Until Now Jessica Pearless 8–31 October, 2015
BATH STREET GALLERY
Until Now
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Wellington based Visual Artist Kate Woods interviews Jessica Pearless on the conceptual development of her work in relation to Until Now, her first solo exhibition at Bath Street Gallery. September 2015.
out the approach the artist took to achieve the final result, the process is hugely important. Specific aspects of works sighted in New York include the scale and proportion of Kasimir Malevich’s paintings, the sheer, translucent nature of El Lissitzky, the brightness of Wassily Kandinsky, the scale of Ad Reinhardt, the supports by Robert Ryman—I consider all of these idiosyncrasies and others when I approach a work.
Kate Woods: When I think of squares I think of Suprematism and Malevich, then I think of McCahon’s Here I give thanks to Mondrian, it was my favourite painting to spend time with when I was working as a gallery assistant at the Auckland Art Gallery. I know that in this recent body of work you are thinking of artists nodding to other artists and continuing the painting chain. I remember high school histories of Colin McCahon and his NZ contemporaries having to learn about international contemporary art movements from bad reproductions in hard copy to get art magazines. I realise artists working in pure painting have been a foundation stone for you for a long time but when you saw the actual paintings of Kasimir Malevich, El Lissitzky and others, on your residency in New York, did it change how you felt about composition or other formal elements in your painting? Jessica Pearless: Yes, experiencing paintings or works of art always has a profound effect on me. Being in New York and able to sight works that we rarely see in NZ or Australia by European and American masters had particular influence on my subsequent works. The physicality of a painting is particularly important, being able to immerse myself in the work and essentially break it down, analysing every aspect, the scale, surface treatment, the way that the paint has aged, the way it is presented (framing, mounting, etc). I believe that this approach has become like second nature to me, and many other artists. I almost deconstruct a work, to figure
KW: You mention the supports of Robert Ryman. I found the Dia Beacon incredible and the section on Ryman gave me a whole new consideration of supports and how they can be really foregrounded in a work—it was the thing I spent looking at most in that room—noticing, comparing and really getting around each side of the work to see it as a 3D object. The industrial fixings reminded me of your earlier work. The Dia Beacon architecture and layout is sympathetic to the artwork by often having pared back rooms concentrating on one artist. Do you think if you saw a Ryman next to a Kandinsky it would make you feel differently about each or just emphasise the core formal concerns of each through difference or similarity? I’m interested in how you have been influenced by particular formal concerns in the artists you mention—when you are making a work do you have an initial intention to say think about translucency of paint or is it more intuition at the time? JP: The experience of a work in physical space is highly important, I often find myself right up close, scrutinising the make up of a piece, investigating the support, the sides, the drop shadow, the way the paint has been laid, the deterioration of the paint, whether it has been masked,
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all of the technical and material techniques applied to the work to grant myself a better understanding of the construction and therefore the intention. Yes, this has always been an inherent approach of mine, probably learnt from a very early age from my father, a carpenter. Comparing works is a huge part of interpreting and comprehending them, learning through the pictorial or physical differences while considering the conceptual. I do tend to develop a work or series based on a specific concern, a desire or need to work through or see a specific colour combination or surface next to another, edge to edge. I believe that painting can be instinctual and intuitive at the same time, a way to externalise a thought or idea. KW: I’m interested in the idea of the drop shadow. I can see where it fits in terms of earlier trompe l’oeil painting trying to create a fictional sense of space and also non objective art in the search for an understanding of space. Do you think people of this decade will start to read it definitely in terms of its links to the visual language of modern technology i.e. its prominence on computer desktops that many people see day to day now? JP: This is indeed a very interesting idea and something that I consider often, how we interpret works of art via digital technologies and how potentially, our vision and perception of space will ultimately be affected given the dominance of these technologies. There is a key trompe l’oeil painting that has long held my interest, Trompe L’oeil. The Reverse of a Framed Painting by Cornelius Norbertus Gijsbrechts. This is a painstakingly accurate rendition of the construction of a painting, placing the emphasis on the
underlying structure, the reverse, a painting of a painting, an exercise in perception and perspective—many aspects of this work contribute to a contemporary appreciation of what painting can be or do. The difference here perhaps lies in the labour, hints at a discussion about time, today we have a desire for everything to be immediate, instantaneous, right there and available, information is just seconds away. Painting now potentially offers a break from this and will always have a place as a vehicle for the contemplation of our physicality or metaphysically. KW: That’s a great painting. I had a conversation once with someone whose dream was to have an exhibition showing a public art galleries collection so that only the reverse of each painting was seen. The idea that artworks can take us out of a our normal capacity or expectations of time is important. It is funny how some things are set up to force you to move slower and contemplate. I remember seeing Braque’s stained glass work in a chapel at the The Maeght Foundation. I’m not religious but the experience felt religious. How do you think painting manages to create that feeling? JP: I had a similar experience seeing Barnett Newman’s Vir Heroicus Sublimis at MoMA, the sheer scale of the painting allows a total immersion of the self in colour and space. The ability of a painting or work of art to take us outside of ourselves, to express something undefinable, intangible is a unique trait of the medium. Other areas that may achieve this could be music or meditation, they somehow manage to surpass words or language and in essence contain feeling in themselves.
