The Academy Blog

New York Academy of Art Residency in Istanbul 2016

Posted on January 13, 2016

During the summer of 2015 Tatiana Córdoba (MFA 2016), Jaclyn Dooner (MFA 2015), Daniel Austin López (MFA 2016) and Simón Ramirez Restrepo (MFA 2016) participated in a month-long Artist-in-Residence Program at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul, Turkey.

This exhibition includes some of the work created during or attributed to their residency experience. The Academy’s Mimar Sinan University Residency has been made possible through the efforts of Mahmut Bozkurt, Erdal Kara, Ali Kerem Bilge, and Buket Atature (MFA 2012) as well as the New York Academy Travel Fund, the Villore Foundation.

China Residency 2015–2016

Posted on November 1, 2015

During the summer of 2015 Benjamin Craig (MFA 2016, Fellow 2017), Daniela Izaguirre (MFA 2016), Sophia Kayafas (MFA 2016, Fellow 2017), and Taylor Schultek (MFA 2016) participated in a six-week Artist-in-Residence Program on the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing campus. At the end of the residency all four artists participated in the group exhibition at 798. This exhibition includes some of the work created during or attributed to their residency experience.

 

The Academy’s China Residency is made possible by the New York Academy Travel Fund, the Villore Foundation and Academy Trustee Gordon Bethune.

Artist-in-Residence Leipzig 2015

Posted on October 29, 2015

During the summer of 2015 Marcelo Daldoce (MFA 2016), Valerie Gilbert (MFA 2016), Adam Lupton (MFA 2016), and Charlotte Segall (MFA 2016) participated in a two-month Artist-in-Residence Program hosted by Leipzig International Art Programme, in Leipzig, Germany.

The Academy’s Leipzig residency is made possible by the New York Academy Travel Fund, the Villore Foundation and Trustees Gordon Bethune and Eric Fischl.

Interview with Shangkai Kevin Yu

Posted on September 24, 2015

by Claire Cushman (MFA 2015)

“I usually paint the painting in my head first, to give myself time to decide whether it’s actually worth painting,” says Shangkai Kevin Yu, (who goes by Kevin), of his process. “If it is, then I take photos, either in the place where I initially encountered the objects, or by arranging the objects and people to mimic the narrative I saw. But even in this phase, the painting still runs the risk of being abandoned.”
Kevin uses multiple painting techniques to capture fleeting sensory experiences from his everyday life, and the narrative associations he sees between objects and people. Yu’s fully executed, non-abandoned paintings can currently be viewed at both Mark Miller Gallery, as part of the New York Academy of Art 2015 Chubb Fellows Exhibition, and Gallery Poulsen in Copenhagen, as part of the New York Academy of Art Graduates show. Below, Yu discusses his work.

Island of the Dead
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Taiwan and mostly grew up there. I went to high school in Vancouver.
What do you draw inspiration from?
I’m inspired by the relationships between objects, and between people and objects.
Dessert Course
Name three of your favourite painters.
Holbein, Ingres, Morandi.
How do you begin a painting, and how does your practice go as you work?
I start by looking for a narrative in the relationship between objects and people from my day-to-day life. The idea and the image happen concurrently. When I finally begin painting from the photo reference, I focus on the drawing aspect. Color and value come later, and help me create or clarify the narrative.
How do you apply paint?
Paint application varies depending on the narrative of the painting, which usually requires more than one painting technique. I use both indirect and direct painting, in different places. Up until now, I have mostly painted in relatively thin layers, without impasto. If I have an image or idea that requires thick paint in parts, I’ll use it, but so far that has been rare.
What materials do you like to use?
I prime my canvas with wet-sanded acrylic gesso, transparent gesso, or a combination of the two. I use straight oil paint, and occasionally mix a dab of alkyd resin into the paint. This increases the strength of the paint film, and helps prevent surface tension. If I need a more aggressive indirect painting technique that involves a lot of wiping, then I sometimes use diluted alkyd resin as a barrier coat to protect the bottom layers from being wiped out.

