Monique Atherton

Monique Atherton recieved her post-baccalaureate degree in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and is currently living in Brooklyn, NY and Washington State.

How do you decide what to photograph? How do you decide what not to photograph? What is your personal understanding of a ‘good’ photograph?

I used to photograph everything - I carried a camera at all times and went around shooting strangers at fairs, flowers, trees, sidewalks and stuff. As I matured in my process and found my voice I stopped carrying around the camera unless I was specifically working on a project. My projects for the past two years have involved exploring my relationship to specific places and the people in those places. When I make pictures, I look for two things, I look for images that will complement other images that make up a part of a larger series and I also look for moments that evoke a particular feeling - so it’s not the subject that is as important to me as finding the right elements to create a mood.

I try not to photograph the obvious, the one-liners, and photography that promotes the idea of the other. I try to draw from my own experiences to create a photographic world that can’t be experienced without me. I want to represent an undiscovered place where the secret languages and the tensions that exist on a subconscious level are revealed.

For me, a good photograph makes you stop and look, it makes you question and it stays with you. Getting all three of these things in one image is super challenging.

Can you talk about motion blurs? What effect do they have on a photograph? On the senses?

Ooooh! I love motion blurs. Years ago, when I first began making pictures, I saw the work of Nikola Tamindzic, who at the time, was making these amazing nightlife photographs of the NYC party scene. He combined a slow shutter with a flash which added another dimension to his work. Those images had a big impact on me and I’ve since incorporated the technique into my own practice. Since photographs are just fractions of seconds I use blurs to add a little extra time to the image. I also feel like motion blurs help to create a dreamlike and/or intoxicated feeling to the viewer - there is something very fun about that to me. To be able to feel intoxicated just by looking at something.

How far removed from daily life is your photography? A lot, not at all…?

A lot. My photography portrays a daily life that I wish I had but don’t.

Do you feel stifled by the limits of photography?

Yes, but as with all relationships, there are ups and downs. My relationship with photography is quite tense at times but I’m constantly working on ways to ‘spice things up’ and to push myself to capture scenes that are less likely to happen in everyday life. For the first part of this year, I was feeling particularly stifled. At this time, I was also an artist-in-residence at the Wassaic Project in upstate New York and I think something happened up there that was super inspiring and helped me work around some of these limits. I made a conscious effort to move away from the usual documentary approach and I began staging photographs using mostly inanimate objects or people that acted as inanimate objects. I would create specific scenes or sculptures and incorporate that into my narratives. Photography is a very stifling medium but I think that’s part of the pleasure of it - the challenge to push yourself to work harder and create better images.

How much of the content of your work is random? If none or very little, why does it feel random?

The work is not random at all. Each of the different series I have presents my version of incidents in specific places with people that I am very close with. Going back to my first answer, the photographs appear random because I’m looking for more of a feeling rather that a common subject matter. Also, I’m documenting the various microcosms that I exist in and those are all very different from each other. For example, in my series ‘Holding Pattern’ I had this corporate job where I documented the relationship I had with one of my co-workers. She and I were completely in sync on a professional and personal level and we both did not quite fit into the corporate mold.  During this same period, I was travelling to Tacoma on a regular basis to see my partner where I worked on making pictures about that relationship in that space. So, while my pictures can seem random, the images and the series that I work in have a unifying thread - me and my relationship to the people and places in the images.

Are the people you photograph still themselves in your photographs? What do their bodies take on for you?

Definitely, when I am shooting, the people are themselves. However, after my intense editing process (I will probably take around 4,000 photographs for one project and then I lock myself in my room for days/weeks/months and edit down sometimes reshooting if needed) the people begin to become more abstract to me. I guess that’s because rather than trying to tell a story about a specific person, I’m trying to make it more relatable and so I tend to choose photographs that are not necessarily representational of the people I photographed but more of a stand in for a particular emotion or feeling. In my most recent body of work, “The Excitement of Something New” I avoided faces altogether. To me, obscuring the faces makes the work relatable to a wider audience. I want the viewer to not be distracted by the particulars of a person and for them to be able to insert their own experiences into the photograph.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

What do you love about being a photographer?

