The Academy Blog

Meet the Academy Fellows: Jonathan Beer (MFA 2012, Fellow 2013)

Posted on September 13, 2013

 


Beer’s Studio, 2013



One day earlier this summer, we sat down with Jonathan Beer (MFA 2012, Fellows 2013) to talk a little about his work, the Academy Fellowship, and what he’s looking forward to as the Fellowship year concludes. 


New York Academy of Art: Tell me about where you’re from.

Jon Beer: I am 25 years old. I am from New Orleans, although I was only there two years. I grew up upstate, right outside Albany. Grew up in suburbs but on the edge of development in the woods. We were tucked back behind the rest of the streets with ¼ acre of woods around us. We were outdoors a lot and I think that has a lot to do with my work, at least how my interest developed. I also spent a lot of time in the Adirondacks on a small lake

Academy: You spent summers there?

Beer: And spent winters taught skiing there.  We have little cabin there.  That was a profound visual experience.  A pristine overwhelming visually and spatially overwhelming environment. The lake was in a valley surrounded by mountains. It just took hold in my work. As a kid I was really into comics and up until high school I thought that was what I was going to do – draw comic books, then senior year rolled around and I had to decide if I wanted to do this, cartooning, or illustration, School of Visual Arts (SVA)and I decided illustration and the comic book thing just faded away. 

Academy: So your choice was illustration or cartooning?

Beer: Well, they are the same department. the two are bundled together. I think SVA is one of the few that has that.  They are really the magnet for that sort of thing.  I realized that really wasn’t what I wanted to do.  In high school I had started to really paint.  I realized I was much more vested in images than in stories.  I wasn’t a great storyteller.  I wasn’t a great writer either for a long time, I think.  So, I realized I had this like investment in images in undergrad.

Academy: As a kid you were interested in comic books and what other kinds of things were you interested in?

Beer: All sorts, I guess.  The thing that dominated my life was Legos and I would just build these huge worlds.  I guess it wasn’t about storytelling; it was about creating this whole worlds.  I would make them enormous and I would never take them apart.  I had two desks in my room. They were this long.  They were this interconnected big world.

Academy: Did you buy the sets and put them together according to the plan?

Beer: Yeah, and then I would take them apart and coddle everything together so it just got like crazy and they are still in my parents’ basement.  I was really attached to that process.

Academy: When you were little what did you want to be?

Beer: I think I knew I was going to be an artist.  I was drawing since I was three. There wasn’t really any clear choice for anything else.  At some point when I was little I think I wanted to be an archaeologist, but I didn’t really care about archaeology.  I just liked the idea of it.  The idea of digging shit up, but the idea of having to be precise and have to record stuff was totally awful.  I just wanted to dig stuff up.

Academy: In high school you took all the art classes?  Did your high school have a good art department?

Beer: There were a couple of good art teachers.  The program was kind of like DIY.  We didn’t have AP Art or anything like that.  I did the same studio art class for two years and they just kind of let me do what I wanted.  And that was when I made my first paintings.

Academy: And what kind of painting as a high schooler? Assigned projects?

Beer: When I started to work on my own they became, I got totally sucked into the West Coast Pop-Surrealism, Shepard Fairey thing.  So, they were really like political, or like socially aware, illustration-y paintings and this interest in nature and all that and throughout my life I’ve always read National Geographic.  It was satisfying my archaeology thing without having to go anywhere.  So that was a big part of, I started to get concerned about stuff in the world and the paintings became about that and they began to involve like a kind of graffiti language and at the same time I started to make T-shirts so there was a lot of silk screen and I started to get into design and I worked at a couple of design places.

Academy: How did you get into silkscreen?  Did you work at a silkscreen place?

Beer: No, I did it all in my bathroom.

Academy: Did you sell them?


Beer: Yes, I started a business doing it for four years.  As I started to paint, this design thing grew in parallel with it.  The graphic design on the computer for the T-shirts all of that got wrapped in with the painting in a weird way and they kind of fed off each other for a while.

Academy: I think people think of you as well read and maybe in comparison to others.

Beer: Well, maybe not as much as I’d like to be.

Academy: Have you always been that way? I don’t think every art student in high school is aware of what is going on on the other coast.

Beer: I’ve always been a great reader, but I don’t think I was until my 3rd or 4thyear at SVA did I start reading about Art. I only started to read about theory because I knew I was going to grad school and I hadn’t gotten any of that in the illustration department. Yeah, I’d always been interested in a couple of artists. But not until college did I start to dive in.

Academy: Did you have a favorite artist as a high schooler or early college? Who?

Beer: Shepard Fairey, Mark Ryden, Jeff Soto was really big. Now I just kind of avoid all that stuff.

Academy: Why?

Beer: Well, because it kind of it was just really hard to get over. I think every artist in their trajectory has a couple of big humps they have to get over. For me it was the West Coast art and it took a teacher at SVA to tell me that my work looked like taco stand art for me to be done with it.  And he said, “I know this is really going to suck but I am doing you a big favor. I think your stuff looks like taco stand art and I think you should get over it and make something that is yours.” And it was good advice and for six months I was really lost and my ideas about nature and understanding the world.  
I also found a lot of inspiration at that time from National Geographic.  It’s so full of schematics. These cross sections show how the world works.

Academy: What do you mean?

Beer: Well there will be an article about volcanoes and they will have cross sections of it and you see all the layers and I LOVE that. And that was where my ideas really started and what I returned to. It was that kind of aesthetic and it was that connection with my own experiences in nature and my awe with that.  Breaking down the world. Visually breaking it down.

Academy: Why did you go to SVA?

Beer: Because of the comic book illustration thing. I wanted to be in New York.  I had an opportunity to go to Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). My dad really wanted me to go there.  It had a better reputation.  I wanted to be in New York and knew it had a better reputation as an art center.  More than Providence.

Academy: Had you been here before?

Beer: On and off, just visiting.

Academy: So, you came to SVA and got that good advice from your professor?

Beer: And I took a lot of Humanities classes.  SVA is really big on that. It’s 30% of your curriculum, of your credits.  I ate it up.  I ended up with a bunch of extra humanities credits.  There was one teacher; I took every class that she offered.  She’s a curator and a writer. Her name is Lynn Gamwelland the first class I took with her was called Exploring the Invisible.  It was the history of science and the history of art in tandem, and that’s the name of the book.  I got that advice from the teacher, I took that class and everything just exploded all at once. And I knew where my direction was going.  Interest in the mind, interest in the landscape and interest in how we create this experience and how the mind creates memory and all of that was filtered through the landscape where I grew up.  It was my memory.  And so, her classes and that advice shot me straight where I needed to go.  And I couldn’t draw fast enough and I started to paint.  That was the second year as an undergrad.

I had also realized that illustration wasn’t for me.  I wasn’t clever enough to be a New York illustrator.  The sense of humor thing wasn’t me.  I’m not pun-y enough. I just couldn’t deliver.

Academy: Talk about how you use the idea of memory. Taking things, images, colors, or things that stick in your head.  Elaborate on what you mean by how your brain creates experiences or how you experience the work.

Beer: When you just look at the world. You look at the inside of this shop. Everything you see you understand that it is three dimensional, right?  But as you look at it and your brain understands it, it’s translated from three dimensions into two.  So there is this special understanding that happens even from a two-dimensional image.  I am interested in reversing that process and creating a spatial experience on something two-dimensional.  In the hope that two-dimensional image can create something experiential.  What’s amazing about how our minds work is that we can be totally conscious and in the present moment.  For example right now we’re having this conversation but at the same time I am remembering all the stuff you’re asking me about and I am visualizing a lot of it.  That is a really strange overlap, between interior visual experience and exterior visual experience.  If you can translate the three-dimensional outside world to a two-dimensional surface why can’t you translate both inner and outer world to a two-dimensional experience.

Academy: You’re paintings attempt to do that inner and outer experiences, incorporating elements of memory? Lots of people have said you appropriate lots of different references, both personal and otherwise.  When you’re making your paintings now, what are some of the references that you’re inspired by? What other things are you appropriating?  How conscious are you of that?

Beer: It’s definitely not unconscious.  If I have a tendency to be anything, it’s self-conscious.  You can ask Wade [Wade Schuman, Faculty].  That was his favorite thing to say.

Academy: Does that annoy you?

Beer: It probably still does but I feel less self-conscious now.

