We asked our Winter Residents to answer a few questions about themselves, the artists they like, the music they listen to and the books they are reading.... It's all in the interest of science. And curiosity. And nosiness. But their answers are thoughtful and interesting. We're happy to share them.
AMANDA BUONOCORE
www.amandabuonocore.com
www.amandabuonocore.com
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| Amanda Buonocore in front of a wall she excavating, revealing work of past residents |
What artists working today do you find interesting?
Hmm.... although some of the artists I love are still alive not all of them are still "working". My all time favorite artist is Robert Morris. His work is thoughtful, playful, simple, and concise. He also has this wonderful ability to make me laugh even though I am not sure it is always what the work intends. His work and writings has influenced my work greatly. He is a huge idol of mine.
Hanne Darboven, although recently passed away in 2009, is another one of my favorite artists. Her work really plays with the boundaries as art as a tool by which to conceptually organize information and personally explore the essence of time. She does this through the use of organized / systemized daily writings which ultimately become conceptual records of both physical time and personal experience.
Two, more contemporary, artists that interest me are Rachel Harrison and Paul Chan. Both these artists have a unique way of addressing the use of simple objects to create complex systems which create both humorous and thoughtful results. They both seem to uniquely exaggerate and elaborate on the use of the "ready made" and create a new position for it within contemporary conceptual sculpture.
What's on your current playlist?
My playlist is always changing but I guess repeat artists that I listen to because I know I will always be satisfied are: Modest Mouse, Bright Eyes, The Cure, Frank Zappa, Wyclef Jean, Beastie Boys, and Mos Def. Strange mix, but it does always please me.
What books are you reading and recommend?
I have currently just started reading Hal Foster: The Return of the Real and John Ruskin: The Ethics of the Dust: Ten Lectures to Little Housewives on the Elements of Crystallization. They are two very different writers from to very different times, haha, but both have proven to be awesome so far :)! I am very excited to get further into each. My all time favorite books that I constantly return to for answers / inspiration are: 1. Robert Morris: Have I Reasons. 2. John Ruskin: On Art and Life. 3. Tolstoy: What is Art? 4. Umberto Eco: Travels in Hyperreality. 5. Lucy R. Lippard: Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object...
I also really enjoy the book Speaking of Art. It is a collection of transcribed audio interviews with several different artists over a 40 year period of time. It's just an all around great book to own. The interviews are insightful, inspiring, and feel really personal. Great for any art lovers book collection.
What is a Fun Fact about you that isn't on your CV?
I am actually quite good at hula hooping. I can even run short distances while hula hooping simultaneously. And I welcome any and all challenges to this fun fact and would be happy to prove my unique skill!
SARAH ELISE HALL
www.sarahelisehall.com
www.sarahelisehall.com
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| Sarah Elise Hall in her studio. The canvas in the background covers the entire studio wall. |
I get really into an artist’s work when I feel I can somehow relate to its internal logic. I love work by Terry Winters, Sarah Sze and Yayoi Kusama because they all create these complex visual networks that appear to evolve in a self-similar way while maintaining surprising elements in mark making, materials and environments. Lately I’ve been looking at the work of Amy Sillman and Ida Ekblad a lot. There is an energy in their work that I find really compelling – something systematic yet spontaneous happening at the same time. The work hits me on a visceral and a cerebral level, which I like.
What's on your reading list?
I have two books from the series Documents of Contemporary Art hanging around in my studio: Painting and Failure, They’re packed with great essays and interviews.
I’m also reading Just Kids by Patti Smith(really good) and I’ve started re-reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 ( a favorite book).
And on your playlist?
Umm, my play list right now is a motley crew of musical acts: The Roots, Massive Attack, Miles Davis, New Order.
What's not on your CV?
Life before art school: I rode my bicycle from Canada to Mexico and raised money for Children’s Wish Foundation in Canada.
PAOLO FORTIN
www.paulfortin.com
www.paulfortin.com
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| Paolo in his studio with the beginnings of paintings. What fun fact about you is not on your CV? |
I think this is more dirty than fun, but I have the habit of enjoying a fine Cuban cigar every now and again on warm nights in the summer.
What’s on your current playlist?
Music is extremely important in my life and it fills every hour of my day. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to experience frequent, seven to ten day drives across Canada and up into the western arctic. As the hours and miles roll along it is music that creates the soundtrack to the changing images that I witness and utilize in my artwork. While working in the studio, music is constantly playing. What intrigues me most about music is how it can trigger involuntary memory and set the stage for your emotional and creative output. Through music, I am able to embrace my own Proustian, "episode of the madeleine", and retrieve memories that, although inevitably partial, tend to embrace the essence of the past. These ideas of recollection, essence and the transitory play a large part in my artwork and therefore, my work as an artist and music are inexplicably linked.
The music I listen to changes with the mood and time of day. Playlists tend to be on random much of the time and because I listen to a diverse repertoire, a typical playlist can bounce around with much contrast. It's not improbable to go from Anthony Pappa to Sammy Naquin to Lucinda Williams to NOFX, and then possibly
hear Neko Case, Joe Hisaishi, Casiokids, Dwight Yoakam, Astor Piazzolla, Basic Channel, Fantomas, Oscar Peterson, Holy Fuck, Ibrahim Ferrer, or Massive Attack in one session.
hear Neko Case, Joe Hisaishi, Casiokids, Dwight Yoakam, Astor Piazzolla, Basic Channel, Fantomas, Oscar Peterson, Holy Fuck, Ibrahim Ferrer, or Massive Attack in one session.