I love pressing buttons. Physical buttons. Elevator and camera buttons to be specific. In regard to the camera, I love the sound the shutter makes. I notice how the sound a shutter makes differs among cameras. If I could sit around and push buttons all day I would.

http://www.mybestfriendmonique.com

2:56 pm  •  16 June 2013  •  8 notes

Bryson Rand

Bryson Rand is a photographer who received his BFA from University of Colorado in Boulder and will begin pursuing his MFA at Yale this year.  

Describe the event in your life that left the biggest impression on your art making practice?

That is a hard question to answer and I don’t know that I can pin it down to one thing. I use photography to investigate and react to my place in the world, therefore what is impacting my work is always shifting. When I look back at older pictures I can see the connection between what was happening in my life at the time and the pictures I was making. But that connection isn’t always apparent while I am making the work, which can be a source of frustration at the time.I’ll find myself unsure of why I made one picture or another, and it is not until I have had some distance from the work that it starts to make more sense. I used to fight this and my work ended up becoming one dimensional as I tried to make it about a specific thing or idea. Lately I’ve given in to the ambiguity of this process andit has allowed me to open up the scope of my photographs.

There are a few events that have changed the course of my life, and in turn lead to shifts in my approach to making photographs. Seeing The Americans for the first time as a teenager, coming out to my parents, and the death of my grandfather are events that continue to inform the images regardless of whatever else is going on in my life at the time.

My primary motivations for taking pictures are to gain a better understanding of my interactions with other people and places, and to do so in a visually compelling way. Regardless of what I am photographing, I am always aware of the potential beauty of the subject. I think it is important that the work is first and foremost pleasing to look at, and that the meaning(s) of each image will emerge as you spend time with them. If the concept or idea behind a photograph is strong but there isn’t that visual hook, I consider it a failure. So, I think if you took everything else away from the work you’d be left with a visually seductive description of the interactions that take place between myself and my surroundings.  

How do your photographs without people reinforce the photographs of people and vice versa?

I try to edit my photos in a way that the pictures communicate with one another and begin to create a photographic world. The images without people serve to establish a setting, but also to build a mood or atmosphere that runs throughout a group of pictures. Photographs of places can possess a psychological weight that is equal to those that are inhabited by people, and I try to keep that in mind as I’m shooting and editing. Since I don’t want the work to be about an actual, specific place, the ‘landscapes‘ function on a symbolic level, giving insight into the emotional state of the people in my photographs. In the same way, there are visual cues in the images of people that change and add to the meaning of the pictures of places. Sequencing the images plays an important role in how the images inform one another, and I am always surprised and confounded by how much the meaning of a picture can change depending on what comes before and after it in a sequence. As much as I hope that the pictures can stand on their own, I think the work has more impact when seen in a group.        

Has your work ever revealed something to you that you didn’t know about yourself?

All the time. One of the ways I judge whether or not an image is successful is if I feel surprised by it. If I am startled and excited by the images, then hopefully other people will be as well. The uncertainty in a photo is what keeps me engaged as I try to figure out what i’m looking at and what it’s meaning is. 

About a year ago, I went to Colorado for my grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary and had the opportunity to photograph my family, which is something I had not really done before. I went in with no expectations of producing any real work and the results were kind of a shock. The photos revealed and articulated a lot of the turmoil that exists between the expectations my family and I have for each other and the reality of our lives. Coming from a conservative, military background has made me question my role as an artist and gay man for most of my adult life, and has been a source of turmoil for me and my family. I thought I had dealt with a lot of these issues and moved past it, but when I saw those images I realized I still felt a lot of inner conflict about my identity and how my family and I view and understand one another. While I have not had the chance to photograph my family again, those few pictures have served as a jumping off point to take my work in a new, more complexdirection, and has challenged me to figure out how to make work about these issues without directly showing my family. 