                      Grandma at the Table
How do you know when a work is finished?
Usually I know the work is finished when the image has a complete idea. I have to be more lenient on the technical aspect towards the end, because it could always be improved. It will never be good enough, so it shouldn’t impede the completion of the painting – I’ve learned to accept technical flaws, and do it better next time.
If you could retake any class at the Academy, what would it be?
Long Pose. I really enjoy working on one drawing from a model for weeks on end.
What piece of advice would you give Academy students?
Have a position, a ground to stand upon. Listen, talk, argue, and grow from that ground.

Name two quirky things we can find in your studio.
A violin that is regularly played to produce horrendous sound, and a dartboard.
What are you reading these days?
I have the habit of starting a new book without finishing the previous one, so I am reading several books at once – Barthes’ Camera Lucida and Mythologies, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, etc. The one book I managed to finish recently was Ross King’s Leonardo and the Last Supper.
Science Fiction

What do you listen to while you’re painting?
I like TV shows that I’ve already seen, so I can just listen to them. Music affects my mood too much – it’s not a good work companion for me. For example, I don’t want to find myself painting faster because the music has a faster tempo.
How did your work change over the course of your time at the Academy – especially during your post-graduate year?
The Academy armed me with enough knowledge on the why, when, and how of different painting techniques. I’ve been able to experiment with paint application in a narrative sense. During my fellowship year, I wanted to create a narrative context that spanned over five paintings, which was something I had wanted to do for a while.
What was the relationship among those five paintings?
The pattern of the wallpaper in these five paintings ties them together, and suggests a domestic environment, without explicitly describing the particular function of the room, (i.e. bathroom, bedroom, living room). The Island of the Dead is the most important piece in setting up the environment that spans the four other paintings. This painting shows pork chops stacked together on a table. They reminded me of Arnold Böcklin’s Island of the Dead V at the Museum der Bildenden Künste Leipzig. 

Arnold Böcklin’s Island of the Dead V

The light fixture in Science Fiction looks like an extra-terrestrial structure, a sentinel of another planet. For the electrical socket in “Dessert Course,” I smoothed the sharp edges so that the object would appear organic, dessert-like. I depicted my grandparents in poses and compositions reminiscent of German Renaissance portraiture. The knives imply that the figures are facing the pork chop on the table.
Pick a piece by another artist and tell me about it.
I want to talk about Morandi, but it’s hard to pick a single piece. Most of his paintings have simple compositions and drawings. The objective is the vibrations of values and colors… Or maybe I’m wrong, because I can’t take my eyes off the trembling lines that defined the objects. 

Morandi

What’s your favourite paint color?
I don’t have one. Colors are worth something in painting because they’re never alone. Different contexts bring out different aspects of a color, so I gravitate towards certain color relationships – turquoise with burnt umber, yellow with purple, orange with turquoise, etc. 

Grandpa at the Table

If you weren’t an artist what would you be?
I have no clue.
Finally, what are your plans for this year?
I’m working towards a group show with Art Bastion, my gallery in Miami. Starting and finishing paintings, as usual.






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Interview with Stephen Vollo, NYAA 2015 Fellow

Posted on September 18, 2015


“I chose to paint a bed because of its inherent content,” says Stephen Vollo, of his painting of a rather ordinary looking bed. “It’s a place where people have sex, dream, and possibly die. But it’s also a part of our everyday routine. So it has many, often contradictory associations. I wanted to make a painting that allowed this content to come forth, rather than construct a specific narrative around this potent, universal symbol.”
Bed
If you find yourself in Copenhagen between now and Halloween, you can see the bed painting up close at Gallery Poulsen, where Stephen’s work hangs alongside paintings by Shangkai Kevin Yu and Abigail Schmidt, as part of the New York Academy of Art Graduates show. If, like most of us, you’re not in Denmark, don’t worry – you can see more of Vollo’s sparsely composed paintings on the Lower East Side, at Mark Miller Gallery, for the 2015 Fellows Show. The show also features the works of Alonsa Guevara Aliaga and Shangkai Kevin Yu, and marks the beginning of these three artists’ exciting careers. The show runs until September 30th.
Below, Stephen discusses his work.
DogWhat major themes do you pursue in your work?
What major themes do you pursue in your work?
The subject matter is mundane. I paint the objects, spaces, people and materials that I am most familiar with. The themes vary from painting to painting and are meant to be open ended.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up upstate in the town of Webster. It’s a suburb of Rochester.
What inspires you?
Mostly, it’s reflecting on my own experiences in a broader context. Other artists inspire me as well. Not only visual artists, but musicians and writers whose work I admire.
Name three of your favourite painters.
Manet, Rembrandt, Chardin… 