Academy: So he was encouraging you to be more…?

Beer: Intuitive.  I feel like I am getting to that place, of being more intuitive.  Especially as I start to use more materials.  It allows for an easier intuitive process.  For example, if I want to make the sensation of something plastic-y, why not just use plastic?  It took me seven years to figure that out.  But it happened and it’s helping.  As far as sources go, I think this whole journey has been a really broad act of clarifying.  As I started way back trying to understand the world, my world, and my place in it through my memories and my experiences and recreating them on the canvas I started to delve deeper into what my experience is and what my identity is.  I feel like my identity is tied to landscape a lot.  But it’s tied to an American landscape and so that opened up a whole avenue of “what is American-ness?” How do I fit in American-ness? How do I fit into Masculine American-ness? What are the symbols that direct that for this population?

Academy: What made you conscious of that?  Did you leave the country? How did you start to recognize your American-ness?

Beer: It was being in Leipzig.  I have travelled a lot.  But it really didn’t happen until then.  I am half Romanian.  I am first generation American.  My dad came to the states in the 1970s.  That has had a huge impact on my work and the kind of searching, that clarifying act.  The landscape of Romania is very similar to the landscape of the Adirondacks.  Those two conflations of memory, a memory that is not my own and a present experience that is mine that also have melded together.  So my act of recreating that landscape that I didn’t know.


Academy: Have you been back?

Beer: I was born here, but I have been twice.  Then I went to Leipzig and everything, all of a sudden, oh, I am actual very American.  I remember writing while I was there that I realized I was much more American in ways I had never anticipated. 

Academy: How so?

Beer: There is a lot of idealism in America.  The American Dream is still alive.  It’s alive in the personalities of the people here.  That’s a very interesting strange thing.  There’s this optimism, this hope that’s been around from when the pilgrims left England because they were looking for a better place. It’s in the DNA of what it is to be American. That idealism was there.  Again there is this whole other connection point to what the American landscape means and how it has been represented throughout history. Like the Hudson River School, which were big influences of mine.  I became aware of the subtle differences in design and color between Europe and America.  And I became really interested in that again. 

Academy: Can you describe that?

Beer: Eastern Germany is this left over socialist DDR republic.  It’s very East still.  You feel it in the air.  It’s only been 24 years.  When you go on the train in Berlin, the color of the seats and the fabric pattern is red, blue, white, and brown.  It’s slightly dated and it has it’s own charm but it’s subtle.  In America, especially being at school in Tribeca, walking through Chinatown it’s brazen, bright colors, fluorescence, neon.  Where as, you look at something like this where it’s trying to be European, very sensitive Yellow.  There’s tasteful-ness.  What I came to realize, is I love the cheesiness and the unabashed, ideal optimistic palette of America.

Academy: It’s also commercialism and advertising.  We’ve tested this red and know it makes you feel hungry.

Beer: Right.  So America is also about that.  That color says a lot.  I became very interested in that.  In using that color and those kind of formal properties to frame my work.  Abstract painting, non-objective abstract painting from the 1960s and 1970s was all about feelings and communicating a certain kind of energy or state of being.  So color became emotionally directed.  I would say mine is also, but I would also say that I am interested in color being a reference point for talking about a certain time, creating an association. 

For me, it’s important but not important enough for me to be like this is what this is and this is how you need to feel about it.  I hate the word signifier, but it is a signifier.

Academy: I want to backtrack and ask why you went to the Academy and not SVA?

Beer: When I really started to do painting in undergrad at SVA, the paintings were literally big schematic paintings of landscapes coming apart, as if they were made of different layers.  They are the Architecture of the Mind series on my website.  In undergrad, all these things came together. Along the road I had discovered JP Roy [Jean-Pierre Roy MFA 2001, Fellow 2002] and he became a big influence.  He was actually the first studio visit I ever did in New York.  I brought was my then biggest and best painting, it was about 48 inches wide.   I carried it all the way to his studio, it was a panel.  I got it there and was so excited. I brought it in and he said “Ok, just put it over there.”  At the time he was working on a 20-something foot painting.  I put it down next to it and thought well that’s a tiny-ass painting. 

Academy: You did that studio visit before you were a student?  You just contacted him?

Beer: Yes.  My senior year at SVA was when I went to visit him. SVA is split all over the place on 23rd Street and all around.  It’s really hard to have a sense of community when a school is like that.  Part of the reason I came to the Academy was community.  I had gone to some of the lectures before I enrolled.  Sitting in the back, I already felt like I was a student.  Which was incredible.

Academy: How so?

Beer: The discussion was so rich and engaged.  The lecture was part of the Art & Culture Lecture Series, the free lectures the school hosts.  It was great.  It was incredible.  I had never felt that at SVA.  I believe the lecture was by the author of a book about Michelangelo.   I don’t remember who it was.  I had gone to the lecture, felt really connected.  My paintings were pretty tight at that point.  Very articulated.  They were traditional in the sense of building it up and blocking stuff in.  They were very done in a traditional painting process.  I was interested in knowing all about that.  I applied to all the big schools, including Yale and Columbia.  I was accepted to the Academy and the School of Visual Art in Boston.  After visiting, I didn’t like the program in Boston, too much Video art for me.  So I came to the Academy.  I knew New York.  I had gotten to know the community a bit.  I knew JP at that point.
 
 
Academy: Why did you want to go to grad school?  Not everyone does.

Beer: It’s actually rare to go straight to grad school.  A lot of people take a year or two off.

Academy: You didn’t want to drift around a bit?

Beer: No, I was excited about my ideas.  I was really working a lot and painting a lot. I wanted to keep this going.  I also knew I wanted to teach, too.  I have known for a long time that I wanted to teach.  I knew I needed my MFA to do that.  So I came here.

Academy: Could you tell me about an influential critique or class you had at the Academy?

Beer: I remember first year.  I was taking JJ’s [John Jacobsmeyer, Faculty] Comp & Design class.

Academy: That’s one of the early classes you take at the Academy, right?

Beer: Yes, you take Comp & Design I first semester of your first year.  I took JJ’s class.  He was great.  We had this big project, end of semester project.  We had to make a large painting based on some of the traditional design principals we had talked about.  The summer before the Academy and up through that semester, my work had become very sparse and very geometric.  Very architectural.  It was the same idea of memories coming apart.  But it had switched from an exterior natural world to an interior one.  Very specific memories of my own.  I started to work with shaped canvases.  Irregular shapes, specific to a drawing. I decided I was going to make this crazy complicated painting with 13 different sides.  It was big, 70 inches long, and a ridiculous shape.  It took me three days to build it.  I was really excited about it and really proud of it.  I brought it into the critique and I went first.

Academy: What style critique was it?  In front of the class? Individual?  You had had a few critiques before this one, correct?

Beer: It was just with our Comp & Design class.  Yes, I had participated in a few crits before.  We have less in illustration. So, I put it up there.  JJ looked at it and I talked about it a little bit.  He said, “I really like your ideas, but you just need to learn how to paint better.”  I was first and that was it, the crit was over.  He went onto the next person.  He’s very even keeled; he just says it how it is.  He was right.

Academy: Was what he said crushing?

Beer: Yes.  But it was very motivating.  I had had a similar experience in undergrad.  But that experience with JJ was always very memorable (laughs).  I had some great crits with Catherine [Catherine Howe, Faculty].  I became very close with her.  I think she always pushed me.  She knew from the beginning how to push my buttons.  She just pushed me and pushed me and pushed me.  I finally got out of that geometric thing and started to paint again.  My second hurdle was Neo Rauch.  The first was west-coast stuff.  The second was Neo Rauch.  Who is Leipzig, Germany based.  He’s the best known out of the Leipzig school.  I was obsessed.

Academy: Was this after you had been to Leipzig?

Beer: No, this was before.  I felt like I had a lot of kinship with him.  With how he painted, with the ways he broke up the space, and broke up the world and allowed memory, history, imagination, reality and fantasy to exist all in one picture.  He just pulls it off like no one else.  It’s really seductive.  He’s incredibly talented and prolific.  Now I am gushing (laughs).  I started to see the world through this “Neo Rauch filter” and Catherine was on my ass about it.  This was a solid year, at least.  I remember one day she said to me in a critique, “You know you’re a responsive painter” and I said, “What do you mean?”  She said, “You respond to stuff. All this stuff, your work, is a response.  You’re responding to the ideas of your history and your past.”  It changed everything.

