You artworks are often inspired by iconic figures as Frida Kahlo and Sappho, and we have particularly appreciated the way your artworks conveys such a strong message about women's identity and their unique contribution in our globalized, still patriarchal societies. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, with each piece you cut you are hoping to send the message that women are the strongest creatures in existence: do you think that your being a woman provides your artistic research with some special value? All of early history was written by men. There a million stories that will never be heard because they were those of females. This sentiment is even more true for women of color. I think everybody has their own little slice of the world they live in, physically and mentally, and everyone’s personal journey reflects heavily on their work. All I know is to be a woman, I have no other perspective to rely on. I can appreciate other point of views, but will never know exactly how it is to be something else. I just want to make art that shows the importance of women’s voices, and that illustrate that the stories of women from now and from the past are worth listening to. Your collages have a great number of fascinating details in them but at the same time they seem very homogenous. In particular, your collages are marked with such a rigorous sense of geometry, to create such a coherent combination between sense of freedom and unique aesthetics: do you conceive you works instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your pieces? In particular, how importance does spontaneity play in your work? Spontaneity is an extremely important aspect in my work. Part of the excitement to me, when it comes to my art, is that I am not sure what will end up on the canvas when I begin something new. Like a lot of people, when I am doing something I really love and enjoy, time goes by very quickly. It’s ironic that my pieces evoke a sense of geometry since I have always held such a disdain for anything mathematical. I am sure I am using math when I am figuring out how to space out my composition, but I have never attempted to create a piece using a grid system, a la Leonardo da Vinci. My mind just doesn’t work like that. What my brain focuses on are colors and how they fit next to each other to create shading and texture. I really enjoy searching for intricate details in the pages of magazines that will enhance the women I create. I love finding images of elaborate, and very expensive jewelry in fashion editorials and carefully cutting them out. I also search diligently for details that only a careful eye will spot. You are an established artist and over the years your artworks have been showcased in a number of exhibitions: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? What do you hope your audience take away from your artworks? In particular, how do you consider the role of emerging online technosphere — and platforms as Instagram — in creating new links between artists and worldwide audience? First of all, it pleases me immensely that people take the time to look at my art at all. When someone tells me my pieces move them, or they receive some sort of message from my art, my heart bursts. It is so confirming to eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Jo Beth Wharton agazine 19 SPECIAL ISSUE
SPECIAL ISSUE 12 know that some people do receive the message I was attempting to get across. Art is extremely personal to the artist, and when the audience appreciates your hard work, it is exciting. The impact of social media is ubiquitous, and artists have used platforms such as Instagram to their advantage. I think that relationships that are made on social media can be helpful to an artist’s career. Personally, it has allowed people to see my art that probably wouldn’t otherwise. On the other hand, when you look for affirmation from people that you hardly know, or have never met, you can end up with hurt feelings. I just have to remember that I create my art because it makes me happy. If I never sell another piece, I will be content. At least my walls will be covered in art that I like. We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Jo Beth. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? For some reason, I have been prolific when it comes to creating art in this medium. It’s almost as if I am compelled to collage! I am working on a piece now that is confounding me, but I know I will figure it out. It’s as if I am putting together a puzzle when I really don’t know how the finished product is supposed to look like. I aspire to create women of all different ethnicities, because I am inspired by strong women, and strong women come in all colors. I have found by looking through the contents of thousands of magazines that the faces of white women are far more prevalent than those of other skin tones, but I believe magazines are becoming more inclusive. agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
19 SPECIAL ISSUE eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Jo Beth Wharton agazine Sappho
agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Nyx (Goddess of the Night)
I will continue to make art that celebrates women. My dream collage to create would be of Cleopatra, but I haven’t found her face yet. Joan of Arc, is another woman I want to explore. Thank you so much for allowing me to discuss my art with you! It has been a delight. eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Jo Beth Wharton agazine 19 SPECIAL ISSUE An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] Cocksure