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KW: Can you tell me about your palette and what it signifies or references? JP: I have always had a fascination with pushing and pulling colour, to try to establish a tension within each work. I see colour as material. Fluorescent red become a significant vehicle for addressing this tension, due to its ability to toy with the viewer, hold or dominate space through sheer brightness. A lot of those works tend to oscillate, offering an other worldly void. In recent paintings, I have been seeking ways to achieve this without employing the fluorescent pigment. The hard, masked edge goes some way in achieving a tension, utilising matte against gloss, or interference pigments which embody a pearlescent, sheer tone that reflects a complimentary tone, like a pearl shell. The use of a very matte, neutral ground, generally ver di gris, harks back to the commonly used pigment in fresco underpainting. KW: I looked up ‘interference pigments’ as the name is so evocative and came across an article that said “Luster’ pigments are a minor innovation in artists materials, brought in from decorative applications in crafts and cosmetics, which in turn had adopted them from the sparkly textures first used in consumer packaging and plastics”. I remember in some of your earlier work an interest between combining ‘high art’ materials and ‘low art’ or industrial materials. Is this still an interest? JP: The incorporation of industrial materials by artists working through Minimalism or the use of the readymade was hugely inspiring to me on discovering these approaches at Elam. The pure, essential nature of the likes of Perspex, glass, wood, used in the simplest ways inspired me to
use industrial materials in a similar way. I still utilise this aspect in making supports and when considering the overall presentation. KW: How do you make your supports and what kind of considerations go into them? JP: The supports in Until Now for example are a combination of readymade stretched canvases, to allow a uniformity across the series, alongside smaller works made of primed linen on layered acid free board. I made these to emphasis the edge, to reveal the ‘core’ of the support. This is a device employed in many of my works, deliberately exposing the hanging mechanism or the wall in earlier vinyl on glass works, using clear fluorescent perspex against wood veneer or exposing a perfectly masked edge against a raw, unprimed linen, I believe the beauty is revealed in these details, these idiosyncrasies. KW: l like the idea of a core being revealed— kind of like historical cut aways of the earth over time. Do you believe the support is of equal importance to the surface? JP: Interesting, the title of one of the recent works is titled Strata, hinting at exactly that, a type of peeling back of the layers of time, acknowledging conservation and preservation of the make up of a painting. The support is always of equal important in my work. The scale in relation to the compositional forms in the image, the width of the masked edge and how much the painted surface reaches around the sides (if at all), such factors all contribute to the overall configuration of the work. (Continued on p.10)
Installation
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List of works
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Page 5 (top)
Page 6 (bottom)
Page 8 (top)
After Painting [EL] I, 2015 acrylic on canvas 400 x 300mm
After Painting [Kelly x Malevich I], 2015 acrylic on canvas 600 x 400mm
After Albers III, 2015 acrylic on canvas 600 x 400mm
After Painting [EL] II, 2015 acrylic on canvas 400 x 300mm After Painting [EL] X, 2015 acrylic on canvas 400 x 300mm After Painting [EL] VIII, 2015 acrylic on canvas 400 x 300mm Page 5 (bottom) Shadow Painting, 2015 acrylic on canvas on board four panels, 845 x 280mm Page 6 (top, left then right) After Painting [Proun I], 2015 acrylic on canvas 800 x 600mm After Painting [Proun II], 2015 acrylic on canvas 800 x 600mm
After Painting [Kelly x Malevich II], 2015 acrylic on canvas 600 x 400mm After Painting [Kelly x Malevich III], 2015 acrylic on canvas 600 x 400mm After Painting [Kelly x Malevich IV], 2015 acrylic on canvas 600 x 400mm Page 7 (top) After Painting [Proun IV], 2015 acrylic on canvas 800 x 600mm After Painting [Proun III], 2015 acrylic on canvas 800 x 600mm Bronze Concorde, 2010 acrylic on wood panel, concrete block 1980 x 460mm Copper Concorde, 2010 acrylic on rimu panel, concrete block 1980 x 410mm Page 7 (bottom) Strata, 2015 acrylic on linen on board, framed 310 x 248mm
After Albers IV, 2015 acrylic on canvas 600 x 400mm After Albers V, 2015 acrylic on canvas 600 x 400mm After Albers VI, 2015 acrylic on canvas 600 x 400mm Satellite V, 2015 acrylic on linen on board, framed 285 x 170mm Satellite II, 2015 acrylic on linen on board, framed 245 x 220mm Satellite III, 2015 acrylic on linen on board, framed 280 x 170mm Page 8 (bottom) After City Lights, 2014 acrylic on canvas 750 x 600mm
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KW: In your practice is the painting more than the surface – does its relationship to other artworks, placement and architecture factor in how it is read? JP: I believe that all of these aspects are integral in forming a work that ‘works’. I have a tendency towards a pristine surface, flatly laid paint, with clean surfaces, each form finds its ‘edge’, within the work whilst relating to the other forms on the paintings ground. Working in series strengthens this investigation, as a dialogue is established between paintings. The placement of a painting within architecture is a longstanding interest or concern, each feeds the other, informing the viewers experience of the work, the space, the space within the work, the work with the space. KW: Sometimes the most pared back paintings can be the ones people spend the most time with or come back too as if there are infinite viewing experiences possible for each work. Some early non-objective artists talked about the spirituality that pure geometry could create—do you think in this era that is still the case? JP: That’s right. I see painting as a contemplation space for self projection. Each person brings a new, different and unique projection to a work of art. This is particularly pertinent with minimal work, the area that I find the most engaging, challenging and enriching. While groundbreaking, I think that the Suprematist and Constructivist practitioners sought to define or project their Fourth Dimension, to seek a universal truth or utopia, an entirely relevant and valid idea (given the context of time or the perspective of time), I perceive the motivation of a cultural and political necessity as