Academy: Did you feel like that was an insult?

Beer: No, not at all. That was the most eye-opening thing anyone has said to me during my entire time as a painter.  It was that one phrase.  It allowed me to really see how I relate to my own work and how I related to my ideas.  It changed everything.  It gave me permission.  It’s a really important thing.  It’s really hard to give yourself permission.  Permission to let go, to paint big, to paint small, to paint loose.

Academy: How did that give you permission?

Beer: It provided a context for me to see my own work.  To see how I wanted to be involved in my own ideas.  Instead of trying to depict landscape from Romania that I don’t know and simultaneously the interior of a room from my childhood that sounds very formulaic and boring.  But if I am responding to that idea, than I now have permission to change it.  It becomes my response.  I can change the palette.  How do you respond to that feeling or searching?  How is that expressed rather than depicted?  Response was this big word that just opened up.  It was the key to the city.

Academy: When was that?

Beer: That was the end of first year, I think.  Or the end of first semester during my second year.  It was at a pivotal moment.

Academy: How did your work change throughout your time at the Academy?

Beer: So my work started off really tight, as a described in a really traditional process.  And it became much more sparse.  I started to eliminate more and more elements.  I would eliminate the background.  There was a lot of white space and everything became very clean and sharp, which Catherine hated. Eventually as that series ended, I was left scrambling. I started to do these paintings that combine interiors and exteriors, within a traditional rectangular format.  No more crazy shaped canvases.  I tried to throw everything back together with the tools I now had, in more of an expressionistic shorthand that I was picking up.  I started to feel my natural rhythm for how I wanted to paint. It was not tight.  It was loose.  It was more a shorthand for what I was imagining I was perceiving rather than an articulated one.  I wouldn’t necessarily paint…I’m trying to think of an example.  This ceiling is kind of gold and there is some orange.  In the beginning, I would have painted every little piece going back but then I would have painted one big swath of gold and just dot the lights in.  My painting style became a lot looser. Then the Neo Rauch thing happened.  He was such a strong example of what I was trying to do and I just fell right in.

Academy: Tell me about the Fellowship and how that has been.

Beer: It’s been a great opportunity.  I have never been this excited about what I am making and have never felt this free to make it.  The reason the Fellowship has been so great is really because of Leipzig.  The fact that I got over this Neo Rauch thing second year, finally felt comfortable and had my own direction.  I had made the biggest painting I had ever made and I left New York that summer with the show booked in September.  I was going to Leipzig.  I was going to confront all these ghosts that I thought I was over.  I was going into the belly of the beast.  I left New York essentially without a history.  I didn’t take anything with me.  I got there and started fresh.  I had never felt that panicked before about having to actually recall what I was interested in making paintings about.

Academy: Why did you feel that way?

Beer: Because I was in a new setting.  I had to set up a studio somewhere else.  This was my first time with a big studio. The first time having a show.  The first time I was really feeling like I was starting my real art life and able to make what I wanted.  It was a really great editing process.  All the baggage and self-consciousness that I had here, felt like it was gone.  That which happens in grad school with so many voices giving feedback and around you.  I was able to really meditate on what I was interested in and what my ideas were.  The erroneous stuff just disappeared.   That was great.  It was amazing.  I never expected that. I actually had no idea what to expect with a residency, but it was unbelievable and magical.

Academy: When you came back and started the Fellowship did you continue the trajectory you had started on your residency?

Beer: I think so.  All the paintings I did for the show in September were large.  I finally felt comfortable working on a large scale and I knew that was part of what I wanted to do this year.  I had really found a way to take apart the world that was the world that I experienced in the present and the world I remember as my own memories and a past that I had learned that was not my own.  The American Identity thing came in at the moment.  My focus on identity shifted to my American Identity and to understanding how American Identity for the nation was formed through exploration, through painting and how it was represented and things like the World’s Fair became really involved in my work.  Symbols for America came into my work.  I began to take apart the American flag, the colors, American Iconography and American advertising.  Everything I have been really involved in throughout my whole life but never had the perspective to see.  That gift is really been amazing.  I don’t know if that would have really happened had I not been able to step away through the experiences I was given.  The Charlie Brown thing happened in Leipzig.

Academy: What’s the Charlie Brown thing?

Beer: Ah, I guess the Charlie Brown thing was probably pretty pivotal.  I was doing all these paintings at the end of second year that had chevrons in them.  One day I was drawing them and instead of making them all go the same direction, I made one go the other way and then connected it again.  I realized it was the design on Charlie Brown’s shirt.  So I put it into a painting.  That symbol opened up this design iconography into a painting language.  Why can’t it be a serious formal element in a non-abstract painting?  But it’s just Charlie Brown.  With that I found a way to co-opt a design language that I have been trained to do well but I also appreciate.  I also experience those design elements in the world every day.  Doing that allowed me to find a bit of a sense of humor in my work.  Which was really an important thing for me, which I hadn’t recognized yet.  What I couldn’t do in writing I finally found a way to do it in painting.  It was really satisfying to get a taste of that in my work.  It was humor through paradox.  I began to see all these paradoxes in American culture.    

Academy: As an artist, do you find yourself naturally observing?

Beer: Yes.  I am always looking.  A real nugget like is more rare.  But I definitely look for those.  I also keep a running list of titles.

Academy: You get your titles from what you see? Are titles important to you?

Beer: Yes, I do.  Titles are really important.  One of the paintings in the Fellows show called “Castle Bravo.”  It’s named after a nuclear test during one of the American operations during the Cold War.  I was watching this documentary about World War II and post WWII because I think that time period is a really interesting time in America.  A lot of crystallization of America happened then.  Our generation has inherited America in that way.  I find that really interesting and the historical footage is tremendously interesting.  I was watching it and they showed footage of cleaning up this bombsite.  There were these huge strapping GIs riding around on tanks without shirts on in the tropics.  The tanks are all covered in this yellow and red chevron tarp, as if that’s going to protect them from the biggest nuclear bomb to ever be detonated.  There’s so much ridiculousness layered in this history.  I wanted to capture that moment, that innocence and earnestness that is so important to America.  Suspension of belief is really important

Academy: What do you mean “suspension of belief”?

Beer: The American Dream.  People came and just died by they troves believing they were going to find a city of gold, the Northwest Passage.

Academy: You mean believing despite evidence to the contrary?

Beer: Yes. Which is paradoxical. It’s kind of crazy and kind of amazing.  I am really drawn to the way America exudes that from its pores.  It’s just there.  I like finding those moments.  So “Castle Bravo” was that.  Titles are really important to me.  A lot of time I have them written down and don’t know where they’re going.  I don’t know which works they’ll attach themselves to.

Academy: You don’t have figures in your work.  How was the figurative education from the Academy influential?

Beer:  There’s a great tradition of learning all of that.  For one, you can’t get it anywhere else. For someone, like me, who is after knowledge and interested in teaching those skills are really important.  I think it’s an important foundation to have, to be able to visualize and dissect your world in three-dimensions.  It’s a difficult skill to learn, but really being able to focus and hone that skill has been really important.  I start teaching at Montclair University this fall, teaching Painting I.  I’ll be able to communicate those skills better and help other artists, to show them what they can do.  Most people have the ability to deconstruct and construct, they just have to learn that they have it.  

Academy: Tell me about Art Rated.

Beer: When I left SVA, I realized one of the things I wanted from grad school was more critical dialogue.  I love crits.  I know some people hate them and hate talking about their work, but getting into it and taking it all apart.  There is nothing more satisfying to me.  I really enjoy it.  I’ve always really enjoyed having those conversations.  My first year I realized I always wrote down what I thought about shows I had seen. I started writing more formally about shows that spoke to me, like the Richard Serra Drawing Show.  Growing up I was not a good writer, my sister was the better writer.  I finally found what I wanted to write about, it wasn’t stories.  It was critical dialogue.  Lily Olive [http://lilykoto.com/] and I became friends here.  We started visiting people’s studios and doing photos and things for the blog here.  We realized we should start our own.  We came up with the title at our first studio visit.

Academy: Who else do write for?


Beer: The Brooklyn Rail.  I’ve done a few pieces for the Huffington Post.

Academy: How did you get those?


