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Spraygraphic Interview with Artist Bekka Teerlink
By Spraygraphic | May 26, 2008
Spraygraphic’s Chuck b. interviews Artist Bekka Teerlink about her art making process, her inspirations and background, and her oil paintings.
The Edge of the World
Exodus
Eden After the Flood
Talking To God
The Bible Tree
Day at the Beach
Away
Spraygraphic Interview with Bekka Teerlink
SG: Please tell us about yourself?
BT: I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, but I moved around quite a bit growing up including places like Berkeley, California, Middlebury, Vermont, and Chelmsford, Massachusetts. My father is a professor of Biblical studies, and my family spent a year living in Jerusalem right before the start of the first Gulf War. I went to an Israeli public school for the equivalent of sixth grade without knowing an ounce of Hebrew. It was probably one of the most interesting experiences I’ve had. Right now my family lives outside of Boston and that’s what I call "home" even though I live in Los Angeles. I studied Fine Art and Creative Writing at Brandeis University , and participated in Yale’s Summer School of Music and Art at Norfolk. After that I became interested in film making so I moved to Los Angeles and got a graduate degree in film production. But I ended up deciding to stay in Los Angeles to paint instead.
SG: Where do you currently live and work?
BT: I live in the Silver Lake part of Los Angeles. I live and work a one-bedroom apartment that is about 500 square feet total. I paint in my bedroom. I lined the room and floor with sheets of plastic so I can hopefully get my security deposit back. And I hide my paint and solvents when the landlord comes through. It’s a bit cramped but I make it work.
SG: What mediums do you work with?
BT: Primarily I work with oil. I do like to work in other mediums like mixed media and photography, but lately I haven’t had as much time for that. I’ve been heavily focused oil painting lately.
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
BT: Once I have a rough idea, I sketch it out very very loosely out of my head. Then I collect reference in the form of taking or finding photos of models, objects, and locations. I digitally collage the photos together in Photoshop into sort of a "Frankenstein" image. Once I’m done with the Photoshop sketch, I start laying it out on canvas. Most of the time I redo the composition once I’m working on the canvas. What works small in photos never works large on a canvas in paint. That’s why I don’t like tracing– because it traps me and makes things feel too mechanical. The collage is just for reference. I change quite a bit of it in the end—like the color and composition and content. I used to be snobbish and prefer to paint from life, but using digital tools has freed me to create worlds that don’t really exist.
SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?
BT: I always seem to have more ideas than I could ever paint. But I never seem to have enough time. The hard part is figuring out what I want to work on first. I usually end up with several canvases going at once. Some take months to plan and execute but I also sometimes rebel against that and experiment and paint whatever idea pops into my head that day. There’s something freeing about not thinking too hard. That’s when the accidents happen that can change your whole direction. I try to keep that sense of freedom, and I try not to get too attached to anything I’m painting. Even if I’ve carefully planned it out. That way when something isn’t working I can just wipe it out, start over and do something else.
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
BT: I get inspired by pretty much anything, but some sources of inspiration are more common than others. Song lyrics & poetry is a big one for me– since they are so visual and conjure up lovely images. Sometimes I just steal from them outright, sometimes they lead me to other ideas. Renaissance painting is another one since I love to play on mythological, symbolic & religious themes. Travel is another big inspiration. Since lived all over I’ve seen some very bizarre things… such as bomb shelters, rusted out tanks, dead volcanoes, archeological digs, dinosaur bones, Native American paintings on rocks. Things like that just blow my mind.
SG: Can you please tell us a little about your painting, The Edge of the World?
BT: This painting started out as an experiment. I had been painting pretty landscapes with figures in them for a while which were meant to be dark in a fairy tale sort of way. They were nice to look at but I always wanted something ominous lurking beneath the surface. But when I was showing them to friends and family it seemed they just would react to the beauty. This frustrated me because I didn’t want to be known for painting pretty things. So while I normally like my paintings to be subtle since I am afraid of spelling things out—I decided to do just that. So I tried to go to the opposite extreme and be as over the top as possible. There is this park in Culver City California that has a children’s playground in the shadow of several active oil derricks. I used to go there to think and sketch when I lived near there. I would listen to the regular rhythm of the derricks with the squeak of the swings and it was amazing how hypnotic yet disturbing it was. Somehow the idea of the painting just came together out of this. I thought the idea was kind of ridiculous the entire time I worked on it. I’ve never been interested in Surrealist painting at all. But I figured it was a process and tried not to think too much. In the end I fell in love with the painting and it changed my whole direction.
