Interview with Laura Sanders
Neoteric Art: You graduated from The Columbus College of Art and Design and twenty years later still work and live in Columbus. Please discuss the Columbus art scene currently and over the years.
Laura Sanders: There has been tremendous growth in the art scene since I arrived here in Columbus, particularly with the galleries. The short north gallery district has expanded and supports a popular art walk. We now have the Wexner Center which brings great contemporary art exhibits to Columbus, and we have lots of non-profit organizations that offer support with grants and opportunities for artist’s to exhibit. I know many business’s and non-profits are struggling currently with the economy. Hopefully this is short lived and many will be able to weather it. In general Columbus is rich with a large diverse population of artists. I think with the convergence of CCAD, OSU and several other colleges in the area, we attract a lot of artists. With the teaching opportunities and low cost of living many artists end up making Columbus home.
NA: Discuss your work/thought processes when starting a new piece or series.
LS: I generally start out with an image in my mind, maybe of a pose for the figure or location, then try to “stage” it. I work very closely with my photography and that is where the random or unexpected enters my work. During a photo session, sometimes something I may have planned as my focus ends up looking different than in my minds eye and the moment leads me in another direction. Afterward I spend hours pouring through images I have taken to find ones that capture the feeling or idea I had. Often I will use photoshop to patch together images for the composition of the painting. I used to work from life but after a while I found that very constraining. My work is almost always figurative, occasionally animal, and I am very interested in the elements and movement. I finally concluded that with my interests I was going to have to fully embrace photography to make the paintings I wanted to. One paradox of my work is that it looks very observational, yet it is observed or should I say re-observed, after the fact, from a photo. While I am in the act of painting I imagine that I really am observing it in life. I feel like the examined photo becomes its own reality in paint that is part memory and part, well, paint. My painting technique is visceral and thick and the image is subject to that physicality. While it is observational the image ultimately serves the paint.
NA: Tell us about your “Heads Above Water” series.
LS: I have been obsessed with painting the head just above the water for some time now. While my most recent paintings have more to do with artificiality than the previous Heads Above Water Series, I am still making my figures neck high in the water. There is probably some unconscious reason for this preference but on a more left brain conscious level, it is the specificity of the face against the anonymous elemental forces that intrigue me. When I first began the series I was also thinking about ways to objectify the figure and relate to it more as an animal, to see it as if it had a natural habitat.
NA: You recently gave an Artist Talk at Syracuse University. How was that experience?
LS: This was the first visiting artist trip I had ever done and I wasn’t sure what to expect. It turned out to be a really enjoyable experience. I have been working really hard lately and not getting out as much as I should with my artist friends, and my trip to Syracuse reinforced how much I love to think about and discuss art. The questions student and faculty asked during my presentation were very insightful and gave me lots to think about afterward.
NA: Who are some of your favorite painters working today that most of us would not be familiar with?
LS: A few of my favorite Ohio painters are Linda Gall, Debbie Griffing and Paul Emory. I love Linda’s scenes of destruction cradling fragile images of porcelain pomp. Debbie Griffing is an under the radar artist who does beautifully layered paintings, sometimes in wax with colored pigments and oils. Paul Emory depicts rural scenes in rich colorful and often humorous paintings. You can find Linda’s work at lindagall.com, Paul at paulemory.com and Debbie’s painting in her myspace pictures at www.myspace.com/dagriffing.
NA: What are some of your short and long term goals concerning your art career?
LS: Two of my short term goals are to exhibit in cities outside of Columbus and to participate in more artist residencies. Practically speaking, I would love to make a blue collar living as an artist. If I can make the same amount as an electrician or a plumber, and do that by painting, well I think that will be heaven. As for long term, my goal is to create a body of work that I am really proud of and one which leads me to new discoveries that continue to fuel my passion for painting.
http://gallery.atomicperception.com
Category: Interviews 18 comments »
June 7th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I can totally relate to the way Laura works. My process is very similar – -
June 12th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
CCAD teaches it is ok to use photographs while other schools teach that an artist should encompass the entirety of the painting and not rely on the camera to do the 3d to 2d translation.
June 12th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Both schools of thought are fine – -
June 13th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
If two people each paint half of a painting then both of them should be recognized as the artist. Therefore, anyone using a camera to skip the complicated task of 3d to 2d translation, should recognize Nikon or Cannon, etc., as their co-creator.
Cameras have monocular vision. It’s not how humans see. Humans are bi-nocular. Also, a trained eye can easily spot a copied photograph painting. There are missing gradations in the shadows. You can see this with the unatural sharpe edges of the shadows.
