| Leah Oates: What do you think an artist is? When did you know you were an artist? Deana Lawson: An artist is someone who questions and interprets the world(s) around them, and who then responds in an outward and physical way. Ten years ago, an old friend, Sassy Ross, taught me that an individual could invent oneself. And so I became an artist. LO: Your work deals with representations of the black family, and is specifically about your family, and also about the black female body. Please explain what your work is about in more detail. DL: When I talk about my photographs, I try to stay away from categorizing the work… |
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Deana Lawson, interviewed by Leah Oates
Leah Oates: What do you think an artist is? When did you know you were an artist?
Deana Lawson: An artist is someone who questions and interprets the world(s) around them, and who then responds in an outward and physical way. Ten years ago, an old friend, Sassy Ross, taught me that an individual could invent oneself. And so I became an artist.
LO: Your work deals with representations of the black family, and is specifically about your family, and also about the black female body. Please explain what your work is about in more detail.
DL: When I talk about my photographs, I try to stay away from categorizing the work as “the black female body” or “the black family” because these terms carry with them certain expectations or non-expectations. But I am interested in the flesh and the familial, from the most profane to the sacred. Contrasts and in-between spaces are teased out in my work, i.e. the erotic in the context of death, the husband in the context of a Succubus, children as the beholders of adult knowledge, and injury in the context of lust. The family has been central to my work because it’s where the beauty and torment happens; it’s where we form our individual identities while experiencing love, deception, intimacy, celebration, jealousy, and hatred. Flesh….the skin…I see as a very visceral and carnal covering, which contains or unleashes our identities, our desires, our being.
LO: What are you thoughts on the art market? Before I lived in New York City, I never gave a thought to the market and its a subtext to a lot that happens in the
NYC arts community. I’m not sure if artists should think about it at all or really pay attention to it. What are your thoughts?DL: I’m not interested in who’s selling a lot and for how much per se. That’s someone else’s job. But I do watch the market to gage current infatuations. Given our current economic situation, I think it’s an interesting time to watch and speculate how people are responding creatively (or non-creatively). I’m looking forward to seeing more risks happen on the parts of curators, writers, and gallerists—it’s a special time for current dialogues to become more challenging.
LO: Which emerging artists are you looking at?
DL: Aaron Gilbert. As far as figurative work is involved, his paintings are provocative on many fronts, from the psychological, to the intellectual, and to the spiritual (if we allow the spiritual to breath in contemporary art), and also the technical.
LO: I know that you did a residency at Light Work. What was this residency like, and how did it affect your work?
DL: Light Work was very influential to my work. I’ve returned several times to visit since my residency. Really it’s like a second home to me. Sometimes you need to be removed from the world around you in order to be able to think and act. I made several pictures at Light Work that really confirmed a direction I was taking with the body of work.
LO: What are you currently working on in your photography?
DL: I’m continuing to make and collect images that speak to the aforementioned themes in my work, writing a lot, thinking about video. That’s all I’ll say for now.
LO: Who are your favorite artists and why?
DL: Kara Walker. The complexity and personality in her work is matched by few. Her work is a prime example that “history” is flexible and malleable depending on who‘s doing the telling. And I’ll say Jacob Holdt with caution, reason being I’ve always deeply regarded American Pictures, but then I saw him speak recently in New York, and found him to be a sleazy old white man. But then again, I think many photographers picturing other people have a bit of the “sleaze-factor” going on. Even those who exhibit the façade of utmost sincerity or conceptualism. Still, his work is another powerful document disrupting official historical accounts.
LO: Do you also do commercial work as a photographer?
DL: Some great artists have done so like Phillip Lorca-DiCorcia, for example.
What do you think if photographers blur from fine art to commercial photography.
I can see myself doing commercial work on a community level, like James Van Derzee or Mike Disfarmer style, or Seydou Keita. They were “The Photographer” in their own communities. Part of the content in my own work stems from the visual language of commercial family portraits.
