They are dancing, with birdlike heads, and one figure is prostrate before the others: its thought to be a sacrificial ritual. JC: In the digital version of Spring Dancers, Matisse and Denis combine together in the landscape and the figures are Paleolithic from the Addaura caves in Sicily. PW: Can you talk a little more about making these particular drawings? Jennifer Coates, Spring Dancers, 2020, digital composite I feel like the past is being mutated and warped into my own particular, awkward, manic present. This way the original sources become mine, part of the electricity of my body. I never paint directly from the collages, I have to put the images through their paces: an initial drawing, drawings based on other drawings, small paintings based on drawings, then large paintings based on small. As I start drawing from them, I make decisions along the way about what to include or exclude. Some of those digital editing tools in Photoshop are now present in my analog hand.įinishing the collages means that theyve achieved some kind of just comprehensible whole – where different eras and different approaches to representation flicker and mutually illuminate each other. I realize I have brought this color balance idea into my painting – Im always thinking how to increase saturation/brightness/contrast. I adjust the color balance to achieve these extreme chromatic relationships that the computer offers. Once Ive amassed a good index, I drop them in Photoshop on top of each other, a few at a time, in various combinations, creating layers and erasing away to reveal whats underneath. Early modernism, medieval bestiaries, ancient Egyptian relief sculpture – there is so much to look at. I look at how animals, humans, flowers and trees are depicted, how figures interact within a landscape, how figures are situated in relation to each other. I feel like Im on a hunt through art history: landscape painting, the nude in the landscape, specific animals and how they are represented in different cultures and time periods. That process starts with a big google image search. I try to approximate this experience with Photoshop. They are actually technically called Closed Eye Hallucinations. I close my eyes and scenes that are part geometry, part cartoon, part spatial appear and morph from one scene into another, it is a weird roller coaster ride. JC: I sometimes have these visual hallucinations when I am really tired but cant sleep. Photoshop often has dry connotations but you turned it into a dream machine of sorts. PW: The drawings were intense and committed and they felt like they were the product of fever dreams. I was in bed 24/7 but my body was acting as if I was exercising – it was so bizarre and unpleasant. It was a place to escape to and stopped me from thinking about being sick. I had my computer, some paper and pencils and just surrendered. I didnt want to think about where I was or how long Id be there or what I would do if it got worse. I just went slow and pretty much dissociated. Its something I had done before during a hospital stay: I already had a sickbed studio practice. I didnt have the attention span or focus to read or watch anything, but for whatever reason, it didnt take too much energy to make digital collages in Photoshop and then drawings from the collages. After a few days it became clear I was going to need to stay there for a while. As I got more and more exhausted and had trouble moving around without feeling breathless and sweaty, I retreated to the bed. I was monitoring my temperature constantly. Jennifer Coates: At first I was so scared. Paul Whiting: Please tell me how you had the energy to create this amazing series of drawings through what sounds like was a pretty bad case of Covid. We talked about her experience, where the ideas for the drawings came from, and her strategy for continuing to work while stuck in bed. If it were me, Im sure I would have been trying to sleep or maybe binge-watch something on Netflix, at best, but she drew in bed throughout her illness, creating a series of drawings that will be on view at 136 Eldridge Street in June. Jennifer Coates, Spring Dancers, 2020, pencil on paperĬontributed by Paul Whiting / Last April, I knew Jennifer Coates was sick with Covid when she started posting new drawings on social media.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |