Short Answer Sunday: Katherine Knight

Welcome to Short Answer Sunday, an interview series where I ask artists, art adjacent individuals, and other interesting, creative people the same set of questions. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants respond with a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Guys, say hello to Katherine Knight. Katherine is a delightful human, a long-time friend and an artist + professor that I truly look up to. Longstanding readers (aka the real heads) will know that she is also a co-founder of the Art Habit blog and a member of my artist support group (remember that thing you need that you don’t think you need?).

Katherine’s figurative paintings and drawings are exquisite and she is always pushing the boundaries of what is possible, with scale, material and installation. I love hearing about her material research—how to manipulate fabric to look like snake skin, how to find the perfect fabric to simulate pool water, how to unify hand-knit elements with drawing on paper, how to work with horse hair, etc., etc. It is mesmerizingly cool and a good reminder that an artist’s research takes many forms and usually starts with a question and lots and lots of experimentation in the studio. As you soon will see, she’s also a great storyteller and had me laughing to the point of tears many times during her Short Answer Sunday.

It’s the first Sunday of Virgo season and Short Answer Sunday drew its first breath on the first Sunday of Pisces season. For my readers not versed in astrology, this means that we now have a half a year of Short Answer Sundays under our belts. Tomorrow is the start of Fall semester and my first day of classes. This year (ahem), I have taken on some new responsibilities at work and I’ve just found out I’ll likely have another solo show next year (won’t say more at this juncture for fear of jinxing, but more soon, I promise). All this is to say that Short Answer Sunday will be moving into freewheeling mode with a more intermittent schedule for a while, and a big break at the beginning of the semester.

Anyways, Short Answer Sunday partially owes her existence to Katherine Knight and Nikki Painter, because it was through my conversations with them that I realized how interesting this project could be (our answers were all so different)! Ginormously grateful to Katherine and everyone who has participated thus far.

For more about Katherine and her work, go to her website and follow her on Instagram.
xo, Lauren

Name: Katherine Knight
Occupation: Associate Professor of Art
Astrological data: Pices. Picees? How do you even spell it? Pieces?
Hometown: Columbia, SC
Current location: Washington, DC

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

From my friends!

An artwork that makes you laugh?

My students make me laugh all the time. They’re very good at being witty in their work. A recent midterm featured a portrait of Frida Kahlo, and her eyes were very intense. There was also a coffee mug with intense eyes, and a pair of glasses, which even though they didn’t have eyes, were still definitely staring at you. You felt under the microscope and scrutinized by these ridiculous items. It was so funny.

An artwork that makes you cry?

Soooo many paintings have made me cry! The first one I really remember was ‘Nude’ by Euan Uglow at the Tate in London. It’s a painting of a seated nude pushing herself up from a chair. It was hung so you’d see it first from the end of a long gallery, and I don’t know, something about it got me. I remember practically running towards it (like the slow motion run in a rom-com), and then standing in front of it crying. Her effort and physicality are just so REAL, and yet it’s very much a painting. Years later, I got special permission to visit it in storage, and it made me cry again, even though it was hung sideways to save space.

Most underrated artist?

Paula Rego.

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

Liza Lou’s beaded kitchen. I kinda want to live in her hyper version of reality for a while. Not forever, but for a bit.

Liza Lou, “Kitchen” (1991-1996) (detail), glass beads, wood, wire, plaster, and artist’s used appliances, 96 x 132 x 168 inches
image source

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

In highschool I developed an intense crush on a painting of David with Goliath’s head after seeing it IRL. Like, I would have passed him notes in class, and I daydreamed about him for YEARS. This was pre-internet, as I am old, so he mostly lived in my head. Recently, I realized I COULD look him up, so I did, and I was totally underwhelmed, like ‘what was I THINKING?’, much like running into an old (and disappointing) boyfriend. I’m not going to tell you which painting, because I don’t want you to judge me.

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

Interiors by Bonnard. But not the bathrooms, those are sad.

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

I like it when the colors, or some other feature, transport you to a different place, like a specific time of day, or type of weather. I like it when you feel like you can smell the air there. I’m especially impressed if an artist is able to do this within the confines of a rectangle, vs an installation or other 3D format, because it seems harder to make a 2D space that swallows you up.

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Other: Meh - not for me.

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

One time I was on an escalator, and I heard this delightful chiming noise. It wasn’t a melody, but it was musical. When I got to the bottom, I saw a handful of those fruit-shaped candies (are they runts?). They’d ride down the escalator, hit that thingie on the bottom, then bounce up a few feet and repeat the ride, ping-ponging all the way. Because they were all different shapes, they made different tones when they hit. It kept going and going and going. I thought ‘how marvelous! I wonder if it’s Art?’ I’m still not sure. Was it intentional? Does it matter? Can it still be Art if it’s unintentional? I choose to believe that it is.

