Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first enter your life?
I was born in a traditional extended family in Taichung, Taiwan, now based in London. In order to shape my early outlook, my mom enrolled me in calligraphy and ink painting classes when I was young.

Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?
I began with more of a focus on figuration, and then between 2019-2021 there was a clear process of transformation in my work. I think that currently, my abstract brushstrokes come from the organic texture with which I depicted every character in my previous, surrealistic paintings.

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
I’m usually in the studio from 11am – 8pm, sometimes when I get to the studio, l’ll stare at the part I finished the previous day for a while then start painting, and maintain a process of repeatedly thinking about various possibilities throughout the day, but sometimes l’lI just pick up the brush immediately and continue to create complex structures or color mixtures directly on the canvas.

What’s next for you?
I will have paintings in a group show at Tara Downs which will open on March 21, followed by a solo presentation at Independent New York in May.

From where do you draw inspiration?
Starting in 2019 and continuing to the present moment, my main inspiration comes from my imagination and connecting my childhood experiences to literature, especially The Dream of the Red Mansion, I found that I’m not only attracted to the concept of conflict or the rhetoric full of images and metaphors, but also fascinated by watching this dramatic, ever-changing process that combines refinement, ugliness, temperance and vulgarity. It affects my pursuit of morphing images and brushstrokes in my painting, I want to bring this kind of fluid transformation into my work, to create a complete cycle of viewing from the colorful surface of my works, to their core of restlessness, to a kind of harmonious coexistence.

Have you always painted in the style your work currently inhabits?
I think when I did the surrealistic ink or oil paintings before, I put more focus on narratives and creating an atmosphere. In those works, I always used more classical or somber colors, and used the Gongbi technique from ink painting to depict  details of hair or the effect of rendering. During this kind of meticulous process where few accidents occurred, I found that I started trying to shift some of the orbital that were originally expected. And this displacement gradually shaped an abstract viewing perspective in my current work. Now my process of painting entails creating  many countless oppositions until an image is formed that is interesting and delicate to me.

What source material do you base your work off of?
I like to follow the feelings, or a passage of words, verses and idioms, just read from a book that is full of imagery for me.

Does your work reference any Art Historical movements?
My brushstrokes and some working habits I have are influenced by my traditional ink painting training and studying art history, however I rarely refer to specific art historical movements during the painting process, more thinking about painting itself, I’m obsessed with every decision and establishing an inward trajectory.

What is your process like? How do you begin a work?
I usually pile up the paint or Gesso at the edge of the canvas layer by layer at the beginning, or by using pencil to add some thin lines to depict a rough figure or scenery. For me, the base of the work allows me to think about how I should build multi-events and multi-spaces in images step by step, with a line of escape or rupture — or creating spatial contrast between tiny brushstrokes that keep changing like a kaleidoscope and the sharp, large strokes/ scratches with a sense of speed. At this moment when all “events” are booming at the same time, I begin to enjoy the process of making various decisions. Sometimes I need to destroy the unsatisfactory parts and create  new perspectives, sometimes I just need to follow my previous actions and things will fall into place, so images in the work are also revealed in this process of self-dialogue.

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?
Tom Waring, it was very fascinating when he once shared with me his mixing and research of paints.

The post The Abstract and Fluid Process of Tsai Yun-Ju’s Work Compels Viewers appeared first on Art of Choice.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first enter your life?
I was born and raised in Guangzhou, China and currently base in London, I have just finished my MA at RCA in 2022. My father painted, I would say in my memory he was the first person who inspired me to paint, but I didn’t see drawings and paintings as ‘art’ when I was a kid. I think maybe the first ‘art moment’ for me was when I first watched an Antoni Gaudí documentary on TV, I was blown away by the energy of his works.

Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?
The style changes as my observation method changes. I used to be very greedy in the way I observed, so my painting style seems like an unorganized images collection. Lately I become more specific about things, the way I create is more like completing a jigsaw puzzle.

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
I preferred working in the evening so that I normally get to the studio around 1pm, and then start working until 10 to 11pm in evening.

