INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW // SHAMUS CLISSET and GRIN

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A CONVERSATION WITH SHAMUS CLISSET ON THE OCCASION OF WOANDER,
CURATED BY COREY OBERLANDER AND LINDSEY STAPLETON

GRIN - How would you describe your relationship with nature? Is this something you often consider? Does living in a city affect this relationship?

Shamus Clisset- My family is from Brooklyn and Long Island, but my parents were big hippies and moved us out to Colorado when I was young. We spent a lot of time in the mountains growing up, even lived in a teepee for a summer. But, like a lot of kids, my trajectory was to go opposite to anything my parents had done. The hippy, back-to-nature stuff embarrassed me for a long time. I'm not embarrassed anymore (usually), but I did end up in New York and not on a commune.

What I've become fascinated by as a result of all that, however, is our modern relationship to nature, especially as Americans, and in light of how real wilderness has been practically removed from our daily lives. Working in 3D, one of my first realizations was to treat digital space as an empty new world, an unexplored frontier - but one that is more internal (a projected mental space), so a lot of imagery from my childhood in the mountains began to filter in. But along with that came a lot of detritus from the suburban wasteland that's replaced what was once here. I think my parents' fleeing Long Island for the Rockies was a very natural reaction. But there is a scariness to both extremes - the rawness of nature vs. the emptiness of what's left after it's been paved over - and that is pretty central to what I'm making.

 

G- Would you mind providing some background information about the works in Woander? Where do these ideas germinate, and why have they held your attention?

SC- Mostly the images spread out as tangents from what came before. A lot of the objects, ideas, and compositions get reused, recycled or transformed from one picture to the next. And their meanings transform along with the context. The "Grizzly Chair", for example, is tied to one of the first images in the series, depicting FakeShamus wearing (or inhabiting) the full body of a defeated Grizzly bear. And the figure in "Keeping America Clean" is an offshoot of an earlier composition of a deconstructed camouflaged creature embedded in a dense video game like environment (hence, I called him "Mr. Realistic" in contrast to the abstraction of the previous picture). But everything is also generally informed by things I see or remember. I spend a lot of time researching images of objects I want to build in 3D and that tends to present me with a lot of imagery from many different sources that I otherwise would not encounter. Google images and Tumblr are goldmines of the most random imagery you can imagine, and that tends to be what drives me forward.

G- Do you find that materials inform your work? Is it the other way around? Or is it in constant motion?

SC- Mostly, with digital materials, I am concerned with the level of reality perceived in the image. For many objects, I just want the materials to be convincing enough. I want the space and things to be believable, but I'm not always interested in fully photo-realistic materials because that defeats the purpose for me. I don't want surfaces to be glaringly digital either, so I tend to avoid the digital trick of making some ordinary object appear like it's made of some weird material. It's a balancing act and hitting that in-between space of real and fake is what I'm most interested in.

 GRIN- Based on the objective output, your process seems in some ways, decided. Would you mind providing some additional insight into the compositions of your images?

SC- A lot of times the compositions start from a single object in my head. I go to work modeling it in the computer and as the process unfolds other elements jump into my head and it builds from there. As mentioned above, a lot of times the composition I'm working on sparks whatever follows, or at least some element of it becomes the basis for the next one through some sort of transformation. But the compositions almost always go through dozens of variations as I add or remove elements, change the environments and lighting, and virtual camera angle. So what you see in the final version is really just one possible outcome of many. It is decided in that I choose to call a certain version of the picture "done" but I also like the idea that each variation could live on as an alternate reality to all of the others.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Shamus Clisset lives and works in Hell’s Kitchen, NY. FakeShamus is a sort of imaginary-friend character who lives and explores these alternate realities - a digital golem wreaking havoc on everything around him. He morphs from scene to scene, melding with objects of my own mental obsessions and personal history: the Lamborghini Countach that I drew compulsively as a kid; the nature and suburban landscapes of my upbringing in Colorado; Bazooka subwoofers that I lusted after even before I owned a car to put them in; the aesthetics of beer, guns and violence.

fakeshamus.com

INTERVIEW // RAINA BELLEAU AND GRIN

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A CONVERSATION WITH RAINA BELLEAU

ON THE OCCASION OF WOANDER, CURATED BY COREY OBERLANDER AND LINDSEY STAPLETON

GRIN: How would you describe your relationship with nature? Is this something you often consider? Does living in a city affect this relationship?