Untitled
Tell us about your practice – how do you start? With an image, an idea, a story?
It depends. There is not a set order, but I might start by thinking very loosely about a subject.  This eventually becomes sketches and even sometimes writing. Then I’ll take photographs or use 3D modelling if I need to. I’ll use any references that can help.  But I do a lot of the work by looking at the painting, and not much else.

Talk about your process – how do you apply paint?
I try to apply paint so it has a physicality. That doesn’t always mean thick. I like the look of semi-opaque to opaque paint.  If I glaze, I usually rub in a transparent pigment with little to no medium.
What materials do you like to use and how do you know when your work is finished?
I use oil paints, sometimes with a little bit of alkyd medium.  I paint on canvas stretched over panel, so the thick paint has less of a chance of cracking off.  Ideally, I know a painting is finished because it seems like it will continue to be interesting once I walk away. Longevity for me has a lot to do with a feeling that the painting continually opens up new meanings, rather than a feeling of closing down. Paintings should also feel relevant and meaningful to my own life.  If they don’t, it can be arbitrary. Sometimes I might have a deadline, and be exhausted from trying to make a painting work. In this case, hopefully nothing in the painting embarrasses me too much, and I just let it go. Reluctantly.
If you could retake any class at the Academy what would it be and why?
I don’t think I could retake any. Twenty years of school is more than enough.
How did your work change over the course of your time at the Academy – especially during your post-graduate year?
When I first came to New York, I was using humor, irony, and contradiction within images. Although I don’t think those things have left my work entirely, at a certain point I really stripped things down. I tried to see what kind of narrative was possible if I let the painting be just the viewer’s presence in dialogue with the subject’s presence. I began to find the dynamic of the mobile viewer and the immobile fiction of the painting really compelling. The Fellowship year was tough, because I stripped things back even further, and tried to see how far I could push aspects of the paintings technically. I found some limits for myself.

Amanda
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given as an artist?
I don’t know if it’s the best, but I remember it.  “This looks like you know to draw, but you don’t know how to do anything else.”

What piece of advice would you give incoming Academy students?
You’re paying a lot of money to improve your work, not to prove how good you are.
Name two quirky things we can find in your studio.
Carpet samples. I used to have a studio rabbit that loved classical music and would lie on his back by my feet as I painted.
Tell us about your NYAA thesis paper.
I wrote about the role of touch in the experience of a painting.  In art history and art theory it’s referred to as haptics. 
What are you reading these days?
I just finished Art and Illusion by Gombrich, and David to Delacroix by Walter Friedlander. Right now, I’m reading a couple of art history books and a collection of essays called Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam.
Do you paint to music, or in silence? If music (or other audio), what?
I sometimes listen to music. Audio books and lectures are great, too.  Silence is probably what I’d prefer most, but it’s not always possible for one reason or another. It’s necessary for parts of the process, though.

Saint Acisclus

Discuss one of your own pieces.
The bed started off as a comical, absurd painting. When I took the obvious humor out, I saw something very subtle, that was more interesting. I must have repainted every part of that painting a dozen times, some more.
Discuss a piece by another artist.
I love polychrome sculptures. There’s one at the Hispanic Society of a Saint Acisclus, a martyr with his throat slit – it’s so strange and present. I especially like walking around it, getting a look at the back of his head from the hallway, and then moving around to see his face.  I circle around it almost like a minimalist sculpture.
If you weren’t an artist, what would you be?
If I didn’t paint, I’d probably want to work in some other art form. Sometimes I’m curious how my paintings would translate into short stories, poems or novels.
Do you have a favorite paint color?
I don’t have a favorite, but I do like subtle temperature shifts and muted color combinations.
Finally, what are your plans for this year?
I have a job working for an artist in Dumbo.  I’ll do that for money, and at night and my days off I’ll continue to work on my paintings.  I have some compositions I’m excited to start. I’ve also been wanting to do some ink drawings lately.