I'm a huge fan of electro house, breaks and techno and enjoy the work of artists like Tiga, Tom Middleton, Satoshi Tomiie, Hernan Cattaneo, Dave Pearce, 2 Many DJ's, Underworld and others. I've been listening to some great Norman Cook sets lately that have been in heavy rotation while in the studio.
I listen to a lot of jazz, everything from Coltrane to Lars Danielsson, and have a soft spot for late nights with Chet Baker. I have a beautiful old, Brunswick cabinet gramophone in my studio in Peterborough, Ontario and love winding it up late at night or when the power goes out to listen to the scratchy melodies of Billie Holiday, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey and Nat King Cole floating through the house.
Lately I've been listening to a lot of Doo Wop from the late 50's - The Cleftones, The Del-Vikings, The El Dorados, The Five Keys, Frankie Lymon, The Marcels, - It's the only music that seems to drive my roommate crazy.
What 3-5 artists working today do you find interesting, and–briefly–why?
I recently started paying more attention to the work of Seoul-based duo Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries A collaboration between Young-Hae Chang and Marc Voge, their text-based videos, synchronized to jazz soundtracks are closely related to both concrete poetry and experimental cinema. Their flash-based web art, which I often find amusing, flippant and more honest than most artwork these days, also offers an interesting way of listening to music. Because the text is synchronized with the music, I find it intriguing how various instruments and beats figure more prominently than others which force you to listen to the song in a different way. One of my favourite pieces is their "East Vancouver Trilogy" which is hilarious in its honesty and criticism of the art institution that offered them the residency and exhibition. (I do have a soft spot for individuals who bite hands that feed them.) Something I'm also fond of in the work is how the images of black text on white background are reminiscent of Christopher Wool's large text based paintings. You can view "East Vancouver Trilogy" on their website at http://www.yhchang.com/ and get some background information about Vancouver's downtown east side, their residency and exhibition of this piece in a review by Tess Edmonson at:
http://www.canadianart.ca/online/reviews/2011/11/03/heavy_industries/
I've included some dead guys here, only because I have been influenced by their work over the last number of years, so I'll start with them.
In my paintings I aim to represent the displacement and separation present in our daily lives. Tracing the sensation of feeling exiled from the world around us, each work speaks of being present while observing the tangible as insubstantial and ethereal. Because of this focus, I like the images I work with to blur and wane, prompting ambiguous recollections. The type of images I am attracted to have a softness to them and represent feelings of calmness and isolation. I love the work of Dutch painter Hans Broek, who's paintings convey such simple visual reconstructions. His paintings have a soft presence yet they are all quite complex. I love how the lines of his under painting conjure up recollections of Lautrec's quick sketches on cardboard and can weave dialogue with a "less is more" philosophy. Belgian painter Raoul De Keyser also packs a big punch with his small, calm, compositions. I enjoy the atmospheric qualities and simplicity of his work which seems so open to individual experience and outcomes. Every mark he lays down seems contemplated in a confident, Zen like manner.
What are the books you are reading and recommend?
My most recent read was "Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899" by Pierre Berton. Reading more like a novel than a work of historic non-fiction, there are just so many reasons why I loved this book. Berton weaves the tale of the mad stampede for gold to Dawson City in Canada's Yukon Territory in 1898 with such riveting storytelling that it's hard to put the book down. It introduces us to an colourful cast of characters and tells tales of men and women who braved indescribable odds in their race to strike it rich. What I found so intriguing about the story, was the gargantuan task that each individual undertook to reach the gold fields and with that, the drive and focus to succeed. This epic theatrical event takes place in an era where the innocence and naivety of being caught up in the excitement was plausible and cynicism was kept in check. It was the era of the bunko men and the confidence trick and many believed that they all had the best route and equipment to get them to the gold fields, whether it be bicycle or rudimentary motorized sled to whisk them over the mountain passes. In reality it would take over a year for many to reach Dawson City and it would involve packing more than a ton of provisions over the inaccessible Chilkoot Pass, whipsawing their own lumber in order to build a boat and then navigating this boat down the Yukon river while dodging rapids and ruin. Over 10,000 people made it to Dawson City this way and almost all of them arrived too late to prospect for gold. Most spent the summer wandering the boardwalks and mud of that northern boom town and basking in the glory of the real accomplishment - just having made it to Dawson. Reading this book, one begins to understand, that it wasn't gold that drove these men and women, but the sense of adventure and the act of doing, without reward and with wanton drive. It this thought that I like to remind myself of when I am working in my studio.
I will recommend another nice book by Canadian writer, Thomas Wharton, who wrote the intriguing novel "Icefields" While reading it, I had the persistent thought that this dreamy story mirrored the obsessions and seclusions attached to artists in their pursuits of creative endeavours. It follows the story of a physician who in 1898, slips and falls into a crevasse while trekking across a glacier in the Canadian Rockies. Awaiting rescue, he observes what he believes to be a winged human figure entombed in the ice. The rest of the book tells of his efforts to get to the bottom of this mystery which haunts him for the next 25 years. By focusing all his attention on the receding glacier, the physician carries within him the hope that perhaps one day, he will see this object spill out onto rocks.
Wharton's second book, "Salamander" is also an excellent read.
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