June 2011

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Table Of Contents June 2011

Artist

Articles

34 Matthew Altieri

62 Lot F Gallery

10 Autumn Ahn 57 goldenstash 66 Dave Tree 66 Kati Mennett

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26 Rachel Prouty

Founder/Editor-In-Chief

Darius Loftis

Art Director

Brianna Calello

Writing Editor

Claudia Puccio

Contributing Writers

Brianna Calello Darius Loftis

Marketing

Pete Cosmos Darius Loftis

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June 2011 Abstraks 7

Autumn Ahn

Autumn Ahn is a fascinating and very outspoken artist. Her personality shows through her artwork, as well as her conceptual ideas when creating. We had the opportunity to interview her and get a more in depth understanding about her.

Darius: Talk about your first introduction into art.

Autumn: When I was younger my mom started feeding me all these children’s books about legends and myths. She kept me in extra-curriculars all the time and always made me keep a journal. My favorite words were “and” and “beautiful”. (laughs). I went to a bunch of art classes as a kid at Moore College of art in Philly. And then I was always just drawing weird pictures of people.

D: What influences the work that you do?

A: What doesn’t? I have more of a focus now then I did before. Every project helps clarify your ideas forward to the next project. Before, I was interested in exploring materials and that practice has informed my interest in the compositional structure. I am especially drawn to the visual narration that you can find in art that comes from theocratic societies. The symbolism found in the culture of religion--all religions. I wasn’t specifically seeking to study religion, but the patterns I am drawn to show how universally applicable they are to describing a human’s relationship to art and art making. The whole culture surrounding this process is a big influence on my work. I just watched the Joseph Campbell interviews with Bill Moyers called “The Power of Myth”. Joseph Campbell describes the stories that have metaphorically guided various cultures and individuals through questions found universally in the human experience. I am really interested in how these stories are and can be communicated visually. People are addressing the same human questions today but under a different context. Our oversaturated culture definitely

“Before, I was interested in exploring materials and that practice has informed my interest in the compositional structure.”

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takes advantage of the power of the visual message. There are the obvious mass media examples found in a lot of commercial advertising, but if you look to blogs, you can quickly see how much the everyday individual communicates with visual images instead of language now.

D: Do you have a certain preference between working mural size or smaller on a canvas?

A: I really enjoy feeling physically connected to the work and when work is larger your whole body is involved.

That’s a big reason why I have enjoyed working in architectural spaces. I also really enjoy the immersion into a temporary studio space. I get to explore the specificities of the world that existed there before me and then respond to those abstractions. When I work smaller, the images made are like sketches for larger work. I can skim through and look for the ideas/shapes/colors that really get me excited to keep going. Ideas are never complete, but they can definitely get bigger. The most complete small images are definitely in my sketchbooks. I make myself a sketchbook every year or so with different papers and as the year progresses I go back and finish the drawings.

These are really fun. Sketching starts with no pressure and just observation. And every time I go back to it I’m drawing in my own coloring book.

D: We briefly chatted before the interview about your background, and you went to B.U. (Boston University) for oil painting. Talk about your career now and where you want to take that.

A: Up until now I have taken the opportunities that have come my way because of friends having spaces or just being in the right place at the right time. And it’s provided me with a lot of different environments which is so helpful and necessary in any artists growth. I also believe that traveling is crucial for my goals with art. I have to see the spaces where other societies exist and grow. It’s important as a growing individual to put yourself in environments where you are challenged to find your resources

again and forced to learn that. The best way I know how to do that is by applying to go to residences. I just found out that I’ll be going to a residency in Kefalonia, Greece at the Ionian Center for Arts and Culture this fall.

D: Which is awesome.

A:Yeah! It’s really exciting. I once studied abroad in Venice.

It’s funny I’ll be going to another island environment. The project is related specifically to the island and I have two months to explore and engage with the community of

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people there. I’m excited to see how local people react to religion and to be in a place where I don’t really know what’s going on.

D:You mentioned adding the element of religion into your pieces earlier.

A:Yeah, I don’t think of it as adding religion. I’ve always been interested in symbols and how people read symbols.

And it’s really interesting to find those patterns from

people who encounter art here and the way that people approach art in other places. I feel like the religious art has an intention to communicate a message to the people who are going to see it. In a world where the trends of conceptual art have kind of slowly started to push their way out of the system, people are trying to figure out new forms of communication. It’s more democratic because its goals are different. The goals were literacy and mass communication. This is why I also look to contemporary commercial work for inspiration. Religious art provides

hierarchy and a skeleton for me to kind of work off of, and play with. The more I learn about religion and the more I learn about how people through the ages investigated those visual stories, the more clear my visual dialogue becomes.

D: Painting religion was a big subject for a lot of historical or classical artists. Are there any historical artists that you follow or study?

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A: When you say classical artists, I guess I was really influenced by the Renaissance painters; Tintoretto is one of my favorites. I really love the way that he uses perspective and tips his composition in a really uncomfortable way. Picasso is another big influence, that man has done everything. He didn’t limit the capacity of his art making. I recently started reading his poetry & writing and looking at his sketches of set-designs for theatrical performances. It’s really encouraging to know that he was so proficient.