Beer: I was writing for ArtWrit.  And they knew the Huffington Post.  It was last summer, a piece I wrote about dOCUMENTA (13) for ArtWritand then Huffington Post picked it up.  I’ve also written for Art Observed.  I am going to be writing for the Brooklyn Rail again and a blog called Dirty Laundry and some other big things coming up.  I love interviews.  I’ve done some essays and long form writing, but I really love doing interviews.  To get at where someone is coming from and what their work is about, there’s nothing like it.  It’s a conversation and makes their work much more accessible.  I’ve totally fallen in love with it.  I do a studio visit a week. 

Academy: Are artists willing do them?

Beer: Mostly.  It can be really hard to be an artist in New York.  Even if you have a network, it’s really spread out. Having the chance to meet new people regularly and feel connected to them is great.  It makes struggling in New York as an emerging artist all the more worth it and enjoyable.  It reaffirms why you do this.  I keep a running list on my phone of people I want to meet and visit with.  I aim really high.  I ask everyone, I don’t always get them, but it helps for the future asks.

Academy: Do you want to stick around New York?

Beer: For sure.

Academy: What do you have coming up next?

Beer: I have a few shows this fall.  After the Fellows show opens, I have a show at the Lawrence Gallery at Rosemont College.  It’s a solo show, but with three people at once.  It’s called Landscape Revisited.  It’s some of my early work from SVA.  It’s been shown a few times already, but it will travel around a bit more.  In October, I have a solo show in New Jersey at Fairleigh Dickinson University.  In January, there’s a show at a museum in Miami, at an art and design center there.


Academy: How do you get shows?

Beer: Through proposals.  You have to know how to write.  The trick is following up.  I’ve worked with someone who helps me with that.  I’ve been really lucky to have an agent who helps me make connections and follow-up with them.  It’s important to participate in the art world.  Go to openings, write, and be introduced.  That’s how I got my next show.

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For more information about the 2013 Fellows Exhibition featuring Jonathan Beer, Aleah Chapin, and Nicolas Holiber or the Academy’s Post-Graduate Fellowship Program visit the New York Academy of Art website – www.nyaa.edu.

This interview was conducted by Maggie Mead on behalf of the New York Academy of Art.  Editing and layout was done by Elizabeth B. Hobson, CMP.

2013 Fellows Exhibition

Posted on September 3, 2013

fellows2013

Featuring the 2013 Post-graduate Fellows: Jonathan Beer, Aleah Chapin, and Nicolas Holiber.

Meet the Academy Fellows: Aleah Chapin (MFA 2012, Fellow 2013)

Posted on September 3, 2013

Aleah Chapin photographed by Maria Teicher (MFA 2013)

One day earlier this summer, we sat down with Aleah Chapin (MFA 2012, Fellows 2013) to talk a little about her work, the Academy Fellowship, and what she’s looking forward to as her Fellowship year concludes. 

Academy: Your art is specifically linked to your childhood, rather where you grew up and where you came from. Tell me about your childhood. 

Aleah Chapin: I think all art is somehow linked to your life and when we’re in our 20s, it’s generally like our history of our life, and it’s kind of in our childhood.  Maybe not all art, but I think art that is the most honest, which I find the most intriguing, is art that is linked to your history or your experiences in your life and what you know because you can’t really make art about anything you don’t know. Mine is linked in a pretty direct way because it is literally the people that I grew up with. It started out with the Auntie’s Project, which was my thesis project, because I photographed and worked with these women that I’ve known pretty much my whole life.  They’re my mom and her friends who call themselves the aunties to us kids. 

Academy: Why? 

Aleah: I started out photographing them and working with them because I wanted to get away from painting my young female friends because I felt like I wasn’t really getting at anything more than just a pretty painting of a pretty 20-something year old.  And these ladies who I know, being who they are, said yes, of course we’ll pose for you, we’d love to.  That’s where it all started from. 

Academy: Who are these women?  How do you have so many women in your life who have known you since you were born?  What’s the community like? 

Aleah: I grew up in a small town of 1,000 people.  My parents have lived there for over 30 years. It’s on an island north of Seattle. Like any small town it has a community and this community is especially eccentric, I suppose.  They aren’t crazy out there, naked, all the time.  They are pretty normal people, but they lean more towards being ok with their bodies and more towards being eccentric.  They are VERY creative and really interesting individuals.  I am not sure how they all are such a strong community, except that they just are.  In a small town that happens.  They have similar interests and my parents were friends with these people and then they had kids and we all grew up at each other’s houses and they’re still my best friends. I’m going to the wedding of one of the kids this summer. 

Academy: Was there a moment that you realized your childhood was unique? 

Aleah: Yeah, probably when I went to college in Seattle.  I started to realize it was a bit different.  But honestly, I was pretty embarrassed by the whole thing.  I wasn’t horribly embarrassed, but I never ever thought I could make art about it because to me it was my weird, hippy family.  They are awesome and I love them very much but I never thought I could make art about them.  I moved across the country, all the way to the east coast, not just to get away, but to me it was so different to move all the way to New York. I never thought I would be doing work that was so closely related to where I grew up and this world. The contemporary art world and small town Washington are pretty much polar opposites. 

Academy: What were your interests when you were little? 

Aleah: Drawing.  Pretty much my whole life, I have loved to draw.  I started getting into painting in my young teens.  I don’t know how old I was exactly, maybe 14.  I was always really interested in drawing and I wanted it to look real.  I think it was something about that illusion.  I wanted to create a world.  I also did some sculptures.  My goal was to create a world and make it look like life.  Not that I succeeded, but that was sort of my goal. When I was in awe of any work, it was work that created its own complete reality inside the canvas.  I would draw a lot from National Geographic and from this fairy book.  I would draw from old photography books and old photographs.  I had an old book full of photography of children and I loved drawing from that.  Lots and lots of drawing, a bit of sculpting, and then started painting in my early teens. 

Academy: When did you know you wanted to study art?  Was there ever any doubt? 

Aleah: Probably in first grade, I knew I wanted to be an artist.  My mom is an artist, so I knew that was a total possibility and I one of those lucky people to have really supportive parents. 

Academy: So your dad is also an artist? 

Academy: Yeah, he’s an architect.  He’s really good at drawing and very aware of visual aesthetics.  I think having both of those was important.  I remember my mom taught me how to draw a face, and my dad taught me how to draw a house in three-dimensions.  I have those two distinct memories and I still use both of those early skills.  Learning to draw a house taught me how to think 3D on a 2D surface.  I used to draw a head with feet.  I remember my mom giving me a few pointers. 

Academy: What would you do with your drawings?  Would you hang them up around the house? 

Aleah: No, I would get really angry and scrunch them up and throw them away.  Seriously, I would get really frustrated that they didn’t look as good as my mom’s and they weren’t as good as I wanted them to be.  But I kept going.  I couldn’t help it. I had to take another piece of paper out and try it again. 

Academy: What kind of work does your mom make? 

Aleah: She does this process called touch drawing. She developed it in 1974-75 in New York City, on her last day at Cooper Union.  It’s kind of like printmaking and drawing.  In a way you draw with your hands.  You work with your fingertips instead of a brush or pencil.  That definitely helped a lot.
How did we get on the subject of parents? Oh, right, did I have any doubts?  Yes, in high school I definitely had some.  I remember thinking I really didn’t want to go to Art College. I loved making art, but I didn’t want the classes, I just wanted to make it.  I didn’t want someone to tell me what to do.  But that didn’t last very long and I decided I wanted to go to Art School.  So I applied to Cornish College in Seattle, the only place I applied to. Luckily, I got in. 

Academy: I’m not familiar with Cornish. 

Aleah: It’s a well-known art school on the west coast.  It’s for music and dance and theatre and fine arts.  I did painting and video and a bit of sculpture there.  It was awesome.  It was fantastic.  It really stretched my boundaries with what I thought art was. 

Academy: How so? 

Aleah: I ended up being exposed to experimental, performance art and multi-disciplinary art, and started actually doing some.  It was really fun to feel like I can do absolutely anything. It doesn’t just have to be a painting or a drawing. It doesn’t just ahv to be a video if I’m making a video piece, it can be something else, too.  Why not push it and experiment?  That was really good for me.  Of course, I went back to painting but without stretching my boundaries as far as they could go then, I don’t think that I would feel as strong in what I am doing now. 

Academy: Could you describe some of your previous work? Your performance work? 