SPECIAL ISSUE 4 Hello Bo and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would like to invite our readers to visit http://cosfranz.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production, and we will start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum direct the trajectory of your current artistic research? Growing up in London has definitely influenced my artistic practice. We have the benefit of free access to lots of great galleries, so as a teenager I used to spend my weekends walking through the city and looking at modern art. I think that you will be influenced by what you are exposed to. For me, the most inspiring were the art movements of the early 20th century, especially cubism, futurism, and vorticism. It felt like these artists were combining a scientific approach to art with a liberated style of image-making to try to solve new problems. This is the same approach I try to follow in my practice. However, since it is around a century later, the context and the questions I am trying to answer are quite different. Bo Cosfranz Lives and works in London, United Kingdom Peripheral ARTeries meets A London-based fine artist, working with acrylics, textile, print, and sculpture. I am exploring the concept of artificially imposing structure to organic elements through the extension of tangent lines. The organic parts of a painting may be shapes drawn from observation, or they may be created through the unstructured use of colour. I then impose a geometric framework onto the image by extending tangent lines out of the corners in the composition. Each piece of work thus results in a tension between the organic and the geometric parts. My motivation for this work is the idea of creation through constraint, by rules such as physical laws, internal thoughts, and societal regulations. I also apply these concepts to my process, by combining intuitive aspects with a strict set of unique rules for the creation of each piece. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Bo Cosfranz agazine 11 SPECIAL ISSUE
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11 SPECIAL ISSUE I also think that a fundamental aspect of being an artist is the part that you can’t explain. So although you will be influenced by your surroundings or by other artists, you probably aren’t aware of the origin of your unique way of seeing the world, or your drive to create. For me, it often feels like something I did not consciously choose; it has just always been there. Marked out with such unique visual identity, the body of works that we have selected for this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries at once impressed us with the way you question the tension between the organic and the geometric, providing the viewers with such a multilayered visual experience: walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how you usually develop the initial ideas for your artworks? The main framework of ideas for my work and its development has largely been planned out since the start. I see each series of work as a chapter of a book, conveying a particular aspect of my concept. The images in the artworks become gradually more complex with each chapter as the story develops. The parts that I need to fill in along the way are the specific details for each individual painting, like the subject matter, composition, colours, materials and scale, as well as the actual execution. My background in textile and printmaking has shaped the way that I see and draw, as with these techniques, it is useful to think about areas of colour and a reduced palette. I treat paintings in the same way, with discrete areas of colour and hard edged shapes. Because of this way of seeing, my initial inspiration for the composition of a new painting comes from observing and drawing interesting shapes. Often I focus on shapes created by a human form, partly because creates interesting pathways to follow, but also because I feel that art is an exploration of what it means to be human. However, I do not consider this work to be portraiture, as the identity of the person is not as relevant as the ideas that the painting is trying to convey. I am more interested in making the viewers identify with a part of the image and see themselves somehow reflected in it. The theme of extended tangent lines is a strict rule that prevails in all of your artworks and that provides your pieces with such a captivating sense of geometry: would you tell us something about this recurrent visual quality of your artistic production? This idea started with studying mathematics and art at the same time, and transferring some concepts from one practice to another. The concept that really stuck with me was that mathematically, a line never ends, but continues in both directions infinitely. So I embraced this idea and started carrying on the lines in my drawings to try to capture their true essence. I continued to impose this rule on myself when creating new pieces, and in doing so, my work started to also become about rules. As a creative person, I have always struggled with following orders, always wanting to do things my own way. However, the rules I set for myself have often been stricter than the external ones I was rebelling against. So I feel that my work now is a response to my relationship with rules and a search for balance. Although rules can seem limiting, I realised that with the right balance they can actually be creative. We already experience this fact, as our whole world is created by the laws of physics. Aesthetically, I try to create this balance by contrasting the curves with the straight lines, as well as by extending the tangent lines to soften sharp corners and encourage your eye to keep moving around the composition. For my Bo Cosfranz eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
