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Spraygraphic Interview with Artist Marisa Aragona
By Spraygraphic | June 9, 2008
Spraygraphic Interview with Marisa Aragona
SG: Please tell us about yourself?
MA: My name is Marisa Aragona and I am a photo-based artist. I grew up in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. I lived in New York City for seven years, where I attended the School of Visual Arts and received my BFA in 2000. I moved to San Francisco almost five years ago to work on my Masters at the San Francisco Art Institute . Since completing my MFA in 2005 I have worked teaching art and photography to both adults and children.
SG: Where do you currently live and work?
MA: I live in San Francisco where I am one of the founding members of the Third Street Art Collective studio space. This is where I have my studio along with nine other artists working in various mediums from painting to video.
SG: What mediums do you work with?
MA: I define myself as a photo-based artist. My process is very sculptural but ultimately much of my work is finalized as a photograph. However, I like to say that all photography really is sculpture.
SG: What kind of equipment do you use?
MA: It feels significant to mention that I still shoot film, mostly color. What camera format I choose, as well as, lighting, whether natural light or strobe is an intuitive response to the project itself. Ultimately what’s important is that I match the tool with my subject and the ideas I want to explore.
For example, I often shoot with a 4×5 camera. The advantage of the 4×5 camera is that it renders a sharp surface description. It’s a pretty labor intensive process and therefore lends itself more to the studio. On the flip side, my point and shoot has given me access to very intimate situations and spaces where a larger camera may have felt invasive.
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
MA: My artwork is about absence and presence in relation to the body and identity. I work with richly textured fabrics, color and clutter to emphasize excess, decadence and the seduction of the surface. It’s interesting to me that when I work with the 4×5 camera I can achieve a surface that is so tactile that it’s as if you can feel what you are looking at in the print. But doesn’t that just speak to how false it is to think we know anything? My work largely comes from a both a longing and a frustration to touch and to “know” … anything. By withholding identity as defined by the face, in my pictures I intend to create a psychological space or imagined identity.
I really love textiles, wallpaper, carpets, hair, my laundry and color to name a few things that get me going. A new photograph often begins with a simple gesture in mind. From there it continues to make sense to make piles and stacks and create clutter to pair that gesture. I really enjoy the process of shooting when I get to construct and make real, or at least a representation of something real, of all the unreal stuff in my head. I also really enjoy lighting my scenes. I’m curious about Fashion Photography’s specific Lighting language\techniques and enjoy playing with that language to create irony and narrative. Lighting is where I get to play the most with the emotion in my pictures.
SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?
MA: Because I am so inspired by gesture, I actually get my best ideas at dance performances. I enjoy sitting quiet in the darkened space of the performance hall and observing the dancers. There is so much feeling spoken in their movements and my mind just stirs with ideas.
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
MA: I get really inspired at Museums but very often the most by my own peers. I love sculpture and find it such a bold medium. I also love self portraiture, finding it so brave. But contemporary dance touches my soul in such a unique way its perhaps very best inspiration. I’ve also always held a secret crush for Surrealism.
SG: You did your undergrad in NYC and your grad school in San Fran. Which city do you prefer as an artist? And Why?
MA: I prefer SF because that is where I am right now. I feel like I am in an exciting time with my work, shooting very often and having lots of new ideas. My pictures are always a direct translation of my current experience. My work could not exist as it is if I were not right here.
SG: In what ways has your teaching experience at Berkeley influence your art?
MA: Teaching is great because I get to introduce students to the work of artists I love and create assignments that investigate the ideas in photography that mean the most to me. It definitely impacts my art and provides a place for me to process my ideas by opening up the discussion with others.
SG: Can you please tell us a little about your Drapery Series.
