Contemporary artist Liz Ainslie talks about her process in an interview with Anjali Singh for the Asian Curator.
What brought you to the world of contemporary digital/visual art and how did you start?
As a child, I was compelled to see my imagination manifest on paper. I shared the drawings with family or friends, searching for a moment of reflection through the reaction of another, but this never was the main drive. I created drawings for my own gratification. As a teen, I became more aware of contemporary art, but I never found deep inspiration through other artists until I attended Alfred University. The foundations program was rigorous and process-oriented which helped me understand my creative impulse through art history and the use of new materials. In the first year, fifty students worked side by side in a shared studio, so the possibilities widened quickly as I observed the breadth of conceptual and material interpretations of assignments. The professors exposed us to a wide range of contemporary art, and I was able to begin to connect my lifelong practice to the seemingly distant art world.
Lets talk about your frameworks, references and creative process.
I value rules and parameters in painting, yet with each work, I’m slowly building and dismantling my own frameworks. Abstraction is delightful that way because it strips things down to elemental relationships. The particular handling of an edge or line can break an illusion. I’m fascinated by landscapes, both real and imaginary. Lately, my sketchbook is full of observational drawings of clouds and rocks. Walking around the city, I photograph colors, patterns, and textures like the complex linoleum pattern in a building lobby. These little snippets dovetail with analogous forms in the historical paintings; a skewed Duccio mountain, or a frenetic Vuillard curtain. Ultimately I come back around to the more general parameters I’ve set for my paintings so that I can round up all of these different influences. There is a particular shallowness of spatial illusion that I do not deviate from; it’s flat, but not all the way, like a stage set. I’m not interested in implying much outside of the edge of each painting. This world is a moment of presentation, captured within the stretcher bar boundary.
Let’s talk about the evolution of your practice and medium of art over the years.
While I’m constantly adding to my formal lexicon, I make sure to also strip away unnecessary elements. In the past, I deliberately omitted curves. For many years my energetic marks resolved to form a world of straight lines and edges. This limitation was useful as I honed my particular application of paint to build idiosyncratic color relationships. I wanted to combine colors that clashed and melded, mimicking the way light and shadow can obscure one’s perception of color. When I felt confident with these concerns, I began to introduce new elements, curves, textures, and more direct references to my observational sketches.
How do you deal with the conceptual difficulty and uncertainty of creating new work?
I am always filling up sketchbooks. If I’m not ready to pick up the brush, flipping those sketchbook pages is less daunting. I try not to be overly critical at the beginning of the process. Instead, I take more time away from a difficult painting, putting it away for a while or turning it toward the wall. When I turn the canvas back around a week later, I often know exactly what needs to happen, the elements that need to go, or the colors that are not working.
What are you looking for in other visual artists’ work?
I look for energy and purposive decisions in a painting. Why did the artists choose this material for this work? An action can be slow or quick, but I want it to be deliberate. When I look at a great painting, it seems to almost emerge, integrated in one powerful moment. On closer inspection, so much can be gleaned from what is left on the painting surface, the physical relationship between the artist and their work is revealed. I tend to get excited about other colorists, painters who experiment with value and temperature in surprising ways. I am especially excited by so-called painterly sculpture lately. Show me an object with a slightly humorous presence, made of an organic-looking material. When I look at other media, installation, video, photography, I’m drawn to work that shifts my understanding of perception and consciousness. I’m delighted if it seems to renew my visual perception or my bodily relationship with the surrounding space.
Which shows, performances and experiences have shaped your own creative process? Who are your favourite contemporary artist maestros?
In 2019 I made a trip upstate with some friends to Magazzino Italian Art, a small museum in Cold Spring, NY. The permanent exhibit is focused on the Arte Povera movement. The careful installations of these sculptures, drawings, and paintings enveloped me and I was resensitized to notice the choices of scale in relation to the architecture and light. I was especially taken with the marble works of Luciano Fabro. The heavy marble objects manage to maintain a playful air. The sculptures relate to American minimalism but bring something different with each whimsical slump, curve, or slouch.
Pick one: Artist apartment v/s artist studio rental. Which one applies to you and why?
I love having a studio in my apartment. I felt especially lucky to be able to step into my studio during the recent quarantine. Even if I can’t paint all the time, I can pop in and say hello to my paintings every day. I’ve had studios outside the home for short periods of time and it is nice to experience interactions and conversations with other artists, but working from is ideal for me. I see myself as a generally outgoing person, but I forget how much I need that alone time in the studio for balance. At this point, the contemplative space has become sacred.
Lets talk about the importance of a peer artist network & art advice.
Though I love my alone time, I don’t know if I could make the work without my community! The things people say in studio visits resonate years later, even when you’re making totally different paintings! I love visiting other people’s studios, seeing how they set up a palette, prepare their canvas, and even what kind of chair they like to sit in. I’ve also had the opportunity to collaborate with other artists on curatorial projects and group exhibitions as a member of Underdonk, a collective gallery in Brooklyn, and the American Abstract Artists organization. It gives me so much pleasure to work with other artists to create things from our perspective as a community.
Is it imperative to have a visual art degree become a visual artist?
It is not. I loved going to art school and graduate school, but academia with its relationship with the art market has systematically boosted those of us who already have privilege. My friends who never got MFAs or BFAs make amazing work and often build their own education through relationships with other artists.
Artists and thinkers are developing new learning models. I taught at the School of the Alternative which takes influence from Black Mountain School and other non-hierarchical education models. These alternatives to the MFA give me hope that artists can build their own education system that does not revolve around capitalist values.
Are you more of a studio artist or naturally collaborative by nature?
I’m a solitary artist when I’m in the studio. I’ve noticed that introspection yields more nuanced results for me. At the same time, I thrive on the social interaction of galleries, art events. It’s nice having a community of creative friends who can get into a debate about the recent Moma exhibition or what brand of oil paint makes the best Pthalo Blue.
Teaching is also an amazing opportunity to collaborate and reflect on the foundation of my work. I’ve been developing specialized drawing workshops that are open to all levels, no matter their familiarity and skill-level with art. The assignments or prompts include conceptual, temporal, and sensorial parameters to stave off common hesitations that accompany artmaking for so many people. I like to participate in the activities while I’m teaching because I need to break out of my habits and tendencies too. I truly believe anyone can enjoy artmaking if they can get past the fear of the blank page.
Does art marketing come naturally to you?
It doesn’t come naturally, but I’ve been lucky to learn from others. When I first moved to New York, I worked for more established artists. I saw how they ran their studios, priced their work, interacted with galleries, and marketed themselves. When I was younger it was overwhelming to think of balancing it all, but over time marketing has become part of the studio work.
Themes you are currently working on?
I’ve been looking at new ways of transforming my observations. I like to look at art historical examples of abstracted nature; Hokusai’s waterfalls, Burchfield’s sun, O’Keefe’s dunes. I like to see what happens when I take natural elements further outside of representation, releasing them from the tethers of gravity and perspective.
Looking at sculpture has been helpful; I think back to the museum and gallery spaces I’ve enjoyed, carefully dotted with alien, non-categorical objects that hold so much presence in static form. I ask myself how the shapes and forms in my paintings operate inside the environments I’ve created.
Before you go – you might like to browse our Artist Interviews. Interviews of artists and outliers on how to be an artist. Contemporary artists on the source of their creative inspiration.
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