FEATURES

Interview w/ Kevin Earl Taylor

2014-05-05T15:20:01Z

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

So what have you been up to lately?

It's turned out to be an insanely busy year for me which is awesome. 2 new galleries, a massive 5 painting commission through Circle Culture (Berlin), working on call as a museum preparator, playing more music shows than previous years and of course making room for some quality time with friends and family. And besides all this, I was looking for the best treatments for erectile dysfunction and medications.

Working on any upcoming shows?

Yes. I have solos at Subliminal Projects (LA) in September and K Imperial (SF) in November as well as making a couple paintings for my October debut with a new gallery I've signed on with in New Orleans, Guthrie Contemporary. Then there's the Miami fair which I'll be featured with K Imperial.

I think I noticed on your Instagram that you're now working at the Contemporary Jewish Museum?

Yes, Indeed. I'd worked at SFMOMA as a preparator since 2009 and when they closed I moved over to the CJM.

It's just on call so pretty conducive to the studio practice. We usually work for a month deinstalling/installing the shows and then you're off for a couple months. I think it really brings a lot to my own work in all kinds of ways. I work alongside Tim Sullivan, Josh Pieper and James Chronister, all of whom are fantastic artists as well. We get the job done while talking shop and cracking each other up. It's also pretty cool to get to see what a Warhol looks from behind and figure out the best way to pack a Kiki Smith sculpture for transport.

Also, I think FF readers would love the current Arthur Szyk show up at the Jewish Museum. It's really incredible.

To view more of Kevin's recent works, click here.

Interview w/ Mike Giant

2014-01-23T19:43:46Z

Legendary graffiti/ tattoo/ clothing design (Rebel 8)/ artist/ the one and only MIKE GIANT opens Modern Hieroglyphics on Friday, February 7th (6-9pm) at San Francisco's FFDG, 2277 Mission St. @19th St. (RSVP on Facebook)

Giant's words on the show: I started to look at modern tattoo designs as well as corporate and band logos as "modern hieroglyphics". I thought a lot about how the symbols of our time would be objectively translated by future generations. And instead of trying to explain it, I made drawings to codify the symbolic language of our time for future observers to translate for themselves. -Mike Giant

Artist Mike Giant opens his solo show on Feb 7th at San Francisco's FFDG.

So your upcoming solo show at FFDG opens on Feb 7th. What do you plan on showing for it?

I made lots of drawings on 11x14" sheets of drawing paper. The subject matter is mostly tattoo designs with some corporate and band logos thrown in for good measure. I will also be showing some silk-screened editions and I hope to set up a slide show.

What have you been up to? How has 2014 started out for you?

I spent the New Years with my friend Lina who was visiting from Amsterdam. We partied, walked around a lot and made some art. It was a great way to start the year.

What's going on with Rebel8?

We just debuted our Fall collection at the Agenda trade show where I walked around in an LAPD uniform, keeping guard on a squad car I tagged all over. It was really fun. Tomorrow Joshy and I are headed to Colorado for an industry party and some clean air.

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Tiffany Bozic Interview

2013-11-12T22:24:03Z

Tiffany Bozic's solo show Sense of Wonder is in its final week at San Francisco's FFDG. Before this wonderful show comes to a close, we wanted to ask Bozic about her methodology, lifestyle, influences and generally what makes her tick.

Felidae - acrylic on maple panel, 2013 - 18" x 24" - pricing & availability: info(at)ffdg.net

You normally work in a much larger scale. Why did you choose the smaller size for the works?

I decided to make these small paintings for two main reasons. The first reason was to explore things I've always wanted to try but never quite fit into the larger paintings. The second reason was to just sit down and make a painting every 2-3 days of whatever I was interested in at the time. It felt very fun and liberating.

Goldfish & Tadpoles - acrylic on maple panel, 2013 - 8" x 8"

Calligraphy - acrylic on maple panel, 2013 - 20" x 14"

Obviously your work reflects a skewed and creative reflection of the natural world. How do you come up with your creatures and pairings?

I don't really know where the ideas come from. I've always had an immense appetite for exploring and discovering new things to paint. I really try to go back to being a kid with no inhibitions, to be self unaware and happily captivated by whatever I'm doodling.