What’s next for you?
At the moment I’m preparing for a show in the project space at GDMOA in Guangzhou China. Then back to London we are planning a project with Zabludowicz Collection in September and I will do a show with Galerie Maria Bernheim end of this year.

From where do you draw inspiration?
Inspiration always comes from ancient Asian mythologies, historical events, today’s news and manga. History is a circle that goes round and round, my practice focuses on analyzing events with similar structure in human history, by constructing one impossible scenario after another, I try to outline the reality under the layer of the world of spectacle.

Have you always painted in the style your work currently inhabits?
My practice has been developing all the time. In order to avoid the directivity brought by the figure, I used to avoided placing the characters in the printings, and carefully depicted the daily objects related to me and the empty scenery around me. This loneliness of storytelling is dispelled now, so I will no longer escape from the presence of figures.

What source material do you base your work off of?
I rely on my feelings and memories, and the relationship between personal experience and history, conflict in intimate relationships.

Does your work reference any Art Historical movements?
I don’t know if it counts, but I think I’m more influenced by the art of the Silk Road period. The exchange and integration of different cultures produced many interesting costumes, patterns and adornments. I like to study them and then invent something different, these new inventions sometimes look funny and you can try to find them in the paintings.

What is your process like? How do you begin a work?
Most of the thoughts come from my reflections on nowadays conflict within the global context, usually a complex set of negative emotions, shock or fear at some events that are happening, and then I start to draw sketches after I have these basic emotions. I usually can’t plan them very accurately or use Photoshop to do anything beforehand, because the fun part of the game is to create as many mistakes as possible in the process, and eventually I will make it seems like a misbehaving child: I try to whitewash all mistakes to make them seem natural, so that no one can point them out.

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?
I would recommend Faust Luo, he is a close friend of mine and one of my favorite photographers.

The post The Characters in Ding Shilun’s Works are Regarded as Impossible Miracles appeared first on Art of Choice.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first
enter your life?
I was born in Taipei, Taiwan and had lived there for more than twenty years before I came to study in London. As many other painters would say, I’ve been drawing a lot since I was a little kid. But the earliest memory about art that I can recall is that there was a teacher when I was in kindergarten who did fascinating drawings of princess with markers. She drew princess in different hairstyles and dresses for us everyday, which seems very creative when I am looking back now.

Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?
I’ve gone through quite a few stages in my practice in the past few years. Though my work looks pretty abstract now, I was doing something more figurative before. And I think the change happened because instead of finding something I want to say through painting, my practice focuses more on the things I can do with it. I am always looking for new ways to work within my paintings.

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
I am quite an early bird and I prefer to work during daytime. Though I am going to studio a bit late recently, I usually arrive around 9-10am, and my day in studio starts with looking at my paintings while having breakfast. As soon as I start to work, it will be in a paintinglooking loop— adding something to the painting, looking at it and thinking of it, and then adding again until I feel it is done. Since I use oil paint and it takes time to dry, I work on multiple paintings at the same time. So sometimes when I doesn’t feel right to paint, I’ll just be looking at and moving them around in the studio.

What’s next for you?
At the moment I am mainly working toward a group show in Beijing in spring, and the RCA degree show in London this summer. And I will be in an artfair and have a small group show in Taiwan this year as well.

From where do you draw inspiration?
My inspiration comes from everyday life. It used to be daily objects I saw, and now it is more the feelings I get from my surroundings. Like the feeling of a space, the wind and rain…I shifted from the visible to the invisible.

Have you always painted in the style your work currently inhabits?
I always tend to paint with thin paint; however, it used to be very wet and now it is getting drier. In terms of colors, there was a period of time when they were more vivid, but most of the time my color palette has been quite soft and subtle.

What source material do you base your work off of?
My paintings are mostly based on myself, my memories, imaginations, feelings, and subconscious…Recently I am more aware of the music or sound I listen to while painting, as it gives me different kind of energy or vibe and effects the ambience of my work.

Does your work reference any Art Historical movements?
Not really, or not intentional I would say.