It’s funny you should ask about eyes because I have a tendency to obscure or hide people’s faces in my photographs. Eyes can reveal a lot about a person’s inner state, but they are also quite mysterious, and can be deceptive. Frequently the people in my pictures are gazing at something/someone that is outside the frame, lending an air of mystery to the image and allowing the work to remain open to interpretation. 

Part of the reason I often hide my subjects’ eyes is because I’m interested in the ways gesture and posture can reveal something about the subject. Hands play an increasingly important role in establishing tension in my photos, and I want to see how far I can push the idea of communicating primarily with gesture.  

Lines in the work function in a similar way that gestures do. While they direct or reveal something about the image, they also work to make the pictures more layered and therefore require more time to understand. To me a successful photograph is one that leaves you asking more questions than it answers, while still being engaging enough for you to want to spend time trying to figure it out. Also, by obscuring parts of the picture the viewer is forced to place himself within the frame to try and see around the obstruction, and engage with the image in a more physical way. 

What Simpsons character are you?

Ms. Krabappel. But you can call me Edna. 

www.brysonrand.com

4:55 pm  •  2 June 2013  •  12 notes

1:31 pm  •  19 May 2013  •  15 notes

Wendy Given

Wendy Given is an artist living and working in Portland, Oregon. 

Are your pictures closer to documents or myths? 

My pictures are a type of becoming—past and future combined, both chronicle and tradition. What has happened and what can be. Photography is quite mythical, and always has been so. All picture production has potential to be perfidious and misleading. I do not produce pictures to communicate a specific thread of verity or to try to trick the viewer. I construct images to shift and open thoughts, to alter and propagate potential belief.

Do you believe in the iconography that your photographs represent and deal with?

I do have a cat, yet, my cat is not black.

Are you exploring your relationship to nature or mankind’s relationship to nature?

Nature, in my work, is a foundation of power, irrefutable and mystifying, both intelligible and arcane. I think animals, rocks, and plants hold keys to the known, the unknown and the essential. They are the true ancients and hold innate unspoken cues—cues that inform the way I believe that art can ultimately function effectively. It is a yearning to tap into awareness, an unspoken understanding that we are all and always will be (as humans) a very important part of nature. A call to be cognizant, to be present.

Your photographs are based in stories, folklore and mythology, can you talk about how they are translated into reality? Are they real to you?

Folklore and mythology translate through the lens of my images via constructed visual abstraction—truth with a honed bend. Reality is changeable, malleable—the eternal morph. The only reality I can possibly know is time and gravity. All else is ebb and flow, wonder and dark matter.  

What experience do you want the viewer to have with your work?

I want the work to occupy a place or feeling of familiarity with the viewer, it can be unsettling and at the same time comforting, a humorous position and intense recognition or premonition.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

What is of relevance in this life, this place I exist?

It is vital for me to remember to look up and to listen carefully to the natural sounds enveloping me, acknowledge all the sentient souls, what is familiar—familial. I will follow the animal tracks. 

I am trying to pinpoint what scares me most when I am alone in the woods or swimming by myself in the ocean. This is relevant to me, this can and should be my reality.

www.wendygiven.com

8:05 pm  •  5 May 2013  •  11 notes

11:52 am  •  21 April 2013  •  13 notes

Gregg Evans

Gregg Evans is an artist based in Chicago who is currently working towards his MFA in photography from Columbia College.

Your series title “We Only See the Sky as It Was” casts an objective field over the perception of the work.  Do you see your models in a subjective or objective manner?  How do you think the audience perceives them?

It’s weird, as I’ve been making the work within this series, my relationship to my models has evolved pretty dramatically.  Initially, the men I was photographing were essentially cast to play the role of my ex, so my relationship to them as the photographer was very much subjective.  Many of the men I photograph come from the internet, and are people I meet on gay cruising sites or through online dating sites.  I was less interested in creating a portrait of the person in front of the camera, and more interested in the sense that, by recreating memories and snapshots of my past relationships I was creating a new relationship to my own past.  I approached the portraits within the project as if I were actually photographing someone who wasn’t physically present, but somehow lingered in the background of the image.  Within the first stages of the work, I would try to strip my subjects of their own identity, making them wear my ex’s clothing, or simply asking them to wear nondescript clothing to reinforce the idea that they were functioning almost anonymously.  