When I was younger I spent a lot of time alone outdoors constantly turning stones to discover something cool to draw. Later I would bring that critter back to my studio and make a drawing of it. I suppose I am still doing that. I'm still that little kid at the kitchen table with a pad of paper letting the pencil carry me away into another world.

Strigiformes - acrylic on maple panel, 2013 - 12" x 16"

Chiroptera - acrylic on maple panel, 2013 - 6" x 6"

You recently moved up to Marin with your family. How has the transition been from city to a more relaxed surrounding?

I've always wanted to be able to complain about the deer eating every plant I put in the ground, and now I can finally do that!

We moved into a cottage under the redwood trees at the foot of Mt. Tamalpais. From outside our door there are 5 miles of open space until it drops into the ocean. I feel like I am already becoming part of the land and I enjoy all the diverse organisms living around my house. I notice the grand change of seasons and the tiny changes that silently move along like the banana slugs that I pick up and move off the trail when I go for hikes. For the first time in my life I feel humbled and grateful to have finally found my home.

Michael Alan Interview

2013-06-14T16:00:11Z

These days New York-native multimedia artist, Michael Alan, has been incredibly active artistically in the big city. Between staging hours-long Living Installations at the New Museum and other DIY spaces, exhibiting his drawings and paintings in group exhibitions and hosting an unusual solo show in the home of his mother, Alan proves that there is no rest for the wicked. I caught up with him recently to hear the latest, the backstory, and what's next.

Interview by Kristin Bauer
Photos: Joseph Meloy

Lately you've been busy with a your Living Installations and exhibition. First can you talk a little bit about the exhibition you had at your parents' house? I'm intrigued by that.

Hm. Where to start on that one...

Where did the idea come from? It's a pretty unorthodox idea- does exhibiting in your parents' home speak to your work in some way?

You know, participating in art and signing on, doing all the steps, being in the scene and doing what you've got to do- you just constantly question is this exactly what I signed on for? Is this exactly why I'm an artist? I try to constantly do things that are the reasons I signed on. Like when I was younger, why I drew as a kid, why I made pranks and would be the class clown and draw in peoples' books, draw dicks on walls- you know, where that pure essence came from. I got pretty fucked up this year.

I broke my spine and got water in my brain. My mom lives in the city and I had to move my studio back in there and she's been sick, so we've been taking care of each other.

And with people coming to visit me to see how I'm doing and see my mom- slowly it kind of hit me, "why don't you just do a show here?"

I always try to do shows in strange or odd places along with the regular gallery format and all that. I just felt like it would be really honest. It's where I've spent a lot of time and its an extremely emotional space for me. The work I make is about emotion and letting people in so it really fits. My parents have been a huge support and I want to celebrate that. My mom has been a collaborator in my performances and she can't go to them anymore and go see the exhibitions. I got this success going on and want to bring it to her in her own home.

I'm curious about your mom as a collaborator. I know you've collaborated with a lot of different people, and it ranges from your folks to Kenny Sharf to Jello Biafra. Can you talk about how you go about choosing your collaborators, and possibly some of your favorite collaborations you have done?

Most of the collaborations are musical, or the Living Installations, which I think is more of an experience than a performance. I've learned to choose the people based on being drawn to them as a person, not so much to their art but their spirit. Real soul searching, proactive people. That's Kenny Sharf, I mean he's super, super, super alien-nice. I've never met anyone as nice as that guy. I don't want to work with people who are negative and down. I'm coming from the Fugazi scene, you know, the posi-punk scene- so negativity doesn't match. So I'm looking for people who are proactive in their life. Especially in collaboration, there's hiccups- and it's about getting through that hiccup. And that's how my mom is – I grew up collaborating with her as a kid. We made a children's book when I was younger, always doing artistic stuff. I would do studio visits with her when I was five.

You have a Living Installation coming up at the New Museum?

At New Museum there's a huge performance thing going on called UnTapped, and I'm doing my rendition- I guess it will be more of a solo version, it will be four hours with music made with people I've collaborated with. I haven't worked out entirely what I'll be doing.