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2015 Chubb Fellows Exhibition

Posted on September 8, 2015

fellows2015

Fellows Interviews – Alonsa Guevara

Posted on September 8, 2015

Interview with 2015 Fellow Alonsa Guevara Aliaga
On Tuesday, September 8th, Mark Miller gallery and the New York Academy of Art will unveil the works of the 2015 NYAA Postgraduate Chubb Fellows – Alonsa Guevara, Stephen Vollo, and Shangkai Kevin Yu. This show marks the culmination of these artists’ yearlong fellowships, and the beginning of their promising careers. The opening reception will take place on September 8th from 6-8 pm, and the show will run until September 30th. Each artist has received a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the Academy, and has developed a unique aesthetic and body of work.

Alonsa Guevera was recently named one of Time Out New York’s five most important new artists. Her lush, vivid paintings explore concepts of beauty, abundance and desire. She uses familiar items such as fruit, flowers and insects in fantastical still lifes that leave viewers with their mouths watering. Below, Alonsa discusses her work.


What major themes do you pursue in your work? 
Desire, still life, nature, fruits, trompe l’oeil, magical worlds, female archetypes, eroticism/death.
Where did you grow up? I was born in Chile and moved to Ecuador when I was five years old. My family and I spent years living on a ranch in the jungle, surrounded by farmland and wild animals. 
What inspires you?  I am fascinated by the complexity of nature. Every day I find new inspiration, especially now with the Fruit Portraits I’m making. I walk around different neighborhoods in the city and find new fruits from the markets of all different cultures. My dreams, my family, and memories from my childhood in Chile and Ecuador, where I was always connected to nature, also inspire me. Finally, I am inspired by the work of other artists.
As a child in the jungle

Name three of your favorite painters. 
It’s impossible to choose a favorite. Lately I’ve been looking a lot at Christian Rex Van Minnen, Julie Heffernan, Luis Meléndez, Frans Snyders and John Singer Sargent. I also love Paula Rego, Ingres, Dalí…

How do you start your paintings – with an idea, an image, or a story?
I try to find an image with something desirable in it. Often, I start painting, and then halfway through, I look at the painting and it reminds me of something I hadn’t expected, or tells me a story. The story comes at the end.
Talk about your process – how do you apply paint?
I like to have a way to draw easily without using any drawing materials on my canvas. Sometimes I block in the painting with acrylic first – this way the local colors and value structure are set in the painting from the start. Then I go in with oil and develop the temperature of the image. With bigger paintings, I like to cover the whole canvas with one colour in oil and then wipe away with a rag –– oil allows me to move things around and have it looser at the beginning.
What mediums and materials do you use?
I use a lot of different mediums, and I’m always trying new materials. Sometimes I work with resins, Galkyd, stand oil, linseed oil, Turpenoid, Gamsol… and sometimes I make a medium with Damar Varnish toward the end. I use many different kinds of brushes. For surfaces, canvas is my favorite. I also really like to work on aluminum. I don’t “trust” wood as much.
How do you know when a painting is finished?
That’s a hard question. I just keep working on it until it gives me the feeling I want from it. And when I look at my painting and I’m afraid I’ll mess it up if I touch it, I know it’s done.
If you could retake any class at the Academy, what would it be?
Easy – I would retake “Painting at the Met” with Ted Schmidt. I know that if I took it again, I would learn something new. There’s so much to learn from copying paintings.

