Artist Interviews

HILLYER INTERVIEWS CAPITAL FRINGE PERFORMER JEREMY GOREN

This July, Hillyer is happy to host a Capital Fringe performance, Wistaria, a traveling meeting that questions our past and present through a hallucinatory amalgam of U.S. texts, traditional song, and actions both mysterious and banal. Wistaria appears in homes and odd spaces, searching alternative ways of living in art and society. Created in part during the 2013-2014 LEIMAY Fellowship, CAVE, Brooklyn, NY, the performance is a transgressive anti-narrative that jumps through U.S. history, from an imagined Masonic-ritual past all the way to the immediate present, following the transformations of the tent-revival Methodist hymn that became “John Brown’s Body” and then “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Wistaria incorporates one new actor in each performance, as well as a few audience volunteers – and the audience is given songbooks and invited to join in. “We sometimes present a musical guest as a second course – and we always serve deviled eggs.”

Performers at Hillyer will be Jeremy Goren, Stephanie Eiss, and Jenna Kirk have been working together since the beginning of 2013. They have performed Wistaria at several locations in New York, in collaboration with a changing cadre of artists. They will be joined by Richard Sheinmel, Laura Bernas, and Alexandra Zajaczkowski for these performances. This production is presented as a part of the 2014 Capital Fringe Festival, a program of the Washington, DC non-profit Capital Fringe.

Here we interview Jeremy Goren to give you a little more insight about Wistaria. Performances are on Friday, July 18th at 8pm & Saturday, July 19th at 2pm. Tickets are on sale now!

Hillyer Art Space (HAS): What does the “Wistaria” refer to?
Jeremy Goren (JG): In this case – and in this spelling – “wistaria” alludes to William Faulkner’s novel Absalom, Absalom. (The more conventional spelling is “wisteria”.) I’m obsessed with this book. I’ve read it several times over ten years or so, and each time I realize I’d previously understood nothing of it. Not even the basic plot. The structure, tone, poetry, and particular type of opacity masking a complex depth of meaning and mystery lie, for me, at the source of Wistaria. For me, it’s the kind of underground Bible of the USA – a dark current beneath the mainstream – pulsing out our history, the violent throws of a new kind of nation being born out of blood, slavery, tragedy – and with the grand depth, scale, and distance of a true creation myth.

HAS: Wistaria incorporates one new actor in each performance, how does this rotating role affect each individual performance?

JG: This means that each time Wistaria has appeared a different person has taken on the durational task of cracking and peeling hard-boiled eggs during the performance. Changing the performer each time started by chance but quickly became deliberate. The role has to do with the marginalization and servitude of different types of minorities in this country, simultaneously with the realization that these groups have actually been the creators of culture and, in many ways, the conscience of the nation. They look in at the folly of the mainstream and keep time in the darkness. And, their status outside the privileged spaces of the country hint at a kind of possibility of transcending the universe – thus the egg, a traditional symbol of universe, eternity, rebirth, pointing towards the ineffable place that words cannot reach and no tongue has sullied. But I saw this only in retrospect. It was not a calculation. On a less symbolic level, it’s interesting for us, as a small group working together for more than a year, to consistently welcome in a new playmate for a moment. In these performances at Hillyer, we’ll actually have several new performers. Guests in the home. Plus, you know, life is transient.

HAS: You put a call out on your Facebook page for volunteers to host a performance in their homes. How did this practice evolve and why are performances in homes significant to Wistaria?