Aleah: For my BFA show, I somehow managed to melt painting and video and performance.  I had a series of cameras and canvases, maybe eight.  Most had paintings on them.  Most of them had figurative paintings on them.  Some of them had some little iPods embedded into the canvas so there was a video element.  One had little gears.  I hook up a whole motor system, and managed to make this little gear that looked like it was moving inside someone’s head.  Then I had two wonderful models who wore these outfits that I made out of canvas that I had painted. They stood in front of the paintings and moved really, really slowly, really subtly over the four hours of the Opening.  And those outfits had a bit of sculpture, they had headdresses and then little bits of video incorporated into them.  I realized I could do everything, so I decided to do everything all together. It was really fun and really exciting.  Now I feel like it was all a bit too much.  Editing, editing is good. 

Academy: Were there specific influences that you acquired in college?  Particularly the multi-media stuff? 

Aleah: Bill Viola and Gary Hill, they are both video artists.  Those are probably two I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise because I was exposed to all this video.  And Maya Derenanother video artist from 1940-50s.  She was one of the early video artists, black and white, experimental film.   Those were probably some of the more influential ones. I feel like Bill Viola sometimes still, even though it’s video, there are some images that I feel like still resonate with me and influence me still.  Just because it’s video, I feel like the images of video and photography can totally permeate painting for me more than any other kind of art form. 

Academy: Was your art then inspired by your own history? 

Aleah: It wasn’t.  I struggled with it.  All the great cool contemporary art I saw was about something negative and something intense or something I didn’t have in my life.  I lived a pretty good life, it wasn’t perfect but it was a happy life.  Good childhood.  I would never complain about that.  I am very grateful.  But I felt lost about what to make art about because I had this great life.  When I came to school here, probably around second semester, I realized I needed to make work about what I knew and that was the most important thing and I needed to stop trying to make work that had some big important moral agenda and big statement that didn’t have anything to do with me.  Because I felt like I was always trying to make work that had that, some big moral statement, but what was it based on?  It wasn’t based on my experience, it wasn’t that.  I realized I had to throw all of that away and just make work that was about what I knew and what I loved and what I cared about.  And if there was a statement or some sort of moral agenda, it would come out through my work.  But that could not be the focus or the driving influence of it.  Now I try not to do that.  I try to just paint what I know, literally the people that I know. And let the rest happen naturally.  If it does, it does.  And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.  I needed to be completely honest as possible. 

Academy: You said that was second year at the Academy or first year? 

Aleah: It was first year, second semester.  End of first semester.  Wade Schumangave me a critique in my studio.  He said “You need to not make work that has some big moral agenda.  You need to trust that who you are is enough. Just paint what you know and what you love and what you care about.  That’s all you need to do.” That was really big advice.  He could tell I was struggling.  I don’t know if it was one painting or what because we do a million paintings first year.
I assume that is something others go through as well because we all want to make work that has something to say and isn’t a waste of space, nor a waste of energy for people to look at.  I think most of us want to make work that somehow will make the world a better place.  If that is our goal and our only goal and we’re not looking for inspiration anywhere else than it’s not going to actually do that.  I realized the only way I could actually attempt to make work that had anything to say was to completely forget about having something to say and just let my life and my view of the world say whatever it’s going to say and not force it.  That was the biggest transition for me, that realization.  And also realizing I could make work about what I knew, which was my life on the west coast.  I didn’t realize until then it could be made into artwork, be the subject. 

Academy: You must’ve wanted to change your focus in some way because you choose to go to the Academy. 

Aleah: Yes, I had always been obsessed with realism and traditional painting.  That has always been my thing that I loved and admired the most.  When I was looking for grad schools I couldn’t find anything that was very good, all the student work I saw I thought was really bad.  But when I found the Academy and the website, I was completely blown away.  Jenny Saville’s painting was on there.  I remember thinking, “This is a grad school? Seriously?” It seemed like a completely perfect place. 

Academy: Did you stumble upon it? Or did someone suggest it to you? 

Aleah: I was googling, I can’t remember what.  Probably figurative painters. To try to get inspiration, because I didn’t know that many. And I found  Alyssa Monks’ work. And loved her work and looked at her resume and saw the New York Academy of Art.  The fact that she taught her and went here [MFA 2001].  I looked up the Academy and then had the “Oh my god” moment.  I applied and luckily got in. 

Academy: Did you apply to a bunch of schools? 

Aleah: No, I only applied to the Academy.  I have only applied to two schools in my life.  I was pretty happy when I got in. 

Academy: What did you do on your year between undergrad and the Academy? 

Aleah: I lived in the Netherlands for five months.  I went and took an intensive drawing class in Paris for two months.  Basically I painted.  I managed to save up money during college by working at a coffee shop and selling a few paintings, and not spending much, so that I could go over to Europe for a while.  When I came back I worked in Seattle for a bit and then moved to New York three or four days before school started. 

Academy: What were your impressions of the course work when you arrived?  Where you shocked or did you love it? 

Aleah: I LOVED it.  I had a really good experience at the Academy.  I felt like it was everything I wanted and more.  I don’t think I have ever worked as hard, and I felt like I was a decently hard worker.  Before I came here, I didn’t think I could put 12 hours-a-day into painting seven days-a-week and that realized it was really great.  It was fun.  I didn’t realize working that hard could make me that happy. The friendships and family you develop by going through this incredible, intense experience together was really amazing.  I don’t have anything bad to say.  This school has treated me really well and given me an insane amount of opportunities.  It’s been a really good fit. 

Academy: You spoke about your critique with Wade.  Were there any other moments like that that changed the course of your work or the way you looked at it? 

Aleah: That was the major moment.  I am sure there were a million.  But there isn’t one I remember specifically.  I remember Catherine Howe’s Art & Culture II class was fantastic because we had to make a lot of work and it was really self-directed.  It was first year, but she treated it like thesis class. 

Academy: How so?  What do you mean? 

Aleah: She told us to think about it like Thesis I. To think about the type of work you want to make, and make a body of work.  Over the semester we got to make a body of work.  She also gave us a project where we had to create a family tree of our linear influences.  That was another major one.  I had to look back at all the work I liked over the years and then actually physically put it on a piece of paper.  That was really helpful because I saw the work that has stuck with me for years and years.  That I’ve always loved and then the work that just came in as a fad for a couple months and I love it and it’s gone. A reaction to something.  That project gave me a lesson on where I wanted my work to go. 

When I made my influence tree, I found out how different my work was from my influences.  There were some similarities, but not many.  Made me wonder if this was the work I liked? Ask why am I making this other kind of work?  It became clearer for me.  The type of work that is truly me versus the work that is a limited infatuation.  Everyone has that.  A strain of visual influences or aesthetics that are really strong in you and then you’re going to be influenced by so much over the years that you tend to gravitate towards certain areas.  If you become more conscious of those, you’ll just make work that you can stand behind more.  That’s the most important thing: to be able to stand behind your work.  That doesn’t mean you don’t doubt it all the time, but you have some sort of strength. 

Academy: Who were the artists in your influence tree? 

Aleah: Jenny Saville, Alyssa Monks, Lucian Freud, Vincent Desiderio, Ron Mueck, Andrew Wyeth, Rembrandt, Velasquez.  There are many more. 

Academy: The Auntie’s Project, Can you tell me about the process? 

Aleah: They were very open to posing for me.  There was a group of about eleven of them.  Having a group took the edge off, because it wasn’t just one-on-one.  It was more playful.  They all knew each other and we were outside. Warm weather, beautiful outside, friends, and just me.  I think that was really helpful. 

The relationship between me and them, and between an artist and model, is really important.  Because they give to the artist just as much as the artist gives to the piece of work, so I feel like it’s collaboration between the artist and the model, always.  That’s one of the reasons I always want to paint people I know, in some way and some sort of relationship with because I want that history. I want it to have a presence.  I think that shows through body image, through facial expression and also just how I paint it, I am not really sure.  It’s isn’t a conscious thing but I feel like if you know the person and you’re trying to not only capture their physical outward experience but also who they are as a person and their personality, which isn’t a tangible thing you can paint in.  Does this painting look like them, and more importantly does it feel like them?  That’s what I am trying to do. 

Academy: Was it one session when you photographed them? Or more than one? 