Copying photographs is easy and has allowed a vast number of people to call themselves artists. The technique creates a great number students which makes the art schools larger and larger. All the while, the gifted artist who doesn’t need the camera to translate 3d to 2d for him/her, is lost in a sea of mediocity and flooded art markets.
But hey, how do you educate the masses? Art has been so marginalized the past couple decades. Whats the point? Who cares? Right?
June 13th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Ira, you are correct, art has been marginalized the past couple of decades but using photography as reference for painting is not at all one of the problems – -
June 13th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Yes it is. Copying photographs is a root problem causing a decline of art and culture. It’s easy. It makes for a lot of artists. Too many artists. The market is flooded with mediocre art. People no longer know what good art is. I recognize this is an unpopular message and is strongly disliked by those who copy photographs. I mean come on, artists love calling themselves artists. Copying photographs is a craft. A craft that is easily learned.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Art hasn’t been marginalized by a reliance on photography as a foundation for painting. It’s been marginalized by a disregard for aesthetics in favor of conceptualism in our academic institutions. The ideas and discussion of ideas are what have replaced art making. Poor aesthetics have been introduced as an idea. Unfortunately, artists continue a tradition of poor aesthetics until it has reached a point where shitty work is acceptable and therefore don’t even know what good art is.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Wow, now I know why I had such a complex about using photographs for so many years!
I love a good still life as much as anyone, and a model that is posed and is the basis for a beautiful figure painting I can appreciate and I admire the skill and the observational rigor that is involved to create it. I think it is essential that young artists have this practice, and at CCAD, at least 21 years ago when I last attended, this was the basis for their training of fine arts majors. But after many years, for me, setting up the model was not satisfying enough. I do not endeavor to mechanically reproduce the photograph, that is the beauty of being a painter, you have the richness of the oil medium at your command and you can take what observational information you have gathered and include, exclude, darken, lighten, emphasize, simplify, eliminate, on and on… Simply because you, the viewer, see something in the painting that you recognize as being an empirical representation of life, does not mean that you know the history of that image, and why should you? How that image is derived is not the importance of the painting. Using your own or even found photography to create a painting is an individual expression that is created in conjunction with a medium that in of itself is also considered an artistic medium. I think most people who call themselves photographers also think of themselves as artists. By the way photography has a pretty long history of being used by painters, Thomas Eakins and the French realists come to mind.
One last comment I’d like to make. Our world is so bombarded by media images everywhere, for all painters and artists to exile this from their work would permit only a very narrow scope for us painters to express and comment on our world and I think as a whole, would diminish painting’s relevance and rich diversity.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Good comment Laura. As you point out, artists have been using photography for reference for over 100 years. It’s just another way of working. It doesn’t matter if an artist uses an actual model, a sketch, photography, or a combination, whatever…the most important thing is the finished work. Like you, I have worked with models in the past but prefer photography. I’m not trying to reproduce the photo (btw – there is nothing wrong with photo realism) but the photo or photos become a starting point. To clarify, I actually use 3 or 4 photos from my session (a scene that I set up) and make a comprehensive sketch…and then the sketch becomes my starting point for the painting
June 18th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I paint from life because I love everything about the process. I love observing slight changes day by day that occur and subtle color variations. But artists that paint from photos are still observing and transferring feelings about a subject too.
After all, painting or being an artist isn’t about who can prove they are the better drawer, but who can create an image or experience that expresses something. Right? Successful artists in my opinion are those that with whatever means possible cause the viewer to stop and feel. Feel anything. We can put forth discussions about the history of using photos, or even what qualifies “good” art, but isn’t the real truth here about expression?
Painting isn’t like a sport where we judge who is superior by who can kick the highest and into the goal. As artists isn’t our main objective to cause a reaction or communicate an idea or feeling, not prove skills or impress others with abilities. A painting whether it’s representational or abstract shouldn’t be about, “hey look at me and what I can do” but hopefully, “hey, look, stay, feel this visual experience.”
And as for Laura’s paintings, I did have the opportunity to see them in person at Art Chicago. Paint itself plays a large role in the visual experience, thick and luscious, making us feel the watery surfaces. The expressions of the swimmers make us consider exactly what kind of story is being told here, with the physical weight of paint/water almost threatening to overtake the swimmers. These thoughts and feelings stayed with me, and really, can’t we all agree that making someone else think or feel is what we would hope for in our own work? Isn’t that really why we are in this game?
June 18th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
A painting whether it’s representational or abstract shouldn’t be about, “hey look at me and what I can do” but hopefully, “hey, look, stay, feel this visual experience.”