MA: When I went to Graduate School at SFAI it was new for me to be in such an interdisciplinary atmosphere. Many of my friends were painters and their studio practice made an impression on me. In Grad School my passion for studio lighting, constructing a set\scene, essentially working from scratch, was reignited. In my previous series, Sunday, I was shooting out in the world but in Grad School I began to stay inside and work in the studio. My work became highly sculptural constructing narratives with Drapery as my material.
I have recently moved from working in the studio with drapery specifically, to using my clothes as material to obscure the figure in order to describe the changing relationship I have to my body. In The Drapery Series, I looked at how the drape took shape to resemble the human form or garment in the wrapping and concealment of the body. However, in my most recent work, Alone at Home, I have placed myself in the familiar domestic environment where pieces of my body have begun to emerge. As I emerge I begin to question themes around beauty as it relates to loss, shame, privacy and personal\domestic space.
SG: What do you look for when you are picking models to work with? Is it a physical feature? Personality? Photogenic? etc…
MA: Well lately my choice of model is myself. Besides the fact I can count on “the model” to show up for the shoot, in my new work Alone at Home, it feels important for the first time that it is me in the pictures. But generally I like to work with people who genuinely love the process of making a picture because it takes time and you have to be committed for it to work.
SG: Do you bring your camera with you everywhere with you or do you leave it home when you go out on the town?
MA: I used to carry a small point and shoot camera at all times. You never know, right! In a previous project was all point and shoot, on the fly observed moments. This work is on my website called Sunday. However, lately it feels exhausting to live life always mediated by the camera. Sometimes I just want to live in the moment and bring that back to my picture-making instead. I go through periods with this and it reflects in my work. I guess it makes sense I work mostly inside these days.
SG: Where has your work been seen?
MA: Just this past Fall my work was part of a traveling exhibition called ‘Envisioning the Black Madonna’. It opened at the Birmingham Institute for Civil Rights and then the show traveled to Montgomery, Alabama to the Rosa parks Museum. It was a new and exciting experience for me to me to see my work put in a such specific political context. I went to Birmingham for the Opening and had an amazing time!
Otherwise, my work has recently been seen in SF at Southern Exposure , Intersection for the Arts , Root Division , Gallery 16 and Swarm Gallery in Oakland.
SG: Where will it be seen next?
MA: TBA
SG: What is your dream art assignment?
MA: Wouldn’t it be fun to collaborate with a costume designer and a stunt double! International travel would be pretty cool too.
SG: What is your favorite color?
MA: I am so moody about color but reds and purples are generally a constant favorite.
SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?
MA: Lately, I’ve been re-visiting the work of Francesca Woodman whose work I love. Her work in a way continues to teach me how to be an artist. I say this because her work reflects her process in such an honest way that it always inspires me to just make and keep making. And there are so many others too that inspire me such as Louise Bourgeois , Ana Mendieta , Eva Hesse and Claude Cahn, as well as, more contemporary artists like Trisha Donnelley and Katy Grannan . I love these artists for the way I see they invite the invisible into their work. It’s beautiful.
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
MA: I am reading a book right now titled Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism and Self-Representation , edited by Whitney Chadwick. I’m also a magazine junkie.
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
MA: In the sun … my favorite thing to do is swim. In SF, Mission Pool is the spot!
SG: Any final words of advice?
MA: Trust yourself.
Topics: Photography, San Francisco Art Scene |
June 9th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I am so proud of you Marisa! Your juicey and textural work speaks for itself and how articulate is your fancy interview!
June 9th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Hey Water Girl,
I view you as the best at what you do. Do stay on top while climbing higher.
June 9th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Wow! I really feel that your work comes from a confident place. I love the way you explore and create freely with your ideas. In my opinion, that’s what makes it so wonderful and accessible.
June 10th, 2008 at 10:26 am
I especially loved all that you had to say about living in the now, both in regards to which city you prefer because your art would not exist as it is if you were not here, and later when you talk about the point and shoot, camera dictating the moment. I feel you!
June 12th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
i love the photo of the leggings and door. keep it up marissa
December 4th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
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