D: Are there any contemporary artists that you follow?

A: I follow Ai WeiWei, the chinese artist who is currently detained. I love Alexander McQueen (RIP). There are so many artists I’m told to follow these days that I’ve realized how much I enjoy what my peers bring to the table. I can see the process of what they’re going through and it’s not necessarily painters. They are printmakers, engineers, designers, graffiti writers, programmers, etc. I was working in a studio called “Fringe” in Union Square, Somerville and though the members there wouldn’t necessarily call themselves “fine artists” engaging with them and watching their studio practices has been so influential. I also have been working for the non-profit arts organization Boston Cyberarts, Inc. They have been working tirelessly to promote the incredible community of artists working with new media and technology. The exchange of ideas is what I think is the most important.

D: Do you have a creative process that you follow?

A: Because the environments I work in are so unique, it’s a bit of a negotiation. Especially if I’m working in a public space, and I’m working off a specific theme it gives me something to respond to. Then it comes to materials, and materials are often decided upon based on money. Each material presents its own unique quality. I think there is a lot to be said about letting something progress naturally, versus trying to control it. And obviously things are changing because I sketch all the time, but like 85% of them are thrown out the window. They all kind of feed into a decision in the moment.

D: I’m not going to go into my process, but you’re right and I understand how one thing can transform into another.

“I like working on rigid surfaces just ‘cause of how aggressive you can be the surface. Canvas is nice, there’s a different quality when you paint on them.”

A: I think pushing yourself to keep a practice just making things, good or bad, is the key to staying open throughout a project. When you’re constantly keeping that practice up you look at it in retrospect and you see patterns surface.

These are your best ideas if you decide to trust them.

When you do something enough times, you start to see why you do things and see how they come together, and I think that is the only way you can approach your work honestly.

D: What kind of mediums do you use?

A: Each medium kind of has its own place, again it’s about efficiency. More recently my work has become more sculptural. I like work with perspectives and environments; that naturally started becoming 3-Dimensional. My current project is bringing in more sound and set design ideas.

Taking the paint of the wall and creating a space where there wasn’t one before and then building on that, and how to make a space more interactive. I’ve been playing with performance [art] as well. I’ve never really studied performance but based on the idea and project you kind of adjust to what you need for that.

D: Do you want to elaborate more on performance art?

A: Oh God! I don’t know, performance art I think is a funny label to put on work. A lot of times it’s this trance like meditative place that people get to, at least that’s what I see with performance artist. I think performance art for me is just another way of clarifying whatever visual message I want to get across. I’ve been looking at a lot of ballet recently and modern ballet. Did you see Bella Figura at the Boston Ballet?

D: I did not.

A: It played at the opera house. There’s something about magical that happens when kinetic space and human movement have fused their ideas together. It’s not

something I can experience from painting a human figure.

[I’m] trying to see what performance can do that other mediums can’t and using it for that purpose. But it’s just an experiment, and I’ve never done it before and I’m going to be doing it for the first time this weekend so we’ll see what happens.

D: What kind of surfaces or materials do you like to work on?

A: My favorite surface to work on is probably a big white wall. There’s something about it that makes me want to draw all over it.

D: Feeling like a kid with a couple of markers (laughs).

A: (Laughs) Yeah! With the purple crayon. A big white wall is pretty awesome. But if I’m painting it’s generally a piece of masonite on a built canvas. I like working on rigid surfaces just ‘cause of how aggressive you can be the surface.

Canvas is nice, there’s a different quality when you paint on them. In the past I tend to work on masonite or some other rigid flat thing that I can find, like a piece of plywood.

D: I wanted to bring up your involvement in Boston Cyberarts. Especially because you said you like to branch out into other areas, so how is that?

A; It is so the opposite end of the spectrum for me. I was looking for an internship when I got back from studying abroad. I ended up connecting with Axiom gallery and really fell in love with those people and community. It’s a non-profit gallery, which means that they’re showing work that’s experimental and non-commercial. The motivated, almost obsessive, community and professionalism I saw was what kept me around and slowly my understanding of digital art language grew. I was coming at it from oil painting and there are these programmers and scientists that are really messing around with code and projections; basically things that I’ve never really studied before.

This is a big reason why I started understanding how art can go beyond a singular medium. The work that they’re producing is still kind of hard to understand and it’s hard to explain to other people what they’re doing. Especially because it’s so beyond the commercial use of technology, which is something that marketers need to kind of dumb down for people to understand how to use it in everyday life. To be working with people who are creating those

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technologies is amazing.

D: What can we expect from you in the future?

A: I just want to keep working with interesting people and environments. I really like working collaboratively. I’m going to a residency, which is going to be great. I get to work in an exhibition space and really make it my own. I know that in the process I’m going to learn from local artisans and local crafts people. I’m going to keep traveling and see as much as I can in the world with my own eyes. After that, who knows where I’ll end up.

contact and website: www.autumnahn.com // work is for sale at her studio in Somerville. Please contact her at autumnpatricia@gmail.com to set up a visit or to sign up to receive email notifications about new work and new shows.