- – great point
April 14th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Wow Ira! From what I’ve read in your comments, to sum it up, all artists should just stop working! Not just photorealists but everyone in all mediums, styles, levels, etc. walk away from your studios. Go home. Take up another profession… Per Ira Madison. I think Ira has forgotten that all artists copy, steal, borrow, regurgitate pretty much everything that has already been done. nevertheless, we find enjoyment in the process we choose to follow. Ira, you yourself are copying the same critique when photorealists first came onto the scene, yawn. I just looked up Artist in Websters and seems your definition is the only one in there! Sorry I stand corrected. Your idea of pretty impressionistic paintings should be the only art form! Wait a second, Ira is your name really Kincade?
“Show me an artist that doesn’t copy and I’ll show you an artist that doesn’t produce”
April 15th, 2010 at 7:23 am
what the hell, i’ll jump in on this…
the problem is not artists using photographs as part of their structure of sources – as as been stated, we’ve been doing this for a long time.
the problem is when they use the photograph as the absolute primary source in a way that causes them to deny their responsibility for the image.
this is what i mean:
when i arrange a still life for my students, they have to negotiate the space and environment in a HUMAN way, making choices, doing their best to understand the view, applying principles of perception and facture, among other things. and all the while they have a very fallible yet beautiful experience of their relationship to the objects and spaces they are WITH – the objects are not in some other place; they are with them – the air they breath circulates among the objects they paint.
amalgamating this perceptual reality into an image is what i want to teach. i don’t want them to make products. i don’t want them to execute an image.
but sometimes they get impatient with their own human visual translation abilities. they want to have a product. they want the image to be a known quantity. they want to execute that known image, moving it from one 2D thing to a larger, 2D thing made in oil or acrylic. what they get is an illustration of the 2D surface of the photograph, not an experience of space or body.
and that’s the point.
i don’t care if they use the photo. but i do want them to use it knowingly, in awareness of what they are doing. i don’t want them to pretend they are talking about all sorts of human experience and the light and space of life when what they are talking about is the experience of the photograph and the history of that kind of representation.
once again, i’m not saying NEVER should they work from the photo. i’m asking them to take ownership over the TRUE implications of what it means to illustrate the photographic image versus what it means to experience a 3D reality in their own environment.
we all need to embrace the multiplicity of our potential sources and influences, but never let those things we source which are NOT what we want our work to be about to maintain the dominant position. there’s nothing wrong with using the photo as long as we’re recognizing how images using the photo as the primary source are part of a dialogue very different from observational painting.
there actually is a difference. one isn’t bad while the other good – we’re not making a moral distinction. but we do want to make certain that we’re not mixing apples and oranges. an immediate, surface relationship between the two things (paintings made from observation of 3D space and light and objects vs paintings made from 2D representations of space and light and objects) does not make them the same thing. often those working primarily from photographs want to claim that there is no distinction; there is. just as there is a distinction between working purely from invention. and there’s nothing wrong with working from invention, either. but there is a distinction. (often, the best paintings these days use all three – observation, invention, and some photo/digital sourcing).
artists need to be allowed to figure out what it is that will help them do what they want to do and then go do it. but they also need to be honest with themselves about the implications of using materials, sources, referents, etc that alter what their work is about. so many artists operate under assumptions and conceits that cause them to fail to see what is actually going on in the work (this problem is one of the great reasons for grad school).
anyway, enough soap-boxing for this morning…
April 15th, 2010 at 7:47 am
well said Eric and Matt. We all have different methods of achieving a finished painting…and we all go through a different process….but who gives a fuck in the end, the painting will speak for itself…good or bad.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Photographs omit, blur, or distort the 3D image. When I am painting, I am forced to make decisions how these areas need to be treated. The process frees me from worrying about the authenticity of reproducing the photo and getting back into the lushness of the paint on canvas.
April 30th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Laura, I just saw two of your paintings at Art Chicago. Wow! Fantastic brush technique! Heavy and deliberate. JPEG’s rarely do paintings justice. I was happy to come across those.
-I saw Ira on a blog for photographers. He was complaining that photographers cheat when they use color film and that they should never ever shoot abstract images. Saying that an abstract image is something only a painter can create. Then he closed by saying what they do, is a craft.
April 30th, 2010 at 11:18 am
you beat me to it Eric. I saw Laura’s paintings yesterday and feel the same way -
May 17th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I can’t believe all this drivel about whether it is allowable to use a photograph or not! I am a huge fan of Laura’s and have a big painting of hers…..and I am also a photographer. The painting is a daily pleasure, and it doesn’t matter if photography had anything to do with it. Keep going, Laura.