SG: Can you please tell us a little about your experience at USC as an MFA student in the film department? How has that experience informed your artwork?
BT: I started out at USC pretty naïve and thought I could do both painting and film. USC’s film program is great for learning the technical aspects of film, whether you’re learning how to use a camera or write a formula script. It’s very much in the tradition of the mainstream film industry. Some students flourished there and could really navigate the system to their advantage—competing for money, connections, and resources. But often it seemed like some of the best artists were left behind. For me, the USC film program swallowed me up and stifled me creatively. My films actually got worse each year I was there. After going through the program, I realized I lost my artistic voice. But what I really took from the experience is that I should always stand by my ideas and my work. There will always be people who will say "That won’t work," or give some sort of ill-fitting recommendation. But an artist has to learn how to be strong and confident enough to know when to listen or to ignore critics. I don’t know how much the experience informed my artwork. I am much more aware of light as well as contrast. And many of my canvases are similar shape to the film image. Actually, film informed my artwork much more before film school than after. I used to paint in sequences with a wide shot, close up, reverse shot of the same scene and hang them side by side. I liked portraying relationships of "characters" that I would convey using lighting, color & space. But since then I abandoned trying to fit a narrative into my paintings. After really thinking through the difference between film and painting, I started to enjoy the limits as well as strengths of painting much more. The main difference I feel is time. A photograph is only one sixtieth of a second. And a film is just a series of 24 photographs a second strung together to create the illusion of movement. But much more time is spent on making the single frame of a painting—and thus it is not limited to portraying a fraction of a second. It can be a day, a month, even longer. I have a theory that the time and effort I put into a painting relates to how long a person looks at it. A painting can have just as much of a story as a film—the difference is a painting is a single frame. Paintings aren’t necessarily a superior art form to film—but right now I prefer the challenge of painting and all that comes with it.
SG: Where has your work been seen?
BT: Right now I have just been getting exposure by showing in underground and artist run venues like with the Spring Arts Collective and Create:Fixate .
SG: Where will it be seen next?
BT: My next show is with The Loft at Liz’s on La Brea in Los Angeles starting in July.
SG: What is your dream art assignment?
BT: I would like to paint a very large and grandiose painting for someone’s wall. I really like big paintings that people can get lost in.
SG: What is your favorite color?
BT: Turquoise hands down.
SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?
BT: Pieter Bruegel the Elder . I had the chance to visit Vienna and I stumbled into a room full of Bruegel’s in the Kunsthistorisches Museum . He can capture everyday people doing everyday things and find a way to relate it to these grandiose themes in painting. My favorite was the Tower of Babel. It is an incredible painting and one that can’t be reproduced well in print or digitally. I have not seen the color captured accurately yet. In person it’s stunning.
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
BT: I just finished reading "The Night Watch" by Sarah Waters , it’s not related to my art at all. Right now I’ve been reading Van Gogh ’s letters as well as travel books since I’m going to Paris very soon.
SG: Ever do a self-portrait? Where is it now?
BT: In school used to do mostly self-portraits because I never tried to get models. It was partly because I didn’t have money to pay them and was too shy to ask for favors. Painting from photos was always frowned on so I avoided it. But I started getting bored with painting myself. Some artists, like Susanna Coffey , have done well painting mostly self-portraits. But I couldn’t imagine my self-portrait hanging anywhere but in my own apartment. I was painting them out of laziness. So I stopped and forced myself to go after what I really wanted to paint. But I’m still really shy about asking people to pose. Most of my self-portraits are in storage or at my parents house.
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
BT: Cafes. I could drink tea, eat croissants, and people watch forever.
SG: Any final words of advice?
BT: Paint, paint, paint. A person is only a painter if they paint. So don’t make any excuses about not having the time or the space or the ideas. Otherwise you’ll find yourself sitting down to watch TV because you’re tired and suddenly a month goes by. Also, get the book "The Artist’s Handbook" by Ralph Mayer. It will answer all your questions and save you millions of headaches.
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Topics: Artist Interviews, California Art Scene, Paintings, Women Art |