JG: This practice evolved way before we came along, of course. Traveling performers appearing in private homes is a millenia-old practice. In this case, I started thinking about it while visiting my parents for Thanksgiving two years ago. We were driving through Potomac (Maryland) at night, out where all those huge houses sit brooding on large, well-groomed plots of land. And I suddenly thought of a medieval acting troupe, wandering through the countryside, happening upon a castle, and going in to entertain (or roast) the duke and his friends. I like it because it takes us further out of the Theatre Industry and its commercial, capitalist model – which predominates even in the “off-off-Broadway” world and the “experimental-theatre” world. And then I came across Jere C. Mickel’s Footlights on the Prarie, which details the wandering theatre troupes – particularly the traveling-tent troupes – that criss-crossed the USA in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I’d never known these had existed. But, this practice had been here – and clearly related to the tent-revival tradition, which, from my meager reading, really played a formative role in our society and its culture – particularly its music. I’m also interested in how this kind of circumstance of performance changes expectations and experiences for doer and watcher. What possibilities exist in this circumstance? Plus, it’s much nicer to hang in someone’s home than in a theater.

HAS: What is the significance of the deviled eggs?

JG: Well, consider the significance of eggs I mentioned above. Now, add in the Devil, the idea of which has exerted a strangely prominent influence in the U.S. national mentality. Deviling food, as I understand it, began as such in England within the past several hundred years, meaning just a way of making your food spicy – hot, like Hell. Somehow deviled eggs became not only a rather emblematic U.S. dish, often associated with the southern part of the country, but many people we’ve encountered have deep personal associations with them and favorite recipes for them – and there is a great variety of ways to make them. I, for instance, thought they were Jewish food (until last year!) because my grandmother always served them at pesach. So, what does it mean as a national practice to take this symbol of rebirth and eternity, slice it in half, mash it up, send it to the Devil, and ingest it?

HAS: The performance is described as “a traveling meeting that questions our historical past and present through a hallucinatory amalgam of U.S. texts, traditional song and actions, mysterious and banal” as well as “an intimate meeting of people that questions and may threaten – through text, action and song – the story we use to placate our minds”. I guess my question would be does the performance seek to encourage the viewer to rethink their definition of “Americanness” and about America’s identity in international opinion? To re-imagine the histories we’ve been taught about what America means and our place within the international community? Do you come from a perspective of questioning our national identity?
JG: I don’t like to prescribe any experience or dogma to an audience. I feel that my job is to open a space for us as a temporary community and as individuals to perhaps become aware of something in ourselves and our society and to stimulate a reconsideration. To question, yes, but it’s less on a political or mundane level. To say it’s about questioning our national identity is right, but that’s only the surface of it, and if we stay there, we won’t get anywhere. That’s just a tool, a vehicle for questioning ourselves on a more significant level, to think about how we’re living and want to live, as individuals and as a society. It’s not about policy-making. Ultimately, it should move beyond a particular nation-state and touch on the possibilities of the universal and the eternal. Isn’t that what art is for? If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t have had to write any of the text you cite. That’s part of the negotiation with the venture-capitalist nature of art in our society – you have to market at least to some degree. As soon as I write those words, I know they become lies. So, you know, don’t take them too seriously.

HAS: Does holding a performance in Washington DC hold any particular significance to Wistaria?

JG: For sure. As the Congressional stenographer informed us recently: “The Constitution would not have been written by Freemasons!” But it was. This city is the seat of power, the heart of the official, national myth machine – and my native town.

Thanks Jeremy!

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MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT: AMY HUGHES BRADEN

Membership Associate Ginny DeLacey sat down with Amy Hughes Braden as she was installing her show, Red and Grey Paintings, in Hillyer’s NIN9 Members’ Gallery. Amy discussed her fascination with relationships, her issues with ownership and her love of collaboration. Amy’s show will be on view from February 1-25.