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Rachel Prouty

Prouty Makes Things -Brianna Calello Rachel Prouty is a jack-of-all-trades; a recent graduate from The Art Institute of Boston in the Photography program, you’ll be quick to notice that she is prone to make things other than photographs. Prouty (as she is commonly called amongst friends) holds a key that many artists wish they could hold; her subject matter comes from a genuinely happy place. She surrounds herself with her interest in the idea of location, how important her placement in, or absence from a particular place is, and the conversation that so many artists concerned with the similar find themselves having. Her room is filled with

maps, books - organized by color of course - and book binding supplies. Upon walking into her space there is an undeniable feeling of comfort; she is an explorer within her own studio.

I ask her about her love for bookbinding and if there is a connection between her books and her photographs. She often breaks things down by seasons. In the summer she makes photographs at the lake where her family spends time together, a place that seems to weigh heavily on her creative process. We discuss the importance of photographing the lake versus her home in Boston. She explains that the photographs offer a chance to tell a story for her personally that she can’t do from home, a story that can grow every year as the people rooted to the lake

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grow and age with the setting. During the winter months she focuses on working in books and maps; a means to reflect both her position away from the lake and herself as in individual in the world. She mentions that she reads books such as Reif Larsen’s The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, and Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost, dually noted is the fact that she reads fiction in the winter and nonfiction in the summer. As a fellow New Englander it makes sense, in the cold months what else is there to do creatively than become immersed in a fictional world captivated by your own imagination and interests. She clarifies that her books offer an opportunity to be in dialogue with the world, they are often driven by existing information, and existing maps.

Maps… constructed lines and points on paper created by someone else to put a place in perspective, ultimately to

place human kind in perspective. As an artist, whether she is making photographic choices at the lake or tactile choices in a book, she is continuously creating her own beautiful guide to getting lost.

I ask her if she has any advice for fellow bookbinders or for those who may have not thought to pick up the medium, she makes reference to a notion that I hadn’t thought of myself as a beginner in the field. She says, “Books are an important place to decide what you want to make, or have a conversation about. Find something you’re endlessly interested in.

Even if it is huge and feels more like an installation, if telling yourself it’s a book helps you figure out what exactly it is you’re trying to say then let that happen.” She goes on to say, “There’s no bullshit in my work. I love my family, and

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being with them in that place, I love making things.” Prouty successfully pulls together her ideas, along with educated references to create an engaging and thoughtful dialogue.

Rachel currently works for Singer Editions, a fine art digital printmaking studio in Fort Point. She plans to continue her photograph and artist book projects, and hopes to eventually turn her skills in bookbinding into a career. We end our interview on a high point as she happily notes, “I have complete faith in my work ethic, and ability to talk to people. I’m in tune with what I want, and what I’m capable of to be perfectly okay with having no plan for my immediate future. “ Rachel is available for hire in the bookbinding and illustration fields. She can be contacted at proutyr@gmail.com and while her website is being completed you can find more of her work at http://proutymakesthings.tumblr. com/

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Matthew Altieri

Based out of Salem, Matthew is an artist who is driven by his music. We talk about him being a painter out of Salem, and where he derives his ideas.

Darius: What is the kind of artwork that you like to create?

Matt: I see art as really being tied to music, because music is probably what I do more than any other activity. Playing guitar in metal bands, so the stuff I do relates to metal but it might not look like it does immediately.

D: We talked briefly about you having a little bit of an art background in school.

M: I studied painting at Clark University in Worcester.

I was a bit late getting into it but I did well enough to graduate with a studio art degree. Since then I’ve actually tried to start a business here in town (Salem, MA), like doing illustrations of Salem themed things. [I’d] print them on shirts and sell them through a wooden outdoor stand that I built with my father. The thing looked like a black upside-down gallows, with this big painting of silhouetted streetlights and a toxic green dawn stretched behind it as a banner. It was theatrical and fun. But I didn’t account for the politics of trying to do business in a city like this, which is an overcrowded, highly competitive, and fairly unartistic commercial environment.

D:You said music is an inspiration for your art? Was that always the case since you were a kid?

Matt: Early on a big influence for me was comic books.

When I first started reading I was really obsessed with comic books, I had a huge amount of them. At some point I just stopped following them because I got really into music, mostly metal. A lot of metal has really comic book-ish imagery, but I lost the imagery side of it and just retained the form. Like a lot of my stuff has weird perspective or weird lighting. Clashing colors, dynamic movement, and harsh lighting, and that’s what I retained from comic book art. The link between comic books and heavy metal music is popular mythology. Sacred, disposable, and always changing while staying the same.

My stuff is mostly oil paintings with the exception of some pen and ink drawings. It’s mostly based on photographs

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taken with an old school analog camera. Bad photographs, because I’m not a photographer. But I try to paint with the accidental distortions included in the image. It’s not photo realistic. It’s painting unrealistic photographs with a high degree of accuracy.

D: The pieces that I’ve seen have been painted metal band covers on jackets.

M: I do those for practice’s sake and to make a little bit of money. Which isn’t the most efficient way to make money, considering how slowly I work. Decorating jackets is a “thing” in underground metal anyways, but it’s usually just patches, pins, logos drawn in marker. I started doing garment paintings on commission, based on conversations with other obsessed metalheads about how cool it would be to have such-and-such album art on a jacket.