SPECIAL ISSUE 12 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries process, I try to find this balance by combining strict rules about the tangent lines with an intuitive approach for other aspects. New York City based artist Lydia Dona once stated that in order to make art today one has to reevaluate the conceptual language behind the mechanism of art making itself: Which parts of your work are created gesturally, instinctively or methodically? Visually, each painting includes an organic and a geometric dimension. The organic parts are usually shapes drawn from observation, but they might also be created through the unstructured use of colour, or by drawing an abstract shape in a loose manner. The geometric part is a linear framework imposed onto the image by extending the tangent lines out from the corners in the initial composition. The same idea is reflected in my process for creating the work, and the process is integral to the final image itself. The organic part of the process is the freedom I give myself to choose the subject matter and colour palette intuitively, without a conscious understanding of why I have done so. The imposed aspect is the conscious application of a strict set of unique rules for how to apply the network of tangent lines in each piece. It is interesting to observe myself working in this way. As I am a person and not a computer, I draw the tangent lines where they seem accurate to me. However, perhaps what I do is not actually accurate mathematically. So as much as I believe that I am acting methodically and following a strict process, there is still a human influence that makes the final result more intuitive than intended. We like the way your artworks, such as your Lustres series, convey such a stimulating combination between figurative elements and captivating abstract feeling: how would you consider the relationship between abstraction and figurative in your practice? In particular, how do representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work? In my work, representation and abstraction are intrinsically linked. The figurative shapes that I draw first actually directly dictate the composition of the geometric shapes. This might be counterintuitive at first glance, as the straight lines seem abstract. However, these are the least free parts of the final image, as they are drawn as extensions from the figurative parts. The tension between organic and geometric, and therefore, representation and abstraction, is crucial to my work. I like to use this tension to create a new way of seeing. When the figurative part is first drawn on the canvas, you mind fills in the gaps and the three dimensional form is quite clear. However, when the tangent lines are added, the figurative shape becomes visually flattened. Instead, a new, artificial depth is created by the geometric network. We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances that mark out your artworks, and that provides them with a unique aesthetic identity: how did you come about settling on your color palette? How does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in a specific artwork and in particular? The colour choice is the most intuitive part of my process. I still use some rules in each piece, for example, about how the colours should become lighter or darker as the geometric areas overlap. But the general colour schemes for each piece are chosen based on what I visualise while planning the piece. The colours I am most drawn to are quite bright and even kitsch, probably because modern life is often lacking in colour. I am a big supporter of unusual art in people’s homes, and I hope that we will move towards a trend of more colourful home design, so I am trying to encourage this through
eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Bo Cosfranz agazine 11 SPECIAL ISSUE
my colour schemes. I feel that my use of colour contrasts with how I treat the composition, and stops the whole process from becoming too serious. Although I have an academic approach to the basic structure of a painting, I also want it to be fun. This supports the idea of creating balance through the work. In some ways, the images I have created can make a viewer feel uncomfortable because of the strong tension, but this can be countered through the use of energising colours, clean lines, and removing the sharpness of corners. With their powerful abstract evocative quality, your artworks seem to invite the viewers to look inside of what appears to be seen, rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with wide freedom to realize their own perception. How important is for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meaning? And in particular, how open would you like your artworks to be understood? I have talked about how I see my work and what I understand it to mean, but that doesn’t mean that my interpretation is correct. Sometimes as an artist you feel like you are just a channel for your work, because you can’t always identify the logic that led you to create it. This means that the art exists as something separate from the artist, and this in turn means that there is always scope for others to have their own interpretation. I am happy to hear different reactions to my work, and I find it interesting that I can’t predict or dictate how others will feel about it. The work will resonate with some people but not others. People will also relate to different aspects of it, such as the colour, the geometry, or the execution. They might see similar themes to me, but respond to it in a unique way. For me this is a good thing, as seeing it from a different viewpoint it deepens the experience of the artwork. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, a central idea of your artistic research is the exploration of the concept of artificially imposing structure to organic elements. Should this aspect of your work be considered an allegory of the relationship between our organic nature of human beings and the constraints of our media driven and structured contemporary age? Does your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? I think that people can feel many different constraints in modern life, and my work does try to explore that idea. In my experience, society gives people lots of mixed messages about how we are supposed to behave, which leads to a general feeling of confusion, especially if you don’t agree with the messages or if you want to follow a different path than the one that others expect of you. I feel that we also often put most of the pressure on ourselves. This is especially heightened in the media age, where the line between image and reality is increasingly blurred. I feel that this leads to a discord between how we act and how we feel. We become out of touch with our biology, and at the same time our biology acts as a constraint on our minds. Through my work I respond to these feelings by including both sides in a single image but trying to impose a sense of order at the same time. You recently participated to the group show Art Below Chelsea, and you are going to exhibit at the Roy's Art Fair: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? In particular, how do you consider the role of emerging online technosphere — and platforms as Instagram — in creating new links between artists and worldwide audience? One of the best parts about creating art is seeing how others react to it, and gaining a new perspective about the work. Exhibiting, especially at art fairs, is a good way to have those conversations and to reach a wider audience. When a stranger really connects with the work, agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries SPECIAL ISSUE 10