Ginny DeLacey: What is your background as an artist?
Amy Hughes Braden: I had supportive parents so I took art classes growing up. It never seemed like an unreasonable idea to be an artist. It was always just the track I was going down.
I went to Pratt right out of high school, but I ended up graduating from the Corcoran. I liked the Corcoran’s program because it was really open and I had a lot of freedom.
GD: Can you discuss the importance of relationships in your paintings and collages?
AHB: Personally, I find family dynamics very interesting. I’m interested in the relationship of relatives, of people you’re related to but you may or may not know. I have a stack of photographs of my grandma when she was about my age that I love to look at because I’m interested in exploring the artifacts of lives lived. Also, I’m a huge extrovert so I need to be constantly interacting with people, even if it’s within a painting.
I’m also into exploring relationships in a more formal way. My husband and I were just discussing how each of the works function more like a paragraph so when you see them all together they are understood in a different, perhaps more complete way.
GD: You’ve recently started mixing painting and collage, could you explain that transition?
AHB: I’ve always kept and collected bits of paper, interesting images from magazines or pamphlets. I have boxes of these papers and every so often I take them out, sort them and reexamine the images. Recently I’ve been using photocopied image. To me they bring up issues of copyright, ownership and authorship in the age of the internet.
I like to take other people’s work and use it in mine. I’ve stolen my brother’s sketchbook and built works on top of his art. I call it a collaboration, but sometimes he gets mad at me. I look at it as I’m not doing anything new, no one’s doing anything new so I think it’s silly to cling onto claims of ownership.
GD: What artists or artistic movements inspire you?
AHB: I’m so bad at answering that question. Francis Bacon and Philip Guston have inspired some of my recent work. The Dada movement has always been appealing to me; they were just fed up with everything. I think their ideas still have a lot of relevance today.
GD: When you start a work do you have a final painting in mind or does it evolve as you go?
AHB: Sometimes they evolve. One of the paintings in this show was originally a portrait that I had done for my thesis. I decided I didn’t want it anymore so I painted over all but one tiny section. I’m very reactionary when I paint, which can get me into trouble. I use source images for any figures that I include in my work, but I don’t usually have the whole composition pre-planned. Like I said, I’m reactionary. I’m very impatient when I paint, which is one reason why I don’t use oils. I work very impulsively and instinctually.
GD: How long does it take you to create a work?
AHB: It depends. I always work on at least three paintings at a time and then I always have a few collages going at once. I’ve found that this helps me make better decisions, or it keeps me from getting tunnel vision on one piece and overworking it. I made that painting [referring to Mrs. Henry White, above] in three hours. I was challenged to create a painting in three hours and that was the end result. There was a lot of energy going into it, knowing I had such a limited amount of time to work, and I became less inhibited. I only had time to execute my idea; there was no time to hem and haw over the process.
But then other paintings can take months. I don’t necessarily churn out works quickly, but I do like to make marks and paint quickly. Sometimes I’ll start a painting and then set it aside for a few months to mull over before working on it again. I didn’t always do this, but I’ve seen that it is a vital part of the process.
GD: When you work on paintings or collages at the same time, do they wind up looking similar?
AHB: Yes, because I use the same palette on each one so the colors are fairly consistent in each painting. When I paint, I paint whatever I’m thinking about. It’s very stream of consciousness so the works come from the same head space which makes them thematically similar by default.
GD: Do you think this show has an overall theme?
AHB: I didn’t have a theme in mind at the start so it’s hard for me stand back now and say, “Oh, this is the theme.” I’ve always worked with portraiture so formally these paintings are about trying to evolve from simply rendering faces on a canvas. I thought a lot about formal elements as I painted and also about how to incorporate collage elements into the paintings, while maintaining a level of refinement. Ideas about my family and relationships on all levels will always be a part of my work and I believe that shows here as well.
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Come visit Amy’s show Red and Grey Paintings along with John Reuss’ Mind & Matter and Marcia Wolfson Ray’s Rhythms on view in Hillyer until February 25.

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MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT: MATT MALONE

Membership associate Ginny DeLacey sat down with member artist Matt Malone as he installed his exhibition Hot Pink in Hillyer’s NIN9 Members’ Gallery. Matt discussed the inspiration for his series which features photographs of deflated, pink balloons strategically placed in urban sites. He explained the way the juxtaposition of a pink party balloon in an unexpected setting can transform a scene into a completely different image. Matt’s show opens December 7 and will be on view until December 21.