What is your process like? How do you begin a work?
I used to paint from the photos I took from my daily life. I would print out the photos and make drawings on tracing paper, and then put them on graph paper to decide the composition of the paintings. I drew grids on my canvas to transfer my drawings. I am very bad at using projectors so everything was very handmade. However, in my recent works, I’m trying to free myself from some restrictions I used to have. I stop making precise plans for my paintings. The size of the canvas I am working on now is 160x160cm, which is about my height. I go straight onto it, and the only thing in my mind while painting is to fill up the surface.

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?
James Prapaithong, who is a very good friend and has been my art mentor since I came back to London.

The post Nai-Jen Yang Evokes a Sense of Magic and Serenity appeared first on Art of Choice.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first enter your life?
I was born in France, in Limoges. I grew up in a small village in the Massif Central, then in Loire-Atlantique. As a child, I was fascinated by the anatomical illustrations that my father, a doctor, displayed in his office and on the walls of the house. Very early on, I used my mother’s make-up products for my drawings. My practice has developed from this: to understand the anatomy with rigor and to transcribe the nuances of being through materials and colors.

Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?
In my teen years, painting naturally became my medium of choice. Since then, my style has developed a lot, of course. I experimented both on the narration and the technique. Figuration has nevertheless always been at the heart of my practice, with a particular taste for portraiture.

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
I get up very early and, as my studio is linked to my apartment, I am with my paintings as soon as I wake up. I observe them in the dark, until the sun rises and floods the studio. I then absorb myself in painting, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for the whole day.

What’s next for you?
There are fairs and group exhibitions to come, including one in a French institution, and a solo in 2024, but, in general, I do not project myself. I focus on painting, day to day, and I trust the exhibitors to find the right context for my works.

From where do you draw inspiration?
From two distinct horizons that often come together in my paintings: my friends on one hand, my artistic references on the other. Most of my work weaves a link between people I love and pre-existing works that inspire me, or the reverse. It is a very intimate process.

Have you always painted in the style your work currently inhabits?
It is an evolving process, a permanent search. I allow myself to experiment, to make mistakes, but when I don’t find myself in a gesture, in a form, I don’t hesitate to start all over again. Although each painting is approached differently, I believe that all of my paintings are linked by a common gaze, a mixture of precision and vagueness. I explore a wide variety of subjects (still lifes, nudes and portraits of artist friends, scenes inspired by my diurnal or nocturnal wanderings) seeking to establish a silent dialogue between them so that they form a fuzzy, mobile community.

What source material do you base your work off of?
As a portrait painter, I work with models, who are usually friends, often artists themselves, almost always queer. I don’t have them pose live and I don’t reproduce a photo either. The figuration is born from a permanent dialogue between the being and the image. I work from my memory, from my memory of them, which allows me to convey a more sincere emotion and even, on an anatomical level, to play with proportions to find the right balance in the painting.

Does your work reference any Art Historical movements?
I am constantly nourished by the history of art. Some references are more readable than others, but my interest is always to establish a dialogue between the different levels and the different periods of representation. I try to situate my subjects at the interstice of pictorial canons, contemporary social developments and my intimate journeys.

What is your process like? How do you begin a work?
The process is primarily cerebral. I think a lot about a painting before starting it, less in terms of composition than intention, accuracy. I always start from the idea. I never do preparatory sketches. I like to feel free in front of my canvas, detached from any other visual, which would seem to me instantly parasitic. I prefer pristine white walls and a blank canvas to bring my paintings to life.

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?
Paul P. and Scott Treleaven. I met the couple a long time ago. Both of them already had a very strong personal practice. Their respective works, the distinctive ways they each invest the queer immediately touched me.

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Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first enter your life?
I was born in South Korea, immigrated to British Columbia, Canada after kindergarten, and I’m currently based in New York. Art naturally came into my life at a young age, as I grew up very close to my uncle who is an architect; since childhood we’ve spent hours drawing together, and that’s definitely left a big impact on my life as an artist.

Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?
No, surprisingly, I used to paint gestural abstractions during my undergraduate years at Pratt Institute. A year after I got my BFA and returned to Canada was when I started painting figuratively.

