OtherPeoplesPixels Interviews Michelle Murillo

Destinations (detail). Screen print on glass. 50 glass post cards. 3.5" x 5.5" each.

In MICHELLE MURILLO's work, water is a recurring metaphor for migration, and her ancestors' identification cards and passports are a poignant visualization of her own DNA test results. She combines the repetition inherent in printmaking with the spirit of archiving and mapping to explore the relationship between ancestry and identity. Michelle holds a BFA from Boston University and a MFA from the University of Alberta, Canada. She exhibits internationally, including shows in China, Argentina, Ireland and Canada. In 2018, her solo exhibition Adrift was on view at Museo de Prehistoria y Arqueologia de Cantabria (Santander, Spain), and she was an Artist-in-Residence at Edition Basel at Kaskadenkondensator Gallery (Basel, Switzerland). In 2019 her work was included in Aperturas, a satellite group show of the Havana Biennial (Cuba). She was a 2018-19 Affiliate Artist at Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, California). Michelle lives and works in Oakland, California.

OtherPeoplesPixels: What do you love about printmaking? Is there anything you hate about it?

Michelle Murillo: I am drawn to print because it is a versatile set of media that can be combined with other forms such as drawing, photography, textiles and glass to create hybrid works or prints alone. I enjoy every aspect of it. The process inherent in print lends itself to a methodical way of making that allows an image to develop over time. While some people may find these aspects constraining, I also welcome the possibility that missteps or failures in the technique can present unexpected outcomes that I would not have envisioned if it were not for the transformation that an image undergoes through printing. 

Plotting Transience, 2015. Kilnformed glass, vellum, chalk, map pins. 13' x 10' wall, 13' x 10' floor.

OPP: In your solo show A Measure of Time (2015), you use various methods and media to visually represent your “conservative, standard and speculative” DNA test results. How do the works in the show reveal your understanding of identity?

MM: As an American of Irish and Colombian descent, I have always been interested in how one defines and creates their identity through place, culture and politics. Broadly, the show presented what I discovered from the DNA test, and it attempted to acknowledge the intersections between ancestry and identify. I translated this into visual form by using the DNA data along with documents from my family archive to create metaphorical maps that tell a story about my ancestor's origins. 

A fascinating aspect of the DNA testing is that the results continue to shift over time as the database and technology evolves. A few years ago the percentages were different, some information fell away while new details emerged. With this realization I wanted to visually record the shifting information. The piece DNA Map for a Shifting identity is comprised of shapes that represent the geographic regions of my lineage. Each region is represented by a unique color that corresponds to a map key. The transparent regions on the wall represent the increments and geographic regions that have fluctuated in the results. 

Michelle Murillo, 2011. Glass Driver's License (screen printed and fused powdered glass). 2" x 3.5"

OPP: Can you talk about your use of multiples in Waypoints? What role does variation play in this work?

MM: The use of multiples and repetition of the identity cards is used to map the "conservative" version of my DNA test results. I chose family identification cards to represent specific lineages- British/Irish, African and Native American. The sum of the known percentages totals 86%, leaving 14% unaccounted for. Therefore the piece is comprised of 86 prints and 14 empty standoffs. Variation is visible in the unique and slightly different impressions made by the process of screen printing with powdered glass. This variability suggests that identity is mutable and in flux just as the DNA test shows.

Waypoints, 2015. Powdered glass screen prints. 2x3.5," 3x4.5," 4x6.5" each.

OPP: I’m interested in how artists—myself included—often get something out of a project that is different than what is in the artist statement. In archiving your family’s passports, ID cards and other documents in etched glass, are your personal motivations the same as your artistic motivations?

MM: My creative practice is grounded in research that drives both content and form, so in a sense the motivations are the same. This work is inspired by my curiosity to know more about my family history and it represents material investigations across print and glass that I explored during a residency at Bullseye Glass. By archiving my family documents in a fragile material like glass, there is tension created between preservation and loss, which is a recurring theme in my work. The translation of the documents into another form can take on new meaning and depth as interpreted by the viewer. 

Adrift: 1979, Rosalba Llanos de Muñoz. Digital decal print, sandblasted glass. 36 x 21"

OPP: You've just spent a year as an Affiliate Artist at Headlands Center for the Arts. Tell us about your cyanotypes of the San Francisco Bay. How does the medium of cyanotype support your conceptual concerns?

MM: The work created at the Headlands continues to explore ancestry through the theme of migration, specifically the journeys of my great grandmothers. Map of Migrations is created from photographs of observations of the San Francisco Bay. Looking east into the bay, the images of water are the first impressions one has as they pass through the Golden Gate Bridge and arrive at the California shore. 