Aleah: I have done quite a few sessions of photography with them over the last two years. I usually take close to 800 photographs over a couple hours because I want it to have a spontaneous feeling.  I don’t make them pose.  If they are posing, I want that to come from the moment and what they are doing and I want the emotion to come from them and their mood, right then.  Not something I am forcing on them.  That’s one of the reasons I love photography because I can capture that.  More reality, what a person is really feeling in a moment of actually living versus just standing for 100 hours, while a painter paints you.  I think it’s really important to paint from life, of course I have done it a bunch and have definitely enjoyed it, but recently working from the photo has been really helpful for me in that way because I feel like I can capture way more than just the physical appearance when I am working that way. 

Academy: Are those photo sessions fond memories? 

Aleah: Oh, yeah. They are really fun. It’s like a performance piece in a way.  How often do you get 10+ of your friends, or your parent’s friends, naked in a field and you get to take as many photos as you want?  And just this spring I started taking photos of my younger friends, the aunties’ daughters.  There are two paintings in the show.  I’ve just started working with the kids, rather they are 29.  I am now painting what I thought I couldn’t paint before I started painting because I wanted to get away from painting just them.  I wanted interesting skin and different textures.  But then I realized it isn’t just about having aged skin.  Everyone, no matter how young you are, you’re going to have something that makes you real and there is a way to paint that.  So far, doing the paintings of the younger ones, I feel like it hasn’t gotten in the way or different than painting their moms.  It feels similar.  I don’t want to be the painter of older ladies.  I want to paint people, mainly women because I enjoy it more.  I want to paint all ages because I just don’t have a big reason that I want to paint older women. That was the starting point and I am sure I’ll keep painting them.  I find them incredibly beautiful and interesting to paint, but I want to paint everyone.  I want to paint people. 

Academy: Why are the figures you paint in a field or without a background? 

Aleah: There have been a few with landscapes, but that’s a very new thing. I think the beginning of this work where the backgrounds are just white was because all I was interested in was the figure and I love the minimalism of the pure white background contrasted with the complete beautiful chaos of the body.  Recently I’ve been getting into adding landscapes or suggestions of landscapes.  I am experimenting with the backgrounds.  Definitely outdoors, it doesn’t work indoors.  I want to paint people in their nature state and you have to be outside for that.  It makes more sense. 

Academy: The younger women, the next generation.  Is there another title for these? 

Aleah: No, I want to let go of the title thing.  That just happened by accident.  It wasn’t on purpose.  It was the working title of this body of work and then it became a bit more.  I don’t want to work quite as strictly.  I’ll continue to paint them, but also want to paint my younger friends and children and babies.  I hope that will be in the future, I would like that – to paint their children and babies. 

Academy: Do you have people in your community or your family that ask when you’re going to paint them? 

Aleah: Actually, yes.  I find it surprising and awesome when they call me and say, “hey, if you need a model, let me know.”  I think it’s great.  Because I sometimes feel slightly uncomfortable about asking because I want them to know they can say no.  And I hope no one is saying yes, because they feel like they can’t say no to me. 

Academy: Have you gotten more comfortable about asking people? 

Aleah: Yes, I have gotten used to it.  I lead with the fact that they can say no.  I want people to do it because they want to.  Actually, since the work has gotten more out there in the past year, since the BP thing [2012 BP Portrait Award].  I am surprised people will still pose for me because now more people will see it.  But it’s not just going to be me and my classmates and teachers in New York.  It’s on the Internet. It’s on Facebook.  I admire my models even more because they know people will see them. 

Academy: The portrait you won the award for, that’s not your mother is it? 

Aleah: No, that’s not my mom, but she was in the room when I was born.  I have known her my whole life.  She’s been amazing with the whole thing.  She went through a lot with the award.  It’s been a lot.  Dealing with seeing comments about the painting.  I had to deal with seeing comments about my painting, but she had to deal with seeing comments about her body.  She went through some personal struggles with it.  I am proud of her and thankful to her, because she helped me.  It was amazing, but I had some difficult times with it.  I didn’t expect that to happen, all the intensity.  It was a pretty intense couple months following the award.  But just one person saying something, stands out among the string of other amazing things.  But we got through it.  We got closer and stronger for it. 

Academy: What were the highlights?  That was about a year ago, right? 

Aleah: I had known about the Portrait Award for a long time.  I decided to enter when I was ready.  I finally felt like I was ready to do it and I sent the painting over.  You have to actually send the painting over to England.  It got on the short list.  There are four selected as finalists and then 55 artists in the whole show.  I couldn’t believe I got into the show.  It was a blur.  It was an intense June.  I had just graduated.  So I went over.  I didn’t know I had won when I went over there for the show.  I went over for the awards ceremony.  I had to get over it being overwhelming.  I feel like most artists get into art because they like being behind the scenes because they like to observe, especially figurative artists because we are observers, we don’t like to be interviewed or photographed.  We like to watch.  I had to get over it and deal with having the attention.  It was a bigger deal than I thought it was.  It’s a big deal in the UK, much bigger than here.  Everyone at the grocery store over there knows about the BP Portrait Award.  I am glad I did it and am on the other side.  The process helped me be a better artist. 

Academy: Tell me about your plans now, going forward. 

Aleah: I am going to be a full-time working artist [big smile].  I am not over thinking it.  Trying to take it one-step at a time.  Enjoy it while it lasts.  And also continue to love it and keep the work feeling honest.  Try not to let the fact that it’s my living.  I’ve never wanted that fact to influence my work. I guess the next plan after the Academy Fellows show in September is Flowers Gallery has offered me a solo show in their London gallery next summer, in July 2014.  That’s the next big thing.  Generally I am going to stay in New York. 

Academy: Congratulations! That’s exciting! 

Aleah: Yes, it is.  It’s amazing, and scary and intimidating. 

Academy: Do you have any desire to teach? 

Aleah: Yes, I do.  I definitely do.  But I want to know more before I do major teaching. 

Academy: Do you think you’ll stay around New York for the foreseeable future? 

Aleah: Yes, I really love it here.  There is something about making the work I am making here, which seems counter-intuitive, but I need the separation between where I make my work and where the inspiration comes from.  I need to go back from time to time to see them and be there.  I need them.  I get to be the person I am there, by default.  But it feels good to be here, the city where I get to be who I want to be and to be able make paintings the way I want to make.  Love it here. 

For more information about the 2013 Fellows Exhibition featuring Jonathan Beer, Aleah Chapin, and Nicolas Holiber or the Academy’s Post-Graduate Fellowship Program visit the New York Academy of Art website – www.nyaa.edu.


This interview was conducted by Maggie Mead on behalf of the New York Academy of Art.  Editing and layout was done by Elizabeth B. Hobson, CMP.

Coming to an end…a short but sweet look at the week: Leipzig Residency – Part 6

Posted on August 8, 2013

By Krista Smith (MFA 2014)

The past couple of weeks here have flown by. Between painting, panting in our stifling rooms, and making quick escapes to the lake, we managed to put together a great end of summer show. We all crawled out of our studios to help clean and hang the work alongside Kristina and Mareika (interns of LIA) without any air-conditioning in a room I have now re-named “the easy bake oven”.

Tim is a master mopper, you should see his happy wiggle dance while he does this

One of the few precious fans that help relieve us
Alicia setting up her studio
Kristina curating the show
 
Cold beer and salad break with Barbara
Last minute touch ups

Shoeless Tim

After the set up, all of the artists from LIA headed for dinner with Anna where she described to us her first experiences in Leipzig here at the Spinnerei and how she came to start the LIA program.  Following this we opened our doors to start the show at seven o’clock where Anna caught us off guard with the amount of patrons who showed up and turned the spotlight on us to say a few words about our work.


Anna speaking about Kevin’s portrait of Tim

Alicia speaking about the differences in hair culture in Jamaica compared to Germany

Pretty much the theme of our time spent here

LIA guests
Our girl Hannah, she was the intern here last year
Prost!
See you on the other side very soon!

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On May 31, four Academy students arrived in Leipzig, Germany, to start a two-month residency hosted by the Leipzig International Art Programme. Alicia Brown, Tim Buckley, Krista Smith and Shangkai (Kevin) Yu (all members of the class of 2014) will share their experiences here throughout the summer!

The Final Chapter: China Residency, Part 8

Posted on August 1, 2013

By Zoe Sua-Kay (MFA 2014)

After a week in the Chinese capital and having soaked up some of the local culture and scene close to our hotel, we decided it was time to put our tourist hats on and see some of global tourism’s most famous sites – The Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and of course, the Great Wall of China.



