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Spraygraphic Interview with Artist Alexis Amann

By Spraygraphic | August 18, 2008

   

  

 

     

   

  

 

 

Spraygraphic Interview with Alexis Amann

SG: Please tell us about yourself?

AA: I’m from Newport, Oregon, a small town on the central Oregon coast. I love the ocean and the way that fish mouths look. I particularly love flatfish like flounders and halibut because their eyes migrate to one side of their bodies.

SG: Where do you currently live and work?

AA: I live and work in the Western Addition in San Francisco. My studio is a room in my apartment so I can come home from my job and get to work!

SG: What mediums do you work with?

AA: Acrylic gouache on paper.

SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.

AA: I tend to have a feeling of what a new work will be, make a few sketches of it just trying to capture the basic elements, then start working on it directly. I draw a lot of it out before I start painting, and things develop during that drawing stage, as well as while I paint. During the painting, the piece continues to evolve in unplanned ways. I use cutting as an editing tool in my work - if something isn’t working in a painting, I cut it off to make the piece stronger. I like controlling the edges and shape of the image this way; the cut edges can create a sense of vision in a way that is similar to comics paneling or film - only revealing chosen aspects of a scene, and they can also create a sense of focus and beautiful awkwardness. They can be an interruption, a way of staging, and/or a design element in different pieces. I often get to a stage in my painting before I add all the detail where everything is blocked in and seems like it could almost be done, yet it looks awkward and terrible and seems like it might not be a painting. Adding in all the tiny lines and detail makes the work turn into itself.

SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?

AA: I usually have too many ideas, rather than too few. When I get blocked, it is usually in the middle of a piece when my painting is changing in a way I didn’t quite expect and is hovering in some kind of ugly, yucky limbo state. At this point, I sometimes make some drastic change in the piece through paint or cutting that I have been wanting to do for hours or days, but have been hesitating about. When the work gets to a point where it is stuck between what it is and what it could be, and is hovering in some mediocre and uncomfortable place of being a half-decent painting, I usually just go for the drastic change. Then I often just have to get away from it for an hour or an afternoon; I have no idea if I ruined it or made it better until I come back to it later. I also listen to audio books in the studio to trick myself into working.

SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?

AA: My most current piece, Azazel and the Bearded Ladies (which is up at Lobot Gallery in Oakland right now) was inspired by a photograph of some friends in Dolores park wearing fake beards. It was such a beautiful and funny picture of the two of them standing there half smiling and looking like old-timey circus people. I wanted to have them in a piece with a femme version of Azazel as he was depicted in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics - a black void of mouths and eyes. My Azazel is pretty femme – he has a lot of luscious lips and brightly painted eyes, swarms of hearts, and gold, pink, and purple ruffles.

I am inspired by natural history and evolution, fairy tales, mythology, fiction and personal narrative, comics and illustration, relationship dynamics, femmes, dvd’s of second-rate television shows, lol cats, and my girlfriend, family and friends.

All the stories from the audio books I listen to seep into the work as well.

SG: Where has your work been seen?

AA: Most recently, my work has been seen at New Image Gallery and Mollusk Surf Shop in L.A., Johansson Projects and Lobot in Oakland, The LAB and Root Division, in San Francisco, as well as in Portland and Seattle.

SG: Where will it be seen next?

AA: Dust Gallery, Las Vegas

SG: What is your dream art assignment?

AA: I want to illustrate something for Daniel Handler, or his associate, Lemony Snicket.

SG: What is your favorite color?

AA: Hot pink.

SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?

AA: Work that is narrative is most compelling to me. I love Kiki Smith because of her pieces with the woman climbing out of the wolf’s stomach, the little flapper statue, the tiny porcelain cat head upside-down, the crows, and stars, and glass animals scattered on the floor. I love her connections with animals and patterning, her use of narrative, and her ability to use the personal in a compelling way. I think she has a great sense of humor, not only in her subject matter, but also in the way she uses awkwardness. I think the humor in the work also has to do with her sensibility about death, decay, and the physical. So much of feminist art has a really great sense of humor. Kara Walker, too - she uses humor in and it freaks people out. There is something about using humor for these artists that is about reclaiming meaning and experience; humor is used as a kind of intelligence and as a kind of compassion.

I also have been really influenced by comics and graphic novels. The Brothers Hernandez Love and Rockets comics are the best. I love the way those guys draw, the characters, and the way the stories progress over the years. Lynda Barry kills me. She also walks a line of darkness and humor in a compelling way. Her novel, Cruddy, is one of the scariest and most amazing books ever, and her comics about Marlys and Maybonne should be required reading for high school girls.

SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?

AA: I used to the girl who was always reading three books at once, but now I just listen to audio books while I work. This week, it’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics. I’ve also been working my way through Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books.

SG: Ever do a self portrait? Where is it now?

AA: Lots of my work has aspects of self-portraiture. I did one recently of my sister and I vomiting called, “Girls Make the World.” I always base the hands I draw on my own, although I want to do some portraits of a friend’s hands pretty soon. I like using characters in my paintings that are sort of vague versions of myself.

SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?

AA: My house, libraries, the beach, Golden Gate park, parties with cupcakes and ladies, the Oregon coast.

SG: Any final words of advice?

AA: Use the library.

1. Girls Make the World, 2. Flounder and Peg Leg, 3. Girl Loves Piranha Flower (Rabbit Couple), 4. Girl and Flounder Communicate, 5. Sea Lion Pieta with Dead Mermaid, 6. Ships, 7. The Center Cannot Hold Chinook, 8. The Same Skirt, 9. Voyage, 10. Girl Loves Piranha Flower (Snails and Quail)

Topics: Artist Interviews, Paintings |

http://www.sprayblog.net/spraygraphic-interview-with-artist-alexis-amann/

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