As the project moved away from my own memories, I found myself becoming more and more interested in the awkward interactions that are often a part of meeting a stranger for the first time off the internet.  The sensations of tension and expectation that come along with meeting someone in person for the first time became increasingly important.   I began to think a lot more about cruising, and how the dynamics of cruising sites related to portraiture.  For me, this started to complicate the interactions - I wasn’t interested in my subjects as actors any longer, which in some ways makes the photographs more objective as they become more about the interaction between myself and the person in front of the camera.  At the same time though, the images aren’t about making a document of that person, and are highly directed.  I often interrupt the objective veneer of an image by inserting myself into the photograph either physically, or through titling, drawing into question the nature of my interaction with my subjects.  In essence, the images are of both my subjects and myself, even when I am not in the frame.  So to bring my long winded rambling to a close, highly subjective subjective, all the way.

What does sexuality have to do with being an artist?

I’m not sure I really know how to answer this question, but here goes… Sexuality is an inseparable part of who I am, so it ‘s sort of infused in every aspect of my identity, art included.  It’s hard to separate.  Even when I’m not making work that directly relates to identity or desire, I always view the world through the lens of queer culture.  And to be honest, I think we all do that - queer and heteronormative alike, we all filter the world through our own identities.  I mean, what does eating and breathing have to do with being an artist?  Absolutely nothing and absolutely everything.

What do you think your subjects gain from the experience of being photographed that an audience cannot?  Who has the more important experience?

There’s sort of an odd back and forth that goes on between my subjects and I - on one level, it’s not really their experience I’m after, but ours.  I’m just as much a part of the image as they are, even though I’m behind the camera.  On the other hand, I can’t control their reactions, so in some way some of the potency of an image does rest on their shoulders.  Inherently there is an interaction present at the time of making a picture that is only experienced by my subjects and I the breeze against their skin, the conversation we’re having, perhaps the possibility of someone stumbling onto us while I’m photographing.  Sometimes there might even be a hope that something romantic or physical might come out of the photographs on the part of my models and sometimes even myself.  That’s not really the point, though I do think it adds an interesting tension to the work and to our interactions.  For me, that’s something that will never be in the photograph, our actual physical interactions, even if they imbue the images with tension.  

As for what my subjects gain from the experience, I’ve always been interested in the idea that I’m allowing these people to look back, to confront the viewer and the public with their own expression of desire.  Traditionally, cruising has been seen as something that one should be ashamed of, and by having my subjects approach the camera with a confrontational gaze, I’m asking the viewer to participate in this interplay between the viewer/photographer catching someone in the act of something explicit, and the subject wanting to be caught, or wanting to engage.  We’re all in this together, experiencing something in different ways.

What do you personally confront when taking pictures?

That has changed alot over time.  Initially the work was alot about confronting my own relationship to a traumatic breakup, and trying to own and confront feelings of loss head on.  As the project has gone on, I think I’ve been attempting to confront my own relationship to these kinds of clean, anesthetized images of gay culture that we commonly see in the mainstream media, while providing a more complicated depiction of desire.  On another level, I’m confronting my own relationship to the power dynamics of portraiture within the murky waters of online desire.

Can you talk about the intimacy of a photograph?

Photographing has always been an intimate experience for me, whether in terms of portraiture, or photographing the intimate details of my own identity through mundane objects.  I think even when I first started becoming interested in photography I was initially attracted to photographers who worked with intimate subject matter - Larry Sultan’s Pictures From Home, for example, was the first photography book I remember really being overwhelmed and engulfed by.  There was an intimacy in that work both in the spaces and people he was photographing, and in the way he approached the work itself.  I remember borrowing that book from the Purchase College library and pouring over it one spring break, completely floored by the way the work was equally about the intimate details of his parents lives as they transitioned into retirement, and his own uneasiness with the process of watching them age.  The work was just as much about him as it was about them, and you can really feel his hand and presence in those images.  That sense of intimacy, the feeling that the photographs are a contract between the photographer and subject to knowingly engage in a private interaction for public display, is something I have always been interested in and have strived towards within my own work.