I’m happy that the work I’ve done so far contributes to the underground metal community. And morally I don’t think you could pay me to do a jacket for a band/album that does not kick ass. So sorry, no Dethklok, Sabaton, or Poison.

D: What’s it like being an artist out in Salem, and what’s the art scene like?

M: Well there’s a Salem arts association, and they got some stuff going on occasionally but I’m not part of it. It’s much more tame. There are a lot of genre paintings of boats, and rustic scenery, nostalgic kind of stuff. I prefer the more seedy vibe of Salem. When people think of Salem as a tourist attraction, its historical aura conjures up an overthe-top, fucking bad occult horror movie nightmare. There have always been artists and small business people here feeding into that vibe, and if that trashy magickal nightmare were the true character of the “arts association” I’d be pretty happy about it, probably change my style and everything. However, the town is trying to tone that stuff down, kind of cut the lowbrow stuff out of Salem’s image.

Which sucks. Salem should be like a Puritan Tromaville with more New Age bookstores.

D: Do you follow any contemporary or historical artists?

M: I honestly don’t know a lot of contemporary art. The contemporary art that’s had the most influence on me is probably Anselm Kiefer’s mythological stuff from the 80’s and 90’s. The only contemporary artists that I keep track of in present time are people who do metal album covers. They do more illustration type stuff, horror fantasy, very far from what I do. Historical artists I’m really into include Brueghel,Van Gogh, William Blake, (Michelangelo Merisi da) Caravaggio. Also a lot of the Modernist guys, especially Man Ray, Lee Miller, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy,Virginia Woolf. I’m really into using accidents and unintentional information in the work. I guess there’s a conceptual influence from John Cage and Marshall Mcluhan.

D:You said earlier you work with oil paint, are there any other ones? And what materials do you use?

M: It’s pretty much just oil on canvas, treated paper, or masonite. With the jackets I used acrylic paint for the most part. I’d like to keep doing acrylic but I haven’t found the same depth of color. My drawings are just pen and ink, and I do consider taking photographs a part of the process. It’s a useful constraint. Amateur photography is an extension of regular old human memory. Memory is generally inaccurate, some say that it’s only a type of imagining. So to me, the bad-ness of my photography is like an analogy for the connection between memory and imagination.

D: Would you like to get more into the photography side?

M: I’d like to get back into photography but I don’t have a dark room, so it becomes more of a pain, as the medium

“I’ll be listening to ambient electronica or jazz or classical guitar, painting a picture of some trees at 3 in the morning. It’s kind of meditative and spiritual, a time to feel close to the deceased, ancient gods, and loved ones.”

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becomes more obsolete and photo developing places continue to go out of business. Analog distortion is different from digital, in music and visual art. For whatever reason I can’t get into the look of digital distortion.

D: What is your creative process when creating a piece of art?

M: My creative process is based on a series of photographs that I took 6 years ago. I started off with this enormous stack of photographs that I took, probably a 100 or so, and started picking the best stuff from it. But I’ve just about to run out of crummy old photos. The only reason that I started painting from photos is that I figured it would be a good way to build technical skills. I only wanted skills so that I’d be able to do justice to the scenes that I see with my eyes closed.

D: Are there any projects you’re trying to do by combining your art and music?

M: I’m just trying to make an album with cool artwork.

I’m really into the idea of having something that’s reproducible, to hold in your hand and look at really close.

Tiny reproductions are how I’ve experienced most of the art that I love. I figure that’s the route I’ll go.

I always listen to music when I do art, not necessarily metal. I’ll be listening to ambient electronica or jazz or classical guitar, painting a picture of some trees at 3 in the morning. It’s kind of meditative and spiritual, a time to feel close to the deceased, ancient gods, and loved ones. I pick up a guitar, and aggressive thrash metal is the gospel that comes out. It’s all one experience, but metal is the strongest “voice” that I can use to talk about it.

D:You’re traveling with a band now, do you get the opportunity to see other art while traveling?

M: Well, we play in these bars so it’s mostly this kind of uncared-for artwork that people leave on the walls. That’s pretty cool because you get a whole variety of little slices of life doing that, and see examples of different regional slang.

D: Like writing on bathroom walls?

M:Yeah. I feel like that ties into art because it’s all like an

aesthetic expression.

D: Sounds like you can spawn a concept from that or something.

M: I’ve been thinking about it, definitely. Underground metal is an international, virtual community, within which are an enormous number of real local communities. I just got this new live album by the band Superchrist, based out of Chicago. The credits in the liner notes are presented as bathroom graffiti in a photo from the men’s room of a bar that they always fucking play. Struck me as brilliant! And perfectly in proportion to the band’s goals.

D: What else would you like to experiment with?

M: I’ve been thinking of doing some more conventional, “Heavy Metal” metal imagery, but it’s not something I want to force. For years I’ve been keeping a distance from fantasy art. It’s definitely a huge influence for me, but I only trust fantasy when it surfaces by accident. There are these weird demonic faces in some of my scenic paintings.

I notice them once the work is done, then embellish them just enough so that other people might see. That’s the only way I feel comfortable doing fantasy. Then I know that it’s genuine psychosis bubbling to the surface, and not just constructed escapism.