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

Thomas Kincaid. JUST KIDDING. Though I do have more respect for him (or the arbiters of his estate) after they pushed back on his imagery being used for MAGA ads.

Ummm.... I think I’m not supposed to like ‘For the Love of God’ (the diamond skull) by Damien Hirst because it’s crass. And controversial, because he cast a real human skull. But you know what? That many diamonds is cool. They’re so sparkly.

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, platinum, diamond, human teeth, 2007, image source

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

Fragonard. Blegh.

Most insane art piece?

Heard*NY by Nick Cave. I wish I’d seen it! Oh, that reminds me. Puppets ALWAYS make me cry. Last summer I ugly-cried in the 20 minute stage performance of ‘How to Train your Dragon’ at Universal Studios because the dragon puppets were so moving. Dragons! In the real world! Gah! Sob!

Fav monograph or art book?

I’m currently reading ‘How Painting Happens (and why it matters)’ by Martin Gayford. A student recommended it, and it’s SO GOOD.

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

The National Gallery. I’m such a huge fan.

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I cried there, too - several times. They had TWO self portraits by Judith Leyster - the one everyone knows, and a recently discovered NEW one where she’s middle aged. Uggghhhh so good. 

Judith Leyster, Self Portrait, ca.1630, image source

I wanted to see the Amy Sherald exhibition at the BMA, but it sold out and I missed my chance! I will have to chase it to Atlanta! (Ed. note: Happy ending because I know for a fact she made it to the High Museum in Atlanta)

Amy Sherald, Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between, 2018, oil on canvas, 100 x 67 in., image source

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

ummmmmm. Is mentioning a cathedral too on-the-nose? The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, designed by Antoni Gaudi. I’ve been twice, and both times I’ve thought, I’d go to church every week if I could just sit in this space regularly. I don’t practice any sort of religion, but I feel at my most expansive when out in nature. The Sagrada Familia’s pillars are giant tree trunks, and the windows evoke light streaming through jewel toned leaves. It perfectly captures the grandeur of nature, filtered through the genius of one person’s vision, actualized by the thousands of artists who have worked on it for the past 140+ years. ooo, I’m getting chills just thinking about it.

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

the Slav Epic, a cycle of 20 ENORMOUS paintings by Alphonse Mucha, chronicling the history of the Slavic people. They’re so big and fragile, they don’t travel much. I’ll have to go to Prague to Czech(ia) it out.

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Oil Paint!

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

KEXP!

What’s a book that changed your life?

Art Book: Secret Knowledge, by David Hockney.

Non Art Book - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

Wellll, discovering KEXP changed my life.

Also ‘The Run-through’ Figure Skating podcast is my current obsession. You don’t even have to like Figure Skating to enjoy it- they’re so funny. The first episode of the ‘Ice Dance Lore’ is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a looooong time. I was incoherent while listening. It’s a long listen, but the payoff is SO worth it.

❤

Katherine Knight grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. She received a BA in Studio Art from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, and an MFA in Painting from American University in Washington, DC. She has completed additional studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Her work has been exhibited at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, VisArts in Rockville, MD, the OU Gallery on Vancouver Island Canada, Gallaudet University in Washington DC, Shrine NYC’s virtual Group Show (room 5), and the Indie Grits Film Festival, where her short film Sunday Mornings won the Southern Lens Award. International artist residencies include the OU Gallery on Vancouver Island, Canada, and the Burren College of Art in County Clare, Ireland. She is associate professor of painting at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, Maryland, and splits her time between Washington, DC and rural Appalachia.

Short Answer Sunday: Carlie Kinto

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Happy Sunday, everyone. This week I am so excited to share a Short Answer Sunday with artist Carlie Kinto. Carlie and I went to the same grad program in DC, and even though our time there didn’t overlap, I’ve been an avid follower of her work since about 2010. I most often think of Carlie as a painter, although she also works with jewelry, metals and 3D mixed-media arrangements. Her paintings combine a broad range of paint media (gouache, acrylic, oil, Flashe, ink, etc.) and also less traditional painting substances like rhinestones, glitter and sand. Carlie’s use of the conventional and the idiosyncratic extends into her supports which run the gamut of size, shape and material.