“Ceremonies” triptych
How did your work change during your time at the Academy?
During my first and second year, my work really changed in a technical way. I learned so much by working from life, which I wasn’t used to doing. I started paying more attention to the whole canvas, and developing space and volume.
The message in my paintings has remained the same though – what I always want to do is create an illusion in which the viewer feels desire for the painting, but this desire ultimately cannot be fulfilled.
During my first and second years, I made the “Paper Girls” paintings, of these beautiful women from magazines. I wanted the viewer to experience this sense of unfulfilled desire -because they are paper people, you can’t have anything back from them. I painted tons of those, until I found what I needed, and then moved on.
During my fellowship year, I totally changed the kind of imagery that I made, and the way I paint also changed a lot. But the message is the same. The fruits are juicy, they have a center, some of them a hole, you want to get inside of it – but again, they are just paintings.

Detail of portrait of the artist’s brother
What is the best advice someone has given to you?
During my first year of undergrad, I had a teacher tell me I should focus on printmaking, because my paintings, which I was doing mostly from my imagination, “weren’t working.” I’m very stubborn though, and his advice just made me want to paint more. During that year I took Painting 1 and started painting objects from life, and I got pretty good at it. After that year, the same teacher asked me to be his TA for Painting 2. And he told me “You can listen to other people’s advice, but more importantly, listen to yourself.” 
What advice would you give Academy students?
Really take advantage of the time you have now. If you ever feel like teachers aren’t giving you what you want from them, ask questions.
What three weird things can we find in your studio?
I paint fruit, and then I always eat them in my studio. I save the pits and seeds in a jar… These are the skeletons of my models, really! I also have lots of stickers from the fruits.

What are you reading?
“33 Artists and 3 Acts”, by Sarah Thornton. I’ve also been reading a lot of books about fruits and their histories, and George Bataille’s “Eroticism and Death.” Mostly though, I’m painting!
What do you listen to while you paint?
I listen to a lot of music, and also lots of podcasts, like Ted Talks and the news. Sometimes I just play BBC news.
Tell me about one piece.
There is a triptych of me, my sister and my brother – this is the opening for a new body of work that I’m calling ceremonies. These paintings are about the love I have for my family, and the relationship between desire and death. The figures here are bodies, but you can’t tell whether they’re alive or dead –is it a funeral, an initiation ceremony? With these paintings, I’m creating another world, a different reality. Some of the fruits are real, some are from my imagination. 
If you weren’t an artist, what would you be?
Something creative – a musician, a writer, or a filmmaker. Or maybe a therapist –  I really like psychology too. But I can’t really imagine myself not being an artist.
If you could live in another era, when would it be?
I’m not a religious person, but I would live when Jesus was alive – I think it would be an exciting, iconic time.

Pits, seeds, and stickers.

What are your favorite colors?
I have so many! I love madder lake red. Quinecridone red, magenta, transparent red oxide – a lot of the reds.
What are your plans for this year?
To keep painting, like always. I would love to travel more, and see more nature, more fruits, get more inspiration. If I go to Chile again, I will do the same thing I did last year – take a truck and buy tons of fruit for my painting set ups.

Alonsa also is part of the exhibition “Three Women” at Anna Zorina gallery, opening September 10th. This show also features the work of Patty Horing (MFA 2015) and Nadine Faraj.




Days in Giverny

Posted on September 4, 2015

By Jiannan Wu (MFA 2016)

We have been in Giverny for one week, and I’d like to show you all the amazing things that have happened here. We live in a very convenient two-story house with a basement next to Monet’s Garden.

Living Room
Kitchen
The room I shared with Danial DaSilva (MFA2015)

Backyard

Our studio is only one minute away from our house, which is very commodious.

When I was working

Sometimes we ride bicycles to get to the places where we did paintings.

It is very nice that we could go through Monet’s Garden anytime we wanted, especially after 6 pm when all the tourists have gone, and the garden is very peaceful and beautiful.

Miranda Fontaine, who works for Terra Foundation for American Art, is a very nice and generous lady. She prepared everything for us and guided us to many places we wanted to go.

Jan Huntley, head of Munn Artist & Volunteer Program, explained to us about the construction of Monet’s Garden.