D:You never purposely put the demonic faces in there?

D: When you painted from the photographs, it was to replicate it exactly. Do you try to aim for perfection when painting?

M: Perfection is an impossible goal, but one worth keeping in view while working. That said, perfection to me doesn’t mean making exact replicas of photos. It just means making the relevant part of the image as intense as possible. For example, I painted a church in New Haven photographed through a dirty windshield. The film of dirt on the glass created a weird effect, like a downpour of heavy light. The angle of light produced a pentagon shape in the lens, rotated about 45 degrees. A triangular arrangement of three shadowy people waiting for a bus in front of the church added further religious connotations.

While I was holding the photograph, oils from my thumb seeped into the print and developed into what looks like a white-hot fire climbing up from the bottom of the image.

The trees and the buildings in the background are painted like crap, but I must say that I nailed the steeple, the fire from below, the light from above, and the mysterious figure talking on a cell-phone. It’s almost perfect.

One thing with painting, it really needs a good drawing underneath it. That’s my one standard of quality.

Contact: finaldescentproductions@gmail.com www.finaldescentproductions.com

M: I notice them afterwards like, ‘Oh what the fuck?’

D: How often do you have that happen within your art?

M: Pretty often, and a lot of the time it’s something seen mostly in my imagination because I’ve looked at the canvas so much. Like, I painted a street scene, and later noticed an almost classical image formed by the flattened perspective and arrangement of shapes. It’s a guy made of horizontal trees staring straight up, screaming, pulling this weird vale of energy across his eyes, with this equally freaked out looking tree girl by his side. Weird faces surround them, which are actually alleyways and swing sets. I’d like to do a study of it, with everything else stripped away except that underlying form. Then hang the distilled “fantasy” image next to the “real” urban landscape painting, as a means of demonstrating that fantasy and reality are the same thing.

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goldenstash

In a interview with goldenstash we find out there is more to his art than just posting up stickers all over town. We sat down with him to find out more about his fine artwork. And exactly what is the purpose of goldenstash.

Darius: Talk about the kind of art that you create.

D: It was not museum quality at the time?

goldenstash: I guess just mixed media works of art. I don’t really set eye on a goal or anything I just do what comes natural. Whether it’s a mixture of doodling or drawing and painting or computer stuff and collage. It’s really just what’s striking me at the moment, it’s different all the time.

GS: Well yeah.You might as well call pop art lowbrow; just because it was in a magazine like Juxtapoz and not in a museum yet.

D: What are the concepts that you play with?

GS: There are ideas that I like to play with; humor, politics, social messages, non-sequiturs, and general weirdness. Just the perverse nature of society and how bizarre everything is and how, if you examine anything at the quantum level, nothing really makes sense.

D: What influences you?

GS: I like a lot of different stuff from comic books, to music, to sculpture, to modern fine art. As much as I hate umbrella terms like “low brow” I do like a lot of stuff about some of the people labeled lowbrow. And I don’t think there is anything about lowbrow art because...

“I just try to get an idea and achieve it. It’s a very crude process because I’m definitely not an art schooled, trained artist. I don’t ever know technical-wise if I’m doing the right thing or the wrong thing.

Which makes it more fun and the results a little more unpredictable.”

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D: When I look at your art I definitely get the feel of mixed media. I also know you do graphic design, how do you bring the two together? Because people may argue that they’re two different avenues.

GS: They’re definitely two different things and they kind of come together. They have intersections and there are times when they do their own thing separately and for good reasons. But, I consider myself somebody that likes to learn and I constantly incorporate whatever I learn into whatever I do. I learn a trick on the computer and I think ‘hey, this pattern fill that I created in illustrator I can use in a psychical painting off of the computer.’

D: I’ve known you primarily for your printing forms, so elaborate more on your painting forms.

GS: I tend to come up with an idea and I refine it a bunch and then redraw it a million times. I’m not the best drawer or artist so I tend to have to sketch things a million times until I get the angles and all the lines just right. Sometimes I do that in the computer too. But I try not to think too much about what I’m doing, I just try to get an idea and achieve it. It’s a very crude process because I’m definitely not an art schooled, trained artist. I don’t ever know technical-wise if I’m doing the right thing or the wrong thing. Which makes it more fun and the results a little more unpredictable.

D: That can be creatively healthy though, versus having a background training with rules.

GS: It’s a process of self-discovery and medium discovery.

D: What are your earlier influences, you mention comic

books, music...

GS:Yeah, I grew up with a television set in front of me raising me. Of course cartoons and comics are a huge part of my visual psyche. Other than that music in general is huge to me; people like Frank Zappa. Their music influences me, and just their messages influence me. Like, does humor belong in music? Does humor belong in art?

D: In a earlier conversation we were talking about traveling and moving different places. Where did you have in mind?

GS: I haven’t been to enough places or spent enough time anywhere really to say I know where I want to go. I’m doomed to work a lot and pay a lot of bills, so I’m kind of anchored around here unfortunately. I’m not a trust fund brat, unfortunately for me, like a lot of people in the art world.

D: Are there any historical artists you like that come to mind?