There are many reasons why I am drawn to Carlie’s work, but one striking reason is her investigation into two ongoing, yet distinct, bodies of work—one that is primarily abstract, and another which is based on the observational, natural landscape. Although they are different bodies of work with varying agendas and processes, to me, they are cumulative and in dialogue. Carlie’s abstractions often include spiritual symbolism—spirals, moons, stars, mandalas and double ellipses. Much of this imagery references phenomena in the natural world, but Carlie’s renditions feel like a turn inward, an inner vision that feels both familiar and unnameable. Her deliberate, chromatic landscapes encourage close looking and evoke a similar sense of solitude, wonder, pattern, and time. Whether representational or abstract, all of Carlie’s paintings show the artist’s penchant for layered mark-making, vibrant, complicated color/pattern relationships and her awe + reverence for the natural and spiritual worlds (which are maybe not so separate after all).

Carlie’s responses are wonderful and provide such a great foundation for looking and thinking about her work. For more about Carlie Kinto, go to her website and follow her on Instagram. Thanks for reading, pals 😊
xo, Lauren

Name: Carlie Kinto
Occupation: Artist (day job- Administrative Assistant to a design team)
Astrological data: Sagittarius Sun and Rising, Gemini Moon, Libra MC
Hometown: Bend, Oregon
Current location: Portland, Oregon

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Art books, word of mouth, art shows

An artwork that makes you laugh?

Medieval paintings of cats

An artwork that makes you cry?

“The Artist is Present” by Marina Abramović

Most underrated artist?

It’s hard to answer this one because I feel like there are so many great artists making art today that don’t get enough recognition

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

“Paysage méridional: Le Cannet” by Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard, Paysage méridional: Le Cannet, 1929 - 1930, oil on canvas, 55,5 x 46,5 cm

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Raina Lee stoneware paintings, Lily Stockman, Yevgeniya Baras

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

“Two sunflowers” by Joan Mitchell

“Mimi’s Garden” by Hayley Barker

Joan Mitchell, Two Sunflowers, 1980. Oil on canvas, 110 1/4 x 142 x 1 1/4 inches

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

Soulfulness… the artist’s hand, a bit of tension, texture, imperfections

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Other: Depends

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

Jewelry doesn’t get enough credit as art

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

“The Kiss” by Gustov Klimt and in general decoration and pattern

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

David Hockney iPad drawings

Most insane art piece?

“The Four Seasons” Charles E. Burchfield

Light Years, “finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions” by Judith Pfaff

Charles E. Burchfield, The Four Seasons, 1949-1960, watercolor on joined paper mounted on board, 55 7/8 X 47 7/8 inches

Fav monograph or art book?

Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

PAM and Nationale

Last exhibition you saw irl?

A Queer Arcana: Art, Magic, and Spirit at Palm Springs Art Museum

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Tantric paintings from Rajasthan, India. (From the book ‘Tantra song’)

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

“The Ten Largest” by Hilma af Klint

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Sennelier oil pastels 💸

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

Aphex Twin

What’s a book that changed your life?

You Were Born For This by Chani Nicholas

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

The Telepathy Tapes podcast

❤

Carlie Kinto is a multidisciplinary artist who creates abstract and landscape paintings, jewelry and installations.

Her abstract paintings reveal the metaphysical and otherworldly through a meditative process of building layers through repetitive mark-making, using intuitive techniques like scrying to allow images to unconsciously emerge. These coalesce into compositions that embody primal ecological forms and processes such as the spiral or cell division and evolution, reflecting Carlie's interest in the patterns the universe reveals from the cosmic to the microcosmic.

Her landscapes are painted on location. Similarly to her abstractions they are created through a process of building layers and repetitive marks with the intention to capture the energetic vibration, and the constant change and motion of nature. She embraces the chaos and bright colors of lush gardens and tress to capture the emotionally expressive feeling of a place.

Carlie Kinto received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from University of Oregon in 2007 and her Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from American University in 2010.

For more about Carlie Kinto, find her on her website and Instagram.

Short Answer Sunday: Mariah Anne Johnson

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

An artist’s studio research is often described as a practice, and while I’ve heard some grumble about this in the past, I feel that it’s a pretty apt descriptor for what an artist actually does in the studio. Perhaps it is an unpopular opinion, but I think being an artist is yoked to the action of making, showing up on a regular basis, researching through making, trying, failing, improving and turning nothings into somethings, again and again and again (thinking is good, but it’s not enough). The ‘success’ here is embedded in the showing up and making of the work, not in any potential financial compensation or critical acclaim (and the trick is to keep showing up with honesty, integrity and humility even if any of these external factors actually do occur). I see a sincere embodiment of this type of practice in Mariah Anne Johnson’s inspiring work.