Miranda and Jan are guiding us to the pond

Daniel is advancing bravely.
I am sketching

Nice view from the hill

Daniel Monet

He is exiting the farm after finishing painting

Dream Badminton Team

Further Down the Rabbit Hole

Posted on September 3, 2015

by Taylor Schultek (MFA 2016)

Where did it begin… Where did it end? Our final week in Beijing was so fast, the days all blend together. Extremely late nights, unreasonably early mornings, an hour of sleep here or there. Where to start and what to say? This past week changed my view of Beijing entirely, and what I was planning on writing about never happened. So I guess I’ll start where I would have started.

It was 6am.

All five of us were packed into a cab driving way too fast by a driver who was way too young. We had had a late night at… Wait, maybe I should step back.

We started the morning before, the day after show take down. Right, the show. The show went great; it was small but enjoyable with some familiar NY faces (Chao showed up!).

Our plans for the day were to go to the National Museum. Our first and last museum. We met Ian after brunch to head to the center of the city, Tiananmen, for the National Museum.

Catch a nap in the cab. Running late. Rushing again. We get an hour and a half of solid gallery time, and the place is already closing. Didn’t even get to see the Disney exhibit.

Oh well, the building was more grandiose than anything inside. A short walk and we’re in Hutongs again. Searching for an underground city built during WW2. No luck, looked like it must be getting a long overdue renovation.

Get a cab, and now were on our way to meet up with Peng Peng, one of our studio mates, for dinner and a night out.

Accidental sightseeing again on the way to dinner. Walk around enough and you’re bound to hit a historic building like this drum tower.

We walk some more upscale hutongs now, and suddenly its pouring rain. Finish dinner, buy our third or fourth round of umbrellas, green tea ice cream cones, and were off. We make it to some lakeside hutongs, with each bar blasting its own band as loud as they possibly can. People heckle us as we walk by, trying to get us to drink at their bar. We decide on a reggae bar, with a band from Mongolia, playing reggae covers of American songs.

A couple drinks and were stumbling to find more food. Thirty or Forty dumplings later and its settled…. Karaoke night will begin at 2 am, just after Peng Peng returns from finding the wallet she lost.

Right, where was I. It was 6 am.

We were flying through traffic with a pilot who had to be filling in for his older brother. Sleep for a couple hours, and I’m back up and ready for the day way before my body is ready. Ben’s up to nothing on the schedule, so he decides to go with me for the day.

My plans were to explore an abandoned steel mill over a mile square in size. A crumbling relic dominating the skyline that must remind the locals of a not so distant past and the main thing I wanted to write this blog about, but China had different plans. Shougang is a district way at the far west of Beijing. Named for the company that once ran a major steel factory, it fell into disrepair and foreclosure around the Olympics. China went to great effort to cover up some of its slightly less pretty areas of town around the Olympics and this factory happened to be a part of that, laying off some 20,000 workers. I’d seen some articles written about it that were only a couple years old so I thought access would be fairly easy.

I was hoping for treasure troves of gritty interiors and whole empty buildings to explore. But this place definitely wasn’t closed down for good when I went.

There were still plenty of people working inside certain areas and plenty of guards who could spot the white guys from a mile away. I guess this adventure would have to wait until next time.

Sundown means time to head out, no chance of entry here and the trains close at night. So a subway ride east and we’re stepping out next to the National Centre for the Performing Arts.

We walked down to some hutongs to maybe grab some last minute gifts for friends. Our legs were getting way tired, the shops were closing, and it was looking like the night was coming to an end.

No luck finding some good food around here, so we call a cab back home to have some late night Korean by the apartment.

Halfway through the ride we recall some awesome noodles we had the night of our show opening. So we reroute the driver to Sanlitun district, headed towards the noodle place if we can find it. Hell we didn’t even know the name of the mall that it was in but we’re getting pretty good at winging directions to someone who doesn’t speak a word of English.

Minus the traffic, we got lucky. We landed right next to where we were trying to go and could trace our steps to find the restaurant. The noodles were perfect. Just in time for a drink at the only good bar we know.