GS: I generally find all art history interesting even though I may not relate or know enough about it. I’m definitely a fan more of modern art; it just appeals to me more, maybe because it’s more relevant. I feel like modern art really got interesting during World War II, when the Dadaists in Switzerland started doing their own thing and really questioning what art was about. I think that’s where modern art just really snowballed and split off into all these different categories of modern art, and that’s where it gets exciting. I’ve always liked Francis Bacon and I’m a big fan of his stuff as far as painters go. Even someone more recent like Chuck Close is pretty impressive technically and aesthetically. But it’s such a wide diverse art world, and unfortunately there are probably some new and upcoming people that aren’t where they should be yet, but that’s the way the art world is.

But I really don’t know much about the art world of who’s buying and selling what. But it’s very inspiring to be apart of it even though it’s a bunch of bullshit in the long run. It’s fun to try and climb that wall of bullshit.

D: Earlier we were talking about your concepts and politics.

“I even go so far as to subscribe to some of the theoriesof solipsism which is the philosophy of the self is the only existing reality. I sometimes wonder if everything is real and I’m not just a thought floating around constructing a physical world around me.”

GS: I don’t know if you get an idea of my politics from visually looking at the artwork. But I think the whole act of street art, and graffiti just says you aren’t happy with society and the way it is. That’s the main way I get across my feelings of politics and society.

D: What drives goldenstash to do what he does?

GS: Just to question authority and existence. The mind is a very powerful thing and observation is not always what you think it is. I even go so far as to subscribe to some of the theories of solipsism which is the philosophy of the self is the only existing reality. I sometimes wonder if everything is real and I’m not just a thought floating around constructing a physical world around me.

D: That’s an interesting idea especially when people see the stickers; no one really knows what to make of them.

GS: Right. People take it differently, which is what I like about it. People have a different idea on it and a different perspective on it. Some people think he’s a swinging playboy, and I’ve heard gay guys like ‘Oh no he’s this icon for gay rights.’ I’m happy that people are finding it and are doing their own thing with it, because that’s what it is; a bunch of bullshit and it’s whatever you make out of it.

D: Do you have any future plans to go bigger as goldenstash.

GS: No. It’s just a funny idea and it’s not exactly what I do. It’s just something that people have latched onto and I’m able to use it as a moniker for myself at times. But

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it’s really not all I do, and it’s really only one of the small pieces that I am capable of. I enjoy it and I get a lot of laughs and giggles out of it. It’s been a lot of fun hearing people say things when they don’t realize that I’m in the room with them. That’s really all I care about doing with it and just furthering people’s awareness of it. A lot of people may say it’s a negative thing but I think it’s positive.

D: Can we look forward to seeing you in a gallery?

GS:Yeah that’d be great to get some validation for all of this. It’d be cool to be successful in mainstream eyes rather than the underground eyes. And I feel like I have a good head start on that. The one nice thing about goldenstash is that I feel like a lot of the people who pay attention to it aren’t your traditional street art graffiti sort of people. It’s just a lot of random people off the street that’s like ‘Ha, now that’s funny!’, you know? I’m not trying to be pretentious. The pretentious side to my art can come later.

D: (laughs) Contact:

http://twitter.com/goldenstash

June 2011 Abstraks 59

Lot F Gallery

Darius: How did you guys come up with Lot F gallery?

What was the idea behind it and the drive?

Lot F: We knew a few really talented artists, and had a strong desire to be involved in the art community. Kate does interior design and some other things, I was doing animation at the time with clay and modeling. Neither one of us really saw a career making money with our art that really made sense for us or could be profitable or enjoyable. We just really felt like some of our friends had amazing artwork and didn’t have the business end or promotional angle on lock. We kind of became mini collectors of our friends artwork and as we started hanging it on our walls, people would come over and we got super strong reactions from it.

Unintentionally we gave them a platform for people to see their work. It just started from there and then we decided to curate a couple of art shows and find some spaces.

We were using other peoples’ spaces, like a warehouse in South Boston. This space here, [current space] was our friend’s apartment, and [they] were having these college

parties here. It opened up and we realized that we could use this space to show art. It got more and more together as we went along, and now we’ve had 16 or 17 shows.

D: you guys said you’ve been around for 2 years right?

L:Yup. We were doing shows at the spot in South Boston.

But we opened Lot F Gallery in October of ‘09.

D:You guys have a variety of artists. What other kind of work has been in here before? Do you limit yourself to the kind of work that comes into the gallery?

L: I wouldn’t say we limit ourselves but we go more to what we’re attracted to, and what our aesthetic is. There’s a lot of street art influence. [We show] Contemporary modern art, but we mix it up. There’s been very little photography, and we’d like to see more photography in here, and more sculpture.

D: How was expanding to New York?

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L: It was awesome. We got to use Damon Dash’s gallery, the Dash gallery in Tribeca. It is an amazing space and we got to connect with a lot of New York people, who know a lot about what’s going on here but haven’t had the opportunity to make it out to a show in Boston. It was definitely a good eye opener to see what we can do if you’re given the opportunity.

that we can show. Most likely if you’re showing here for the first time, it’ll be in a group show. We want something solid and a cohesive series that we can work with that will tie into the other artist’s work.

