STUDIO VIST: THERESA ANDERSON
“This book first arose out of a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought—our thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography—breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a ‘certain Chinese encyclopaedia’ in which it is written that ‘animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies’. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that.”
I have always loved this passage that launches the preface to Foucault’s seminal post-modern work, The Order of Things. It describes so elegantly the enormous project of our post-modern era, which is to play out the exhaustive battle that must inevitably be waged between the rigid finality of rational classification and the subversive ambiguity of its various alternatives. Few fields have expressed the convulsions of this conflict more strikingly than the arts. Its tremors have permeated the artistic production of innumerous artists since even before Foucault first penned these words, and they continue to be the underlying momentum that feeds much of the most interesting art practices today.
Theresa Anderson is an emerging Denver artist who is finding a place for her work within the theoretical framework of this conflict. Her style, which she has cunningly self-labeled “punk-feminism,” is characterized by busy installations of multi-media amalgamations. Running the gamut from flattened and fragmented figurative paintings that strongly evoke the proto-Pop Art canvases of Larry Rivers to Rauschenberg-esque combinations of found objects; her work strives (at times quite self-consciously) to defy definition. The artwork in her most current installation (a collaboration with Rebecca Vaughan) deals deliberately with the ranking of everyday objects. The exhibition, titled “SWANK [fool]” opened Friday at Ice Cube Gallery. We met with Anderson in her studio one sweltering afternoon some weeks ago to discuss the work in progress. The following is an abbreviated version of that interview:
Brandon and Libby (B and L): Theresa, you tend to display a lot of work together in a very specific way. Can you talk a little bit about how your work is displayed and how this affects its interpretation?
Theresa Anderson (TA): It is similar to a Period Room or a four-dimensional collage. I am just responding in different ways to different spaces and thinking about different ways to display the work in order to put the work in context, or challenge the context, or create its own narrative or mini-narrative, or to destroy the narrative, hide it, etcetera.
B and L: So, when you produce a piece of artwork, are you making it in relationship to all of these other things you have going on in the studio?
TA: Yes. Right. And a huge, huge, huge, part of my process is that I keep lots of sketchbooks that are also journals, and I’m also writing a lot.
B and L: How does writing come into the art making process for you?
TA: It’s like that automatic type of thing. It’s what you’re reading, what’s on TV, and what you’re listening to; and I hear something or think of something, and then I put things together and I make notes. Then, I start making more finished drawing-type things. Then I paint. It’s not a one to one correlation because there is still that very expressive, intuitive way to translate the work from here to here; because the drawing is different than a painting- it is different materials and surfaces and blah, blah, blah.
B and L: Literature seems to be an important influence in your work. Can you tell us a little about what you are reading?
TA: Sure I’ll show you some examples. So, (holding up an example) The New York Times. I am currently reading Susan Stewart’s On Longing, which is a really great book about scale- miniature to gigantic, as well as the grotesque and the imaginary body. I am also reading a book about painting (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art). It’s a compilation of 30 years of critics and painters writing about painters. It’s very interesting. And, I read the newspaper everyday. Oh, and I read a lot of crap on the Internet. I also love English mysteries and I am, right now, reading the last Dark Tower book by Stephen King. Which, I haven’t read Stephen King since his last Dark Tower. When I was younger, I read all Stephen King; and then something happened and I couldn’t read him anymore. But, he has been writing this series on the Dark Tower, which is really interesting. I always have some really fluff stuff.
So, part of what happens with my work is that it is very circular. Meaning whatever I was working on last starts to seep its way into the next thing. I find an idea that I am interested in and then there is another little idea and I focus on it and just run with it. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about how we rank people in our lives, how we rank objects in our houses, how we rank body parts, how we feel about our body. Like, for instance, I have had this obsession with arms for a long time. Arms must be really significant for me for some reason. I think about the loss of an arm or how to hold on to something or maybe it’s like those dreams where you can’t run- it’s something about that.
Band L: So, is it terrifying for you when your arm falls asleep?
TA: Maybe that’s it!!!
I was recently diagnosed with carpal tunnel because I don’t do what I am supposed to on the computer. So I have to be really careful. But I think that I have had this obsession for a long time.
For me to paint, it is all worked up with my hands. Painting has made me feel really powerful. It’s like being gigantic and not the diminutive. It really makes me feel like I have a voice and I haven’t’ always felt that way. I think that the development of a voice is very difficult for an artist and it’s a process that you go through. And then, to feel like I am just beginning to figure out what my voice is and to understand what that is.
