MICHAEL DOPP -- INTERVIEW

PB: Tell me a little about how you work in the studio, what a typical work session is like.

MD: Though I go to the studio as much as possible I tend to work in spurts of productivity. While I spend long hours in the studio, at least half of the time goes up in smoke, reading, gazing out the window or just looking at the work. I don't know if all this dilly dallying about is actually productive or necessary. I use to think that all the time spent in the studio was useful and spacing out on distant thoughts hovering just outside my grasp was an important aspect of my process, but these days I'm starting to think I may just be prone to being lazy. All this to say that a typical work session is equal parts working and not working. Active and in repose. I almost always go in thinking I'll work on one piece and inevitably get caught up in something much less significant. I may go into the studio with the mind to wrap up a big painting, and a piece of drywall is laying about, and the next thing I know I'm cutting it up into little pieces and tiling them together and scribbling on something. This also reminds me that I usually spend some of my time working on something that is very deliberate and planned out, while also having works in the studio which are filled with accidents and incidentals. And somehow, maybe just through an imagined osmosis these two different methods or processes play off each other and inform each other. Lending their assets and I suppose their liabilities to each other.

PB: What sources (art historical/cultural) are you referencing?

MD: My work currently is indebted to early abstract cinema. The work of Emma Kunz. Building materials. The Los Angeles garment district. Robert Fludd. Robert Irwin. Malevich. Brutalism. And aphasia, a deliberate aphasia: searching through the familiar to reconstruct an unknown. A day dream of modernism. An agnostic modernism.

PB: Have you ever been surprised by some aspect of your work?

MD: I am always surprised by a painting. I can never imagine the thing until its made.

PB: Are there any other media that you are considering as an addition to your work?

MD: I want to make something reproducible, and disposable, maybe a zine. I have an affinity to newspaper. I like the way it feels, and smells. My dad is in the newspaper business back in Indiana. Maybe a newspaper.

PB: How do you consider the current point in time for being an artist?

MD: Here's a poem by one of my favorite writers:

WITH THE FLIES

Poets of Troy
Nothing that could have been yours
Exists anymore

Not temples not gardens
Not poetry

You are free
Admirable poets of Troy

-Roberto Bolano

To see more: michaeldopp.com

Milton Avery, Flight, 1950, oil on canvas, 25" x 36"

ELI TORRES

While looking for some local art to do a story on, I stumbled onto Eli Torres, who is majoring in art at MUM university in Fairfield, Iowa. He switched his major from sustainable living to art and I think he's definitely found where he should be. Eli is blending east and west in his work, silkscreening biodegradeable rice paste in a honeycomb pattern onto long swaths of muslin hung horizontally along his work space. He then paints using homemade natural dyes made from black beans, berries, tumeric, and other natural materials. The rice paste acts as a masking agent to keep parts of the muslin white and is washed out after the dye has been completely applied. The resulting bolts of hand dyed cloth are made in keeping with the principles of sustainable living that Eli learned in his previous major. There's a fascinating personal story and unique conceptual ground this guy stands on - along with a unique blend of techniques.

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This pattern is used to silkscreen rice paste onto muslin before painting is begun. After the painting is done, the rice paste is simply washed off, leaving this pattern in white.

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Detail of painting in progress.

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Fearless Slumber, 2011, acrylic on board.

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Painted diskettes.

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Pinned to Eli's studio wall are some notes to reference. Can't wait to see where his work is headed next.

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ANANDA KESLER

Hanging Gardens of Babylon 1, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 6" x 6"

Ananda Kesler isn't afraid of color - any color, which is why I always look forward to seeing whatever it is that she's come up with next. Punchy yellows, mottled grays, and the strategic inclusion of reds (and almost every other color in the spectrum) continue to find their way into her paintings. Ananda's study of textiles has been a strong influence on her work and in the interview below, she describes her visit to Indonesia. .

PB: How did you choose to major in art--why art, or how did you gravitate to art?
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AK: I've always been in love with art, always been enchanted and transfixed by the beauty that artists have created throughout the ages.
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PB: Who has influenced your work the most?
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AK: I think my first and utmost inspiration came from my grandmother. She was a well known artist in Israel, where I grew up. My fascination with oil paint and the mystical, forbidden realm of the painter’s studio began at a very young age during my visits to her apartment/studio. The scent of turpentine, the thick textured palette, and the luscious hues of oil paint left an indelible impression on my memory. Her work was also abstract, though she was most influenced by the surrealist movement. Although our painting style is quite different, my father once remarked how he couldn't believe how much my paintings reminded him of her paintings. My psyche was undoubtedly marked by my grandmother's paintings, her color and style, from a young age. My work is also influenced by my formative years in art school, by the work of my fellow art-school friends and possibly even professors..

Superstring Theory, 2010, acrylic and oil on canvas, 24" x 30"

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PB: How do your work specifically--how do you paint and how do you make color choices?

AK: My process is haphazard. It is fluid and based completely on feeling things out. There are no plans in advance, no road map, or preconceived ideas of an end goal. It is all about exploring feelings translated into color and form. It begins with an impulse that might be a single color and things just flow from there. For me painting is completely about forging into the unknown at every moment. Learning to be comfortable not knowing. Color choices happen accidentally, or influenced by past impressions stored in the creative unconscious. Colors that feel 'yummy' together, that are happy in their relating to one another, get to stay. Colors that don't feel right together get covered up. For me it is all about giving in to a process, letting go and trusting that the painting itself will take over and show me what it wants to be. At times the process seems effortless, the painting just happens almost of its own accord. Other times it feels like pulling teeth, and things take a long time to work themselves out, sometimes never resolving completely.

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PB: How have your travels abroad influenced your work; what was Indonesia like?

AK: Traveling is always a transforming and eye-opening experience. It allowed me to see and experience things so exotic and foreign that it opened things inside of me. The main focus of my travels in southeast Asia was a search for textiles, a kind of treasure hunt of sorts. On the Indonesian island of Java I studied batik techniques from a couple of master batik artists. In Thailand I studied about traditional Lana weaving structures. Since I've been back, I've been drawn to take my paintings in a direction inspired by the textile patterns that I saw in my travels.

....Untitled, 2009, oil on canvas, 24" x 36"

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PB: What are your plans for your work and/or education in the future?

AK: In the future I hope to somehow combine my two passions for painting and textiles. I would like to find a fluid place where both can inform each other. Where I can use some design ideas printed on textiles that can be turned into consumer products, as well as make paintings that are informed by pattern and textiles. As for education, I am still entertaining the idea of getting an MFA in the back of my mind. My dream would be to complete my graduate studies in Italy or Spain.
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Hanging Gardens of Babylon 4, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 6" x 6"
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Not Sure How, 2011, mixed media on canvas, 24" x 36"
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More of Ananda's work can be found at anandakesler.com.