That show was Sean Flood, Joshua Durant, and Matt Siren. Sean Flood, and Joshua Durant are both guys who paint with Percy Fortini-Wright and Jamie O’Neil. They’ve painted together for years and are real tight and so we were happy to get two Boston heads up there. Matt Siren is a street artist out of New York City who works with silk screens and is widely recognized for his iconic Ghost Girl character.

L: Todd Robertson is our first artist and it has been going really well for everyone. We’ve been working with Todd since starting the gallery and he has been a major component to our success. His career has really taken off as well, Todd has been collaborating with distinguished artists, gaining notoriety in the toy community, selling out in feature shows and is currently preparing for his second solo exhibition. Before Todd use to sell his paintings on Newbury street, and he had that locked for years. Todd knows how to sell his paintings, and that’s one of the things that inspired us to do this. He’s also got a really beast work ethic, up all day painting and making toys. We believe in him and feel like we’re on the same level. Todd wants to work on his art, and we are here to handle the rest.

D: Do you guys get the opportunity to incorporate your own artistic backgrounds into your gallery?

L: Kate does because she does a lot of the hanging and design stuff here. I’ve tried to stay out of it just because being in a management roll I’m trying to do the best for the artist. I think it keeps me clear headed by not trying to focus on an artistic vision and it also makes the artist feel like I’m not trying to push myself over them. At the same time, we just shot and released a promotional stop motion animation of Todd Robertson customizing a toy.

This allowed me to have some more creative input than usual at the gallery.

D: What other animations do you plan on creating?

L: Our goal is to shoot at least one stop motion animation for each show showcasing artists from the show, going forward. Releasing these videos of pieces of art being created for the show in progress should help our audience better understand the artistic process for the artists.

We also want to evolve into showing more film stuff as well, and hopefully do some more multimedia pieces in here.

D: How can an artist go about getting into Lot F gallery?

L: The best way is to shoot us an email with a body of work. One thing we really want to see is a series of work

D:You mentioned ‘managing an artist’, that’s an interesting concept.

D: What other side projects do you have planned or are currently working on?

L: We currently are working with Good Life, rotating new works each month, and they’ve been really good to us. We’ve been working on just placing art around the city in different locations that we think are going to be positive for the artist. We’re working on trying to get some window displays around the neighborhood here. We are hoping to curate shows at galleries in other cities and book artists at other galleries as well.

D: What is it like to have a gallery in this part of the neighborhood?

L: It’s awesome. There’s no one here at night and the weekends so we haven’t really bothered people when we have our shows. On top of that, during the day there’s a lot of foot traffic and people around the neighborhood that are working and making money. In terms of convenience it’s a little bit weird, but we’ve been able to bring a lot of businesses to the block. The neighboring businesses are happy we’re here, so we’re working with it.

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Right now we put in a proposal with Peabody, which is a high-end office furniture showroom around the corner from us. With their building facing South Station, they are known for their window displays. They have a lot of different fashion colleges do displays there, so we’re trying to get in on that. I think it’s a mixed bag with the whole storefront thing, because sometimes you bring a bunch of stuff to a store and they may not get the right kind of focus or attention we want. It’s about selecting the right places and where people are really into the art. We’ll make the place look nicer so we’re just looking for people that want to accommodate us.

D: Anything else from Lot F? L:You can expect consistency in our shows every month.

Expect a major toy show in 2012. Some live painting and sculpture events as well as a number of solo shows planned with some of our most talented artists.

Contact: 617-426-1021 info@lotfgallery.com 145 Pearl St. #4 Boston, MA 02110

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Dave Tree

We've been in contact with Dave Tree since the beginning of Abstraks. We finally get the chance to interview him and share his work. And we found out that Dave is all about sharing his work and concepts with others.

Darius: Explain your creative process when making art.

Dave Tree: Sometimes things just come to me and I go ‘I want to make that’. Other times it’s just a general idea of some materials I want to work with.

D: Do you have a routine that gets you going creatively?

DT: Just being on this planet, and watching people and how nature reacts. It’s something that I don’t get tired of.

D: Is there a specific concept that you tend to follow?

DT: It’s about everything. It may be about nature or it may be about having to go to work everyday.

what is art? For example is this toilet seat art or is it just a design that people take for granted.

[One] challenge is finding these beautiful pieces of wood.

Pieces of wood that have been out in the sun for like 30 years and they’re all faded out and the grass pattern faded across it. It’s almost a piece of artwork when you pick it up. All you have to do is add some light touches to it and a couple things here and there and it becomes a fine piece of art. In a way these pieces are like practice pieces.You think like ‘oh I’ll just do few things here and there’ but then you look and you’re like ‘it’s done’. That’s the beautiful thing about discarded material whether it’s wood, metal, furniture, or a trash can itself.

D: Explain your connection with your art and music.

D: When we met, someone introduced you to me as a silk screener. What is your background with that medium?

DT: I started doing stencils when I was a kid in the 80’s.

I first got into silk screening in high school and the first image I did was a Led Zeppelin album cover on acetate.

I had to cut it out by hand and it was perfect. I started then in the 90’s and then I learned the photo silk screen process and that was it. As a photographer I got really bored with just setting imagery on a cut mat or just a sterile black and white photograph. I love black and white photographs, but then I started placing them on things like shutters and oven doors rather than mat.

