Scrutinearsighted: Q & A with RICHard SMOLinski
The unusual appearance of my printed name was developed to assist in pronunciation and to distinguish myself from the American children’s book illustrator with whom I share my name. By contrast, I am a Canadian artist interested in the ways that power structures influence and shape our realities and behaviors. I currently reside in East York, Ontario but for many years I lived in Calgary, Alberta.
My work in the areas of drawing, painting, installation, bookarts and performance has been exhibited, presented and performed at public and university galleries, artist-run centres, alternate venues and festivals across Canada, the USA and the UK. I have also received major project grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. I earned the first PhD in Art granted by the University of Calgary’s Department of Art for my combined creative and scholarly research project, Practices of Fluid Authority: Participatory Art and Creative Audience Engagement. A fellowship from the Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council supported my doctoral research. In addition to my work as an artist, I am also an educator and have taught at the University of Calgary, Brock University and The Alberta College of Art & Design; currently I am an instructor at the Ontario College of Art Design.
How does being an educator inform your artistic practice?
I think I learn a lot from students, sometimes it is just finding out about a new artist that I am not aware of, and getting the chance to see a new way of thinking with art, but it can also be a reminder of how important “art” is. Often, though, I benefit from the passion of students; the way they care about things and ant to make a positive impact, reminds me of why I think art is worthwhile and important, and confirms my own desires to make a positive impact.
Your work often engages in wordplay and pairing terms together—does your process begin with writing and then move to visual?
Language and wordplay weaves throughout my process. Often I do start (or think) through devising coinages and puns, and these suggest possible images and relationships that are then more consciously developed. Other times, my working process begins with figurative gestures and poses that suggest different types of power dynamics and interpersonal relationships—as such image start to solidify, they might then suggest “textual” possibilities—like coinages and puns—that are subsequently incorporated into the work.
How does your work embody a sense of humor while also remaining keenly critical?
I think the humor is a defense mechanism, a way of not being crushed by how awful some situations are. It is a way of switching my perspective from being overwhelmed by the effects of power, to responding to source of the problem—those in power and the ways that they behave. Humor is my position on the power continuum; rather than using my creative energies to create mayhem and harm and exploit others, I try to use my creative energies as a positive force that points out the foolishness, greed and cruelty of those in power. I think that humor is a form of power and I take humor seriously, while it can be malicious and hurtful, I aim my efforts at making critical “fun” of those actions and individuals that are hurting others.
Can you describe the process of installing your work? Do you have a set way of showing these pieces or do you find that it changes and evolves over time or is dependent upon where they are shown?
Installing the work is like putting together a puzzle when you do not know what the final outcome looks like. I do not have a set way of showing the pieces, and for this installation I had prepared a number of new components that were predominately irregularly shaped, so the work was going to be quite different from its past installation.
Although there are a number of pieces that seem to go “well” together and have particularly strong relationships (and that I did plan to install adjacently), there were times in the installation that other possibilities and necessities were more important, and that my initial plans/assumptions changed. The Hillyer space was challenging because of the short wall with the pair of corners, the electrical conduit in one other corner and the variance in ceiling height. The narrative tableaux had to respond to these physical attributes and the final installation was much different than I planned. Especially different was the verticality of this installation. I anticipated a more horizontal flow, but the works’ spikes and troughs ended up being quite drastic—something that seems appropriate for the works’ chaotic sense of action and consequence—like being on a sociopolitical rollercoaster.