Playful and liberating, but also consistent and devoted, Mariah’s work leans heavily into landscape and often the landscape of the domestic realm. The home (and its accoutrements), the neighborhood, the mundane ephemera of the household and the inhabitants of these spaces, become subject, media and content for creation. Citing her body as a primary tool of her practice, she takes this to the max by using all of her senses, as well as the physical dimensions of her body to interpret, explore and organize the world around her. Mariah’s work is not beholden to a singular media and takes many forms (her chromatic bedsheet installations were the first that I fell hard for, but today I am equally enamored with her suspended cardboard constructions, her aesthetically arranged collections of found scraps and her videos of movement sequences).

I was first introduced to Mariah’s work many years ago through her very smart artist-run space, Porch Projects, which existed in Washington, DC for two years in the early 2010s (I’ve already used the SAS platform to expound on my love for artist-run exhibition spaces and I’m not afraid to do it again). Mariah’s curation for Porch Projects (arguably an art piece in and of itself) disrupted traditional notions of media and installation, often creating unique conversations between the various artists’ work, as well as the space of the home (more about the amazing history of the DC artist-run scene past & present can be found here).

Not surprising even a little bit, Mariah has given us another gem of a Short Answer Sunday. Hope you enjoy! For more about Mariah Anne Johnson and her work, take a look at her website and follow her on Instagram.
xo, Lauren

Name: Mariah Anne Johnson
Occupation: artist
Astrological data: Taurus
Hometown: Little Rock, Arkansas
Current location: Los Angeles, California

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Seeing their work in exhibitions.

An artwork that makes you laugh?

Jan Erichsen’s performative sculpture videos on Instagram.

Klara Liden’s video Untitled (Trashcan) that I saw in the Julia Stoschek Foundation exhibition in Los Angeles.

An artwork that makes you cry?

I saw the Monuments exhibition at MOCA (of works shown with and in some cases made about removed Confederate statues and memorials) just before it closed. I had a moment of shock and sadness when I rounded a corner and saw a familiar place (front steps of Little Rock Central High School) in one of Jon Henry’s Strange Fruit photographs. This exhibition continues to resonate, with the recent actions against voting rights in Louisiana, Tennessee, etc. I wish those who need to see it would.

Most underrated artist?

The female ones!

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

Monet’s house and garden in Giverny, France. I feel this should count as an artwork.

Maison et jardins de Claude Monet, Giverny
Image Source

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

I have been thinking a lot about Louise Nevelson recently. Last year I read the biography of her by Laurie Wilson, and my hometown art museum (Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts) had an exhibition of her work that I got to see on a trip to visit my folks. I also saw an exhibition of her small collages a few years ago that has stuck with me. Her relentless pursuit of her own vision, consequences be damned, is inspiring.

Louise Nevelson, Untitled, 1969, cardboard, paper and sandpaper collage on board, 20 x 16 in.
Image Source

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

Open Window, Collioure, by Henri Matisse (1905). This painting lives at the National Gallery in Washington, DC. I used to visit it often when I lived there.

Henri Matisse, Open Window, Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas, 21 3/4 × 18 1/8 in.
Image Source

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

When I was teaching, I talked to students about “rewarding the viewer,” giving those who spend the time to look at your work a reason to do so, perhaps inviting them to look longer and closer. I suppose that’s what I appreciate in a work, and I try to reciprocate by being generous with my time and my senses, really paying attention when I am present to experience a work.

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

Many of Sam Scharf’s works. I especially love his benches and his PVC pipe pieces, the way they try so hard to fit into the vernacular built environment around them, but their craft, thought, and care give them away.

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

I really love Monet. The more I have learned about him in recent years, the more I appreciate his work and his practice as an example to follow. Set me down in the middle of Musee de l’Orangerie in Paris, and let me be.

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

I don’t like Renoir too much.

I didn’t enjoy the Tala Madani exhibition at MOCA a few years ago. The room after room of huge smeary paintings irritated me! I did enjoy her videos in the same exhibition, and I wish they had not seemed like a side project or secondary practice.

Most insane art piece?

The earthworks from the 1970’s. Gordon Matta-Clark slicing up houses. The Vienna Actionist performances. James Turrell’s Roden Crater.

Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting, 1974 (SFMOMA) © Succession of Gordon Matta-Clark and Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark
Image Source

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

Joan and Monte Vista Projects in the Bendix Building downtown are always good. So are Chris Sharp Gallery and Guerrero Gallery.