Is your work produced by a sexual drive?

Yes and no.  Sexuality, cruising, and desire definitely play strong roles within my work, so I can’t fully say no to that.  But to be honest, I’m more interested in the examination of the awkward dynamics of those ideas than in the fantasy of them.  I’m not looking to get laid by way of my camera (though for the sake of full disclosure, I have dated a few people after photographing them), and I have no desire to follow in the footsteps of Terry Richardson, et al.  In a way, I’m more interested in creating images full of tension and awkwardness.  At the end of the day, I’m more looking to create images that operate with a duality of meaning than I am in making sexy and attractive photographs of my subjects.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

Q:  What’s the best embarrassing photograph you’ve found of yourself while searching through your parent’s attic?

A:  I found one of me and two friends of mine that was taken at my parents “summer house” in New Hampshire (which was essentially a shack) the summer I was in the fourth grade.  I was wearing a neon pink hypercolor t-shirt, black and neon pink bike shorts, and matching neon pink LA Gear hi-tops.  I’m sitting on the steps of the house, which are literally broken in half,  and smirking at the camera while striking a “broken doll” pose that I clearly got from one of my mom’s fashion magazines.  I was fabulous.

www.greggevans.net

10:48 pm  •  7 April 2013  •  28 notes

11:59 pm  •  4 April 2013  •  2 notes

10:46 pm  •  1 April 2013  •  2 notes

10:44 pm  •  1 April 2013  •  1 note

10:41 pm  •  1 April 2013  •  1 note

10:35 pm  •  1 April 2013

Paolo Morales

Paolo Morales received his BFA from the Art Institute of Boston in 2012 and is currently living in New York.

What can be communicated in a gesture- can you talk about the unreliability of it?

Gestures are unreliable in pictures because they are frozen facts in a frame. A gesture performed is generally more reliable because it is a movement and those movements have prescribed meaning. Take for example waving at someone. The movement can mean hello or an attempt to get another’s attention. In photographs, the meaning of a gesture and its impetus is never clear.

Why do you think an act of comfort can be perceived as torture in some of your photographs? Is there a thin line between the two?

I am interested in the ways acts of comfort can look like distress. I don’t think the things happening in the pictures resemble what I imagine actual torture to be. If there is a line then it’s purely photographic. Comfort and torture are opposites, but in a picture, can look similar.

Your photographs transform the body into lines and forms, directing you through the photograph, what is it you want the viewer to notice?

I like pictures where there are multiple things happening simultaneously. I don’t have a straight answer to what I want all viewers to see, but my recent preoccupation has been how people help and support others and themselves. Ultimately, I am interested in having a viewer ask questions of my pictures rather than seeing an answer.

How are the connections between people and people different from the connections between people and photographs?

Connections between others require at least two people. Connections between people and photographs require just one. I connect with others because of something shared and connect with photographs because I like the way it looks. The difference, in my case at least, is people and people are connected emotionally and people and photographs are connected visually.

If everyone in your pictures is moving or reacting, then what does that say about your role?

I like to think of my role as both an observer and instigator. I make photographs in two types of situations. The first are situations performed explicitly for the purpose of making a picture. The second are impositions on already existing situations. When photographing, I literally watch something happen. Other times, I have people react to my direction or presence in a particular scenario.

What is something that you wish you could communicate that you cant with pictures?

Love. I’ve seen multiple iterations of what love might look like, but I’ve never seen what love feels like. And that is of course impossible because feelings cannot be seen.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

Can you sum up your pictures in a sentence?

My pictures describe an inability to articulate the meaning of intimacy and relationships.

http://www.paolomorales.com

2:16 am  •  30 March 2013  •  28 notes

vesselandpage:

Sticklip: Everything Must Burn!!

