We asked Sam Mitchell this week about her work in Rulers. She talked about her favourite painting subjects and other topics...
MNG: In your new series of work in Rulers you have a mixture of contemporary and historic subject matter. How do you choose your subjects? What interests you about particular subjects?
SM: The choice of subject matter for my works comes from spending hours in libraries and secondhand bookstores, finding images that stick in my mind. The image of Abe Lincoln for example, his face in most photographs is unsettling and graphically interesting, with all his creases, and a splattering of facial hair. He is unusual looking unkempt, bedraggled and disheveled.
The images selected tie in with reoccurring themes in my works - my interest in 'place of origin', being separated from a sense of place, and the idea of an internal narrative.
MNG: Often you make similar images of your subjects, but load them with different "tatoos"? What's your thinking there?
SM: By using tattoos in my work (historically used by tribal nations as identification of place, tribe, family - a skin record/passport of who you were) I create falsehoods mixed in with little bits of truths. Personal, cultural, and historical details provided by the tatoos create the internal narrative of my chosen subject and leave the viewer with a mixed history of a real person.
MNG: Everyone marvels at the skill of the arcylic on perspex works (example pictured above) - of working from back-to-front? What do you like about this technique and media?
SM: The technique of reverse painting is not a new one (Warwick Brown told me so). I enjoy the finished plastic result - you don't actually see what you are painting on to the perspex until you turn it over. So it is not instant like usual ways of painting. The first marks are the last marks - they are not the building up of layers as with a traditional oil painting. My process is more like printmaking - the use of line then the after thought of colour and tone to describe the form.
MNG: Can you say something about your collaboration with Gavin Hurley? (See images in previous post below).
SM: This is a very easy process....Gavin provides me with a collage and I have the freedom usually unedited to add to it.
We work so differently, Gavin is tidy and organised, and his work reflects this sense of order. So I am honored to be able to disrupt the order and add some twisted sense of chaos to his so perfectly cut and neat collages.
Our collaborations I think work really well. The collage is complete in as far as Gavin is concerned when he hands it over to me. He never really knows what the original work will come back looking like, and I have no preconceived idea of what I will add to the work. So it really is a surprise to us both when the collaborative work is revealed.
Posts