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Over the past week I have caught the last day of several exhibitions. I especially loved Neighborhood Ecology at the Brand Library & Gallery in Glendale, CA (included two amazing Megan Mueller wall installations, a beautiful imaginary community made from wood scraps by Susan Feldman, and a moving short film by Jazmin Garcia); and Roksana Pirouzmand’s everything was once something else (the land was the sea, the sea was the land) at Joan, a meditation on the relationship between the elements and our bodies, and bringing up the next generation inside this relationship.

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Solo keyboard works by J.S. Bach.

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

At the moment I am excited by sketchbooks, colored pencils, and water activated tape. I am not an expert about any of these materials, but I love them and use them daily.

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

Sofiane Pamart’s Planet Gold album. John Adams’ Road Movies album.

What’s a book that changed your life?

I really love Claudio Magris’ Danube, as well as the travel writing of Cees Nooteboom. Their mapping of personal experience, poetry, literature, and history onto place probably informs my current work in ways I haven’t thought about. Plus, they are both just beautiful writers.

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

Everyone should read Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake trilogy. But not at bedtime.

❤

Mariah Anne Johnson explores bodily experience in the landscape through drawing and movement. She creates videos, installations, and works on paper from the knowledge she collects through these processes. Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, she studied art and literature at Rice University while performing with Rice Dance Theater, earning her MFA from the University of Illinois (2006). Recent projects include a residency and video installation at Zaratan Arte Contemporânea (Lisbon); participation in the 29th Recontres Internationales Traverse in Toulouse, France; inclusion in Los Outsiders’ Chai’n Brai Laika Daimon (Laredo and Austin, Texas); and an ongoing project about her neighborhood, Rhythms Around Us. She has received the Riddergade Fellowship from Viborg Kunsthal (Denmark) and performed with Hayley Cutler’s darlingdance. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.

Short Answer Sunday: Nikki Painter

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Nikki Painter is a good friend and an artist whose work & practice I absolutely revere. She also happens to be one of my Art Habit blogging co-conspirators and the instigator of our artist support group (every artist should really have one of these btw), so I’m especially excited to feature her here for a Short Answer Sunday.

Ranging in scale from intimate to immersive, Nikki’s work takes the form of drawing, painting, collage and sculptural installation. In her recent work, she creates invented environments that feature the garden as subject. In conjunction with a deep investigation into pattern and color, Nikki’s gardens are dynamic, emotive and optical. Deceptive from a distance (from afar elements of her drawings may appear printed), a close inspection reveals that the graphic patterns and imagery are laboriously drawn, cut out and layered by hand. Nikki and I share a love of working on and with paper, as both a surface and also for its sculptural capacities.

I’ve just returned to the US from Berlin and remain in that strange liminal (sorry, usually I try to avoid this word due to art-speak overuse, but in this case it really is the best choice) headspace when one has just traveled from one place to another. I’m seeing evidence of my time there everywhere, from my sunburnt toes to the leek scape in my garden that resembles the TV Tower. Although I’m most definitely influenced by recent experiences, I don’t think it’s off base to say that Nikki’s work evokes a Berlin-in-springtime aesthetic, especially with the interplay of floral forms, grids and stripes that recall the city’s symbiosis of wild, resilient flora next to the rectilinear grid of the plattenbau and other urban structures. Nikki’s botanicals remind me there’s little I love more in a city than vigorous weedy blooms that sprout upwards from cracks in the sidewalk. When looking at Nikki’s work, I’m also reminded of the garden as sanctuary, its regimen an incantation for hope during times of great difficulty (highly recommend checking out Kenneth Helphand’s book Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime).

Once again, I just want to voice how exciting it is for me that this interview process allows for so much discovery in spite of being a relatively casual thing. I can know someone well and still learn new things about their interests (seriously, every time I open up a new Google form response, it feels like my birthday). I loved Nikki’s Short Answer Sunday and I know that you will, too. For more about Nikki and her work, check out her website and follow her on Instagram (and make a plan to go see her upcoming solo show at Foyer in November)!
xo, Lauren

Name: Nikki Painter
Occupation: artist
Astrological data: Privileged info
Hometown: Roanoke, VA
Current location: Richmond, VA

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Listening to podcasts, reading art magazines/publications

An artwork that makes you laugh?

work by Red Grooms

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Judy Pfaff

Judy Pfaff, installation view of Picking up the Pieces, Sarasota Art Museum, Sarasota, FL, 2023
Image Source

 
What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

surprise, humor, absurdity, beauty

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Yes: ✅

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

There is a sculpture at VMFA that I have a love/hate relationship with. Whenever I think of it, my first reaction is “Ugh, ew,” but then I also immediately think “Oh, I hope that thing is on view the next time I am there, I really want to see it again!” I can’t remember the artist right now, but it is a head, and it is very late ‘70s/’80s.