Raina Belleau: I'm often bothered by my relationship with nature. Especially having lived most of my life in cities. Nature feels precious in a way that isolates it from me most of the time. I grew up loving wildlife documentaries and going on family camping trips. I have to remind myself that nature is everywhere; that there are urban ecosystems. They're just not as glamorous as the ones we see on TV. In my work, I often poke fun at my own relationship with nature, a relationship that feels very American. The hot dogs and marshmallows that appear in my work have become icons for me when it comes to thinking about this. They are very American and very much tied to nature as a leisure commodity. 

G: Would you mind providing some background information about the works in Woander? Where do these ideas germinate, and why have they held your attention?

R: The three works in Woander are all about animals but they are each about animals in their own way. I've always been drawn to animals whether it's in fairytales, science, taxidermy, the zoo, etc. The human relationship with animals is long and has gotten more and more complicated. 

Companion is very much about the animals that live among us: dogs, cats, household pets. These animals are familiar to us but also very different from us. They are often our closest relationship to other creatures. Companion is a grotesque creature but I gave it marshmallows to eat as a gesture of kindness towards it. 

Brood takes on a totally different kindness towards animals. It was inspired by the costumes conservation biologists wear when raising endangered baby whooping cranes. They don't want the birds to bond with humans so they dress in these strange costumes and impersonate the mother birds to feed and teach the chicks. There is a dependency that is literally masked. I was interested in the bird puppet as a tool and as an animal and how they could be both simultaneously. I'm interested in the moments when they shift in between utilitarian object and animate creature. 

Porcupine and the Ghost Flag sits somewhere in between the other two works. It's about the connections we feel towards animals and the disconnects. It embodies many frustrations I have about how humans look at animals and was a way for me to work through them. The tendency we have as humans to anthropomorphize rubs me the wrong way and it spurred my decision to give the porcupine a hotdog stick. I've never seen a porcupine in the wild and I took my own ignorance into account when making into more of a character. The porcupine quills are zip ties. I'm not sure how I made the mental leap from zip ties to porcupine quills, but they bring in a material connection for our human-centric attitudes. The porcupine has become a mascot for how I look at human relationships to nature.

Leave no Trace, 2015

Leave no Trace, 2015

G: Do you find that materials inform your work? Is it the other way around? Or is it in constant motion?

As an artist working with images and forms from nature, I try not to use natural objects. Making things from the natural world out of things from the constructed world is a way for me to present my ideas on how we look and think about these to seemly opposing realms. I like to use materials that mimic nature or the realistic, like the quills made out of zip ties on the porcupine or the clay hotdogs and foam marshmallows. I just made a turkey with window blinds for feathers.

In Brood I knew I'd be filming against a white wall so I found hunting camo with a white background. The idea of camouflaging against the wall was funny to me but the twigs on the fabric call the bluff. Sometimes I'm drawn to materials because of their ability (intentional or not) to mimic other materials and other times because I find them humorous.

G: You've created a pretty charismatic cast of characters with your work over the last few years. Do any of these characters have a story? If so, do you consider yourself a story teller?

R: I do consider myself a storyteller but I'm not sure how continuous the story is. Perhaps my work can be looked at like a collection of short stories with reoccurring themes. There definitely are a lot of characters. Some are related, some aren't. Porcupine and the Ghost Flag is the most connected to other works as a character. I'm thinking about my scout videos. The other two stand alone. Although, the conservationist in bird's clothing is a character I'd like to revisit. I have a few ideas percolating. I have started to work with a vulture character. He has reappeared a couple of times as a kind of defender or conqueror. 

Often I feel like I might be one of the characters! 

Companion, 2015

INTERVIEW // SANDRA ERBACHER AND JOSEPH LEROUX

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A CONVERSATION WITH
SANDRA ERBACHER & JOSEPH LEROUX

Sandra Erbacher:   Can you tell me a little bit about your subject matter and choice of materials?