A couple cocktails and conversations and we lose track of time. Suddenly its 3 o clock as we head back to our apartment. Only three hours and we’re supposed to meet with our roommate to go to the Great Wall. So much to do in such little time.

Wake up. Get in a van. Sleep for an unknown length of time.

Arrive at a lakeside section of the Great Wall that is thankfully less known than other sections. Ill spare the details, but it was breathtaking.

Not long and we were back in the city, with plans for the next day already set. By now my blog post was due. What to say? Where to start? How do I wrap up a trip when I’m not even sure what these last two days meant? It took time and distance to reflect and finally gather some sense of what Beijing meant to me.

Beijing was full of surprises, and within the last two weeks my opinion changed entirely. I first figured Beijing as a place trying to cover its history in a new western façade. A sort of show of economic growth hiding their rough path to achieve it. The past couple days helped me see things from a different perspective though. China seems to be trying to find a way to preserve and acknowledge the past while still focusing on the future. It wasn’t that the new covered up the old, but rather that Beijing was a place where all of their history tries to coexist with the changing times. A place where you can see things that are literally thousands of years old just an hour away from the latest mall.

The speed of the last days helped me to see the immense variety of this city that is unlike anything we have in the US. The variety here consists of different ages of culture existing at once, with people who can move from one ancient age to the forefront of their emerging new traditions with ease. There is still a lot to learn from this experience and I’m still weary to make judgments about a place I’ve only just met, but I know for certain that I am most thankful for the people we found along the way.

Until next time Beijing.

Interview with Lisa Rosen

Posted on September 1, 2015

by Claire Cushman (MFA 2015)

“People tend to think that “golden” (more like murky) hues of older paintings were the artists’ original colors,” says Lisa Rosen, director of Fine Art Restoration. “But this isn’t the case. The further back in time you go, the richer and more vibrant the colors were. Color screamed MONEY. It’s just that the varnish used to cover the paintings has become severely discolored over time.”

Cleaning the ceiling of the Chelsea Hotel Office

Lisa Rosen has been restoring fine art for over three decades. In 1984, she moved to Rome, Italy, and began as an apprentice. She learned the techniques of a wide variety of media, from frescoes to ceramics, from mosaics to marble. And of course, oil paintings. For the next 16 years, Rosen honed her skills working on masterpieces in churches, museums and private estates throughout Italy. In 2000, Rosen returned to the United States and opened her own studio in New York City.
Rosen specializes in oil paintings on canvas or panel from any period. So when the Academy needed a painting restored, we knew just the lady to call. In early June, Lisa and a handful of Academy students restored “Merovingian Funeral,” by Belgian artist Louis Charles Van Dievort (1899). The painting is part of the Academy’s permanent collection, and has been exhibited in the lobby of 111 Franklin for almost 10 years.

Below, Lisa answers some questions about the restoration at the Academy, and her path to this exciting and challenging career.
What were the issues with “Merovingian Funeral”?
Detail of Cleaning
I noticed the wonderfully large painting (16 x 8′) on the main floor of the Academy several years ago. It depicts a Merovingian funeral. The Merovingians ruled a region in what is today’s France, from approximately 500 to 800 AD. I couldn’t find out much about Mr. Van Dievort, except that he studied in Paris at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts.
In this painting, the layer of varnish that covered the work was severely discolored, as though the original paint surface was wearing a pair of yellow-brown sunglasses. This patina was falsifying all the colors – the blues seemed green, whites seemed yellow, reds seemed brown, etc. The canvas had a 3×3 inch hole in the bottom right quadrant. There was also some flaking of the paint in various areas.
Can you describe the restoration process for this painting?
In restoration, a ‘cleaning’, aside from the first removal of surface grime and soot, means the removal of this discolored varnish. It is very exciting to watch as the yellow/brown melts away under your cotton swab and the original jewel-like colors are revealed.