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
It’s pretty straightforward as I don’t like spending time in the studio doing other things apart from working. When I get to the studio, I put my bag and jacket down, put on my apron, and get straight to work. Then it’s just painting for hours straight while listening to music before I pack up and leave. I don’t really take breaks either other than short bathroom breaks as I’d rather just get the work done while I’m in the zone and then be on my way.

What’s next for you?
In terms of exhibitions, I’ll be part of a group show at Stems Gallery’s Brussels location in February, and I have a solo show with Carl Kostyál in their London space in late 2023.

From where do you draw inspiration?
As my work has to do with community and the feeling of belonging/displacement in regards to my own experience of growing up as a 1.5 generation immigrant, I read and consume books, articles, and other types of media that are related to said topic. One of my favorite books that I read in 2022 was “Disorientation” by Elaine Hsieh Chou, and I’m currently reading “Sour Heart” by Jenny Zhang.

Have you always painted in the style your work currently inhabits?
In recent months I’ve started to make paintings that have a paper cut-out or collage effect, speaking to the idea of constructing one’s own identity and past history.

What source material do you base your work off of?
The body of work I’m currently working on is based on photos of my mom when she was a college student in South Korea. I’m drawn to these photos as they show a sense of community and true belonging between the people and the physical and cultural environments they are situated in.

Does your work reference any Art Historical movements?
I wouldn’t say my work directly references any art historical movements, but some of the gestural mark making I do in the ground of the paintings have been carried over from the days I used to paint abstractly, and back then I was looking at a lot of abstract expressionist painters.

What is your process like? How do you begin a work?
With the cut-out/collage paintings, I print out a scan of the original photograph, cut the pieces by hand and arrange it against a white sheet of paper to see roughly what I want the composition to look like. I never glue the pieces down for a final draft to paint from though. It’s more of a preparatory exercise to see what it may look like, and after I do it, I just put the cut up pieces of paper into a pile that I don’t usually return to. It might be easier to do this process as a digital collage on Photoshop, but I prefer to work in a more tactile and also fleeting way.

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?
I would recommend Timothy Lai!

The post Ji Woo Kim Explores Themes of Identity in the Context of Race and Ethnicity appeared first on Art of Choice.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first enter your life?
I was born and raised in Korea. I was always interested in art but intensively getting trained and being serious about art when I was 14 years old. Over the holidays, my cousin recommended my mom to send me to a private art school that she attended.

Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?
The most similar current style of the work appeared on 2017.

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
I always have a bucket of water prepared so that I can start jumping into work right away when I get to the studio. Otherwise, I could stare at the paintings for hours to think what to do next.

What’s next for you?
I have a solo exhibition coming up on Jan at Carl Kostyal gallery in London.

From where do you draw inspiration?
It depends on each painting. I normally get inspired from nature and landscapes for colors. When I think of a story or a scene, I start drawing the figures in my head then all parts come together in one on the canvas. Sometimes, I look at fashion magazine or dancer’s costumes that inspires me, especially when I think of playing between objects and figures in reversed reality.

Have you always painted in the style your work currently inhabits?
I think that the current style begun developing at the second year of grad school when I was attending the school of the art institute of Chicago. There are arrange of styles in my work that there are abstracted, more landscape or narrative focus. I think that my style is signified by mostly the gestural marks and keen use of color.

What source material do you base your work off of?
It depends on the work that I use historical references sometimes but mainly it comes from my head. I can occasionally have a sketch to explore dry materials and compositions but not really.

Does your work reference any Art Historical movements?
I think that my work is deeply related to romanticism in terms of importance of imagination in my work and celebration of individuals as well as emphasize on emotions over reality. So I often reference master works from romanticism movement.

What is your process like? How do you begin a work?
When I have a strong idea in my head about a story or gestures of figures, I start painting in my head and when I finish the final image in mind, I start the actual painting.

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?
I’d like to recommend “Jiwoo Kim”

The post HyeGyeong Choi’s Paintings are Deeply Rooted in Romanticism and Womanhood appeared first on Art of Choice.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first enter your life?
I’m originally from Hong Kong, came to the UK for A Levels at 16. That’s when I developed an interest in painting with the guidance of Peter Lelliott, a wonderful painter and the art teacher at school. I thought painting was a lot more fun compared to reading History at university, so I went to Slade and stayed in London ever since. My earliest memory of taking an interest in art was when my dad would draw cartoons with me. At around 9, my mum exposed me to Ikebana and the Japanese floral artist, Masao Mizukami, which I was a student of till I left for the UK.

Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?
My work has changed massively, and still shifting, as it should. I used to be a relatively figurative painter even after I graduated. It was slowly getting looser over the past two years and I’ve only gone very abstract since April this year.

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
It’s often rather early in the morning, I wake up between 5 to 7am and try to get into the studio for 8 or 9am. I need to be well-fed, well-rested and in a very good mood to paint. A cup of coffee or tea, some snacks, a big sofa. When I get frustrated with a piece, I’d either take a nap and try again, or I just get really angry and storms out of the studio… But I always leave before sunset.

What’s next for you?
I’m currently in a residency in Los Angeles, working towards a show opening on 7 January, 2023. There’s a few group shows in the works, and I’m particularly excited for this one in Hong Kong opening in March. I’ll also be working on a solo show in Seoul in September and another in Tokyo in 2024.

From where do you draw inspiration?
Everyday life. I’m currently fascinated by the frustration and amusement caused by gravel stuck in my shoes. I’m calling the painting An Odyssey of Gravel. I have a list of (air quote) titles on my phone, any thoughts that I find myself musing or contemplating about. It could be a conversation, something that happened, or a quote from a TV show, a movie or a book. The titles are like a concept sketch to me.

Does your work reference any Art Historical movements?
I’ve always been fascinated by Capitalist Realism. A post-modern, post-war German movement spearheaded by Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter and I believe two other artists in the 60s, all students of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. I saw it as a reaction towards the Soviet-Eastern-bloc Socialist Realism, and the obsession towards capitalism in America, mass production, mass media and the banal. They were cheeky, and were effective in reflecting their views on Cold War sentiments, resentments, and some much needed humour. I’m interested in the banal, and how strangely political it is.

What is your process like? How do you begin a work?
It often starts with priming, I like to dust the unprimed linen with pigments before priming. The lack of intent and the monotonous gesture of priming gives me a start in defining shapes and movement in a piece. I “consult” my long list of titles, get a feel of what I felt when I wrote those words down, and see where it takes me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s a disaster and it ends up in the bin!

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?
Okiki Akinfe and Annice Fell. I met both of them at Slade, brilliant painters, brilliant human beings.

The post Finding New Meaning in Kristy M Chan’s Paintings appeared first on Art of Choice.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first enter your life?
I grew up in North East Los Angeles in a neighborhood that had coyotes, ruins of old houses and a little pond, so I spent my time exploring. I would find old furniture and things on the street and my parents would let me bring them home and build things out of them. I still make paintings in this way; cobbling together scraps of things to make an image.
My mother taught art at a high school during the day and at a community college at night. Many times she would bring me to her night class, give me some art materials and let me paint and draw in the corner. This gave me the ability to paint for hours at a time, which helped me in my studio practice later on.

Although I was always interested in art, I was also heavily involved in music and sports. It wasn’t until my early 20’s that I decided to pursue art seriously.

Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?
I’d say about ten or eleven years ago would be the point where my current work begins. I don’t really work in series but I’d say most of the paintings of the last ten years could coexist together in an exhibition and feel part of a cohesive whole. Sometimes I’ll find a painting from 15 or 20 years ago that will contain an eerie foreshadowing of my current work, that’s always interesting.

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
I used to love to paint all night and sleep late but those days are gone. I wake up at 5:30am and go to my boxing gym or for a run. Then I have breakfast and coffee and I usually lay on my studio floor or the couch for about an hour to get my brain ready to paint. Then I work until lunch, take another lie down and work for the rest of the afternoon. I struggled with ADHD as a kid so I learned as an adult that a consistent routine and repetition really helps me. I even eat the exact same thing every day for breakfast and lunch!

What’s next for you?
Projects in Europe in 2023.