Most insane art piece?

Gregory Barsamian sculptures

Gregory Barsmian, Artifact, 2010. Steel, glass, polyurethane foam, motor, strobe lights

Image Source

Fav monograph or art book?

Currently: “With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art”

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

VMFA and Foyer

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

a comprehensive Louise Nevelson retrospective

What’s a book that changed your life?

An M.C. Escher book a teacher showed me when I was in fourth grade

❤

Nikki Painter is a Virginia artist whose mixed-media works are inspired by the natural world. She has had solo shows at Second Street Gallery, Shockoe Artspace, COOP Gallery, and Purdue University's Rueff Gallery, among others. Her work has been part of numerous group exhibitions, including shows at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, the Taubman Museum, and the Daegu Arts Center in South Korea. Painter has attended artist residencies in Virginia, Vermont, Wyoming, Georgia, and Florida. Her work is part of many private collections and public collections including those of: Notre Dame of Maryland University, Capital One, and the Katzen Museum. In 2022, she was awarded a Fellowship for Works on Paper by the Virginia Commission for the Arts. She resides in suburban Richmond with her husband and a growing collection of houseplants.

Find out more about Nikki on her website and on Instagram.

 

Short Answer Sunday: Patrick Berran

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Patrick Berran makes abstractions with attitude. His non-objective compositions are kaleidoscopic, incorporating spliced, contrasting patterns, colors and shapes that layer, mirror, repeat and echo (think flatbed picture plane meets astral plane).  To absolutely no one’s surprise, I’m so into Pat’s use of color. A fellow chromophile, his paintings and drawings are punky, vibrant and playful. Although blue is a color that we culturally link with sadness, Patrick Berran’s blues aren’t the melancholic types. Often used in a primary triadic combo with bright pinks and yellows, a real sense of buoyancy is developed (I don’t know about you, but this is something I can always use a bit more of).

His work ethic is a total inspiration to me and love getting sneak peaks into his studio via Instagram because there is always something exciting going on. As you would expect, his Short Answer Sunday responses are equally generous and insightful. For more about Patrick Berran and his work, find him here and here.

In other news, I’ll be out of the country next week, so I may post something, but it won’t be a Short Answer Sunday. We’ll see! ✌️
xo, Lauren

Name: Patrick Berran
Occupation: Artist & Professor
Astrological data: Gemini
Hometown: Woodbridge, VA
Current location: Kill Devil Hills, NC

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Independent research and “word of mouth” conversations

An artwork that makes you laugh?

Paul McCarthy: “Painter” (1995)

An artwork that makes you cry?

“Heroes” by David Bowie. No joke, I cry every time his voice crescendos

Most underrated artist?

Eduard Vuillard

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

Red Forest by Max Ernst

Max Ernst, The Red Forest, 1970, oil on canvas, 80.6 x 64.8 cm

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Mark Bradford

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park paintings

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

Color

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

No: ✅

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

Schnabel paintings

Most insane art piece?

James Turrell “Meeting” at PS1. So simple, but so amazing. Always weather dependent, I used to have so much anxiety/anticipation visiting PS1, would the piece be open, can I visit? Some of the greatest moments with that piece were just a clear day, bright blue sky, silence and no one at the museum.

Fav monograph or art book?

Hilma AF Klint

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Natan Lawson at Foyer Gallery

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Owl with a Coffin, 1835-1838 Caspar David Friedrich

Caspar David Friedrich, Landscape with Grave, Coffin and Owl, ca. 1836-1837, brown sepia over pencil on paper, 15 x 15 inches

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

paper

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

NIN Tron soundtrack

What’s a book that changed your life?

Annie Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

❤

Patrick Berran is an artist and educator that lives and works in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Berran’s painting practice incorporates drawing, transfer processes and collage. Berran has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally. Berran’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Hyperallergic, the Brooklyn Rail, Bomb Magazine, Style Weekly, New American Painters and Architectural Digest.

For more about Patrick Berran and his work, check out his website and Instagram.

 

Short Answer Sunday: Rachel Jeffers

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

What a delight to get lost in a painting, to be confused and amused and surrender to color, form, pattern, light. Rachel Jeffers’ painterly still lifes offer so much of this smart, giddy, retinal pleasure. Sinks & dishes, lunches about to be eaten, a fried egg in a luminous skillet (the sleepy, muted spatula next to this orange glow really gets me), floral arrangements, slinking house cats, puzzles in process, and the reflective glow of Christmas lights (a personal favorite) are all explored and elevated in Rachel’s compositions. The paintings’ surfaces contain traces of the painting process, in which marks and forms are built, layered, or obliterated over time (sharing a bit of kinship with Richter’s Tisch).