Ginny DeLacey: What is your background as an artist?
Matt Malone: I began making art in 2003. I studied printmaking and painting at VCU. I had originally studied business at William and Mary, but one of my professors encouraged me to do art which led me to VCU.
GD: Do you work as an artist full-time?
MM: No, I used to work at the Philip’s Collection but now I have a regular 9 to 5 job. I’ve been doing this series since 2005 and I also am working on a collaborative project called Duly Noted Painters with Kurtis Ceppetelli where we paint on the same canvas at the same time.
GD: What’s the inspiration for this show? How did you come up with the idea of using pink party balloons in urban environments?
MM: I was really influenced by the artist Andy Goldsworthy who goes into nature and finds things like colored leaves, for example, arranges them, takes a photograph and then leaves them to revert back to nature. In art school you get strange assignments, once we were given a word and had to create a project around it. My word was “celebration.” So I thought about the word for a while and thought of a party store. When I went to a party store these pink balloons immediately stood out, as they do in the photographs, so I decided to work with them. I wanted to do what Andy Goldsworthy did but in an urban environment by contrasting these balloons with their surroundings.

Most of the environments were construction sites which are always changing. They’re also hard to get into, you can’t go when people are working so you have to sneak in after hours. I would pass by these sites on a daily basis and get inspiration, but if you don’t act almost immediately the opportunity for a certain shot is gone. You have to act on impulse. Also light is key in these photographs. The play of shadows is very important. That one there [referring to Division, above] would look totally different at any other time of the day.

Construction sites are great because there are tons of weird things that you don’t see on a day-to-day basis. For example, that one with the drill bit, most people don’t see that every day. Artists are always searching for inspiration and it’s good to see new things and generate new ideas.
GD: Have you ever been caught sneaking into a construction site?
MM: I haven’t been caught by anyone who’s kicked me out. I’ve had people stop and watch what I’m doing for a little while. I try to be careful.
GD: What would you say is the over-arching theme of the series?
MM: I think one theme is the idea of using an object in a different way than is intended. When I started the project I knew that I didn’t want to blow up any of the balloons. When I shoot these images I carry around a bag of 100 pink balloons, which is a lot so I don’t always use all 100 in each image. This may sound weird, but once I arrange them each balloon begins to take on an individual personality and characteristics. They start to personify things, what they personify isn’t always clear but they absolutely take on a life of their own. It would be easy, actually it would be hard, to make each balloon look the same but I don’t really fret about that. I like the way that none of them looked the same.
GD: Are you still making works for this series?
MM: I’m still making them. The last one I took was of a power reader outside of Hillyer [above, first image]. I did it at night, which is a new thing for me that I may try to explore more. I was trying to show my process. I put my bag of balloons on the wall and shot it so it looks like my shadow is holding the bag.
GD: Was it different shooting at night?
MM: It was completely different. The light doesn’t change since it’s all artificial. I also didn’t light them myself, I just relied on the existing light. But even though the light doesn’t change you still have to balance the light and shadow.

