Carolanna Parlato Interviewed By Rachel Youens

Carolanna Parlato, Side Streaming, 2012. Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 63 x 72  in. Courtesy of the artist.

Carolanna Parlato Interviewed By Rachel Youens

Rachel Youens: A distinction was recently made between your earlier paintings and your latest show, as the difference between performing nature and representing nature. How do you see the shifts in your differing processes and intentions?

Carolanna Parlato: My new body of work, Behind the Sun, is meant to embody the chaotic and transitory nature of our world. Natural phenomena are all around us: in afternoon shadows, or the glow of the morning sky, shifting clouds, and the sway of branches that are visible from my rear window. When I paint I am trying to capture a fleeting moment in time or perhaps an aspect of nature’s energy. In this group, I juxtaposed brushwork with pours, splatters, and slathered areas of color. In my earlier paintings the form or composition emerged from the process, my actions, the interplay of chance and control. Bringing my hand into play is what sets the new work apart. In my earlier work, the paint itself directed the compositions. One could describe the new work as a representation of nature, however I prefer the word reflection.

RY: Your latest series seems to return to some earlier processes. Your transformations of viscosities go way back?

CP: In the 90’s, I worked on a group of paintings in which I allowed droplets of paint to spread and disperse which created a kind of fractal edge that I found interesting. I let my paintings dry in the sun partially and then washed them off.  At times I would leave a painting out in the rain. Using an absorbent surface, one that can be reworked, is something that I did experiment with early on.

RY: You are more like an alchemist. Is that a link for you?

CP: In some ways, there is a link. I was greatly influenced by reading James Gleick’s book, Chaos. I was intrigued by the idea of the butterfly effect and fractal edges. I’d mix dry pigment into paint with varnish in it, and then add various acrylic mediums together and it would do stuff, react.

RY: So, many pours were experimental and had a strong time element?

CP: I would let a painting evolve over a day; I would tilt the canvas and let gravity direct the paint, then pour in more colors and push it off the edge by rotating the canvas. By using different viscosities of pigment in the subsequent pours, forms emerged and the composition evolved. Many times it would work out and sometimes not.  With the latter, I would unstretch the canvas and start again.

RY: Those paintings have great scale.

CP: I felt that what I was doing was parallel to some kind of natural process: like lava flows or colliding ocean currents, any number of things. The works in my Perfume River series needed to be large.

Around 2004, fluid acrylic paints and pouring mediums became available. I tried them all and found one that was quite thick and permanent. The fluid pigment was really brilliant. My Nature Games series evolved from using the new materials. I liked the bulges and relief effect that I was able to get by overlaying organic forms. It was like working with melted taffy; I loved the way it stretched over the surface and the plasticity that resulted.

Carolanna Parlato, High Summer, 2012. Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 64 1/4 x 78 in. Courtesy of the artist.

RY: After your success with the Nature Games series, you made a change in your work. What discoveries and difficulties did you encounter?

CP: I had to deal with some doubt. But the way I was working was so final. There was no working back into the surface. I found that I could start a canvas with pours that were thin and soaked in. I also poured the clear mediums without pigment directly onto the canvas.  Some of it I coated with a commercially-made absorbent gesso. So the pours were less plastic and I could stain over them. Creating a dialogue between the brushed areas and the poured parts was the challenge. My process is now less apparent and much more complex. Painting became my means of discovery. I found I could get into that complex side of nature, to show how alive and mysterious it really is.

RY: The finality of them closed off the painting too quickly?

CP: I felt limited. I wanted to achieve transparency and translucency with some opacity in the paintings. I needed more freedom to manipulate the color and work back into the surface.  As artists we want to move our work, stretch our ideas and take them to the next level.

RY: Your sprayed marks have a gestural look, whereas your other marks are more like crevices that carve through the transparency.

CP: Yes, I took a big rag or a cardboard tube to wipe away paint, the crevices revealed the under-layers. The sprayed areas and marks were gestural and direct. I found that using a spray can to make a mark felt a lot like pouring a big drip or squirting a zip from a squeeze bottle. Yes, the sprayed marks are quite gestural, almost aggressive.

RY: Years ago, you mentioned to me that you might start to brush paint again, as if you were reconsidering something you had actively rejected.

CP:  There is something satisfying about making a mark with your own hand.  I am not sure if I rejected it, it didn’t make sense for me until now. Last summer, while I was in Maine, I spent time walking in the woods not far from a wonderful tidal pool. Light flooded our cabin with colors, shadows and reflections in a magical, dramatic way. There, I realized that a sense of light was something I wanted to be part of my work. The watercolors I made while there gave me the information I needed to complete many of the paintings I had begun in my studio. Things just clicked.