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eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Bo Cosfranz agazine 17 SPECIAL ISSUE you feel like you are not alone in seeing the world in an unusual way and that connection can be quite valuable. I have found tools like Instagram particularly useful for keeping in touch with other artists. There is a risk of feeling discouraged as you see so many artists putting out great quality work, but I see it as more inspirational. You can support each other and see what everyone else is thinking, and that also
SPECIAL ISSUE 18 allows new movements in art to emerge. It can be isolating to just be painting in your studio so I find it helpful to have an online community. We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Bo. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
19 SPECIAL ISSUE eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Bo Cosfranz agazine ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Thank you for hosting me and for the thoughtprovoking questions! In the near future, my new paintings will continue to evolve, but I will probably still go back to the older concepts sporadically as I have new ideas of how to develop them. In particular, I have been working on small-scale paintings where I use different colour schemes for earlier geometric
SPECIAL ISSUE 12 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries designs. The problem is that I come up with new ideas faster than I can execute them! I’ve also recently started working on an art comic/book, which will take you on my creative journey from the really basic principles to the more complex ideas and how they evolve. The aim is for the final result to explain my ideas clearly with lots of images in one collection.
eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Bo Cosfranz agazine 19 SPECIAL ISSUE
SPECIAL ISSUE 4 Hello Mark and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would invite to our readers to visit http://marknesmith.com in order to get a synoptic idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of introductory questions. You have a solid formal training and after having Mark Nesmith Lives and works in Beaumont, TX, USA Peripheral ARTeries meets Pop music icon Madonna said it decades ago. We are living in a material world. Exacerbated by the internet and the dominance of social media as communication, our era has become the age of noise. Constantly bombarded by irrelevant but flashy details society increasingly values riches over relationships, “bling” and all that glitters over substance. Sound bites rule our political debates. Grade school gossip makes headlines. We expect rewards for little or no effort and fill minute by minute with the artificial glow of a smart phone screen and an insatiable yearning for more “stuff.” Addicted to our screen time we’ve become increasingly disconnected from the natural world around us, content to just exist. Entertainment replaces genuine experiences and triviality is the norm. My work addresses the superficiality of modern society and reflects my unease with mankind’s relationship to nature. My childhood days were spent outside roaming the woods, bayous, and beaches of Southeast Texas. This emotional attachment to the wilderness of my youth forms the foundation for my artwork. My reverence for the power and beauty of the landscape is only matched by my unease with mankind’s relationship to nature. Every day habitats get smaller, driving species from their natural homes. The more we’ve plugged in the more disconnected we’ve become, addicted to the glow of our smart phones and the latest fads. Tabloids, reality TV, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook – as long as we’re entertained everything is ok. Inspired by observations of people I meet in daily life and from my experiences as a public school teacher, my paintings are an amalgam of observation, memory, and imagination. Delivered with a dose of humor, my artwork critiques our culture in a whimsical manner. Populated by wildlife personifying human traits, these satirical narratives tackle subjects ranging from consumerism and our growing reliance on technology and media to fads, vanity, war, politics, and the environment. Working primarily in oil on canvas, expressionistic handling, heightened color, and rich textures are unifying traits throughout. Influenced by abstract expressionism, pop art, and impressionism, I remain steadfast in my devotion to the rich tradition of drawing and painting. Painting has the power to elevate and inspire the perception of the viewer, the power to still the endless stream of distractions that tug at us daily. Like Stravinsky, I believe that tradition is not simply the relic of a past age, but rather “a living force that animates and informs the present.” I strive to create paintings that are not just clever facsimiles of my subjects but are palpable things with a life of their own. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