Gary Baseman Interview

2013-05-21T18:22:54Z

"The Door is Always Open" on view at the Skirball Cultural Center till August 18, 2013

Interview and photos: Kristin Bauer

Gary Baseman's retrospective "The Door is Always Open" at the Skirball in LA opened recently to massive crowds in a huge celebratory opening party. The exhibition is so complex and personal, delving into Baseman's background, family history, and all the layers of prolific work that he has done over the years. After the opening festivities winded down, I caught up with Baseman for an interview. We discussed the underlying meaning to some of the components of the show and how it felt for him, coming from such an honest personal perspective in putting this massive show together.

Kristin: First of all, congrats on such a phenomenal retrospective with "The Door is Always Open" at the Skirball. The whole show was such an in depth exploration of your work and really a celebration of the work you've done over the last several decades. It was such an involved event, too, with so many different things going on. How did that feel for you- the experience of the opening and winding down afterwards? It was pretty epic.

Gary: Well even when I give a tour of the exhibition or look at just the exhibition itself, it has so many layers to it. So because I was determined when I put together the exhibition to not have a traditional retrospective, but that I was trying to create this kind of art installation- this kind of environment to engage the viewer and in a way disarm them. I wanted to bring them in to the space, to make them part of it and for them to be able to interact with the art differently than just a viewer looking at a painting behind glass. That became such an overwhelming process, so in some ways when I first give a tour of the exhibition itself, you get caught up in the concept. And then because each room represents a theme in my work, you almost end up removing the actual exhibitions themselves.

Each piece of art represents a specific exhibition or an event and then has a story in its own right.

So again, there are so many layers of not just the work as art, it's the work also as history, as memory and heritage and so you're dealing with a sense of family. For me it was a way to honor my family my parents for one by having their furniture, their original furniture, in there.

K: Wow, I didn't realize that was their original furniture you used. I was wondering about it.

G: Yeah, this is a very deep emotional exhibition. The furniture in the Living Room, the Dining Room and the Bedroom was my parents furniture. My mom passed away in October and at first I was going to mainly use relatives' furniture to capture that era, cause its not only my family but its also the Fairfax District that I grew up in. But when my mom passed away in October I made the decision to use family furniture. My brothers and sisters said it was cool and so I moved my parents' furniture that they had left in their home of 48 years and used it in the exhibition.

K: That's incredible. I'm sorry to hear about your mother. I imagine you were already well into working on this show when she passed, so was this process kind of therapeutic?

G: Well the process already started when my father passed away three years ago.... ~continue reading

Paul Wackers Interview

2013-02-20T18:17:26Z

Paul Wackers has an exhibition of all new paintings up at New Image Art Gallery in LA from February 16th to March 30th. He sheds some light on his inspiration, creative process, new work and his experience of being an artist in NY in this interview with Kristin Bauer.

"Early Romantics" Paul Wackers at New Image Art Gallery
Feb. 16- Mar. 30, 2013
7920 Santa Monica Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90046

Dance for You, acrylic, spray paint on panel, 48”x60”, 2013

Tell me about your most recent work we will be seeing in Early Romantics at New Image? How has it evolved from your previous work?

I will be showing about 12 new paintings all made since the beginning of 2013, so pretty quickly. One is the largest painting I've ever made which was really fun to do. The rest are a mix of objects in the landscape and very paired down still lifes or almost abstract compositions. I think this show is a really good follow up from my show at Alice gallery in Brussels last year. So continuing to build a bit off an internal narrative for the work and some parameters from my subjects to exist within and seeing where it goes from there.

A Description of Leveling Off, acrylic, spray paint on panel, 60”x48”, 2013

Your paintings have a sense of capturing the magic in the mundane objects and moments in daily life. What is your process of working this way? Would you say it's more of a process of infusing energy into the ordinary, or seeing beneath the surface of the everyday and expanding on what's already there?

Yeah, I think that is all in the work, but the work is rarely from direct observation. It's more like a kind of assumption of what something is and that leads to being open to the possibilities within anything. I know that's pretty cheesy, but when you spend 7 days a week in your studio the regular stuff around you and your walks there get really interesting. Funny bits of trash or strange trees and blandness become stages for things to happen. Being able to expand on the boring bit to see how it might be something unique is a hard thing, but a worthwhile search I think. But maybe ask me tomorrow and I won't see anything in it. It's all in the moment.

