes a physical act, an embodied motion. Through physical repetition, anxiety can be transformed into presence. So when you say that your studio practice is a counterbalance to the distractions of speediness and technology, I think about meditation, which is about coming back to the body and to the present moment. Is it a stretch to call your studio practice a meditation practice?

NH: It would be a stretch to call my practice meditation. I think of meditation—which I have been advised to utilize by professionals—as an internal space of absolute calm, a way to remain still both physically and mentally, and recharge. While my studio work is very repetitive, it is wrought with a constant stream of thoughts and urges I tamp down in order to produce the work. I find the finished art works have a richness that comes from forced patience and this internal battle. Lastly, I think you answered my question on what propels these acts and thoughts, and I will adopt the idea of repetition transforming anxiety into presence.

OPP: Quad Drawings, a series of geometric, gel pen drawings, and your resin and enamel paintings from 2006 are stylistically different from the realistic, graphite drawings? What made you decide to unite these two styles as postcards in 2011?

NH: The Quad Drawings and resin works grew together in my studio, informing each other and allowing me to formally investigate a two dimensional plane. All of the quad works began with a detailed plan before entering the studio. I focused on color and a mathematical system similar to knitting or crochet to create the compositions. Additionally, this detailed plan was an analog system, quoting the vector software used to produce the resin work. I was interested in building a three dimensional illusion simply by my counting and color choice. After years of counting, color testing and sitting still, filling in rectangular boxes, I became dubious of my intent and started to question whether these drawings were fulfilling my need as an artist.

In 2008, I simply put down the gel pen and cleaned my brushes. I needed a new challenge. I was no longer able to ignore my needs for a concrete narrative in my work. I made rules: no color, no counting, be descriptive and simplify my tools. The graphite drawings are the result of these new rules. They are visually completely different, but the planning and execution of the drawings mirrored the quad works. The tedium of my practice started to take its toll on my production, and slowly I began to break these rules. My intent in the postcards was to give myself a break from a rigid system that didn’t/doesn’t allow any play or improvisation in the production. Soon I had made over 50 new small pieces, and my daily practice was consumed by working on the postcards. I still don’t know if this is a bridge of the two bodies of work, but I continue to produce these small works.

OPP: Your newest body of work is a series of paintings of repeated racquetball instructions. The text reads like an advertisement, encouraging the constant striving to be better that advertising always capitalizes on. Stylistically, the work evokes psychedelic concert posters from the 60s. When I Googled you, I found that you have a racquetball player profile and ranking, so obviously you have some experience with the game. How did this body of work grow out of your personal experience? Is racquetball a metaphor in this work?

NH: There is an apparent under-current of obsession in all of my work. I am obsessed with racquetball. It keeps me up at night. I replay matches in my head and focus on points where I could have made better decisions. I decided to make a gouache painting of the growing list of things I need to work on. Before I knew it, I had made eight. I photographed the courts I played on, digitally printed them on fine art paper and painted the list directly on the court. My initial intent was to become a better player, but soon these paintings started to reflect a larger narrative of my daily experience.

The game for me is a metaphor for control. The paintings let me impart my will on the game. While making these paintings, I began to look at vintage GM ads and the promises of a better life through Chevy. These absolutes are mirrored in my lists. I have never shown the list paintings, but for some reason I decided to put them on my website. I still read the list before each match. And I have enjoyed answering this question immensely.

OPP: What about the experience of flow? Do you feel it more on the racquetball court or in your studio?

NH: Again, I am enjoying these questions too much!! I believe there is a time when flow in the studio happens. It is so elusive, here then gone, and only recognized days later that it occurred.  But to link my obsessive hobby/sport with my professional practice is giving me too much credit as a racquetball player. My studio is a place of ideas and actions converging into objects. Also, the underlying structure of my studio practice hinges on current conceptual concerns for the project at hand. Whatever the content, it is the impetus for making the work. Racquetball on the other hand can be a metaphor in my work, but it doesn’t go both ways for me. I can remember a NBA finals game when Michael Jordan scored an insane amount of points in the first half, and the announcers proclaimed he was in a place of “flow." I guess my point is that flow comes to the truly invested and focused regardless of the endeavor. I have not reached that yet in racquetball.