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7 SPECIAL ISSUE earned your BFA from Lamar University in Beaumont, TX, you nurtured your education in Painting and Drawing at the University of North Texas in Denton: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist and help you to develop your attitude to experiment? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum due to your work as a musician direct the trajectory of your current artistic research? I’m grateful for my years of study at Lamar University and UNT, and I strive to always expand my knowledge. The wonderful and most lasting effect of education is to push boundaries, to force you to embrace ideas and methods that you weren’t aware of or find discomforting. It’s easy to stay in your comfort zone in anything in life. Often it takes a push from outside to move us to grow. It seems like more and more of society takes offense at anything that’s different, as if being different is the same as being a threat. I want to keep growing. Part of that for me has been to study and develop other disciplines such as music. I’ve studied music for most of my life. I started on percussion in school and went on to learn guitar, bass, some piano, and to sing and write songs. It’s another outlet for the creative restlessness I have. Art and music are my anti-drugs. They’re what gave me focus and kept me out of trouble when I was a rebellious teen. To this day I’m kind of a bear if I’ve been away from the easel or my instruments too long. Music has long influenced the formal qualities of my work. From blues and jazz to favorite rock groups like the Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers to bluegrass and country, there’s always music jamming while I’m painting. At Lamar my sculpture and design professor Butch Jack was the first to point out the rhythmic elements that would reoccur in my work, particularly the patterns of verticals that sometimes read like musical notes. My brushwork often takes the form of rhythmic stabs. I couldn’t separate these different aspects of my being if I tried. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article has at once impressed us for the way you provide the viewers with such a multilayered visual experience. In particular, we have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances that mark out your artworks, and we like the way they create tension and dynamics: how did you come about settling on your color palette? And how does your own psychological makeup determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in a specific artwork and in particular, how do you develop your textures? While I have worked in most mediums at one point or another and love working with charcoal and pastels, oil paints hold a special allure for me. I attribute much of the luminosity of my color palette to the nature of oils themselves. After years of experimenting with just about every possible technique in oils, from glazes and scumbles to thick impastos with a knife, I ultimately returned to the somewhat traditional methods I first learned from Larry Leach at Lamar University. I use a simple medium of stand oil cut with turpentine and a limited range of 8 – 10 tubes of paint. From these I mix everything else. Having a limited selection of paints lets me be intimately familiar with how they interact in mixtures together and allows me to let my brush and intuition take over as I paint. Much of the vibrancy of my colors comes from my habit of layering slightly different warm and cool versions of similar hues. This is something I learned from years of working with a limited range of pastel chalks. Though I dreamed of having the sets of hundreds of Mark Nesmith eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
SPECIAL ISSUE 10 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries different pastels to choose from, I could only afford the basic sets of a few dozen colors. I never cared for blending pastels too much, instead preferring the stroke against stroke effect seen in much of Degas’ work. Working in layers, I’d often spray fix the first layer or two to create a new surface to accept a top coat and learned that fixative often slightly deepens colors in pastel. You can layer the same color back on top without fixative and have two slightly different tones visible which creates depth and vibrancy. It’s similar to the slightly different hues color field painters like Mark Rothko would layer against each other making the canvas almost seem to vibrate. I’ve carried much of the approach I developed in pastels over to oils. I generally paint in layers leaving bits of slightly different colors showing through. I add to this my interest in the light of impressionism and my penchant for pushing the intensity to something slightly past “real.” There are some colors that I lean towards. I have a love of things like Flake White and Indian Yellow which are particular to oil paints. I don’t want to imagine a world without my cadmium red and yellow. There’s also a light mint green that somehow manages to pop up in just about everything I paint. Years ago my sister Marsie, who teaches high school art in Beaumont, pointed out that the interior of our family home was painted that same green so it suddenly made sense. My childhood and my family shaped so much of how I view the world. I love that this color has become part of almost everything I’ve painted. Your artworks often display such a coherent combination between sense of freedom and unique aesthetics. New York City based artist Lydia Dona once stated that in order to make art today one has to reevaluate the conceptual language behind the mechanism of art making itself: do you create your works gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes? In particular, how importance does spontaneity play in your daily routine? I understand systems and rules of composition, but I’m an intuitive painter at the core. I often start Do You Feel Lucky Punk, Oil on Canvas, 30 x 48, 2018
11 SPECIAL ISSUE Mark Nesmith eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral paintings with a stick of charcoal, drawing, erasing, smudging, and combining ideas until I get the layout to feel right. While I use reference material ranging from photos to my own sketches for most paintings, at some point the reference material goes away, intuition and spontaneity take over, and I try to let the paint and my brush lead where they will. I think of it like improvisation in music. I find having the structure of solid reference