encouraging these practitioners, prompting them to seek out an ideal or alternative existence through their work, to distill and refine and create a new vision. Although this looking beyond, inward or around yourself to invigorate and attempt to define something new is an appealing idea, what I am also interested in is the concept of the non-objective as a search for logic and understanding of the world now, rather than the search for an ultimate ideal or Utopia. KW: Do you think there is a cross over or parallel between maths and non-objective paintings search for logic? Have you used any mathematical formulas in your paintings in terms of composition? JP: There are definite cross overs and parallels between maths, logic and painting. In terms of using a system I tend to lean towards an interior sensibility or intuition. This is something that I focussed on throughout my MFA at Elam with the employment of the tilted square within my work. The Field, a series of 10 seemingly identical paintings all referenced a ‘master’ painting, an exercise in process, but one that did not employ a mathematical formula or measurements, rather one of intuition, a type of visual test that I undertook as the maker. KW: Do you remember the Mathex competitions at intermediate school? They always had a maths and art category which was quite revolutionary really. I thought The Field was really effective—in terms of the ‘test’ part of the process what conclusions did you come to when you finished the project? JP: I do indeed, and was a huge fan of the Mathex competitions, even being shown a few times in the Art & Maths category.
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I learnt a huge amount about my methodologies within The Field series. It granted me a sense of trust in my approach, techniques and technical ability, whilst at the same time, challenged me, in terms of the potential within the series. By this I mean that it could have effectively become a never ending task, knowing when to let a work rest and move on is just an important as starting one. KW: At Mathex I once displayed a pencil drawing of a geometric building—which I now realise was a Roger Walker design. I might be wrong here but I remember at one point in your earlier work you were interested in floor plans and architecture as content to work with within your pieces—in terms of a non-objective practice how does the shift play out from architecture as content to architecture as a tool or consideration in layout (to expand a painting)? JP: The diagrammatic aspect of architectural floor plans, elevations or a birds eye view has always been a strong reference point and aesthetic device, perhaps particularly prevalent in the vinyl on glass works of the mid 2000s. This is also a touchstone to De Stijl. I tend to utilise the parody of a fictional architecture, or impossible reality, driven by a desire for balance, proportion, or harmony with two dimensional space, like a proposal for a utopian space, which in turn hints at an initial intention of the early non objective practitioners in their search for a universal truth. Of course the space that a painting is in is critical to its realisation, painting needs a support, whether that be a wall or a digital interface, I believe that this is what makes contemporary painting so interesting, the potential for infinite cross overs and relationships to all aspects of life now.
Jessica Pearless is an Auckland based painter and installation artist. She graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland in 2011, with a Master of Fine Arts (hons). Her work has been exhibited in New Zealand as well as internationally. Pearless was a finalist in the Westpac Women of Influence Awards in 2014. She achieved merit awards in the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award in 2013 and 2014, and was an AMP National Scholarship recipient in 2011. Recent exhibitions: Sydney Contemporary Art Fair 2015; Te Tuhi Arts Centre, Auckland (2015); Sydney Non Objective (2014), Corban Estate Arts Centre, Auckland (2014); Headlands Sculpture on the Gulf, Auckland (2013); Sculpture by the Sea, Sydney (2013). Pearless was the inaugural Artists Alliance Artist in Residence in 2011. Public commissions include a significant art integration project for Remuera Town Centre, Auckland, as well as Flags for Te Wero Island, an Auckland Waterfront project (both 2015).
Acknowledgements
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This publication was produced on the occasion of the exhibition, Jessica Pearless: Until Now, 8–31 October 2015, at Bath Street Gallery. All works are available for sale from Bath Street Gallery. Writing: Jessica Pearless and Kate Woods Exhibition preparators: Matt Blomeley, A. D. Schierning Design: Index www.index.org.nz Printed on a Risograph stencil printer and Indigo digital printer Typefaces: Univers and Egyptienne Photography: Courtesy of the artist and Bath Street Gallery Thanks to: eighthirty coffee, Pasquale Viticultura, Art Week Auckland, Parnell Business Association, Kate Woods, Peter Shand
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October 2015
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