The Forbidden City

Probably somewhat unwisely, we chose one of the hottest days we’d yet experienced to explore the Palace. Without trees and with it’s relentless expanses of  brick courtyards we were rarely offered any relief from the glaring sun as we trekked the 3,153 feet from the entrance (Meridian Gate) to the Imperial Gardens at the very end… and back again.
 

Forbidden City, view from the Meridian Gate.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony

Girl with Chinese head wear
Elliot Purse strikes a pose in the Forbidden City

The Summer Palace


The Summer Palace was a nice contrast to the flat, scorching and exposed layout of the Forbidden City. Located forty minutes from central Beijing by subway, the Palace is arranged over leafy hills and at the bank of the large Kunming Lake.

Lady in an old-fashioned Chinese outfit inside the Summer Palace

View from interior
The following day, and having delayed what we had deemed to be the climax of our cultural education in China, the time had finally come to undertake the epic experience of taking a hike along the Great Wall of China.


Elizabeth Shupe, Elliot Purse and James Adelman on the Great Wall

And what a hike it was!

We had the good fortune of visiting a part of the wall that had only just recently been opened to the public. Thus, we hardly encountered any tourists outside of the group we had gone with. We were able to explore the ancient, unreconstructed sections and happily take photographs without the reputed hoards of tourists at other, more well-known sections of the wall. 
However, this also meant that we had to be on guard of the loose, uneven terrain of the ancient wall. Without any kind of railing (or safety precautions of any kind at all), the possibility of miss-stepping and falling off the steep, isolated wall was imminent. But we made it.

Elliot conquers the wall
Beth conquers the wall

 
I conquer the wall

James conquers the wall

Last weekend in China

 


Our final weekend in China was spent with Ian, our guide on the Beijing side. He took us around CAFA’s/China Academy of Fine Art’s museumof ‘Excellent Student Work’. And excellent it was – we all left a little mind boggled (a.k.a downright intimidated) at the quality of work these Chinese undergraduates had produced.


This was followed by lunch down the road from Ai Weiwei’sStudio.

Ai Wei Wei’s studio, exterior view

And finally, a trip to Beijing’s famous 798 Art District, for an opening at Pace Beijing.



A word of sincere thanks.

On behalf of James, Elliot, Beth and myself, I would like to thank everyone who has made this trip possible. It has, with all honesty, been a life changing experience.

While we have now all finally separated to our respective homes, I think my fellow residency compatriots will appreciate the quote I quite simply could not have signed off without:

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. 
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. 
I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. 
All those… moments… will be lost in time, like] tears… in… rain.
– Roy Batty




On May 25, four Academy students arrived in China to start a two-month residency in Shanghai and Beijing. James Adelman, Elliot Purse, Elizabeth Shupe and Zoe Sua-Kay (all members of the class of 2014) will share their experiences here throughout the summer.

The Colors of Beijing: China Residency, Part 7

Posted on July 26, 2013


Today it rained. We woke up to the sound of the water gently swishing down the gutter outside the window and drip-dripping off of the roof.  When I stepped outside of the hotel to make my way to breakfast, it seemed Beijing was still half asleep, curled into itself like a contented house cat  The rain continued to drizzle down from the sky.
In the early afternoon we took the subway to the National Art Museum, grateful to have an indoor activity to do on a day such as this. We walked through an exhibit of delicate ink paintings done in a traditional style. Each showed incredible skill- deft handling of line combined with subtle washes of grey tones rendered both the sweep of great vistas and the tiny intricacies of a human face with precision. Most of the paintings were immense, and they filled the gallery with their presence, requesting respect and silence. Their fine grey gradations and the blurry edges where the wet ink had soaked into the rice paper put me in mind of the world I had woken up in that morning- a moist, monochromatic world, where all sounds were hushed by the steady drip of the water from the sky.




Yes, Beijing could be that way, I supposed. But it had surprised me when I had woken up this morning to find the vibrant city dampened and quiet. I had only spent a few days here, and yet I felt that I had a good grasp on the character of the place- colorful and bustling, filled with shouts and laughter, cooking smells, and countless rickshaws. The city of Beijing was a wrinkled, knowing smile on the face of China, reflecting its deep history and good nature. But today, a more reserved and stately Beijing was revealed. It was a new color to add to the palette I had been composing in my head, a palette of all the colors of this ancient city.

It had started in the Forbidden City, my mental palette, when I had noticed the specific yellow of all of the roof tiles. It was a mustardy yellow, verging on gold, and it stretched across the Forbidden City, crowning almost every building. My guide book had said that the yellow color had belonged to the emperor, and no one else had been allowed to decorate their buildings with it. I had thought about what power that must be, to own a color. As an artist, I must say I was a tad bit jealous.

The next day, on my way to breakfast, I stumbled across a store selling lucky cats. They came in different colors- red, pink, blue, green, yellow, and black. Each color meant something different, and although I couldn’t discern what they meant, I knew they were all auspicious. The round smiling faces of the cat figurines in so many different hues cheered me, and it was then that I truly started paying attention to the colors of the city.



The maroon curtains of the bicycle rickshaws matched almost exactly the rich maroon of the buildings at the opulent Lama Temple. Gold and bronze Buddha statues peered out from shop windows, and gold decorated the eaves of the concubine’s quarters in the Forbidden City. White marble gleamed on bridges where the railings were carved to look like clouds. The same color was more austere in a statue of the philosopher and religious leader Confucious.  Bright green and blue paintings of dragons adorned wooden gates. The sky was a paler shade of blue, the trees lining the streets a more lively green.

Also green was the bodies of two crickets in cages that I heard before I saw, in a small courtyard off of a narrow hutong alley. There were orange carp in a bowl, glinting in the sunlight, and a paler orange cat who shared tea with me in a quiet teahouse. There was a black bird in front of a convenience store, its leg shackled to a leather cord that was tied to its perch. The acid pink of plastic lotus flowers in a garland contrasted with the soft blush of fresh peaches that were being sold in the very same store.  Truly, this was a city made of color.

But the color that spoke the loudest here was red.  A bright red like oxygenated blood. In the form of giant red silk tassels it hung in nearly every shop front window. Red lanterns hung in the trees over a shopping street, marching in straight lines above the shoppers. The same red was on cartons of Double Happiness cigarettes, and in the fresh peppers siting in a bowl in front of a Sichuan restaurant, even on the Chinese flag itself that snapped in the breeze above Tiananmen Square. Red was the color of luck, and good fortune.

I struggled to remember that fact as Zoe and I huddled under her umbrella on the short trek back from the subway station after the art museum. We were talking about how much was riding on our next year at the Academy, how simultaneously excited and terrified we were. The red lanterns in front of a restaurant had turned dark and saggy in the rain, I noticed. I felt a little like that myself.

But then I remembered a piece of graffiti I had seen on my way to breakfast that morning. It had been written in English, black spray-paint on a grey concrete wall, and was just as colorful as the morning had promised it be- in other words, completely devoid of chroma. But I remembered the message. “KEEP ON PAINTING” it had said, with an underline for emphasis. “Ok then, I will.” I thought to myself.

Keep on painting. Its all any of us can really do. But in a world as colorful as this one, those words promise adventure.





On May 25, four Academy students arrived in China to start a two-month residency in Shanghai and Beijing. James Adelman, Elliot Purse, Elizabeth Shupe and Zoe Sua-Kay (all members of the class of 2014) will share their experiences here throughout the summer.

Art Southampton 2013

Posted on July 26, 2013

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The Academy will present an exhibition of alumni works for sale curated by Academy Senior Critic, Eric Fischl.
The collection includes pieces by some of the most accomplished artists to have graduated from the Academy.

Featured artists include Jason Bereswill (MFA 2005), Aleah Chapin (MFA 2012, Fellow 2013), Michelle Doll (MFA 2006), Elizabeth Glaessner (MFA 2013, Fellow 2014),  Nicolas Holiber (MFA 2012, Fellow 2013), Christian Johnson (MFA 2001), Will Kurtz (MFA 2009, Fellow 2010), Lisa Lebofsky (MFA 2006), Alyssa Monks (MDA 2001), John O’Reilly (MFA 2010, Fellow 2011), Melanie Vote (MFA 1998), Tyler Vouros (MFA 2011), Annie Wildey (MFA 2008, Fellow 2009), Lucy Winton (MFA 1995) and Matthew Woodward (MFA 2007).