D: When I look at your other art, you create pieces on scrap or other people may call junk.

DT: I love trash and I love to pick out of the dumpster all the time. I picked out of the trash today and got a cool ass suitcase and this kick ass coffee table. And I’ll use it and put something on it. I’ll either sell it, give it away or use it.

I love using recycled materials because instead of these things being wasted, they can be reused, retooled and then sold back to the original owner for a profit. Turning recycling into art form and brings up the whole idea of

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DT: Well everything is connecting from my music, to my art, my day job, skateboarding technique, the way I walk down the street. It all inspires me to come up with something new or reflect on what’s going on.

D:You hosted a gallery show not too long ago in your studio and Abstraks was there holding it down. When can we expect another gallery show?

DT: It takes so much work and I was trying to do one a month but it’s exhausting. So I’m thinking one every two months and the next one that I want to do is with people who do music and art equally like I do.

I started the whole gallery thing because in Boston there weren’t a lot of galleries open to young artists or contemporary artists. I can get into galleries in other states but not here and I think the scene [in Boston] is a little uptight. I started the gallery in my silk screen shop and I always have group shows. I’m always in it but it’s with other artists and I support a lot of local artists. I’m trying to get a younger and older crowd in here to expand.

D: That’s actually really cool that you bring on other artists

“You think like ‘oh I’ll just do few things here and there’ but then you look and you’re like ‘it’s done’. That’s the beautiful thing about discarded material whether it’s wood, metal, furniture, or a trash can itself.” and it’s not about competition.

DT: No, art’s not like that. I don’t even care I give away my secrets on how I do things. I embrace my brothers and sisters in the creative moment.You have to because life

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is too short. When people blow up and make a big scene they just better remember where it came from, that’s all I ask (laughs). But we should always be sharing, and I think the musicians work a lot better than artists. Artists spend a lot of times by their selves and music guys have to work as a team. Having that music background helps me to be not so isolated.

Contact: houseofill@gmail.com

June 2011 Abstraks 83

Kati Mennett

Brianna: Can you give our readers a little intro to yourself and what you’re interested in as an artist?

Kati: As a photographer I’m interested in finding magic or fantasy in reality.

Whether I find it through documentary or creating it as an artist I try to maintain a positive outlook on life in my work. I try to make things look beautiful despite their sadness and look for something that is fleeting to create a moment that is important.

B: Does this go for both your documentary and fantasy work?

K: It goes for both, with my documentary, especially my newest series “Ignite” I’m trying to find the moments in reality. While in my fantasy work I’m actually creating it, and taking the liberty to make up a world of my own.

B: Do you think there’s a way you can combine the two or are they separate? Are you conceptualizing your fantasy work before hand?

but this is my proudest edit so far. I’ve been trying to be more raw and authentic with the series. Some documentary photographers might disagree with me because I do take some hand in directing. I guess that’s where both sides collide.

B: Are you pushing these for galleries?

K:Yes, both I am pushing for galleries and are my fine art work.

B:You’ve been out of school for a few years now, for the artists that are post- graduation do you have any advice on the hustle to keep making work?

K: Well, I think everybody has a chance of making it; they just have to be self-motivated and keep on themselves.

Constantly looking online at magazines or online galleries or even social networking. Get your work out there and let people see it. Starting a blog works well if you plan on updating it frequently. Be passionate and have fun with it.

B: Any big influences or artists you’re looking at?

K:Yes, I have a pre-production and post-production I don’t do photo illustration after, everything I photograph is real.

I’m continuing my series, “Portrayers” this summer and for a lot of it I’ve been doing character descriptions before, getting locations, props, and wardrobe. It’s like a film.

B: Can you describe these series a little more?

K: My latest edit of my continuous series “Ignite” is photographs of my friends, family and things in my life… the places I’ve been and it’s my way of trying to capture moments that are fleeting, even if they are small moments, or maybe seem more beautiful than anybody might have portrayed them to have been originally. It’s about finding the beauty in mundane moments. I’ve been working on the series for about 5 years and have had different edits

“Get your work out there and let people see it. Starting a blog works well if you plan on updating it frequently. Be passionate and have fun with it.”

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K: Gregory Crewdson and Michel Gondry, I’m very inspired by film more than photographers. I try to go to the movies as frequently as I can. I just saw “Water for Elephants”.

B: I read that you’re into collaging, is that just a hobby or do you consider it a medium to work in?

K: It’s definitely a medium, it’s not something I focus on as much as photography because it’s a much lengthier process to make a piece. I’ve been doing it since I was a teenager; it was my way of journaling and sketching.

B: Any other mediums you work in?

K: I just started working in stop motion. I will potentially be shooting videos and have them on my blog by the end of summer.

B: In the next few years if you are to push yourself to your ideal pedestal, where do you see yourself?

K: In a dream world I would be the director of photography on a Michel Gondry film set, or possibly doing music

videos. That would be fun.

B: Anything you’d like to add?

K: With photography I’ve been able to experience things that I normally wouldn’t get the chance to experience.

Things that I’ve gotten access to because of my camera.

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Contact: www.katimennett.com http://katimennett.wordpress.com/

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