“Merovingian Funeral” with stucco fills – midway through
restoration 

Most old paintings that have been varnished in the past suffer from this discoloring. (Mastic and Damaar varnishes yellow rather quickly. Today’s new synthetic resins do not yellow.)
For the rip, we used a heated spatula to apply a resin patch with Beva (a gel adhesive) and Pe-cap (a polyester fabric). All painting restoration has to be easily removable for future restorers without harming the original. Beva is fantastic, because it is painlessly reversible.
Once the patch on the back was dry and secure, we turned the painting over to ‘fill’ the space created by the now adhered rip on the paint surface. For filler we used stucco (a plaster-like substance mixed with resin, which allows for movement in the canvas). Once dry, the stucco was lightly sanded to re-create the exact same level of the surrounding paint surface. For the chips and deep scratches, we followed the same method: fill and sand.

Applying a patch with Beva

Once the painting was clean and the chips, rips, and tears were filled, we used watercolor to ‘dirty’ the bright white of the stucco. If this had not been done we would never have succeeded in getting the colors right when retouching.  The white stucco would have glowed through the in-painting.
We laid the painting flat, brushed gloss varnish over the entire painting, and allowed it to dry.
Next came retouching/in-painting. Like cleaning, this part provides a most satisfying feeling! One in-paints only in the stucco areas where the original paint is missing.
Tiny dots of color are placed next to each other, using a Series 7 sable brush and Maimeri retouching colors.
When we were satisfied with the final results, we applied the final coat of gloss varnish to the entire painting, and allowed it to dry overnight.
The rip.
How did you become interested in art restoration?
When I was 13, during my summer vacation to LA, I was taken on a tour of the restoration laboratory at the Getty Art Museum in Malibu. I remember thinking as I walked through, “THIS is what I want to do when I grow up!” When I got back to NYC, I told my mother. Certainly to get me out of her hair, she suggested that I write to museums (in places where we had friends/family) to ask if they would take a volunteer for the following Summer. Out of all the museums I wrote to, the only one that responded “yes” was the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, in Copenhagen. I saved all of my babysitting money that year, bought the plane ticket and set off to stay with our Danish friends. My mother is pretty brilliant!
I’m assuming it was a good experience?
For one month, I was in heaven. The lab was in the basement of the museum. I would sit at the sink, wearing a white lab coat (and braces on my teeth), feeling very grown up. I carefully washed shards of Etruscan pottery. A week before I was to leave, the director of restoration, Dr. Johansen, said “Please come early tomorrow, as we have a going away present for you.” In the morning, the real assistants and I stood in our white coats around a large worktable. On a pulley above us was a huge ‘thing’ covered by a tarp. Grinning, as he slowly lowered the ropes, he said, “You have ‘graduated’ – and for your final week you may start the cleaning of…..THIS…” He pulled off the tarp to reveal a colossal head of the Roman emperor Titus. Well, I was in love.
When I think back on their generosity, I often cry. It was so kind of them to say ‘yes’ to a 10th grader, an American no less, to allow me to come and basically take time away from their own work so that they could show me the ropes. When possible, I try to give back in a similar way.

Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola, Park Avenue, NYC.
How did you proceed with restoration after that month?
Years later, at the age of 25, I settled in Rome, Italy.  I began as an apprentice, emptying slosh buckets up and down church scaffolds and helping in the studio with small jobs for a very long time AND eating loads of lentil beans. I now know that this was a test of sorts, to see how serious I was. I saw several people leave after months of the same.
Each work of art is so different from the next, so restoration is a continual learning experience. Within four years, the studio started to pay me. Four years after that I branched out with a partner. We worked all over Italy – public churches, private villas and palaces.  It was amazing. I stayed 17 years.  
I was getting older and was still eating too many lentils (read: broke). In Italy, the restorer almost always has to advance the money for scaffolding. The state pays you in instalments over a period of 3 years. We never broke even.  So with all the glory of touching beautiful objects in the most sublime places, I was eventually swayed back home by filthy lucre.

I returned to New York City in 2000. I made cold-calls to galleries, private dealers, anyone that would look at my ‘book’ of past restoration work. Little by little, by word of mouth and my website, I built up a steady clientele. I can proudly say that I haven’t had lentils in a very long time! I love my work.

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