From where do you draw inspiration?
Inspiration can come in many shapes and forms: cooking a great meal, a conversation with a stranger, etc. Of course going to see art usually helps especially if I’m in a creative rut. I’d say travel is probably one of the best sources of inspiration; not necessarily because you are influenced by the place you visit but more so because travel forces you to reexamine your own environment.

What source material do you base your work off of?
I use my own body as source material for the figurative elements in my work. I take lots of pictures when I’m walking around or traveling and these usually percolate into the work. Sometimes I look back at older work of mine and try to make a better version of a painting that I felt wasn’t quite resolved.

Does your work reference any Art Historical movements?
I use classical formats used by artists for centuries–landscape, portrait, still life.

What is your process like? How do you begin a work?
I don’t make preparatory drawings, I like to have an idea in my mind and start drawing directly on the canvas. Then I tweak the drawing for a few days until I’m ready to paint. There are paintings that really follow the drawing and there are other paintings that make a complete departure. Two large paintings I exhibited earlier this year had half finished paintings on the back of the canvas that I’d abandoned and reverse stretched.

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?
Nancy Kay Turner, a Los Angeles based multidisciplinary artist.

The post Michael Hilsman’s Paintings Hint at the Relationship between the Physical and Metaphysical appeared first on Art of Choice.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first enter your life?
I was born in Akron Ohio and as a kid I always loved to draw and express myself through creativity. It wasn’t until I was out of high school and living in New York that I discovered contemporary art at the Dia Museum. It was at the Dia that i first experienced firsthand a wider definition of art, seeing artists like Joseph Beuys, Sol LeWitt, Blinky Palermo, Agnes Martin, and more- that i realized art could speak and be read on so many different levels and i thought i would like to try making art like that myself. It was after that when I applied to Cooper Union school of art.

Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?
No, I worked in many different ways in the beginning, experimenting with conceptual art, video art, found objects, collage, I really tried everything (which I would recommend for anyone on an artistic path). As I learned more and more about art and myself I began to discover my own personal style, I would follow my eyes to anything that attracted me and slowly my style began to take shape.

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
I am an early bird so I wake up and get right to work— I usually have my walls filled with canvas and I move from piece to piece throughout the day working a little bit on each one. I like my practice to be fun and inspiring to me so i never get to rigid with what i am doing and i let the works develop slowly over time. I think of the studio like a kitchen, I am always cooking or simmering something, letting things proof, adding some garlic, putting on the final garnish before the dish gets taken out to be served. I just want my practice to be alive and exciting to me otherwise it won’t be real.

What’s next for you?
I’m working on an upcoming solo show at Peres Projects Berlin in April 2023 that will coincide with Gallery Week here in Berlin so I am very excited for that.

From where do you draw inspiration?
I am inspired everyday by things around me. Nature on every level (micro/macro) is a huge unending source of inspiration to me, Also the cosmos and imagining our relationship to them gives me a great context for my work, also the idea of “time” I find to be a doorway into inspiring territory. I also take a lot from my imagination which i think is a very underutilized tool by society today, imagination and creativity applied to all things could lead to many solutions to problems we face. inspiration is like gratitude, the more you search for it the more you will find it and the richer you will be from it. I try to cultivate a wealth of inspiration.

What source material do you base your work off of?
I try to make my own source material whenever possible. I take pictures and videos of things I want to paint and through doing that will understand better what I am looking for, oftentimes it is finding the right angle or lighting and that takes a while. it’s way better to find your own source material because if you don’t and you pull something from google it ends up being so homogenized, the same picture everyone else found, very limiting and sad actually.

Does your work reference any Art Historical movements?
Yes, I feel very influenced and related to art movements from roughly 100 years ago. I feel like we are parallel in many ways to artists working from the late 1800- to 1910’s, the rise of industrial revolution, big social changes, everything that would eventually lead to the world wars, and in many way the artistic movements of that time ended prematurely because many of the artists died in the wars or atrocities of war. I relate very much to the romantic movement, favoring nature and childhood over industry and rigid classification. Then onto others like the Blue Rider group I relate very much to, Franz Marc, Kandinsky, Klee, Munter, etc, huge influences on my work both stylistically and philosophically. When I first learned about art history in an accessible way it opened so many doors to me as an individual and as an artist.