Friday 03.29.2013 
7—10pm

Girl Don’t Be Dumb presents:

David Alekhuogie
Zak Arctander
Caitlin Arnold
Billy Buck
April Childers
Thomson Dryjanski
Jackie Furtado
Cole Don Kelley
Casey McGonagle
Eileen Mueller
Lauren Payne
Dan Paz
Learning Ross
Jamie Steele
Nicole White

(via gurldontbedumb)

2:10 am  •  30 March 2013  •  17 notes

Jessica Dean Camp

Jessica Dean Camp received her BFA in Photography from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently living and working in Dallas, Texas.

Do you think your artwork pleases God?

How should I know? When I mention God in the context of my work I’m thinking more in terms of the idea of fate. I think about fate a lot, and I believe in it a lot. Life is a thing that shifts, and changes- one move in this direction could alter the entirety of a life or only a minute- you can wake up in the morning and never guess what would happen that afternoon. Destiny can take on many different forms, epithet and names- but I think the best one for me will always be ‘God’.

Who has to see or feel your work in order for it to exist?

For me to be able to feel that my work exists or know it exists, I think it would be just me who sees and feels it. But for art to exist in general I’m not sure any one would have to. Some art exists way out side of the art world realm with out the concern of needing someone to view it. Art can be an experience, a feeling, an empty look, someone’s accent, a crooked tooth, the way rotting flowers smell, anything really- and I don’t have to be there to experience it.

Have you done a good job expressing what it is to be alive?

I don’t think I can definitively say whether I am doing a ‘good’ job, but it is what I am trying to do. 

The word ‘alive’ seems so positive when looking at it, so unlike the reality of living. I think I explore the physical, emotional, and spiritual devastation wrought by life, but also the resiliency of individuals. I’ve been photographing a lot of tree branches, roots, power lines, and wires recently, I like how they intersect, forming knots and tangles- back and forth, back and forth. I think they speak to my understanding of a life span but I believe they also take on the brittleness and singular strength of humanity.

 Your artwork is an act of desperation. For the sake of this interview you cannot refute this. Discuss your desperation.

I don’t think I’d ever refuse the word ‘desperation’ in association with my work, I think it’s a fantastic word. When I think about the desperation in my work it is probably the same desperation I have in life, they are intimately linked. I will always believe that the main reason I photograph is routed in a desire to contemplate the meaning in my own existence, understanding the impossibility of this and the necessity of it. My personal desperation is a constant search for a purpose in life, some sort of proof that this life is necessary- the desperation in my work is that I keep finding how fragile and unnecessary we all are.  

The burst blood vessel in my mom’s eye at the Whataburger drive-thru is something that grapples with this thought. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen my mom’s blood, but here I can see exactly what it looks. When I look into her eye I know what color it is, I know the exact shade of red her blood is- it’s the same red as her shirt. In this moment I understand that my mom is no more than the meat floating in the background, but maybe photographing this moment could make it more than what it left me with.

 Who does your work give mystical power to? You or the viewer? What does this have to do with being a good or bad person?

If my work does give mystical power it probably would give it to me. I think that is how photography operates. I sometimes worry when a photograph does not match the reality of the experience, if an image is more dramatic than what actually happened. But that’s sort of the beauty of the medium- its capability of capturing this life (and universe) as we know it while still allowing the emotions and feelings of the photographer to seep through. It’s more than just creating, it’s perceiving.

As for the second question, I don’t know what it has to do with being a good or a bad person…but I hope I am a good person.

 Name one thing you believe can never die.

Hope, probably. It’s hope that always relieves the uncomfortably of life. When all else is lost, and it looks like there is no purpose, no reason, nothing guiding anyone to a greater destiny- it’s hope that keeps us all here.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

Do you think its fair to say that your work is about life, to be so general?