The subjects in Rachel’s paintings may be casual domestic scenes, however they are developed in such a way that they become extraordinary worlds. In these worlds, mimesis and playful expression mingle, and pictorial depth expands and collapses. In her interview, Rachel shares that she would like to live in one of Vuillard’s interiors for a week (fully support this). If given the opportunity, I would like to live in one of Rachel’s paintings and I’d choose this one. Just look for me in the middle, playing in the paint.

Last week, I saw Rachel’s phenomenal show Monday Alchemy at Foyer and highly recommend that all those in the Richmond area make a trip to see her work in person. The show is up through May 29, with an artist talk on May 21 . A friend of the blog, Rachel was also interviewed on Art Habit by Nikki in 2023 (check it out, if you missed it). I so appreciate Rachel’s honest and insightful responses for Short Answer Sunday and I know that you will, too.

For more about Rachel Jeffers and her work, head on over to her website and follow her on Instagram.

xo, Lauren

Name: Rachel Jeffers
Occupation: Artist
Astrological data: Scorpio sun, Virgo moon, Taurus rising
Hometown: Tennessee
Current location: Richmond, VA

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

When artists I like are in group shows, I look up the other artists in the show, which often leads me to more galleries, and then to more artists.

An artwork that makes you laugh?

The Ham by Paul Gauguin. The first time I saw this at The Phillips Collection, I was fresh out of grad school, and going through a lot of turmoil about what painting is for. The message I had absorbed was that for art to be meaningful, it had to be ‘Important’. I turned the corner and came upon this absurd painting - of course still life has been around forever, but there was something so surprising about the formality with which he treated a slab of ham. This painting reminded me that there are many ways for painting to have meaning.

Paul Gauguin, The Ham, 1889, oil on canvas, 19 3/4 x 22 3/4 in

An artwork that makes you cry?

I have a hard time looking at Picasso’s Guernica.

Most underrated artist?

Childe Hassam. Georges Braque

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

Any of Vuillard’s interiors. I’d especially like if I could blend into the wallpaper and just observe without being noticed.

Edouard Vuillard, The Flowered Dress, 1891, oil on canvas, 38 x 46 cm

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Lisa Sanditz has been a favorite since I saw her show Sock City at CRG Gallery in 2008.

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

Color, evidence of the hand, seeing residue of the painter’s decision-making process, and ideally, a composition that arrives at an unexpected solution in combining all of these elements

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

I really like Richard Tuttle’s work.

Richard Tuttle, Sylva Head, 2020, plywood, spray paint, wood glue, and nails, 21 x 15 1/8 x 2 inches

Fav monograph or art book?

Drawings of Jim Dine
Cindy Sherman The Complete Untitled Film Stills
Tina Barney Theater of Manners
Alex Katz Collages
The Hours of Catherine of Cleves

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

VMFA

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Alison Hall’s paintings. You have to see them in person. Fra Angelico Entombment

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

I would’ve answered Impression Sunrise by Monet, but I got to see that last year when it came to DC. Another answer would’ve been Sargent’s The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit but I saw that in Boston in 2019. I think next on my list has to be Matisse’s Woman with a Hat.

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Color wheels and color charts. My training in color theory was based on the Munsell System. It reminds me of a lot of musical scales and music theory. I don’t understand why everyone isn’t as excited as I am about color wheels.

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

I’ve had Grimes’s 2020 album, Miss Anthropecene on a constant loop for the past couple of months.

What’s a book that changed your life?

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

2 books that made a huge impact on me are Deborah Tannen’s That’s Not What I Meant! and You Just Don’t Understand
They’re not art books, but they’re about language, and the subtle differences in communication styles that lead to misunderstandings. I love anything to do with linguistics, grammar, and psychology. It’s one thing I really enjoy about painting, the infinite number of ways there are to say one thing.

❤

Rachel Jeffers holds an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art's Mount Royal School of Art and a BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design. She studied with Turps Correspondence Course and is now a course mentor. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Eastern US, with recent appearances at Shockoe Artspace, Stay Home Gallery, and My Pet Ram. Her current solo show, Monday Alchemy, is on view at Foyer Gallery until May 29. She is a member of Zeuxis: A Collective of Still Life Painters. She lives and works in the Richmond, VA area.

You can find out more about Rachel Jeffers and her work on her website and on Instagram.

