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Spraygraphic Interview with Steven Robert Barich
By Spraygraphic | January 14, 2008
Spraygraphic Interview with Steven Robert Barich
SG: Please tell us about yourself?
SRB: I’m a visual artist, 32 years young, of Croatian/Polish blood with family spread around California and Wisconsin, where I was born. After years and years of moving around, my family settled in Oakland, California. Many of my ideas (both in life and art) are influenced by growing up in the Bay Area region, especially Oakland, which has its particulars. I recently lived in the Netherlands for five years after I finished my MFA studies. It was intense, great and life-fulfilling. Its kinda like that classic artists tale of moving to Paris and *really* being educated, then returning home full of spice and vinegar, but contemporary-like (and not in Paris, although I did go there quite a bit). I met my wife there in Europe as well. She and I are making a go of it here in the Bay Area now, which by the way is coming into its own (again…) and is probably the hottest place to be in America right now for art!
SG: Where do you currently live and work?
SRB: I live in a town called Alameda and have an atelier in Oakland, both cities on the San Francisco Bay. My atelier is a temporary space, and it’s damn cold in the winter, so hopefully next year something with heat will come across my path.
SG: What mediums do you work with?
SRB: Currently, I’m focusing on drawing and painting, and mostly on paper. I’m a die hard when it comes to drawing. I think it is the root of everything in visual art. However, I’ve made artwork in every medium you can think of, and I still spend energy on small video-montages and writing. There are examples of all this art-goodness on my web site.
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
SRB: I usually mull over an idea or image for weeks, get it all sorted in my head in relation to context and eventual composition, then execute it in a consistent, daily time-frame. Even though I’m sure of what I want to draw/paint, the process is continually feedbacking new ideas or possibilities. I’m not shy to admit that some great ideas or drawing decisions are made in a split second lucid moment while actively working on a piece…I’ll still take credit for it! I’m usually dreaming up new artwork ideas while working on the current piece. When I have a good atelier to work in with multiple drawing walls/surfaces, I like to have a few pieces going all at once. Unless I have a HUGE piece that has possessed me, then I usually throw in all the ideas into one composition…and hopefully with success!
SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?
SRB: I walk my dog Po. It still baffles him why I stare at the wall all day when I could be out playing ball or hiking in the regional parks, but we work it out. Seriously though, I’m rarely blocked (I have three years of ideas for drawings just sitting around waiting for the right moment to begin…) and I only find it hard to create when I’m forced to spend all my time working a design/editing job or construction in order to pay the bills.
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
SRB: Futurist(s) dialogue, technological advancements in cloning and artificial intelligence, issues of the artificial versus the “real,” visual deception in pattern/information and my favorite: apophenia.
SG: Can you tell us a little about your 2003 guest artist experience in the Netherlands. How has the experience influenced your artwork?
SRB: Taking the time to work in a residency program in a foreign country is just about the best thing ever for getting to know yourself, your artwork and art making process(s), and for meeting artists whose different life experiences can open your eyes to much more than the American perspective (or vice versa, if you’re coming from outside the U.S.). What can I say: I started a three-month residency at this place called Foundation B.a.d. in Rotterdam, NL and I stayed in the Netherlands for almost five years! I would still be there as well, if I wasn’t for being kicked out by the government for overstaying my Visa. It was a wild ride, and definitely worth a fat chapter when I sit down to write the ol’ memoirs.
SG: Can you tell us a little about your painting, You are the One?
SRB: I think you mean “We Are The One.” It depicts four sheep, staring out from the canvas at the viewer, with a pixel-mosaic background just behind their heads. They are drawn nearly life-size. People have cultural sayings related to how sheep are just like each other, cultural conditions of being part of a “flock,” religious relationships to those ideas as well…and, Dolly was the first cloned animal, which is a kind of a inside joke when you think about it: the most look-alike associated animal is the first to be cloned! It is actually a VERY smart choice, because with little emotion to loss of identity when it comes to sheep, there would be less backlash and philosophical debate. Anyway, this piece asks the viewer questions: how much individuality do you see in each sheep in this drawing? Is that related to expression(s)? What if they were all clones? Are they then still unique in your eyes? These important philosophical and social issues are based on how much information one has in the situation. The pixel-mosaic background references that idea of information, and possibly manipulated information, whether the knowledge of individuality as a concept, or of practical information about their genes. I’m currently deep into these themes in my current artwork.