GD: Could you explain the process of making one of these photographs?
MM: I live up in Brookland where there’s a lot of construction. So I’ll pass a site and get an idea, but it’s not fully formed until I get onto the site later on. I usually go to these sites when the sun is setting because, as most photographers will tell you, it’s the most dynamic part of the day. At midday when the sun is directly overhead the shadows and light don’t move but at sunset they are always changing.
Depending on the shot, it usually takes me 10-20 minutes to arrange the balloons. If it’s windy it takes longer because the balloons will get blown down. Then I have to anticipate when the shadows will be right and wait until the sun moves into the perfect position. I usually take four to five images at different times. Each one can be very different depending on how the sun and shadows were at that exact moment. Of course some images don’t rely on the light and shadows as much, but a lot do.
GD: Are all of these shot in DC?
MM: I started making them in Richmond. My first one was called “Holed Up” where I placed balloons in two pot holes. Then I moved to Vienna which also has tons of construction. I would see things along 66 commuting into work and stop to arrange shots.
One from along 66 features a huge six foot high graffiti of the word “Showtime” spray painted on a power reader. It was painted over two weeks later, but it’s preserved in my photographs.
You can see, especially in this image, how the balloons can also act as an indicator of scale. They show just how huge this graffiti actually was.
GD: How important is the idea of juxtaposition?
MM: Before I got started on this series, I would take a picture of just a site. Which is fine, but I needed to bring something more to it, to add something to it. In that way I use the balloons as drawing tools to highlight different passages just like you highlight different passages of text in a book. Works have to have something to catch your eye, for me that’s balloons. But it’s a fine line between being cheesy and…
GD: Artistic?
MM: Yeah. I don’t want to be cheesy.
GD: I like the way you’ve stuck with one color of balloon, it unifies all the works even though you use the balloons in such different ways.
So you’ve been doing this series since 2005?
MM: Yeah, off and on since then.
GD: Has your process or the images evolved since you started?
MM: After a while you start to run out of ways to arrange balloons and you need to take a break. I’ve made them concave, folded them over but it gets harder to stay creative. I don’t want to fall into the same patterns.
When you draw, say with charcoal for instance, you find different ways to depict line and shape, or how to direct the eye. It’s the same with the balloons, now that I know how to use them it’s easier to make the images turn out how I want them to.
Every time I move I come back to the series. I moved here from Richmond in 2007 and have moved five or six times since then. When I move to a new environment I get new inspiration.
GD: Have you ever experimented in a more natural site?
MM: No, not really. Not all of the sites are construction. One is a crate that you see every day in the street. A few are from an old gas station that was about to be torn down. I’m not really interested in experimenting in nature, it’s not what I see on a daily basis and I like the contrast of the balloons and the urban scenes.
GD: What would you like viewers to take away from this show?
MM: I hope that it helps people start to look at their daily environment differently. To make them think, oh if I had pink balloons on hand, or whatever object they like, I could put them here. It’s a challenge to be inspired by what you see every day. Finding an idea is a big part of making art, the execution is the biggest part, but the idea is very important.

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MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT: JACKIE HOYSTED

Membership Associate Ginny DeLacey spoke with artist Jackie Hoysted before her show Label Me: Call me a Name opens on Friday October 5 in Hillyer Art Space’s NIN9 Member Gallery. In her show, Jackie dares viewers to label her paintings which feature beautiful, but challenging, women on stark backgrounds. This experiment raises questions of gender politics and the power of labels in art as well as in everyday life. Label Me: Call me a Name opens this Friday and will be on view until October 26.