SPECIAL ISSUE 12 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries underneath, just like the 12 bar form of blues beneath a solo, to be freeing. It gives me something to play off of and against and acts as a springboard for creativity. Painting has the power to elevate and inspire the perception of the viewer: how do you consider the power of contemporary art to tackle sensitive social issues in order to trigger social change in our globalised societies? Planet Tan, Oil on Canvas, 30x48, 2017
eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Mark Nesmith agazine 13 SPECIAL ISSUE I think one of the biggest issues for affecting any social change is that people now are bombarded by an endless stream of media. Everything moves so quickly and there’s such an ocean of information it often comes and goes before you have a chance to latch on to it and make sense of things. When you can scroll past hundreds of tweets or posts in a moment it takes something out of the ordinary to make someone stop and really take notice. It’s an even bigger leap to taking action. I think that’s where art can make a difference. I don’t know that anyone will see anything I’ve painted and instantly change their life or the world around them, but I hope it will open their eyes to seeing things a bit differently. Maybe we can awaken an awareness or make a new connection for the viewer that serves as kindling for a fire. Marked out with lyrical qualities and primarily figurative, your artworks feature such effective combination between reminders to reality and captivating abstract feeling, whose background create such an oniric atmosphere: how would you consider the tension between abstraction and figurative in your practice? In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work? I’ve never been one to jump to the next big thing. I’ve been content to develop and follow the paths that I feel connected to personally. Some of those like landscape art have often seemed out of favor in the art world. Over the years I spent time developing skills in representational drawing and also spent a few years working in an abstract mode. What comes out now is the natural evolution and combination of everything I’ve learned and worked on throughout my life. I’ve reached a point where I’m not trying to do one thing or another. It’s simply a reflection of me at this point in my life. I don’t think I’d be here if I’d been so focused on the need to be new and different. I think it’s a hard thing to do as an artist these days, to allow yourself the time to follow different paths and invest years in developing
SPECIAL ISSUE 14 technique. I think that’s a trap many of us fall into, trying to predict what will create a sensation and desired success. I’ve been happy to take the long road full of twists and turns and missteps. It’s led me to a place that feels very genuine and honest as an artist. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Fidget, Oil on Canvas, 20 x 20,2017
15 SPECIAL ISSUE eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Mark Nesmith agazine your semi-surreal and allegorical landscapes are an amalgam of observation, memory, and imagination: how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination between your artistic research? In particular, how do your memories and your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? Almost everything I paint or draw is connected to Bayou Queen, Oil on Canvas, 6 x 6, 2017
Crusade, Oil on Canvas, 36 x 48, 2016
SPECIAL ISSUE 18 memories of time spent with my family and friends. My family didn’t have much money growing up. Most of our vacations were spent at state parks or at the beach. I spent my childhood wandering the woods behind our home or hiking through the Big Thicket with my father on field trips with the YMCA summer camp he directed. I don’t feel much attachment to things. The places and the times I spent there with people I love are what remain with me over time. My overriding vision of the world is one of beauty. Everywhere I turn I see something that could inspire a painting. I think it’s unfortunate that many of us have lost that connection with nature. People are more interested in taking a selfie or sharing a snapchat in front of a sunset than just enjoying and experiencing the world. That’s where my imagination comes in. Most of my landscapes are unpeopled, kind of my idea of Eden before the fall. My critter narratives combine my love of nature with my distrust of the reliance on media and the disconnect I see more and more around me. It seems more and more people are addicted to their phones and screen time. Streets and yards are mostly empty of kids playing. People spend more time shut behind closed doors. It’s ironic to me that the more we’ve connected digitally the less genuine communication and interaction takes place. Your artistic research addresses the superficiality of modern society and reflects my unease with mankind’s relationship to nature. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artists' role differs depending on which sociopolitical system they are living in.' Do you think that your artistic research responds to a particular cultural moment? Moreover, how do you consider the role of artists in our media driven contemporary age? In that much of my artwork comments on current aspects of our culture and the distance we’ve put between ourselves and nature, you might say my agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
19 SPECIAL ISSUE eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Mark Nesmith agazine Truce, Oil on Canvas, 36 x 48, 2016
agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Two's Company, Oil on Canvas, 36 x 48, 2018 SPECIAL ISSUE 20