 

Cospudener & The Bauhaus: Leipzig Residency, Part 5

Posted on July 19, 2013


By  Shangkai (Kevin) Yu (MFA 2014)

It is my feeling that it would be important to make a post that reflects our time here accurately. Beer drinking, sausage eating, lake swimming, grass and beach napping, museum visiting, and painting are our life in Leipzig.
Before going on to the museums and general art talk, here are two pictures that sum up our leisure time:
Tim sleeping on the grass at Cospudener Lake

View of the canal on our bike ride home from the lake.
In the past two weeks, the two most memorable things for me were the visits to Das Bauhaus in Dessau and the Museum der bildenden KünsteLeipzig.
I am going to dispense with the description of the Bauhaus architecture we saw in Dessau, and just have the following three photos sum up our visual experience there. 

Another view of the Bauhaus building.


One of the Masters’ Houses built for the instructors, which include Walter Gropius, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky.
The highlight of the day at Bauhaus for me was not really the architecture that seemed all too familiar to us by now, but the original documents of the institution on display in the exhibition space. 

Among them was Walter Gropius’s “Lehrschema, 1922” (instructive schematic):

This is the original German version of the Lehrschema
Here is the English version of the schematic.
Having been to two different towns outside of Leipzig for art sightseeing, Tim and I finally, in the third quarter of our stay here, went to see our local Musem der bildenden Künste Leipzig. 
A sculpture by Neo Rauch in the Musem der bildenden Künste Leipzig.
The gem of the day at the museum for me had to be one of Werner Tübke’s paintings “Chilenisches Requiem.”
“Chilenisches Requiem” by Werner Tübke

The surface of the painting took me by surprise. Tübke chose to describe most things in this painting with the exact same technique. Viewing the painting at an arm’s length, this decision creates a strange effect, where the flesh transitions seamlessly into the garment, the pebbles into flesh, and the mountain range into the tree trunk. Everything in the painting seems be frozen.
 

A detail shot of the painting, taken by Tim Buckley


Both Tim and I had difficulties deciphering the technique Tübke used in this piece. The scintillating texture on the forms seems at once strangely familiar and foreign to me. By chance I spotted the texture of the orange rind in a Dutch still life painting, and found the likely source of this peculiar form description in Tübke’s painting. 


There are only eight days left till our final show here at LIA. We have decided to buckle down in our studios for the time being, and hopefully we would be able to channel some of the inspirations we got from seeing the many incredible paintings in the museums.

On May 31, four Academy students arrived in Leipzig, Germany, to start a two-month residency hosted by the Leipzig International Art Programme. Alicia Brown, Tim Buckley, Krista Smith and Shangkai (Kevin) Yu (all members of the class of 2014) will share their experiences here throughout the summer!

Satisfying the Inner Tourist: China Residency, Part 6

Posted on July 16, 2013

By Elliot Purse (MFA 2014)

After a long, post-opening, post-artist talk, post-John Jacobsmeyer hang out, post-spa weekend, all of us subconsciously decided some down time was due. Monday and Tuesday were spent mostly entertaining ourselves and taking care of all the little things we’d put off over our eventful weekend (i.e. laundry, shopping, and getting a little more time to take advantage of our great studio here at SHU). However, by the time Wednesday rolled around, we were totally rejuvenated and ready to embrace our inner tourists. So we jumped on the subway and headed into the city center. 
Contrary to the familiar grime of the New York MTA, the Shanghai subway was impeccably clean and made for an easy ride into the city. Once in the city, we headed over to the Bund area to take in the incredible skyline of Pudong and hitched a ride on the infamous “sight-seeing tunnel,” a light/laser side-show-esque tunnel under the Huangpu River.

When we exited the futuristic trolley that had taken us through the tunnel, we found ourselves right around the corner from the Oriental Pearl Tower. Staring up at the giant pink pearlescent orbs, we decided to go see Shanghai from above by making our way up to the viewing decks.

Somewhere around 265 meters above the ground, the view was stunning and uniquely unnerving due to the glass floor on the second observation deck. I noted that it actually felt similar to seeing the mountainranges on our earlier excursion. While the buildings certainly were not as mammoth as mountains, the sheer expanse of highrises receding into the distance was just as sublime.

 

We made are way down, grabbed some nearby food, and continued our journey over to the Old City. The Old City of Shanghai is the original urban development of the city center. I was told that some of the buildings are between four and 500 years old. Of course, like the rest of Shanghai, the incredible architecture of the past is now completely infused with modern shops, and it is a bustling maze of streets. 
After we had walked and seen as much as we could, bought some gifts while perusing a few markets and tended to some hard-earned blisters, Wang Yi met us for a quick dessert as his local favorite dessert cafe. Now, I’m not a huge sweets person, but when my plate of fudge hit the table, you can bet it didn’t take long for me become a sweets person. The night concluded with an evening walk through the French Concession, another district of Shanghai, and a few drinks at a jazz club: inner-tourist satisfied.
After de-installing our show, exploring the city a little more on foot, visiting the South Bund Soft Material Market (an incredibly cheap tailoring market), we also got a chance to have dinner with Yi, his grandparents, parents and extended family. The meal once again was an incredible spread of food, which we eagerly and thankfully devoured. 

After all this, the rest of the weekend was spent, most importantly in my eyes, with a few last nights with the incredible group of international friends who so warmly shaped our experience on campus and in the city. Much love to Roland, Wen, John, Sylvia, Ray, Marta, Kamal, Agata, Anna, Peter, Sara, Elke, Rory, Andy, Alec, Iona, Tania, Dasha, the Kate’s and Mateo (and this goes without saying of course: Wang Yi!).      

On May 25, four Academy students arrived in China to start a two-month residency in Shanghai and Beijing. James Adelman, Elliot Purse, Elizabeth Shupe and Zoe Sua-Kay (all members of the class of 2014) will share their experiences here throughout the summer.

Ancient Artifacts, Temple Ruins and 248 Stairs: Mexico City Residency, Part 2

Posted on July 11, 2013

By Garrett Cook (MFA 2014)

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks since my last update. Two weeks ago I misstepped and sprained my foot, rendering me unable to walk for a couple days. It’s certainly a little frightening suddenly finding yourself immobile in a foreign country where you barely speak the language! Thanks to Motrin, bandage wraps and ice, I was up walking again in a few short days. Plus, the down time afforded me some extra time to work on my paintings.

  
A quick bike ride down to Chapultepec Park last week revealed a vast cornucopia of museums and sites, most notably the world famous Anthropology Museum. I can honestly say this is one of the most impressive museums I’ve visited. Focusing primarily on Mesoamerican history, the museum’s sheer size and number of artifacts is awe-inspiring. The layout is extremely well thought out, with exhibition halls dedicated to each major tribe and geographic area. The museum has everything from small trinkets to temple ruins–truly extraordinary.

The expansive courtyard of the museum

Across the main road that runs through the park is the Museum of Modern Art. It is a small museum, but the collection is formidable, and it is curated flawlessly.

work by Martha Pacheco

Seeing this work in person was a real treat.
  
Outside is a wonderful sculpture garden.

Inspired by my experience at the Anthropology Museum, I took the hour-long bus trip north of the city to Teotihuacan to visit the ancient city and temples. 

The Temple of the Sun
Treacherous steps

I was immediately blown away by the sheer size of the site. Constructed 2,400 years ago, the site was home to over 125,000! I know that there has been construction over the years to keep the site open for visitors, but it seems to have been preserved marvelously all this time. The main attractions here are the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon. The 248 steps to the top of the Temple of the Sun were treacherous at best, but the end result was totally worth it. Here I am at the top:

My diet has remained a steady rotation of tacos and tortas. While I will say I’m looking forward to a slice of New York City pizza in a couple of days, I’m going to miss the amazing street food here. It’s the best combination of delicious and cheap.   

This has truly been an incredible trip. Traveling alone is such a unique experience, and I’m grateful to have been afforded the opportunity to do so for an entire month. I truly hope I will be able to return to Mexico City in due time, as it is an incredibly stimulating city.

On May 31, Garrett Cook (MFA 2014) arrived in Mexico City for a one month residency made possible by Stephen Henderson and James LaForce. This is one of two posts written by Garrett about his experiences there.