Natural History, acrylic, spray paint on panel, 70”x60”, 2013

In your work there's an interaction and a sense of tension between meticulous detailed areas and looser more abstract elements- almost a play between order and chaos. How do you feel order and chaos, or other polarities, present in your process and final imagery?

I like to play with those ideas in some of the paintings. Its strange that what I might see as just background noise that is easy to ignore because it has no focus, other people see chaotic stuff. I love how every person reads them so differently. That's why I usually like to let people tell me what they see before I say what I think is going on, since it is that play and disconnect that I love. If I give away my intention too soon then the person looking usually just ends at that, but when it stays ambiguous I think it remains interesting and the discussion can begin after that. But that being said, sometimes I will try to make images that I think can't possibly work, and then they start to click and I have a whole new thing to explore. So I guess finding some disharmony has been very beneficial to my process.

Interview w/ Jay Howell

2013-01-23T22:00:36Z

Jay Howell's solo show "Enthusiastic Person" at FFDG opens Friday, Feb 1st (6-9pm).

Here is a small preview and also a short interview with the man who's been working his butt off in Los Angeles on his upcoming cartoon with Nickelodeon, video shorts with Vans, a new zine, and other projects when he's not walking Street Dog in the warm Southern California air.

How are you doing? Hope everything is jazzy.

Everything is going good. Life is busy and fun!

You moved to LA like a year and a half ago from SF. How's it going?

It's been 2 years, and it's going very good.

You're working on the cartoon for Nickelodeon "Sanjay and Craig". When can people expect to see a clip or the first episode?

We'll be airing in July! Maximum excitement!!!

What can people expect from your upcoming show "Enthusiastic Person" opening Friday, Feb 1st @FFDG?

It's a bunch of new stuff that I've been doing when I get home from work. A lot of it goes along with a new comic I've been developing.

What's your routine been like these days?

Get up early, go to work, stress out, get really excited, hang out with Street Dog and draw.

Interview w/ Joshua Petker

2012-07-18T17:49:55Z

Los Angeles based Joshua Petker recently closed the show "Adrift" at Lebasse Projects a few weeks back. After switching up his style and direction to inlcude these simplier/ nautical/ ship themed works, we had the chance to ask him a few questions about this new body of work.

There's a lot of nautical action taking place in the new works. Where does this angle come from?

I've always been interested in juxtaposing beauty and melancholia in my work and it was important to me I continue in that vein whilst expanding my visual vocabulary. This new series of work is built on an interest in conceptual painting rather than on the aesthetic approach I've taken in years past. I was very inspired by thoughts of vastness. I uncovered a quote by Anna Freud that said, "We are imprisoned in the realm of life, like a sailor on his tiny boat, on an infinite ocean" and though I found this quote well after I began painting, it is the same illustrative metaphor that I had in my mind informing the direction of my work.

Been awhile since you've been up on the site. What have you been doing these last few years?

I became a full-time artist a few years ago which has been really important to the evolution of my work. I've been able to read and research more than I was able to while balancing a day job with time in the studio. Having the freedom to focus fully on my interests has allowed me to see more art, learn more about art, and generally focus all of my attention on art and philosophy and this has been very important to my work.

I welcomed a baby girl into the world a little more than a year ago and that has been a bigger joy in my life than I honestly expected it would be. I spend a lot of time with her.

Los Angeles has become an even more interesting place to be an artist in the last few years. Lots of galleries and artists here making the place interesting.

Interview with Matt Mignanelli

2012-07-11T23:12:26Z

Skimming the Internet looking for new artists and inspirations, I'm always looking for something that can not only catch my eye, but sustain my attention. I stumbled onto New York based artist Matt Mignanelli's website a few months ago and got stuck on it; his black, matte and monochromatic paintings having some sort of transmittable information for aesthetic and structural reasons. In researching his earlier work I saw an interesting transition and wondered how it happened. I sent him some questions and this is the result.

Interview by Rob Loane

Tell me about yourself, you surely aren't painting all the time, what do you do outside of your work? Hobbies, duties, family... Does your art take up more time than you want it to?