Ginny DeLacey: How did you first become interested in the importance of names and labels?
Jackie Hoysted: I had been painting these female figures for a while and assigning my own names to them. My goal was to paint women from the point of view of a woman. I saw them as strong, intelligent, beautiful figures even though some of their poses were rather provocative. One of my friends told me she thought these women were “racy,” which wasn’t my intent but it got me thinking about the power of names in art and how it can change a viewer’s perception of a work.
GD: What inspired you to allow people to assign names to your works?
JH: The idea of this show was partially motivated by the name calling that is so prevalent in political commentary like when Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “floozy” over her support of insurance companies covering contraceptives. I’m interested to see if people will use derogatory terms to describe these somewhat challenging women or see them as strong and intelligent as I do.
Thinking back, I wish I would have included a box for viewer’s to check if they are male or female on the label cards. It would have been interesting to see if responses varied based on the viewer’s gender.
GD: Are you nervous about letting your viewer’s name you work?
JH: I’m really curious about what people will name my paintings. In previous exhibitions I gave the women names’ of famous women from mythic and historical sources but I’m excited and curious to see what other names viewers will assign to them.
GD: Do you think this experience will change the way you view your own work?
JH: It could, I’m pretty fixed in how I view my paintings but it could happen. I don’t think I will assign my own names to the paintings after the show. I want the labels will stay with the paintings. Maybe each work will have multiple titles or maybe in the end the viewer will get to complete the work and choosing which title they like best.
GD: Are the women in the paintings inspired by real women or did you use models?
JH: I used stock photographs as models, when I found ones that I liked I would purchase them. I then used Photoshop to take elements from different photographs to create a unique image. Basically I created my own models through stock photographs.
I started using stock images around seven years ago when I was making collages of images from fashion magazines. As I churned through thousands of images I found it was hard to find images of women in poses that weren’t sexually provocative.
I didn’t want to create paintings of traditional reclining nudes that are meant to be gazed on and enjoyed solely for their beauty as you would see in traditional museums like the National Gallery. I wanted to paint from a point of view that says, yes women are beautiful but they are also intelligent and strong. They’re not only objects of beauty.
GD: Can you explain the significance of the lack of context in these paintings?
JH: The absence of a background was very intentional. It’s the idea of having a painting with no context that can stand on its own. It doesn’t need props or a background to make sense because it is obvious that the subject of the painting is the figure of the woman.
GD: Do you think your Irish background has had any effect on your art or working style?
JH: No, I don’t think so. I never actually worked in Ireland. I came to the United States for work as a computer programmer and started taking courses at the Corcoran. Eventually I gave up my programming job to focus on art full time.
GD: That seems like quite a jump from a computer programmer to an artist.
JH: I moved to England from Ireland for a programming job right after my husband and I got married. As we were settling into our new apartment, I walked past an art shop and bought a book on how to draw. I had never taken an art class or done art before that point.
I don’t think it was such a big jump from computer to art though. There is a lot of creativity in computers. You have to think about how to break something down to its smallest elements while constantly thinking about how the big picture will work. I think that’s very similar to how art works.
GD: Do you have anything you want to tell viewers before the show opens?
JH: Please write your own labels. Don’t be shy, I’m so curious to see what names people assign to my paintings.

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MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT: VALERIA CAFLISCH

Membership Associate Ginny DeLacey sat down with International Arts & Artists and Hillyer Art Space Member and exhibiting artist Valeria Caflisch as she was installing her show Evidences which will be on view in Hillyer Art Space’s NIN9 Members’ Gallery from September 7 to September 28.