In the last couple years, I’ve kind of been figuring out what it is that I am really doing. Like, why is that I keep going back to do the same things in different ways? Or, there are certain things that are really interesting to me.
B and L: So, aside from narrative, what are some of the main themes that you continually go back to?
TA: Probably like social norms. Kind of everyday type living- so, how we live in our bodies, how we live in our homes, and in spaces. I went through a time when I was really interested in landscape and movement and I was taking really disparate elements of landscape and putting them together to make a new landscape. I finally figured out that it had to do with movement and perception. And trying to get from my imagination, or my mind’s eye, down to the canvas. There is a process that happens when you are making marks and then suddenly something has happened and its done and you’re not exactly sure how that happens. And there’s this whole perceptual process that’s happening the whole time.
B and L: It’s interesting that you talk about that process. It really is an amazing process. I have often wondered if we aren’t, as artists, a bit addicted to that moment. You know, in the same way that runners get that runner’s high. We are in for that thrill of the moment when we look at the artwork and think “Wow, how did that even happen?”
TA: Did this happen to you in your residency at Platte Forum where you are in process painting and it gets to an ugly point and someone comes in and say something like “Err, Oh, No!” It’s so funny because I remember that happening with my big painting and Judy (Anderson) coming in and saying, “Oh my God, it’s really dark.” I said, “This is where it has to go before it can come back to the light.”
B and L: I know, but you have that moment where you are like, “I don’t know. I’m not completely sure that it will actually come back.”
TA: In my mind, I have done it so many times that if I take it to the place that it needs to go and it doesn’t ever come back, I’ll just rip it up and start a new one.
B and L: Do you do that a lot? Do you just trash things or are you a “stick with it and make it work” kind of artist?
TA: Well, typically what I do is just paint over it. So, like this painting here has like four abstract paintings underneath it. The way I feel, if there is something in the painting that you are holding on to, that’s when it is time to cover it up and do it again, and again, and again.
B and L: When you start a painting, can you see that you are going to lead up to that in some form? Or, are there paintings underneath that you have just abandoned?
TA: I have an idea of the where the painting is going to end up, but I don’t always know the process that it is going to take to get there. For me, it is the build up of the marks that makes the finished product. Sometimes you are putting down those marks and it’s really ugly, and you’re re-evaluating that composition over and over again. It’s like collage- you can lay down another layer. It’s like that in my painting.
B and L: So, these works (in the gallery) are all part of a body of work that will be exhibited in your upcoming show at Ice Cube Gallery?
TA: Yes
B and L: So when you are making artwork, do have a particular audience in mind?
TA: Oh, my peers. Well, and I guess when I think about art appreciation; I think that there are a lot of different levels on which to appreciate art. And, I do always try to make some attempt to connect with people on different levels- whether it be color or composition. But, really, what I am trying to do with my exhibitions is that I am trying to push myself. I try to understand where viewers might be coming from and how some things may be difficult; and to remember that with contemporary art, I think the reason it is so difficult for people is that they haven’t studied it and it hasn’t been part of their culture and social fabric the same way that more traditional art forms have been. So, that’s why I try to tell people that you understand those things that you love because they are part of your life and you’ve learned about them and you know where they come from historically. If you are having difficulty understanding something, something that you want to understand because there is something there that appeals to you, but you don’t know why, but you are thinking about it; you have to understand that the reason that it is difficult is because you haven’t studied it and you don’t understand it the same way.
B and L: Can you tell us a little about punk feminism?
TA: Punk feminism! It really is like the whole idea with punk is very DIY, quick and dirty, no rules. It’s in your face. And feminism for me is about equality for all people. There is an element of environmentalism to it, and its really about meeting people wherever they are and relating to people in a different way than main stream. So, it is pretty much rejection of our mainstream. For me, as an art form, it can incorporate anything that I say it should incorporate and can look like anything I say it should look like. Because THAT is what punk is. You do what you need to do. It is raw and visceral, and it would be like certain kinds of music that would have a melody and then be like “BAM!” So, declaring that really was this idea that it was a break; that I am not going to be a traditional painter and if I am making sculpture, it’s not going to be traditional- it’s going to be whatever it needs to be and what I say it is. And, it is what it is. And, if you don’t like it, you can go f$#% yourself. (laughs) Because, I am just going to keep making more whatever and next year, I might be doing something completely different. So it’s that whole idea of “don’t put me in a box ‘cause I don’t fit.”
B and L: So for you punk feminism is a term that is in flux, or it is a pretty dynamic term, anyways?
