| Danny Licul: When did you originally get the idea for our first project, the book? Kristen Anderson: When did I originally ask you for the drawings? DL: Early October? KA: It wouldn’t have been long before that. I’d been thinking of the feeling of belonging as an indicator of identity and unconscious driver of behavior. It came together in the form of an interactive book. What made doing this project interesting to you? |
 |
Artist to Artist: Kristin Anderson and Danny Licul – D. Dominick Lombardi
Danny Licul: When did you originally get the idea for our first project, the book?
Kristen Anderson: When did I originally ask you for the drawings?
DL: Early October?
KA: It wouldn’t have been long before that. I’d been thinking of the feeling of belonging as an indicator of identity and unconscious driver of behavior. It came together in the form of an interactive book. What made doing this project interesting to you?
DL: I’ve always wanted to do a comic book. Drawing characters for a book conjures up comic books, which is where I started with art. When I started collecting at 11 or 12, I never read the dialog, but read the images. For our book I wanted each image to tell a story by itself, before the text was added. And, of course, you wouldn’t let me see the text…
KA: I didn’t want your characters to be influenced by my text or the text by the characters. Part of the point is that the deep-down reason that any person feels they don’t belong is often not what you would think it is. So the merging of the "anxieties" and the "people" needed to be random. It definitely came out stronger because of our different voices. What we are working on now is different. My part is influenced much more by what I know about you and your work.
DL: I envisioned it as also having a surprise, somewhat open-ended, similar to the first one. Throw me a curve ball!
KA: I’ll see what I can do. [Smile, pause] Danny, what do you look for…look at in a painting? For example, at the Armory Show, you stared at a Bill Jensen for a long time.
DL: It grabbed my attention, then kept me looking and processing. I could zone in on areas then see them in relation to the whole, get up close, step back, over and over. I am drawn to the visible history and how it informs the final piece.
KA: That reminds me, I saw Janusz today. He said that whenever he comes into your studio and looks at a painting, he first looks to see if he can recognize a painting underneath it that he already knows. [Laughter] Is that something you want to come though in your paintings?
DL: Absolutely. Each element that I deal with in a painting is a compression of numerous possibilities that were, uh, wiped out or fused or lie beneath the surface. I constantly need to step back and reflect on them. You were looking at a Holtzer at that show for a long time. Why the strong response?
KA: She took me through a full cycle of emotions, subtly. And it took no conscious effort on my part. The act of reading kind of distracted me to the point that the emotions, well, just happened. And, of course, it appealed to my current obsession with cycles.
DL: Is that what’s behind your fascination with time-based art?
KA: Somewhat. It’s been very influential for me, for my art. It really opened things up. I had always done photography, but I hit a point where a single image wasn’t working for what I wanted to communicate. This frustration led me to experiment with installation and video art, which seem to work better. At exhibitions, I like to eavesdrop near my work and noticed that the pieces that hold the viewer will first grab their attention and then introduce a series of surprises to engage their mind. That kind of progression I can only bring about in a time-based work or a series.
DL: They are often funny too.
KA: That’s kind of a side-effect of the point of view mixed with the element of surprise. It’s typically unintentional, but I like it when it happens. Humor helps, since it "breaks down the wall," gets them "on your side." People don’t like to be preached to, so I want the experience to be between the viewer and themselves. As I see it, my part is to present the subject and my perspective on it, in a way that will lead them to a similar conclusion. But with their personal insight.
DL: I relate to what you said about being fed up with the single image.
KA: That’s a surprising comment for a painter. A painting is a single image!
DL: But painting is developing a single image.
A: So are you saying that a painting is a time-based work?
DL: The single image becomes time-based in the sense that it has residual effects.
KA: Explain.
DL: I use imagery and narrative situations to navigate the painting. Well, vice versa too. The more I become acquainted with the imagery, the more open I become to trusting my impulses. Sometimes an impulse could just lead me to: "Oh, that’s interesting, but…" I live with it, at least for the time being. It might give the painting just that little extra "umph" and the further along I go, that little something may somehow turn into, well, a big something.
KA: So, doesn’t the whole thing turn into a completely different painting that what you started?
DL: Yes, but referential materials keep me grounded: photographs, sketches, etc. I document the evolution of my paintings with a digital camera, mostly for my own records. Sometimes I need to study the earlier stages because I can lose the initial catalyst behind the paint somewhere along the line. Documenting the history of the image allows me to explore the relationship I have to it, him or her. It’s almost cinematic, viewing the succession of changes. So, Kristin, where do your ideas come from?
KA: When I am confused or frustrated about something. I chew it until something crystallizes. When I come to a conclusion, a revelation, I need to share it.
DL: But I see it as something you strongly relate to, something in your past, in a lot of your work.
KA: More recently, yeah. But that is my frame of reference. We each have our own language, our own symbolism, our own history and you can’t help but have that come into your work.
DL: My stuff is littered with that.
KA: Yeah. I often recognize visual references to something recent, especially in your drawings. But what fuses it together seems to come from a much broader and deeper history, something that these people or places stirred in you.
DL: Usually current events will come through somehow. As I develop a painting over time I try not to keep anything sacred. Keep it expendable. At the moments when imagery and paint come together, there could be a cancellation of stuff I thought I’d never get rid of. There is just an impulse wired to deeper associations that led me there. Do you ever work that way?
KA: I need to have it completely envisioned before I start. I’ll work it out in my mind first.
DL: [Pretending to cry] My Dad always criticized me for not being that way.
[Laughter.]
DL: [Sternly] "You must see the job done before you start!"
KA: I usually get criticized for being that way.
[More laughter.]
Kristin Anderson and Danny Licul are exhibiting their collaborative works and related personal works in their two-person exhibition "Ordinary People," opening on September 8th, 2006 at Kasia Kay Art Projects Gallery in Chicago.
