Von Heyl and Nozkowski

Here I am at the Vermont Studio Centre, treated to three full meals a day and as much studio time as I can handle.  It’s the lap of luxury.  So far nine straight days of making and looking at paintings.  It’s a little overwhelming- I might be going slightly bonkers.  But my brain is fizzing with images so i thought I’d share some of what I’m looking at. 

Charlene Von Heyl, ‘It’s Vot’s Behind Me That I Am (Krazy Kat)’, 2010, acrylic, oil on linen and canvas

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Charlene Von Heyl, ‘Black Stripe Mojo,’ 2009, acrylic and oil on linen

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Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (N-23), 2010, pencil, colored pencil, gouache on paper

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Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (8-134), 2010, oil on linen on panel

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Von Heyl and Nozkowski are two very different painters, both of whom have developed their own distinct, personal vocabularies within the vast beast of abstract painting.  There’s a great interview with Von Heyl conducted by Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes, She describes herself as a ‘bullshit artist’: the type of painter that scavenges everywhere for visual input, voraciously devouring images, mostly through books and online.   She says it isn’t in a reverential way, but in order to cannibalize the material she finds, regurgitating it in her own work.  Interestingly she also has a poor visual memory, so these sources work their way in pretty subconsciously.  I found this somehow reassuring, because I feel that a lot of my abstract imagery comes about in just such a cannibalistic, thieving kind of way.  Why not be a bullshit artist?  

Nozkowski sat down with John Yau of the Brooklyn Rail in 2010, and the resulting interview is really worth reading.  Nozkowski has been painting small scale abstractions since the 1970’s so as you can imagine he has a lot to say about it.  Here’s one juicy bit about geometry and improvisation in painting:

“I have never thought of myself as a geometric painter, but I have always thought of myself as an improviser. The geometry in my work has increased over the years and I’m not completely sure why this is so. It isn’t by conscious intent, I can assure you. Improvisation, however, is essential to my work. I want my ideas to be located at the tip of my brush. I want my materials to talk back to me. I want to be surprised.”