To see more of Nathan's work, please visit nathanhaenlein.com.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in her cross-stitch embroideries, remix video and collage installations. She is an instructor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006, and was a 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibition I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For is on view at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) until December 6, 2013, and she is currently preparing for another solo exhibition titled Everything You Need is Already Here (Heaven Gallery, Chicago) in January 2014.

Your regularly-scheduled Featured Artist interview will be back next Thursday. But since Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday—sharing food and watching TV with the ones I love make me feel grateful—I'd like to take this opportunity to say I'm thankful for this fantastic job. As an artist and educator, asking other artists about their work and their experiences making art couldn't be more satisfying. I've had the opportunity to get to know numerous amazing artists. The only thing that would make it better is to see all this work in person.

So on the occasion of Thanksgiving, I'd like to highlight a few of my favorite interviews from the past three years. Click the names to go to the interviews.

Iranian-born artist HOMA SHOJAIE's background in architecture and painting informs her work in frayed canvas. Architecture responds to the needs of the body in space, while the repeated, meditative gestures in her painted surfaces and deconstructed canvases respond to the need of the spirit to be embodied. Homa received a Bachelor of Architecture from The Cooper Union in 1991. She attended the year-long BOLT Residency (Chicago) in 2011-2012. Her frayed canvas works, which bridge painting and sculpture, have been displayed in solo exhibitions Ascent in the BOLT Project Space (2012) and Cocoon at Flash Atolye in Izmir, Turkey (May 2013). Most recently, her work was included in the group exhibition Fibre to Fabric at Madder Moon (September 2013) in Singapore, where Homa now lives and works.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Your 2012 solo exhibition Ascent was a series of sculptural and wall-hung works made from frayed canvas. Tell us about the process of fraying. What led you to begin to deconstruct the surface that you had previously painted on?

Homa Shojaie: During a studio visit, my friends Jonathan Miller and Anna Kunz challenged me to re-examine the surface on which I painted. At that point I was painting on store-bought, stretched canvases. So I bought a 50 yard roll of raw canvas and got to work.

The series Frayed Canvas Works started as an examination of the surface and site of painting. My first gesture was to cut a piece of raw canvas out from the roll and then fray the edges to create a defined surface. The warp threads that are freed from the surface of canvas have an uncanny energy when piled together, and the wefts hanging from the edges have such fluidity. These discoveries began to drive the process. Some of the themes that emerged were: body and persona, border and boundary, connectivity and freedom, complementarity and separation, masculine and feminine, maximum and minimum, tension and compression. As I was pulling out these thousands of threads, I pretty quickly realized that I had started to put lines into my painting for the first time. Before I started fraying the canvas, my paintings were fields, so I really owe the introduction of line into my painting to all those pulled out threads. They were physical lines that emerged from the surface of the canvas, as if they had placed themselves there.

OPP: Many of the pieces in Ascent relate to the body. Did your training in architecture play into this body of work?

HS: Canvas is such a beautiful material. It is like skin. Then you fray it, and it looks like hair, which also brings you to the body. Then there are the spines: each one is a group of threads bound together by a central column that approximates the height and width of an average human spine.

My friend Sheila Mostofi, who has the best eye in the world, helped me to hang the show, and there were certainly hours of architectural debates during the installation. But my architect side also showed up earlier in the creation of work for the show. In order to respond to the height of the Bolt Project Space, I made Ascent, the piece that lent its title to the whole exhibition. The smaller spines measured about 36 inches. Ascent was a 21-foot-long spine. The idea for this scale shift came up in one of the Bolt Residency group discussions when we were planning for a group show in the Bolt Project Space. Even though I ended up presenting Requiem For Waking Things, an architectural collaboration with filmmaker Melika Bass, in that show, the idea of responding to the dimensions of the room lingered. I later made Inside and Outside, two columns that each measure 1 x 1 x 12 feet, the exact size of actual architectural columns throughout the exhibition space at Chicago Artists’ Coalition.

