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.
