Submitted by Darrell Roberts
”surge” an installation at Clocktower Gallery
Anna, you are represented in both Chicago and New York. What do you see is different in how people view your work from the East Coast to the Midwest?
I am not the right person to answer this question. My guess is if you ask people in these two areas who know my work you may or may not get different answers about how they view or talk about the work.
How have you pushed the boundaries of painting the most in your art making?
I have tried to push the color from being muted and minimal to being more fearless and open. I have pushed the painting out of the frame into space. Both have taken much hard work and time. I generally try to kick myself out of comfort zones which in some ways is both hard and easy. Hard because we like to live with the familiar, but easy because I get bored quickly.
Why do you paint in abstraction?
First of all, I think all art is abstract. A painting of a three dimensional object on a flat surface is abstract in my mind.
I believe that the way I am wired, something about how I perceive the world has to do with why fragmented abstract vocabulary is a satisfying tool of expression for me. I work intuitively and often refer to my paintings and drawings as visual writing. I have as long as I can remember liked to read into things, read between the lines, understand pregnant pauses, the unspoken words in poetry.
What has been the most challenging part of your life as an artist?
As all artists know being an artist is a challenge, period. No one really cares if you do your art. If you don’t have the drive or need yourself, forget it.
My personal challenges, frustrations, doubts, and disappointments come and go. I try to work my way through them, regain perspective and move on. Moving on means go back to the studio and do what I love to do. Frustration, anger, joy I try to see as creative energy that can be harnessed.
In retrospect going back to school to study art may have been the hardest part. When you have had lots of life’s experiences it is both humbling and can at times be a challenge to find your place or voice in a grad school culture. But the experience was good and illuminating for me and gave me thicker skin and wider perspective which is essential to survive in this business.
Where does your inspiration come from?
I don’t see it coming from any particular place.
I am fuelled by ”everything” so to speak. Art history, my own history, daily life, music, film, objects, stories, things I see, hear, remember. So much energy, movement, depth, and color are in our everyday lives. I try to connect, reconstruct this paradoxical logic of experience where perception and memory are continually constructed and reconstructed. Probably my lifelong hearing impairment has something to do with how I construct meaning in my work where I have to do much guessing and reading into fragments. From that I have come to understand how intertwined sound and sight are. Existing on a daily basis with two languages and cultures makes it hard to see anything as ”one thing.”
How long do you work on a project or series of paintings?
A large painting can take up to 6 weeks if worked on full time. A tiny one a few hours. A preparation for a site specific installation takes months because I make the ”raw material”- the paintings- on mylar myself.
”surge” an installation at Clocktower Gallery
Where are you showing?
I work with a gallery in New York, Stux Gallery, and one in Chicago, Zg Gallery. They are different in that Stux Gallery has been around for a long time and Zg Gallery a relatively shorter time. Both are great places to work with.
What has been your latest exhibition? How does it differ from other works you have done?
Currently I have a site specific installation ’”surge’” up (until October 1) at the Clocktower Gallery in Soho, NYC. It is the largest installation I have done up until now and the most challenging. The space is large and complex but it was rewarding to go through the process of transforming the space.
What do you think is your most significant achievement?
I don’t think of what I do as a package of achievements. If anything I feel fortunate that I stumbled into art late in life. Today, I cannot see how I could have stayed my happy self without it.
Can you tell us a little bit about your up bringing and how it has influenced who you are as an artist today?
I grew up in Iceland in the country side. I am still pretty attached to the place where I grew up and visit there every time I go to Iceland. I grew up without multi media, there was one radio station, plenty of books, and TV had not arrived yet . There was lots of freedom for children, we played outside without being organized or supervised by adults, learned to make our own rules and settle conflicts.
My father was a green house farmer and I started to work for him at the age of 8 in the summers. It gave me a sense of purpose and importance. I learned to respect any kind of physical work. I received a few coins in an envelope at the end of the month for the hours I had put in. I see much influence from that place in my work. Inside under the glass it would get very hot , up to 90F in the summer with temps in the 50’s and 60’s F outside. The light inside was unique, the glass often foggy or dirty creating a mysterious mood inside. The tools, old rusty pipes, wires are still there in all their old glory and rustic beauty.
Inside the house I also helped. At that time all clothes were homemade, sewn and knitted. I remember how clothes were taken apart, the pieces pressed, and something new and beautiful
made. My mother now a retired politician was a master seamstress. Still is.
”surge” an installation at Clocktower Gallery
http://www.annajoelsdottir.com/