There was also the presence of a persona in the project called Girl on the Lower Deck, which is the title of the piece that began the fraying. Most of the writings on the spine pieces are investigations into who this character is, what she thinks, feels and wants. Sometimes I refer to this dimension of the work as the emotional side. Architecturally, the Girl on the Lower Deck is the inhabitant of the whole series.

OPP: Aside from the canvas itself, I see connections between your frayed work and your paintings, in the presence of a repeated gesture. Is the repeated gesture a kind of meditation?

HS: The repetition existed in the earlier paintings in the form of the brush stroke. Later in the Word Series, I was really meditating, sometimes on the subject and sometimes on the word. I wrote the words over and over in the hopes that the painting would become what the words described or pondered. The act of writing in itself is a repetition. It is also an act of weaving, both literally (the rows, weaving a textural field) and metaphorically (weaving a world of meanings and associations).  

OPP: Aside from its presence in your work, what does repetition mean to you in your life?

HS: There are repetitions I cherish: a walk with a friend on a path we’ve been on before, the way my parents answer a Skype call, the love of the familiar. And then there is the default repetition of habits: going to grocery store again, emptying the dishwasher, listening to the rotating CDs in the car stereo that I haven't changed for a year, hearing myself repeat a sentence I have said before and will say again, complaining.

In my work, sometimes I fray canvas for days. The act of pulling out the threads one at a time becomes a measure of a large chunk of time and the area of the canvas that becomes free. . . these are all repetition. I do it because these works demand it. I imagine that one day the work/ the process might not demand it anymore, and then I will no longer do it.

OPP: Last year, you moved from Chicago, where you were part of a community of artists, to Singapore, where you knew no one but your family. How has this move affected your studio practice and your work?

HS: My work changes every time I change my studio space. Even in Chicago when I moved two blocks away into a new space, my work would change. My initial thought when I got to Singapore was: I  will never fray another piece of canvas. I did a series of Skype portraits during the first three months because I was on Skype six to seven hours every day talking to friends and family all over the world. But soon, at the suggestion of my new studio neighbor and now friend, Susanne Paulli, I was knotting threads to a piece I had brought from Chicago, and it genuinely felt real. With every knot, I was tying the cut-off past to the possibility of a future, creating a continuity. As long as I find these wonderful and brilliant friends, things always work out.

Right now, I am working on two different bodies of work. One is a series of paintings called Sexiness, and the other is called How To Stretch Canvas named after the essay Jonathan Miller wrote for Ascent. It is an investigation into the space, structure and materiality of stretched canvas. I’m exploring the relationship between the canvas and the stretcher by taking it apart and reconstructing it in a new way. So in a way, after 14 months, I am back to my usual studio practice: two parallel bodies of work, seemingly unrelated, but each feeding into the other.

OPP: Do you have any advice for other artists about moving to a new city where they have find their way into an existing art community?

HS: Be open and do your work. Go to museums, openings, artist talks, discussions and shows. I knew that as soon as I got to Singapore I needed to find a studio and start working. Preferably this studio would be in a community setting where I could be in contact with other artists. I started to call different artist organizations. I went to gallery openings and asked the gallerists where their artists had their studios. I sent tens of emails to artists I found on the Internet. I joined Singapore Contemporary Young Artists (SYCA), a wonderful group of artists and the only art group in Singapore that accepts non-Singaporean members. It was crazy, but it paid off. I found a studio in a setting where there were 15 other artists, and a lot of my friendships started from there.

That’s the practical side. There is also the emotional side. Allow yourself to feel displaced, homesick, lonely, sad and all the other emotions that come with a big move. And then seek solace. Nothing pulled me out of homesickness more than seeing a great show, lecture or a movie. I joined a film group last year. We watched masterpieces of Asian cinema, and this year we are watching Singaporean movies. This has been such a great way to feel the culture and begin to embrace it. Give yourself time, encouragement and get Skype.  

To see more of Homa's work, please visit homashojaie.com.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the emotional and spiritual significance of repetition in her cross-stitch embroideries, remix video and collage installations. She is an instructor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006, and was a 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibition I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For is on view at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) until December 6, 2013, and she is currently preparing for another solo exhibition titled Everything You Need is Already Here (Heaven Gallery, Chicago) in January 2014.