Outside of the studio I'm usually going to openings, looking at painting, and going to the bar. My second passion is cooking. It relates to painting for me, I love the hands-on creation, the control, the quick gratification it brings. I use it as my way to decompress; it really relaxes me. I come from a strong Italian-American background where food means family and great friends; I love that aspect of food bringing people together. My brother and brother-in-law both live in and around the East Village, and my wife and I try whenever possible to keep up the tradition of a Sunday dinner. I wouldn't say that my painting takes up more time than I want it to, but it does consume me. I have a very hard time shutting it off. I like to maintain a rigorous studio practice, it feels right to me.

These new black/matte/monochromatic color schemes and compositions seem to be more simplified in their elements. What was the transformative process that made you simplify, both to the grid and the figure ground relationships you are using? Why the decision to go black?

These current works developed out of a gradual process of working through and reexamining my earlier painting. At first I was creating small areas of monochrome, which then slowly developed into monochromatic backgrounds, and finally entire paintings. While I was working on larger scale works, I would always be making smaller works where I felt freer to take risks. These were always much more minimal, and almost magnifications of elements in my larger works. In a lot of ways those smaller works felt more satisfactory to me, which then led to me chasing that simplification. The grid paintings started as I began to concentrate on these smaller areas within the works and use the grid to create a confined space. The works that focus more on figure/ground relationships I arrived at by stripping away distraction from the paintings, I want these to be minimal environments that are still somewhat relatable to the viewer.

I arrived at black searching for purity in my painting. Black is so pure, it's unsettling, it represents the unknown.

I've always made bold paintings, and the black on black is bold yet there is so much subtlety, there is a balance. The black paintings are just as much if not more about the gloss/matte relationship as they are the blackness. As you move around these works they change with the light as it's reflected and absorbed into the surface, this level of engagement has really driven my continuation with this body of work.

Alexis Mackenzie & Michelle Blade

2012-06-12T23:00:51Z

Having been longtime fans of one another's work, Michelle Blade and I thought it would be interesting to talk about our ideas, inspirations and work processes as well as our concurrent solo exhibitions at KRETS, in Sweden and Carter & Citizen in Los Angeles. The conversation, passed back and forth between email over a week, took place as follows... -Alexis Mackenzie

Alexis Mackenzie

Michelle Blade

Blade: Okay, to get the ball rolling I think I should start with a basic, but crucial, question: I've always been curious, where do you find your gorgeous source material?

Mackenzie: It all comes from used books; here in SF I mostly buy them at Green Apple Books or Adobe Books ~ so sad they are having to close! I also have a friend who is a book reseller; he keeps an eye out for books for me, and has found me some really amazing things. Most of the books I use are topical; vintage books about botany, rocks & minerals, fashion, and anatomy mostly. Lately I've been looking more for photographic source material that includes objects, such as decorative art ~ vases, frames, furniture ~ things I can build interior scenes with.

Blade: It seems like part of your process is about balancing your intuitive response to found imagery while simultaneously preplanning abstract shapes and text. Can you describe how you move back and forth between the two? When do you know a collage is completed?

Alexis Mackenzie

Michelle Blade

Mackenzie: You're completely right; for my text-based collages, finding that balance mostly consists of having a letter-shape in mind, and searching for an image that resonates with me, which I can twist into the shape I need and melds with everything else around it. It is a long process of searching, cutting, arranging, rearranging, searching, cutting, and rearranging some more. Generally I stop when it feels like a completed scene. I don't glue anything down until this happens, because if I decide to add anything it may change the balance of everything else, thus necessitating changes. My process for the abstract line collages is the complete opposite; everything is unplanned. I'll chose an existing cut-out silhouette from the millions I have floating around in stacks, one that has a shape which is interesting and compliments the found image I'm working on in a dynamic way (or is compelling enough on its own, for working on blank paper), and I just start cutting & pasting, working with the existing shapes and trying to create something resonant. It is a much more freeform approach; I sometimes think of it as drawing, in a way.

Blade: You have some really interesting text in some of your pieces. What is your process for finding or writing these phrases? Is there a story behind "Look Alive", the title for your current solo show at KRETS?

Alexis Mackenzie