Joseph Leroux:   In the Bloom series or pin sculptures I was experimenting with ways to create cloud-like forms that were representative of social networking maps that show all individual connections to one another. I had tried a number of materials that didn’t offer the aesthetic quality that I was looking for in the final product. I went through a long period of material exploration before I realized that I could heat each pin tip and push it into the head of the next pin and wait for it to cool as it became a solid connection. Each of these pieces in the Bloom series is built around the negative space of an object. I was using specific objects as symbols for various groups of people. These objects included a megaphone, bolt cutters, a gun, ear protection and other objects that I used to symbolize particular groups of people including protests of the 1960’s, the occupy movement, and groups associated with anti-authoritarian ideologies. Within this body of work I was exploring how social networking has made it easy to have connections with vast numbers of other people and the lack of considerable substance that has been generated from these connections.

The 2D works start by searching through images from the Adirondack Museum archives near where I spent much of my childhood. I purchase the rights to use each image and then perform mild digital manipulations including making the image black and white, adjusting the contrast, levels, exposure and other basic functions. I then layer thousands of lines in color over the chosen image using transparent markers to simultaneously build up the tonal range of the image as well as distort the specific information within the image. When this layer is complete I use transparent layers of glaze both as a sealant to make sure that there are no physical issues with the underlying information as well as to help steer the images’ tonal quality to a more unified look. The last layers that are put on include both spray paint and airbrush mostly dependent on the degree of control I need for each situation. These layers are mostly dark and again act very similarly to the black layer in a cmyk print. The last layer to be put down is black and it unifies the image as well and adds crispness of the overall appearance. During the entire process of selecting and manipulating each image I begin to imagine what objects or components will add to the narratives that I have imagined for each piece.

SE:   You compare your working process to musical composition. What’s on your playlist when you’re in the studio?

JL:   I have been listening to a lot of the same music for 20 years. The first real creative expressions that I understood came from MTV and the music that my father had on our record player when I was growing up. Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, R.E.M, etc. became raw fuel for my curiosity first in music and subsequently in art. I had very little exposure to works of visual art past Adirondack chairs and painted cow skulls until I was in college.

SE:   What significance does the title have in relation to the work?

JL:    “The Bluffs” is a reference to a place in upstate NY where groups of young adults jump off of high cliffs into the lake below. I was interested in the title because of youthful lack of concern for the danger involved and the fact that they (including myself) have no real reason to perform this activity other than the excitement of the action itself. I am also interested in the bond that is produced between the people who are involved in this activity.

SE:   You mention that “each component within ‘The Bluffs’ plays its part within a larger narrative”. Where is the imagery taken from that you are appropriating? What is that narrative?

JL:   The larger narrative is broken up into a series of autobiographical verses, which takes the form as the interaction between image, objects, and the interventions that I impose on these components. I am able to take an existing image such as a landscape or industrial site and react extemporaneously to the historical image as an improvisational musician would to an unfamiliar melody.

SE:   You talk about offering a glimpse into the former lives of spaces and a sense of authenticity being contained within a photograph. How does your intervention in the original imagery potentially complicate both of these notions?

JL:   I am still in the creation phase of this body of work and I think that my own experience of planning and constructing the work is a separate experience then the visual interaction that the viewer will come into contact with. I view each component within the series as a chance to imagine the places that I have occupied from a historical point of view as well as from a contemporary one. I contemplate the processes both natural and man-made that have taken place in order for my present experience to exist.

My intervention results in the creation of an image that is not historically accurate. The consequence is that I am manipulating historical images in combination with actual objects to offer a sense of authenticity to the narrative that I am constructing. When your father tells you a story about a place that he hasn’t been in a very long time there is a certain amount of distortion, exaggeration, and imaginative treatment that the historically accurate version would not include. The story he tells you is probably more incredible because of those distortions

PAST WORK

ABOUT SANDRA ERBACHER

Sandra Erbacher is a German artist living and working in Providence, RI. She has earned her BFA from Camberwell College of Art, London (2009) and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2014). She has exhibited nationally and internationally, at Grin Providence, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Mana Contemporary Chicago, Circuit 12 Contemporary, Dallas, The Contemporary, London, Kunstverein Speyer, Germany, Umbrella Gallery, Leeds, and Five Years, London. She is the recipient of the 2014 Chazen Prize to an Outstanding MFA Student, a University of Wisconsin fellowship and the Blink Grant for Public Art 2013. She is currently represented by GRIN in Providence.

sandraerbacher.com