paintings relate to a particular moment. I don’t necessarily see that I’m part of any one movement though. I’ve always been content to paint what interests me whether that relates to what anyone else is doing or not. There’s often a kind of snobbery in the art world. I remember being in a graduate level painting class at UNT and bringing in some of my landscape paintings and having the class argue and debate about why we would even be looking at such paintings. For some if it isn’t new and sensational it’s not important. For me one of the greatest things an artist can do in this media driven age is to remind us of our humanity. Beauty does that for me. I enjoy my smartphone and laptop too, but I view them as tools. For too many they’re becoming a way of life. So much miscommunication and so many problems start with a 140 character tweet. No one starts a war sitting on the beach watching the sunset over the water. Marked out with such unique seductive beauty on the surface, your artworks deeply struck us for the way they incite the viewer to make new personal associations. Austrian Art historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the importance of providing a space for the viewers to project onto, so that they can actively participate in the creation of the illusion: how important is for you to trigger the viewers' imagination in order to address them to elaborate personal interpretations? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood? I love when someone makes connections with anything I’ve made. Everyone brings their own history with them that filters how they interpret things, and while my paintings are the result of my own personal life, they’re also inspired by the people and events I witness. As an artist, I think if we want viewers to be affected by our work they eries Contemporary Art Peripheral Mark Nesmith agazine 21 SPECIAL ISSUE
On Guard, Oil on Canvas, 24x36, 2016 (sold)
have to be free to interpret and make it real for themselves. I think the surface beauty you refer to is often the pathway in for my viewers, particularly with the narrative works. While some of my ideas have a very whimsical origin, many of them address serious issues like gun control, war, SPECIAL ISSUE 24 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries God Moves on the Water, Oil on Canvas, 6 x 6, 2017
Mark Nesmith eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral 25 SPECIAL ISSUE consumerism, and sexuality. These are topics people are often defensive about and when we get defensive we close ourselves off to ideas. I’m no exception. You can’t club someone over the head and expect them to smile and be happy about what you’re trying to say. As a teacher I’ve As Above So Below, Oil on Canvas, 20 x 20, 2018
agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries SPECIAL ISSUE 26 learned that it’s often best to come at difficult topics from a roundabout approach. You’ve got to find a way for people to be open and receptive. I guess beauty and whimsy are my ways in. You are an established artist and over the years your artworks have been shown widely in several occasions, including your recent solo Wild Things at Bisong Gallery in Houston, TX: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks? It’s still strange to me to think in terms of “my audience” even though I have a good exhibition history and long time collectors. I’m humbled that there are people interested in what I make. The truth is I’d be painting and creating whether or not anyone ever sees it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing feeling to see my work on a gallery wall. I get the same butterflies and electric feeling with every show. I’m honored that many viewers and buyers of my work have become friends. I now have artwork in half of the states of the USA. Obviously I haven’t met all of those people in person, but I often get messages and emails from someone years after a sale letting me know how much they enjoy their painting. Some send me pictures after seeing a picture in a different light or hanging it in a new spot. Many have added more paintings to their home over time. That’s the greatest wonder of all for me as an artist, to know that I’m somehow part of so many lives and homes. Above all, I hope people who see my work come away with a sense of the beauty of the world. I hope I’ve helped awaken some new awareness and curiosity. Direct relationship with the audience in a
Mark Nesmith eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral 27 SPECIAL ISSUE Beats, Oil on Canvas, 30 x 40, 2017
28 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries SPECIAL ISSUE The Struggle is Real, Oil on Canvas, 36 x 48, 2018
Mark Nesmith eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral 29 SPECIAL ISSUE physical is definitely the most important one, in order to snatch the spirit of a work of Art. However, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm increases: how do you consider the role of emerging online technosphere in creating new links between artists and worldwide audience? Can you imagine what Leonardo could have done with internet access? Maybe Van Gogh wouldn’t have been such a starving artist if he’d had an instagram account. Not too long ago it was rare to be known outside of your hometown for anything. Today I’m talking with you via email from across the ocean. In this day and age there’s no reason for any artist to not have their work seen somewhere. I’m definitely a sucker for the physical form of artwork. That’s what keeps me coming back to oil paint. I just don’t get the same sensation from the surface of a digital print, but social media and technology used as a tool are invaluable. Most of my biggest commissions were handled through email, jpeg files, a few phone calls, and shipping companies for clients that were hundreds of miles away. That wouldn’t have been possible just a few decades ago. Through social media I’ve made a network of friends and contacts. There’s a market out there for pretty much any kind of work, and technology makes it possible to find and access that market from anywhere. I lived fifteen years in Dallas, but my career didn’t really take off until I moved back to my small hometown of Beaumont, TX. It was a photograph of my first show back in Beaumont at The Art Studio, Inc. that caught the attention of Boston Art, Inc. for a project they were working on with Grant Thorton. There was a Chicago based interior design firm involved as well. None of us had ever met in person. My work didn’t suddenly get better when I moved to Beaumont, but my business skills and use of the internet did.