TA: Yeah, it is. It is.
B and L: Is gender a theme that runs through most of what you do?
TA: Yeah, I think gender is a pretty dominant theme because of my life experience. You know, I have two boys and I would hate for them to be told they have to be a certain way. My husband and I have been married twenty years and we have this running joke- he tells me that I should be more dainty and I tell him that if he were more masculine, I could be more dainty. (Laughs)
B and L: So, I am just looking through your studio here and it looks like amassing materials is an important part of your process.
TA: It’s a huge, huge, part of what I do. That comes from the fact that I am constantly reading and looking at images. In my other studio, I have stacks of crap just everywhere. I’ll make multiples just so I don’t lose anything. I just hate to lose something. Like I have been drawing this woman and she hasn’t yet made it into anything, but I have been drawing her in my sketchbook and I’ll get to a certain point where I get afraid of losing this paper. So, I have to make copies of it.
B and L: What is about this woman?
TA: Oh, it’s her pose. She’s posed a certain way. So I am thinking a lot right now about how posing plays into that whole ranking. So, like, she’s a beautiful woman, she is a fashion model, she’s ranked pretty high. But, it has a lot to do with her vulnerability, and her sexuality, and her daintiness. But, she’s probably like 7 feet tall, with bigger muscles than any of us.
B and L: Some of your paintings really make me think of Larry Rivers with the flattening that happens, with the paint application and addition of text, and especially in terms of the fragmentation of the body.
TA: Oh, yeah, that’s interesting. I haven’t looked at him in a really long time. There is, though, a lot of fragmentation in my paintings. That’s how I was working in landscape before this. I was fragmenting. I was actually taking a lot of different images and then collaging them together. And, I realized that was a good method for dealing with the body- an imaginary body- creating a new imaginary body. It’s like the idea of Orlando- this idealized place or culture in the future where there are no gender differences.
B and L: Have you always used a lot of text in your artwork or is this a new thing?
TA: I haven’t always used text in my paintings, but I have always used text in my drawing. I think that as I became more aware of moving away from tradition, the text started to seem more valid.
B and L: What is the role of text in your painting?
TA: For me they are marks. And, as marks, they are part of the composition. They really only belong when they work as part of the composition. They are also things that I am thinking about while I am painting. They are not things that I add on later- they are part of the process.
B and L: Can you tell us a little bit about this painting (an unfinished painting with a split interior/exterior view)?
TA: So, in my last show at Pirate, I started doing these things that I call interior landscapes as a way of extracting the landscape and to make it less literal. It is really about space and how I am living or might live in space. The whole idea of interior design as something that everyone is concerned with- like it makes you a better person or something. And, you know, painting and drawing are part of that tradition- people buy paintings because they look good over the couch. But, I really see it as this mindless thing, like reading the Enquirer or something. So, I wanted to do this series of places that perhaps someday might be inhabited by the figures. But they are kind of made up, imaginary places- similar to the people. It started out as a place – the form of the open room, which I have done several times, and here it is an exploded room- both interior and exterior.
B and L: How do you think these interiors reflect on the people who inhabit them?
TA: Well, I think we have a certain nostalgia for certain kinds of places. Like, you think about things that we think make us feel good. We say “Ah remember that.” And, I think that nostalgia is a real lie. It’s something that we use to make ourselves feel better.
But part of the way that we create a space is out of necessity. We are constantly battling form and function, beauty and function. A lot of magazines- to live in spaces like this is ridiculous (holding up a Better Homes and Gardens magazine). Like, how would you actually live there? They are sterile. But, we still really want to live in beautiful places and to be inspired when we go home. It’s sort of the same thing with our bodies. When I am thinking about ranking objects, there’s always something in your house that’s so essential and it’s just dirty nasty but you gotta have it. But, when people come over, where does it go? So, in reality, that is the pedestal piece- that’s the highly ranked object. But it’s hidden.
Even when you go on vacation somebody has to cook your meal, someone has to make sure that you have clean clothes. Where do you get your coffee in the morning?
B and L: So, you have a new show going up soon. When does it open?
TA: It goes up August 16.
B and L: Can you tell us a little about how this show is going to be installed?
TA: It’s going to be installed like a big visual pile. So, I am going to have a salon- style group of paintings on a long wall, and then the work will come out into the gallery. I have bigger pieces and then smaller pedestal pieces. There will be a mixture of things on the floor and things on pedestals. The viewer should be able to navigate around and try to figure it out.
B and L: Best of luck! We can’t wait to see the show!
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