I don’t think its fair but it’s accurate. I want to push the limits of ordinary conclusions, to understand the significance of the world and the visceral nature of human existence. But naturally this work is lead by me, which in my mind allows for diverging narratives and specific contemplations outside of the overarching theme of ‘life’.

www.jessicadeancamp.com

2:46 pm  •  10 March 2013  •  12 notes

Cole Don Kelley

Cole Don Kelley received his BFA in photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently living and working in Paris, Texas.

Can you identify the negative and positive in your work- photographically and emotionally? 

The flash in my pictures creates a distinct negative and positive.  There is what is in front of me, and there is the black. Its kinda like in the Blair Witch Project where they are in the same patch of woods throughout the entire movie, armed with only a flashlight and a camera, and yet somehow as the movie progresses they get only more and more lost and despairing, as if tugged into a whirlpool where you spiral for a long time, and at the end is only the end.  The positive space is like a beginning, and the negative space is like an ending, and my work confronts the dead purgatory directly in between.

How much personal sacrifice goes into your photographs?

In the making of them, not very much.  I am a lazy photographer, I prefer to carry my camera around and photograph my life rather naturally, so taking pictures is usually more of a momentary surge.  I rarely go out of my way to do anything when it comes to making work.  However, I believe that when it comes to my emotional life I may be something of a masochist, as I have a practice of withdrawing powerful emotions inside myself that I refuse to make known to the people that they are directed towards.  I am so forcefully afraid of myself that I refuse to make myself vulnerable to anyone.  In light of this, I happen to be a greatly unsatisfied human being.  As bizarre as this assertion is, I truly believe that any great personal sacrifice (selfish or otherwise) I make in my personal life is nothing but strong energy that gets sublimated into pictures.

Do you love your viewers? Does your work show it?

Not long ago I believed that you should be making work for yourself, and not give much of a care about reaching an audience.  However, I have always had that problem of attempting to bring strong morals into the act of making work, which basically means ‘how can I be a good person when it comes to making art?’.  I’m still unsure if being a good person correlates with being a good artist, but something I do believe is that making work without an audience is more of a selfish act than I thought it was. If the artists’ goal is to reveal truths, then to reveal them only to yourself is morally reprehensible.  I know that I believe that the world without Agnes Martin, Atget, or Mark Rothko etc is a sadder place, and for them not to have been known would have been unkind.  As far as my viewers go, I don’t really have many, but I hope that somewhere down the line I help someone understand something they didn’t understand before.

Can you talk about the temporality of the actions that create your photographs versus the permanence of the information in the photographs?

What information?  I don’t believe pictures have much concrete information; pictures are not a slice of time from real life like we are sometimes led to believe. I also have a hard time believing in permanence.  One day the Earth will burn and there will be nothing left at all, not even a shell.  The sun will take the Mona Lisa with it.

What scares you the most, how is this represented in your work? 

When I was a kid I cried all time because I was afraid of going to Hell.  I think about how something after dying may be filled with unimaginable amounts of sadness and pain, and I get scared.  I think about how things in this life can be filled with enormous amounts of sadness and pain, and I get excited.  Things in this life are represented as physical entities, and my pictures show physical representations of overwhelming emotions.  Things in the next life are represented by spiritual entities, and I don’t think that that is much different from the cosmic ooze of the brain, and that is what these physical things must be filtered through to become pictures.  I suppose I am trying to say that I am afraid of dying and that is what my work is about.  Even though I can’t say so yet, I believe that my work can only be made while I am young.  When you are young everything is the end of the world.  My work is a teenager.

How much empathy do you have for others? How much of your feelings are for yourself? 

You are asking me whether or not I think I am a good person, and I can’t answer that for myself.  All feelings ever felt, all actions ever done are in service of yourself.  It is the feelings and actions that also happen to simultaneously service someone else that are the most beautiful.  I think that sacrificing to do good for someone else is the most beautiful thing in the world.  And I think that making art can work like that.

Ask yourself a question and respond.

What was the last thing that made me cry?  Goodnight Moon

www.coledonkelley.com

10:45 am  •  10 March 2013  •  25 notes