What is your process like? How do you begin a work?
I usually begin a work by just filling the canvas with color because I detest a big empty white space, then i will try and see something it in or see how a color reacts to it, and one foot in front of the other a piece begins. It’s like I am fishing. I throw something out there and see if I get a bite. i try to have a no mistake philosophy, meaning there are no mistakes, only new possibilities. I like when my paintings have many layers under them because they are paintings not pictures, they are meant to carry everything that went into them not just be read on the surface.

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?
I would recommend my friend Rose Salane. Her practice takes from the everyday world and tries to make sense of it all which i love because she succeeds in shows magic and connection through all the seeming chaos of life. We have been friends for a long time and I have enjoyed seeing her practice ripen.

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Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first enter your life?
I grew up mostly in Colorado. I have four sisters who I’m very close to. I’m fortunate to have a mother who put me in art lessons at a very early age. She got me all the supplies I needed. She’d also get me books and VHS tapes about the Impressionists when I was around 5 years old. I feel very lucky for that.

Has your work always taken on the style it currently embodies?
Since high school my work has been described to me as “quiet” and “pensive,” so I think it’s always been the same at its core. Although, to me, my work feels vastly different from one week to the next. Stylistically, I’ve always felt very informed by Munch and Van Gogh. Munch’s work is always in the back of my mind while I paint. I’ve always worked with figuration in one way or another. I used to draw a lot more, but now I almost exclusively paint.

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
My studio is in my apartment, so studio time is dispersed throughout my entire day. I typically wake up, make some tea and sketch a bit. Then I’ll take my dog for a walk, and then paint all afternoon. Then I’ll try to accomplish some chores and make dinner. Most nights I will go back in my studio until about 1AM. I’m currently in a place where I feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to paint.

What’s next for you?
Right now, I’m mostly just painting and selling through Instagram, although, I’ve got a few shows coming up. There’s a group show at Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson in December that I’m very excited about.

From where do you draw inspiration?
As I’ve mentioned, I draw a lot of inspiration stylistically from the impressionists, post-impressionists and realists. The majority of my subject matter is appropriated from mid-century European cinema. I watch a lot of movies on the weekends, which started out as leisure and has since turned into research. I’ll see a scene or a frame I like that demands to be painted. I can’t quite sit still until I’ve reiterated it with paint. Though it is the subject matter I’m reiterating, there’s something about the atmosphere in these mid-century technicolor films that’s not like anything else and something I really hope to capture.

Have you always painted in the style your work currently inhabits?
I’ve always painted representationally and I think my palette has stayed pretty consistent. I’m trying to push myself into oil painting more, but at the moment I’m pretty comfortable with my acrylics. I’ve been too impatience for oils, so I’m working on that.

What source material do you base your work off of?
Film is the primary source of my subject matter. The composition and coloring of these French and Italian films from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s can be so beautiful, sometimes painfully so. For instance, a given film may depict a dinner table that you see for a split second as the camera pans to the main event, but it is composed in a way that is so rich it just demands to be painted. In a way, I see it as my responsibility to further solidify their beauty through painting. I think the way I consume, collect, and reprocess media is heavily informed by the internet, Tumblr specifically. I spent hours on that site in high school, hoarding images for a blog no one ever really saw. But it trained my brain in a way that directly informs my artistic process today.

Does your work reference any Art Historical movements?
Other than a style that emulates the impressionists or pop artists, my work doesn’t have any explicit art historical reference. However, the films I draw from are oftentimes dripping with art historical references themselves, so in that way, it’s baked into the work. Cinema at its genesis was heavily informed by fine art and art history, and still is today. Funnily though, a lot of painting I see today is heavily informed by cinema. It’s fascinating for me to see the two lending and borrowing to enhance the other and give it a new level of meaning.

What is your process like? How do you begin a work?
I watch the scene I’m depicting several times over. Then I’ll sketch it out. Sometimes the actual sketch is what I adhere to wood-panel and paint on top of.

At the end of every interview, we like to ask the artist to recommend a friend whose work you love for us to interview next. Who would you suggest?
Caroline Zurmely. She’s the best.

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