How did you get into making art?
Like so many people, I absolutely loved to draw as a child. My parents nurtured that interest in the ways they knew how, by providing me with supplies and enrolling me in art classes at local art centers, etc… I mostly drew animals. I then had good art teachers in high school and college who helped expand my interest and curiosity. They showed me that it was possible to simply even be an artist. Because I grew up in a fairly homogenous religious community where I always felt like a bit of a square peg, making art seemed like a little secret door to a different kind of life full of openness, curiosity, and potential.
What are you currently working on?
Last year, I was really grinding in my studio to prepare for a solo show that took place in April and May of this year. I spent all winter in a sort of obsessive painting tunnel making a body of work that I could be really proud of. Since then, I have started working on several paintings that begin to press deeper into some of the ideas that arose while making the works for my show, trying to paint the feeling of the passage of time. I am currently more focused feeling my way through ideas than finishing paintings. I have introduced some animal forms and shadow/reflections in new water paintings, taking time to approach ideas with openness and experimentation while following whims. The paintings in my recent show had very rhythmic and regular patterns in the waves, I am currently playing around with ways of disrupting or scrambling that pattern to give a feeling of something in motion. I am also after a very specific silvery gold reflective light color that I have not yet been able to achieve, so I am experimenting with my palette a bit while no one is looking.
The works have become less about an image and more about dissolving images.
Giordanne Salley
What inspired you to get started on this body of work?
Every painting leads to the next and to the next. I have never thought of a group of works as a body with a beginning and an end, but looking back across several years of paintings, I can see that things take shape together and then at some point a different shape appears. I have been painting memories of swimming and water for a long time simply because I love swimming and the sensation of being in and under water. Over time, the patterns in and on the water itself have become more of a major player in my paintings. The works have become less about an image and more about dissolving images. In making each work, questions arise and the only way to explore the question is through another painting. I am obsessed with the way the surface of water moves and is at once transparent and reflective. It contains everything around it and has really endless formal and symbolic potential. Using the wave motif as a grid or starting point has opened up possibilities for me to sort of tip toe into abstraction while keeping a sort of tether to the natural world. I suppose to answer the question though, the way I arrived at this body of work is through all the works that came before it.
Do you work on distinct projects or do you take a broader approach to your practice?
I don’t think of my paintings or groups of work as being distinct projects, separate from the rest. Of course when preparing for a show in a particular space there are things to consider-namely scale, color, content, or how the works will relate to each other within a space, and then there are deadlines-but aside from this, all the works have been part of what feels like a broader arc. I work slowly, making slight adjustments over time. Even small changes from one painting to the next, like slightly shifting a wave pattern, can feel radical and disruptive and can lead to years of painting questions! Every few years, my work is probably orbiting a new question or idea, but there are not distinct edges between one group of paintings and the next.
What’s a typical day like in your studio?
I like to eat at least one meal at home and it is usually breakfast. So after exercise and a nice quiet breakfast at home, I will bike 15 minutes to my studio. I usually spend a few minutes doing some sort of chore when I first arrive- watering plants or cleaning my palette, etc. If I am starting something new, I will draw or write before beginning to work on the canvas. Starting new things is the most fun and open part of painting, but also the most physically active, often moving all over the surface of a canvas in one day, making quick decisions, so it requires a so a sort of warm up. If I am in the middle of a painting, I will usually already have little piles of paint mixed and can jump right into working, slowly layering colors and honing forms. On these days, the work is slow, repetitive and tedious. My hand and face is usually close up to the canvas. It is very easy to get into a sort of zone. Out of necessity, I set a timer to go off every 45 minutes so that I will pause to drink water and stretch or move around a bit and take a look at my work from across the room. I normally have 2-3 paintings in progress at the same time, so I can let something rest for a while if I am feeling stuck or unsure about my next move. I work on paintings over the course of several months (or sometimes weeks for small paintings).
I usually eat dinner at the studio early in the evening and either look at painting books or stare at whatever I am working on for a little while before getting back to work. I work best in the winter, when it gets dark early. I set an alarm at 8 or 9pm to clean up and bike home. It is easy to lose track of time, and sleep is important.
Who are your favorite artists?
This is an impossible list to make, but I can name a few that come to mind right now: Charles Burchfield, Milton Avery, Miyoko Ito, Roger Brown, Lois Dodd, Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Nevelson, Pierre Bonnard, Stanley Lewis, Nicolas Poussin, Fra Angelico, Claude Monet…
Where do you go to discover new artists?
I think the best way to find out about new artists and their work is to go see group exhibitions. I love a sprawling summer group show because there are usually some surprises-especially at artist-run spaces- and you’ve got to see things in person. But also, artists do talk: If my friend tells me to look at some artist I’ve never heard of, I’m going to do it.
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