Historically the cyanotype was used in the 19th century to reproduce diagrams commonly known as blueprints. The Prussian blue of the photochemical process is befitting of the water vistas and like nautical navigation charts the cyanotypes become blueprints of passage through the Golden Gate. In this work, water is the liminal space, in between continental geography and a vehicle for travel, navigation and migration. 

Cyanotype, screen print. Site specific installation, Headlands Center for the Arts

OPP: Certainly the conclusions you draw about your own ancestry are both specific to your family and not unlike the stories of many Americans. Do you have any interest in exploring the DNA results or migratory histories of other people?

MM: The DNA test revealed that I am more of a global citizen than I could have ever imagined, and I still feel that I only know what is at the surface. Diving deeper into my ancestry takes me to Ireland, Great Britain, Spain, Colombia and West Africa, among other places. I think there are global through lines and connections to be found that will lead me to other people's histories. As I research I realize there is more to learn about migration and the circumstances that led people to uproot their lives. We are interconnected as a global community, and I find our shared history intriguing. 

100 Sons and Daughters. Screen prints. 6' x 25'

OPP: You've mentioned that you are in the early stages of putting together a solo show and residency in Cork, Ireland, where some of your ancestors lived. Tell us about this upcoming project and what you are planning. 

MM:  I plan to embark on a project that follows the traditions of craft from my ancestors to the present. My ancestors from Cork, Ireland were blacksmiths, shoemakers and cooks. I am in the early stages of piecing together all of the parts, and perhaps the show will include an oral history and work I make on site to create a portrait of the place that my ancestors once called home.


To see more of Michelle's work, please visit michellemurillo.net.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based artist  Stacia Yeapanis.  When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in cross-stitch embroideries, remix video, collage and impermanent installations.  She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006. Stacia was a 2011-2012 Artist-in-Residence at  BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include shows at Siena Heights University (Michigan, 2013), Heaven Gallery (Chicago 2014), Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, 2017), Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois 2018) and Kent State Stark (North Canton, 2019). Her work was most recently included in the three-person show Manifestations at One After 909 (Chicago).

OtherPeoplesPixels Interviews Joell Baxter

Magic Carpet, detail
2013
Screenprinted paper, glue
5 x 96 x 96 inches

JOELL BAXTER's practice combines screenprinting, weaving, sculpture and color theory in an exploration of visual perception and physical response. The placement of her multicolored, paper weavings-turned-sculptures on the floor evokes minimalist sculpture and interior design staples like carpets and couches, while the simplicity of the weave structure brings to mind grade school craft projects. Beginning in September, she will be an Artist-in-Residence in The Space Program at Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation. Her solo project Coverer will be on view at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut until June 27, 2014. Then it travels to Greensboro, North Carolina to be part of the group exhibition Art on Paper 2014 at Weatherspoon Art Museum from September 27-December 21, 2014. Joell lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Tell us a little about your trajectory as an artist and your influences.

Joell Baxter: I studied painting as an undergraduate, and I still think about what I do in relation to that tradition. But I have always made work that sits between disciplines and actively engages the viewer in different modes of looking. All of my work strongly references minimalism, in terms of its approach to space and to creating a one-on-one relationship between the viewer and the work. I use very basic processes and forms that are reminiscent of grade school arts and crafts projects like weaving potholders. I want to evoke an immediate sense of familiarity, almost a muscle memory of how the work was made. But after that initial response, I hope that what at first seemed familiar becomes strange and more complex.

My most important art historical influences include: Sol LeWitt’s visually complex works created from seemingly simple ideas; Agnes Martin’s meditative focus; Josef Albers’ articulation of the relative nature of color; and Anni Albers’ writings on the historical importance of textiles as a kind of portable architecture.

Untitled (Rolled)
2011
Screenprinted paper, hand cut and woven; glue
5 x 17 x 40 inches

OPP: All the paper that you work with is screenprinted, but most of it is solid-colored paper. Is it significant that you don't purchase existing colored paper for use in your sculptures? 



JB: My decision to print all of my own paper is largely practical. I use a carefully calibrated pallet of 12 hues in 8 different degrees of saturation. It would be hard to find these 96 exact colors in a commercial paper. In more recent works—Magic Carpet and Coverer—I have been printing blends of complimentary colors, so the color isn’t solid anymore. After printing full sheets, the paper is cut down, glued into long strips and woven by hand.