Short Answer Sunday: Hartmut Austen

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Hartmut Austen is a longtime friend and an inspiring painter. I met Hartmut in 2008, while teaching at The College for Creative Studies in Detroit and we also spent many summers teaching together at The Interlochen Center for the Arts in Northern MI. He makes paintings that are smart, complex and playful, and, as an artist, seems to thrive on curiosity, discovery and invention. Hartmut’s painting are not beholden entirely to abstraction or representation, and their formal variety and color mischief results in some disorienting and poetic paintings that are absolutely my cup of tea. Often installed as a network, rather than lone entities, I find that Hartmut’s use of irregular sequencing provokes conversations between paintings, and develops connections between the aesthetic structures in the work and the architectural elements around them.

Hartmut’s questionnaire responses introduced me to a few artists and a great, new-to-me gallery and reminded me of some artists who I hadn’t looked at in a while.  For any interested parties, my weekly Short Answer Sunday prep involves a sort of immersion in each artist’s responses, their work via their website and previous exhibitions. It’s fun and recalls how I used to find new artists, books and music in the pre-algorithmic olden days.  Seven weeks in to this project, the data-head in me is loving the aggregate of all responses as much as each individual's answers. Also realizing that there are no obvious answers!! Anyways, digression complete! Hartmut has great, expansive taste in art and also music, and I know you'll love his smart, thoughtful answers for Short Answer Sunday.

For more on Hartmut Austen’s work, check out his website and find him on Instagram.
xo, Lauren

Name: Hartmut Austen
Occupation: Artist/Professor
Astrological data: Sagittarius
Hometown: Bielefeld in Europe, Metro Detroit in the US
Current location: Boston area

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

By pulling out random books in the university library and by visiting exhibitions

 

An artwork that makes you laugh?

"Höhere Wesen Befahlen: rechte obere Ecke schwartz malen!", 1969, by Sigmar Polke

An artwork that makes you cry?

"Self-Portrait with Jewish Identity Card," c. 1943, by Felix Nussbaum (editor's note: Made me cry, too. More info on Nussbaum here)

 

Felix Nussbaum, Selbstporträt mit Judenpaß, c. 1943, oil on panel, 56 x 49 cm
Image Source

Most underrated artist?

Asger Jorn

An artwork that you'd like to live inside for a week?

Maybe in works by Joellyn Duesberry, unfuzzy, straight-forward landscape paintings of the American Southwest, as seen a bit more than a year ago at the Denver Art Museum.

An artist whose work you can't stop thinking about?

Johanna Billings

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

A felt suit by Joseph Beuys

What's your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

That it engages me over a period of time

Erotic artwork? (editor's note: this is a multiple choice question)

 

Yes: ✅

What's an artwork that doesn't look like art?

The works in the exhibition "Travelling" by Felix Gonzales-Torres (Renaissance Society, 1994) confounded me so much that I had to make a painting about it.

What's an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn't like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

Tagebuch der Amaryllis, 1981, by Horst Janssen

What's an artwork that you secretly hate?

I usually forget those things quickly.

Most insane art piece?

Can't really single out one. Perhaps drawings and performances by Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley come to mind. Mind blowing, repulsive, in your face. Much needed.

Paul McCarthy, Painter, 1995, color video with sound
Duration: 50:01 min
Image Source

Fav monograph or art book?

"Drawings" by George Seurat, 1984, exhibition catalog published by Kunsthalle Bielefeld

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

Anthony Greaney, a project space in Somerville, MA. In the 'About' section of its website it says: "Next to Market Basket and around the corner from Little India Market, off the alley."

Last exhibition you saw irl?

"Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now" at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Isenheim Altar Piece (1512-16) by Matthias Grünewald

An artwork that you'd like to see before you die?

I'd rather be in a cabin and look at a bunch of mountains, or the sea. Not sure yet.

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

oils I guess

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

Hüsker Dü, "Standing By the Sea"

What's a book that changed your life?

The Seurat Drawing exhibition catalog mentioned earlier

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

Let me think.....

❤

Hartmut Austen studied painting and drawing with H.J. Diehl at Hochschule der Künste (University of the Arts) in Berlin. His first arrival in the United States was marked by a 1998 group exhibition titled "VOID" at Unfinished gallery in Williamsburg, New York. He has since exhibited widely in the United States and Germany, most recently at Good Weather Chicago. In 2009, Austen was awarded a Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellowship and was the Grant Wood Fellow for Painting and Drawing at the University or Iowa in 2012/13. He is an Associate Professor in Painting at Boston College. 

For more info about Harmut, check out his website and follow him on Instagram.