SG: How has your teaching experience at Diablo Valley College influence your art work? Do you like teaching?
SRB: I get the biggest kick out of teaching. To be in a room with 10-20 people putting their love and talent into artwork and having communication with them during that process just fires me up to make my own artwork better, and more of it! While teaching doesn’t directly influence my artwork, I can use the teaching environment to work out ideas involving process and materials that I may not otherwise have the time to invest in.
I took my own art education very seriously, and I feel it is my job as an artist to share with others my the wealth of knowledge that my own professors ingrained in me through repetition, challenge and support. I would happily teach full-time, as long as it didn’t stop me from getting into the studio on a regular basis.
SG: Where has your work been seen?
SRB: I’ve exhibited both nationally and internationally for a number of years. I have three pieces currently in an group show about contemporary drawing at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts in Boone, NC. This past year, I had drawings in a few Bay Area regional group shows, and some video work shown in the Netherlands and Italy. I also was in Berlin in September to install a multi-media piece from a series called The Watchers in a show called Invisible/Invincible: a Ticket to Nothingness at a up-and-coming gallery called Curators without Borders. This last year has by far been the best year for me and exhibiting artwork. I can only hope next year is as eventful!
SG: Where will it be seen next?
SRB: That’s a good question. I’ll keep you updated when I hear myself! I’m currently trying to find a gallery or dealer who can stand behind my process as an artist and can engage with me in my subject matter. It is a process every professional artist must go through.
However, I’ll soon be at a residency at San Jose/Works contemporary art space in San Jose, California from mid-December until mid-March. It is something like an open-to-the-public studio situation, so I’m curious what will happen and who I will meet. It isn’t full-time, but I’m going to move my atelier there for the next few months.
SG: What is your dream art assignment?
SRB: To be in Berlin, Germany on a one-year, stipend supported residency with a big ass atelier (o.k., I’ll settle for good-sized) and no other obligations other than absorb, output, absorb, output. I have many friends whom have had this situation and I’d love to join the club. Many people will say Berlin has already come and gone for young artists, but I’ve been in Berlin many times over the last five years and each time it is more engaging and energetic than the last. Two thumbs up.
SG: What is your favorite color?
SRB: I don’t have a particular favorite, but have you ever—with your own eyes—seen glacial blue? I have, and it is truly unique.
SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?
SRB: I have favorites, and they change. If you are asking specifically about visual artists, I would have to say that a most influential artist for me on approach and method is Robert Smithson. Besides being a consummate master of ideas in/of/on art, his own unfortunate cut-short ouevre supports my theory that drawing is the root of everything in the visual arts.
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
SRB: I’ve been poking around an essay titled “The Rise of Cubism” by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Also, an online text from Jeffery Deitch’s 1990’s exhibition “Post Human” catalog, something that interests me greatly.
SG: Ever do a self portrait? Where is it now?
SRB: Why it might be cliché to say this—and I’m going to say it anyway—every artwork is in one way or another a self-portrait of the artist who makes it. Artwork can be much more telling than what sits on the surface of the canvas, paper or photograph. However, in the traditional sense, I just made a self-portrait and placed it in a group show titled “The Little Show” at a local Oakland gallery called Swarm Gallery and Studios. It is one of the images I submitted with this interview.
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
SRB: Here is another cliché comin’ at ya: my studio. I’m breaking in a new work schedule this last week and I’m totally hooked on it. I have some personal deadlines coming up and as the artwork slowly manifests and the long-developing ideas become reality, I feel totally satisfied with everything else in life. I also like hanging out in other people’s creative environments, whether it be an art studio, music practice pad or garden. These semi-private places can be beautiful windows into the life process of a friend or colleague.
SG: Any final words of advice?
SRB: As J.G. Ballard has said, “It’s a mistake to hold back and refuse to accept one’s own nature.”
Topics: Artist Interviews, Paintings, San Francisco Art Scene |
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