I also really love the process of screenprinting. Printing flats and color-blends in particular is a very meditative act, and I find the repetitive action of flooding the screen and pulling the ink to be extremely conducive to thinking through ideas. I like the fact that, as a technology, screenprinting sits in this strange spot between handmade and mechanical. The screen and squeegee are mediating the application of color to the paper, but it still requires a very physical, human action.

Stack Overflow (detail)
2011
Screenprinted paper, hand torn and stacked; tape
1 x 72 x 72 inches

OPP: Is the color distribution in your work more influenced by color theory or intuition? Is this planned in advance of beginning a piece?



JB: I am interested in understanding how light and visual perception work together to create an experience of color. My basic mode of using color is very systematic. As much as anything, it comes from the basic color theory one learns in elementary school: the color wheel, mixing secondary colors from primary colors and mixing compliments.

In planning my work, everything is extremely orderly and can be diagrammed as a set of instructions. I typically use colors in the order of the visible spectrum, so red follows orange follows yellow, and so on. But by weaving these colors together, they start to interact and become harder to name and distinguish. This is due to the inherent nature of weaving, where color relationships are constantly alternating through the pattern of over and under. So there is a kind of glitch introduced into the plans, forcing me to let go of absolute control over the results.

Endless Day, Endless Night (for g.m.b.)
2011
Screenprinted paper, hand cut and woven; glue
2 parts, 5 x 46 x 46 inches each

OPP: Could you talk about the woven, pillow-like form you have repeatedly executed in paper and your choice to exhibit it on the floor?



JB: The pillow pieces are human in scale, about the right size to sit in comfortably, and the sunken void in the middle seems to invite the viewer in. Placed directly on the floor, they share real space with the viewer and could almost be functional. But then the opticality of the work and the fragility of the paper take over, and they become more like paintings or drawings that are holding themselves up in space. So you move between a very empathetic and physical response to the work, and a very visual one, without ever settling on one or the other.

Coverer, detail
2014
Screenprinted paper, hand-cut and woven; glue; push pins
8 x 25 x 25 feet

OPP: Tell us about Coverer, your first solo exhibition, which is on view at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut until June 27, 2014.

JB: The installation at Real Art Ways is the first opportunity I’ve been given to use an entire room, so the work has really taken advantage of that. I began with the premise creating a visual experience of color in space that viewers could enter and explore and that makes use of the architecture. 

I use the same screenprinting and weaving process as the earlier pillows, but this piece is comprised of a modular series of flat, mesh panels laid directly onto the floor and walls in an intersecting pattern. Because of the gridded structure, the work functions as a kind of marking system that measures and diagrams the room. The diagramming is destabilized by an illusion injected into the color pattern of the woven panels; the edges blur and the colors fade as they move across the space. On close inspection, it becomes clear that the color is printed onto the woven paper. But when perceived as a whole, the weaves seem almost prismatic, as if they are catching and dispersing the light or, alternatively, as if the color is emanating from them, like a digital screen. So on the one hand the work clarifies and maps the physical space, but on the other it confuses and destabilizes the viewer’s perception. I am interested in this kind of toggling back and forth between visually grounding yourself and then losing your way again.

The viewer can actually walk into the work, stepping into the voids between the woven panels. In doing so, your view is reframed with every step. While I felt that it was conceptually important to be able to enter the piece, I was surprised by how active the work feels from a distance. The work is almost cubist in the way it constructs space. Just the act of moving your eyes around makes you aware of the way the images in your mind are constantly shifting and recombining. There is a bench in the room, and when you sit still, this constant shifting takes on a filmic quality. The piece seems to keep moving, and the light seems to flicker. So a viewer can move between active and passive modes of looking or watching the piece.

The last aspect of the work that felt important and new for me was its mutability and portability. The piece conforms absolutely to the architecture, while simultaneously affecting the experience of the space. But if the site changes, the piece can adapt and the conform to its new site in a modular way, and it can repeat this process indefinitely. I will be reinstalling Coverer in the fall at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The floors there are a different color and material, and there is natural light. It will be part of a group show, so the way that the work interacts with the space will be completely different and I am looking forward to seeing how that changes the piece.

To view more of Joell's work, please visit joellbaxter.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. Recent solo exhibitions include I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (2013) at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) and Everything You Need is Already Here (2014) at Heaven Gallery in Chicago. Stacia is currently looking forward to creating a site-responsive collage installation in her hometown. NEXT: Emerging Virginia Artists opens on July 11, 2014 at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News, VA.