The works in Caflisch’s Evidences were inspired by images of 19th century Italian bandit women, but they have evolved into a series that questions our associations with household tools, gender roles, politics, religion and so much more.
Ginny DeLacey: You were originally inspired by images of Italian bandit women which you found online 8 years ago. What caused you to return to these women?
Valeria Caflisch: I came across these Italian bandit women by chance and was struck by them because of their strong, challenging looks. At first glance, I noticed their traditional dress and that they were holding some sort of tool. I assumed that they were holding brooms or other household objects when in reality they are holding guns. I was shocked at myself. Even as a modern woman I immediately associated these Italian bandits’ traditional dress with domestic tools. Something about these women spoke to me so I kept them in the back of my mind so I could return to them later.
GD: How did these women influence your work in Evidences?
VC: Two years ago I started doing still lifes. I thought back to the bandit women and decided to explore our associated relationships with household tools. Just as the bandit women broke my expectations by holding weapons instead of brooms, these works break associations by making household tools seem like weapons. These works invert the idea of tools allowing mundane, domestic tools to become strange objects.
GD: How did you decide to display these works? How do you see them working together?
VC: For me, less is more when it comes to exhibiting. There are other works in this series, one featuring a garlic press and another an avocado slicer but I chose not to show them because I wanted the works here to be able to speak to each other without becoming too overwhelming or cluttered. Silence is a Women’s Best Garment was done a year before The Ice Cream Scoop, The Whisk and The Grater but it fit in the space and spoke to the other works, so I included it.
GD: How did you choose what tools to represent?
VC: I chose mostly traditional tools. I don’t think I would want to paint an electric tool. I like the older tools which contrast with some of the more contemporary materials, such as soap and expanding foam, I experimented with. For me, playing with new materials is part of the game of being an artist.
I also chose a lot of metal tools because they allow for a lot of drama. The shine of the metal allows for exaggeration. I was trained in sculpture, never in painting so I think I’m drawn to metal because it allows for great contrasts of light and dark. It’s almost sculptural in a way.
I like to explore the balance of the past and present, the contemporary and the traditional. The Ice Cream Scoop is comprised of the actual ice cream scoop in a plastic bag, traditional oil paintings of the scoop, and green foam with round holes carved out of it. The implication being that the scoop was used to carve these holes.
The name Evidences combined with the presentation of these paintings and objects is meant to mimic and make fun of television crime shows. My works are playful. They play with each other and with the viewer.
GD: So associations are important in your work?
VC: My works play with associations, especially how associations can change between countries and between people. The crime scene set up of The Whisk, The Grater and The Ice Cream Scoopmake it seem like the objects were used violently on the other material shown. People associate the whisk with the foam and assume that how the foam was made, when it reality it wasn’t. I didn’t use any of the objects shown when making this series. In The Ice Cream Scoop the holes in the foam are slightly smaller than the scoop. Once, I saw a girl studying the foam, then studying the scoop trying to measure if the scoop actually made those holes. That made me happy, to see someone questioning my work and the “evidence” that was presented as fact.
I want viewers to take time with the evidence, to decide for themselves if they believe it. In our modern world we associate things with each other and then automatically assume them to be true. The dramatic lighting and presentation of the works in Evidences automatically forces our brain to think of a crime. But I want viewers to think about what they’re seeing. You can’t actually cause harm with these tools, you can’t kill someone with an ice cream scoop.

GD: Tell me Silence is a Women’s Best Garment
VC: The phrase, “Silence is a Women’s Best Garment” is an old English proverb. I originally came across a variation of the phrase in the German. The German is much stronger and translates as “The highest value of a female is her silence.” I wanted to use this phrase in its original German, but since my audience here is American I started to look for an English equivalent. I found the English proverb, which is quieter and softer that the German but still has the same message.
Again, the work is full of associations. The strainer, when used as a tool, strains things and keeps things back just as the proverb is telling women to hold their tongues. When I was creating this work, I meant for it to be ironic. I don’t actually believe the traditional proverb which is basically saying, “Woman, shut up.”
I think most people see it as an ironic work, but once a girl came up to me at a show and told me that she agreed that we women were the only ones who could keep the silence. That’s not the meaning I originally intended, but each viewer is allowed to draw their own associations and meanings. What I think a work means and what a viewer thinks can be totally different.
I don’t want my art to be so conceptual that it can’t reach people. I want viewers to be able to connect with my art and find associations within it.
GD: And you’re open to these different interpretations?
VC: Yes. One thing that drives to produce art my love of exhibiting works. Public feedback is important to me, not because it changes my work or what I produce but because I like to hear new interpretations.
Someone once asked if I had a favorite painting. I immediately responded the painting I am going to paint. For me, art is kind of like raising children. You love you children, but at some point you have to let them go.
GD: Having lived and worked in Italy, Germany, Jakarta, Switzerland and now Washington, you are truly an international artist. Do you feel your work is influenced by everywhere you’ve lived?
VC: Absolutely. But at the same time, I’ve never lived anywhere more than five years so in a way all places are my place, and no place in mine. This has allowed me to relate more to universal ideas. Also, my age has changed my perspective. I feel I’m in the middle of my life; I can see things from a distance and focus on what’s important.
See Valeria Caflisch’s show Evidences in Hillyer Art Space’s NIN9 Gallery before September 28.
Signup to become a member of International arts and Artists by visiting our Membership website or by emailing Ginny DeLacey at membership@artsandartists.org.

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