30 agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Mark. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Thank you for including me! It’s always a little SPECIAL ISSUE
SPECIAL ISSUE eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral 31 Mark Nesmith surreal to me to think there are people out there wanting to know more about a painter from SE Texas. I’m grateful for the opportunity. I’ve had a pretty good run the last couple of years. I’m blessed to have the opportunity to share my artwork in so many ways. Most recently I’ve entered into a licensing agreement with iCanvas. They’re offering prints of a few dozen of my paintings worldwide. Currently I’m working on scheduling a show with the Longview Museum of
Fine Arts here in Texas. I’m very excited about that and it looks like we’ll have the calendar lined out this summer for something in 2021 or 2022. I’m now represented by Dab Art in Ventura, CA and have some artwork in a group show currently on display with them at H Gallery. I’m always painting. I believe firmly in the “go to your studio and make stuff” idea. Work begets work. Right now I’m also tossing agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries Wish You Were Here, Oil on Canvas, 15 x 30, 2017 SPECIAL ISSUE 32
around the idea of bringing some of my critters to life as sculptures, maybe for the Longview show. I’m starting to experiment some in what form those sculptures would take, be it clay, plaster, paper mache, castings, or maybe even 3D prints. I have this image in my head of a gallery filled with paintings while sculptured possums and gators wander around blindly staring at their phones. Who knows what will happen next? That’s the fun of it all, isn’t it? Mark Nesmith eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral 33 SPECIAL ISSUE
SPECIAL ISSUE 4 Hello Tsvetina and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production and we would like to invite our readers Tsvetina Daneva Born in Bulgaria, lives and works in New York City, USA Peripheral ARTeries meets I remember once, in primary school, we had to draw a person combining different objects for our arts class. All the kids except me drew robots made of simple shapes. I depicted a girl with an Indian dancer for a nose, swans for her eyes with clocks for her irises, a boat for her lips, trees for her hands, a mermaid for a necklace.. When I finally showed it to the teacher, he looked at it carefully and said 'I'm proud to have such students.' His words echoed in my head. He wanted to see the drawings in my sketchbook and asked me if I wanted to have an exhibition on my own. When I returned home, jumping with joy, my Mom said she wanted to see me so happy more often. From that moment on I finally had an answer to the question ‘So, what do you want to do when you grow up then?’ that I truly believed in. As I kept on delving deeper into visual arts, the endless possibilities of creating were becoming more and more appealing to me which made me strive to explore as many aspects of it as I could. I have had the chance to experiment a lot with my work especially when it comes to the use of materials and techniques, both traditional and digital. I enjoy taking risks, always challenging myself and researching and trying out a variety of ways of conveying my visual ideas. In spite of having a versatile portfolio, there is still a recurring theme in my practice and this is the art of cutting. There is something about the concept of cut outs that I find really intriguing and engaging and I like to apply it quite often in my work. What fascinates me the most about the art of cutting is the fact that it does not limit itself to any material, which I feel fits perfectly into my creative vision. I have had the chance to explore it through a variety of processes such as paper cutting, digital cut out effects and laser cutting. The art of cutting has many applications and variations and I am definitely willing to make the most of them. With the creation of my series 'Fairy Tales vs Global Issues', I had the chance to explore a new aspect of the art of cutting. All of the pieces are made of three layers of laser cut mdf, all carrying different details of an illustration and thus creating an effect of depth and engagement of light. The idea behind the illustrations is to present a variety of global issues in an engaging way for the viewer way and start a discussion that concerns all of us. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries