Women Artists

"No, I wasn't interested in being Irish. And I wasn't interested in being in the Irish—in the sense of their mindset and miracles … I think you called them “myths.” But in the scheme of things, I liked the Irish and I liked living in Ireland and moreso familiarizing myself with their bewitching landscape and that story."

"I am against the U.S./Mexican border wall, but rather than protest it directly, I chose to paint it with kids. I spent 6 years as “The Border Bedazzlers” painting the south side of the border wall with Mexican kids. We painted a full mile of border wall in Naco, Sonora. We turned something ugly into a giant canvas for art. Our painted border wall got torn down in 2016, shortly after Trump was elected. It was replaced with a metal slotted fence. I didn’t want to paint that fence, and always thought I’d like to start a kids’ free art center if I had a space to do so. I called an 80 year old border activist named Tom Carlson, and met him for coffee. The next day he gave me the keys to the old migrant center that hadn’t been used in a few years. I opened Studio Mariposa on Trump’s inauguration day as my own small protest."

"It wasn’t until 2008, when Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy, that art cars became a vehicle for activism for me. I wasn’t a political person at that point, but I had been a big fan of Hillary for years and vowed if she ever ran for President I’d do everything in my power to help get her elected. I immediately set to work and created my group “The Hillary Clinton Army.” The point of the group was to support Hillary using art. I painted my car with Hillary images, glued items such as toys, marbles and anything that caught my eye, and hit the campaign trail. The Hillcar was a hit and soon became part of Hillary’s entourage, traveling from town to town all over the country. I joined Hillary’s campaign again in 2016, and the Hillcar traveled to many states once again!"

"Studio Mariposa is a kids’ free art center located just across the border in Naco, Sonora. We are on our 6th year. Before the pandemic we had a weekly art day that around 100 kids attended. We offered all kinds of projects, from painting, clay, textiles, 3-dimensional art, and even our own kids’ band. During the pandemic we had to stop in-person events so we gave away free art supply bags for kids to make art at home. Around 400 kids picked up bags each week, and the art they made was astounding! A lot of kids really found their artistic voice at this time. Now we offer free outdoor classes and projects. We have a weekly outdoor painting class. We also paint murals around town, and as I already said, we have started painting border wall number 2. We are made possible by donations, so please consider donating"

"I have no idea! You've got more exotic Irish than I have. My neighbors would never tell me that sort of thing. They don't talk that way to me. I think it's rather interesting: a bunch of new paintings I'm thinking of doing still keep the “Giants” in mind. I came across something a couple of weeks ago where they found bones in Northern Ireland of a woman and a man. And I guess either in the same graves or next door to each other. But they were brother and sister. Incest. Maybe like the Pharaohs: they ruled as brother and sister."

"I grew up on Martha’s Vineyard, a small island and home to many artists. After graduating art school in the mid 80’s, I spent a year in Guatemala. I loved its color and simple way of life. Things were getting increasingly scary there with war, so when I saw Bisbee, passing through on my way back east, it reminded me of Guatemala…a mountain village with simple houses and artistic people. It also felt very familiar to me because I grew up in a small creative community. After another winter in Guatemala, and the situation there getting worse, I decided to move to Bisbee in 1988. With the exception of a few years at sea, I’ve lived in Bisbee ever since. My favorite view to paint is right out my studio window at Central School Project. Downtown with B mountain"

"Art comes first for me. I enjoy inspiring others to be creative too. I prefer positive action rather than protest whenever possible. For example, I am currently painting the Mexican side of the U.S. border wall with kids across the border. This is the second border wall I’m painting. What I love about it is that it sends a clear message in a way that transcends fighting and protesting. I can’t personally tear down the border wall, but I can help change minds."

"I was first introduced to art cars in the early 90’s in Bisbee by my friend Kate Pearson. She had just seen Harrod Blank’s film “Wild Wheels” and had met Harrod. She got inspired and made her own and I soon followed. My first car was called “The Funk Ambulance,” which was an Oldsmobile 98 painted with lions, a big sound system, and disco lights."

"Process work doesn’t appeal to me. That’s why I like drypoint and not just an etching. I’ve done only twenty-five bitten etchings in my life because I don’t care for all that business that goes on that gets between you and the work. I love drypoint and I think that actually it gives you the same wonderful satisfaction that carving in stone must give to a person. You’re really making something with great effort. And I think that effort is very important in the production of any work of art. If it’s too easy, if you’re just gliding around on a wax surface and then biting it in acid, it doesn’t give you that sensation of making something … That wonderful feeling that you have for the material and the real strength that you have to employ to get the line the right depth and richness and to do the cross-hatching so that the metal doesn’t break down but still you get a rich black. It gives you, oh, a great sensation"

"Pin-head, parsimoniously covered with thin dark hair, on a short, dumpy body. Small features, prominent nose, chipmunk teeth and no chin, conveying the sharp, weak look of a little rodent. Absent-minded eyes with a half-glimmer of observation. Prim, critical mouth and faint coloring. Personality lifeless, retiring, snippy, quietly egotistical. Lacks vigor and sparkle."

"In 1995 I moved on to painting a boat, and then a home built sailing raft my partner at the time and I built out of scrap lumber, logs and foam. We fashioned it into a painted dragon. We lived and sailed on it in the North-East for two years. It was hard living on the ocean so in 1999, I moved back to Bisbee."

"After beginning as a painter, I realized that while I was painting or drawing I was actually perceiving the lines and spaces physically and in life-size scale. I was imagining myself in the painting or drawing much in the same way a little girl imagines herself in the doll house with her dolls. This realization of my perceptual translations caused me to build drawings as sculptures…to draw in three dimensional space."

"My intention from the very beginning,was to try to find a way that didn't remind me of a thousand other people that I had seen."

"“I often paint a painting until it tells me to stop, and sometimes the white ground still shows,In most cases, I try to make the white ground either a pattern, so that it can be both negative and positive space, or if not that, perhaps an atmospheric wind moving the other colors and shapes around."

"“I feel that an abstract painting is outer space, and I am in front of it, suspended in outer space, so that there isn't any horizon line. However, there is probably a sense of up and down, and side to side.” Beyond that, “I want the viewer to create part of the meaning."

"When I first conceive of a painting‭, ‬I must feel it‭, ‬I hear it‭, ‬I taste it‭, ‬and I want to eat it‭. ‬I start from the driving force‭ ‬of color‭ (‬color hunger‭); ‬then comes to a second color to provide light‭, ‬luminous light‭. ‬It will be the glow to reinforce the first color‭. ‬I then discover the need of one‭, ‬two‭, ‬three‭, ‬or more colors which will indicate and make movement‭, ‬establish the psychodynamic balance in midair‭, ‬allow freedom to take place‭, ‬add weight at the top and bottom of painting‭, ‬and create mythical whirlpools between larger forms‭.”"

"When I paint I listen to the Harry Potter audiobooks on repeat."

"I am really interested in the beauty of these paintings and the dark tales that they often depict, and this battle between aesthetic beauty against the dark truth of human behaviours."

"Whaaaaa I’m not sure, on my gap year I worked on a super yacht which was a crazy, exhausting and bind blowing all at the same time."

"This year I have been looking the play Antigone by Sophocles. At the beginning of my project I tried to find as many classical painting representations of the play and then I work from these paintings to create my own work."

"“Each woman must cry and contribute her tears to a communal glass. By working together, perhaps one day they will produce enough tears to put out one fire and spare the one who is closest to immediate danger. To stop participating results in death.”"

"The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch, I am obsessed with it."

"These are images of works in progress in my studio. Some of these are from very complex collages and some from simpler. I think they reflect that struggle between maximalist and more minimal to compose."

"I was born in Louisiana going back upwards of 10 generations of southerners, on my mother’s side, back to Jamestown. The South is a place behind the times – it runs slower. The South taught me tradition, storytelling, nostalgia, and preservation which are prevalent in my paintings. Returning to the South after traveling around the world, I am learning and becoming more aware about how systemically flawed our country is and I hope to be a better ally for finding solutions. I don’t yet know how this developing awareness might express its way into my art but I am reading books this summer about institutional racism. Most of my painting ideas can be traced back to what I am reading."

"I grew up sleeping beneath quilts made by my great-grandmother. Each design had a name and meaning and each piece of cloth was a remnant from a dress of the many daughters, granddaughters, or great granddaughters. Each scrap went back to a greater cloth from which it was cut. They were narratives of textiles, garments, and lives; all combined they contained the aura of our family. Each was designed into a new creation to cover us from scraps of the old. Nothing was lost; it was ordered and reabsorbed into a larger pattern. This reflects my own process working from the fabric of art history. To answer your question: Yes! I love them all. I am interested in it all of art’s past. It gives me more to work with."

"I individually value the artists of the past but I also look at what I am doing like a quilt making."

"I was teaching in Spain spring of 2020 and I watched as FSU’s campus in Italy close as the virus was killing thousands; and then, our own campus in Valencia closed. It was necessary for me to evacuate but not before I had to quickly try to finish a large painting project there and ship the work to friends in Paris and Vienna. Some of my packages have still not arrived at their destination because Covid has disrupted service and made things very complicated. It’s not a safe time to distribute art when the opening of services and facilities is so up in the air. Usually I show in ten shows a year all over the US and abroad. For now, I am taking a hiatus from exhibiting in person. I am hoping to take the next couple of years to turn inward and make my work in an intimate way without the pressure of circulation."

"My paintings function as allegories and this one I think is as a metaphor for work and contributing to something like social security."

"In creating the collage, the windmill was surreptitiously appeared…and it became apparent that is was there to blow debris into the Magdalene’s eyes and cause them to cry. In the process of collage, there are happy accidents that astound me. Next, I needed to figure out why they must cry and in my mind’s eye, I saw these structures all aflame. I realized that they were not merely sad but that they had to cry from danger of their own peril. For this reason, one is holding an onion…so as to produce more tears."

"My studio is a giant collage with images taped to the walls. By surrounding myself with images and fragments from paintings, I find relationships. From there I move things with tape to make a more specific composition of forms. It can be a slow process that sometimes takes years or a lightning fast instant when two things get stuck together and make a perfect new statement that I then render in paint."

"I have just completed my degree series which I have been working on in lockdown. I have really enjoyed making it, however my dream series at the moment is just being able to make work in a large studio where I can work to any scale and have space to stand back. Lockdown had really shown my the importance of having a studio and the space to look at your work."

"I am really inspired by Flora Yuknovich’s work, I think as soon as I arrived at City and Guilds and saw her paintings I feel in love with them. I am also really inspired and fascinated with botanical studies and love visiting Kew Gardens. Within my work I try to bring the loose, bold and dynamic style of Flora’s work alongside the minute details found in floral studies, whilst recreate and transcribing classical mythological paintings."

"My work is inspired by Renaissance period paintings depicting Greek mythology. I am currently focusing on The Odyssey by Homer. The Renaissance paintings represent the drama within these stories, with dynamic compositions and rich colours. I use a range of different paintings depicting the myth to create a collage on Photoshop, breaking down the classical structure and the figuration; creating contrasts between scale, composition, figuration and abstraction. From them, I create large-scale paintings constructed in layers using a variety of mediums; oil, gouache and acrylic."

"The paintings start with a layer of gouache, blocking in colour and mapping out movement. Then acrylic paint is used for the floral patterns to intensify the placement of colours and black/grey structural lines breaking through the work. For some time now, I have been developing the use of organic floral forms to apply a different painting language when recreating these classical paintings. I am interested in breaking down the barriers between the decorative and the fine arts. So, rather than purely decorative, I see the floral and feminine forms as a different language of abstraction. In this layer, the acrylic is built up and overlaps with changes in scale to create depth. In the final layer oil paint is used, which is applied in glazes to push back areas and for the floral patterning. The oils create a unique, opaque effect as they sit on the surface."

"Painting is about painting and its history. In some ways, I am trying to bring the past back and keep it alive, and in other ways, I weave quotations of past work into a narrative that reflects my life experiences in the present now. I paint from collages cut from the pages of Western European art history, so in a way, I work to preserve the past, and to create a narrative – to write my name on body of work mostly made by men."

"The title for this painting is from the Devil in the White City, a book about a murderer who destroyed women during the chaos surrounding the Chicago’s 1893 World Fair. The image of “manufacturing of tears” fit well with the imagery I had been collecting of towers of babel connected to crying Mary Magdalenes. I was interested in placing these Babel-Magdalenes so that they covered the landscape, each unable to move."

"Art has always been a big part of my life, I can always remember sitting down and painting and drawing with my sisters, and art would always be spoken about. When I was studying the IB I then realised that all I wanted to do was make art and that’s when I decide to take a gap year and then apply for City and Guilds."

"There are great Caravaggios in San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome—the Saint Matthew cycle. The first painting, on the left of the small chapel, is The Calling of Saint Matthew. Jesus points at Matthew, who sits across from him with his head down. Matthew is the only one who isn’t looking at Jesus. On the opposite wall, on the right side of the chapel, hangs the third painting that shows the end of the narrative, Matthew’s martyrdom: Matthew lies on the ground and some guy with a sword is standing over him, just about to murder him. Imagine how you’d feel in that moment! I stared at the painting for so long, fascinated by how everyone is freaking out except for Matthew, who is reaching up. What is he looking at? It’s an angel leaning over a cloud and extending a palm, as if holding a stick to a drowning man. You realize that Matthew is a man who lived and died with belief in eternal salvation, which is why he’s being murdered—he’s dying for his beliefs. It’s interesting that Caravaggio depicts him seeing his salvation. Everyone else sees horror and chaos, but Matthew sees an angel extending a palm. In this painting you witness him becoming something."

"I often wish I could go to my studio and paint all the time, but I can’t. I often feel disconnected, as if I’m waiting for instructions. It’s absolute torture. The first third of the time it took to make these recent paintings was spent going in every day but ending up with nothing. Then, slowly, something started to happen."

"So, to answer your question, when I think of being an artist, I think of the central painting, between those two, showing Saint Matthew as an old man taking dictation from an angel, doing divine work on earth. The man depicted in the painting is a nincompoop and the angel is impatiently counting on his fingers, as if Matthew isn’t keeping up. It’s so funny: that’s Caravaggio’s wit. The Passion of Saint Matthew is one of the most beautiful testaments we have, but here he is shown as a very ordinary man. I believe Caravaggio related to Matthew because of how beautifully this story is depicted, with so much feeling and sensitivity. The three paintings show the utter transformation of a man over time."

"I love Solzhenitsyn’s writing for his insights into morality and humanity, and today I came across a quote from The Gulag Archipelago: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” I love that idea. If you think of yourself as “good,” you should think about how easily you could be evil under different circumstances. It’s important to embrace the range and try to comprehend it. Philip Guston said something similar when he talked about imagining himself like Isaac Babel, who wrote about riding around with the Red Army during the Polish-Soviet War, witnessing rape, pillage and killing. Guston was able to envision himself not only through the lens of the Italian painters he adored, but through the hooded figures of Ku Klux Klan. He recognized that the enemy lies within."

"Cool kids always think their shit doesn’t stink, but Fassbinder reminds us that our shit does stink, and on top of that it’s rotten, and it’s OK to admit that. We’re all human. I’m interested in formal language and emotional content—formalism and feelings have a perfect marriage, if you can handle it. Looking back, I realize how much of the work was led by a rather dry and clear process and yet the results are anything but dry. I set a path and let the weirdness and eccentric stuff come up on its own; all that content just found a place out of the orderly way I had set up the process."

"Misogyny. There is no exact parallel to the story. I didn’t read a great writer like Babel who contextualized it for me. What I learned from Guston is that if you point the finger at yourself first, then you are freer. Misogyny is so rampant, extreme and insidious that it doesn’t get called out nearly enough. A lot of men, including gay men, are misogynists, and a lot of women are too. I’ve experienced it personally from so many, and I can therefore assume that because I live in this society I must have absorbed it too, so if I want to talk about misogyny I have to first acknowledge the aspects of it I’ve absorbed. I’m not the kind of person or artist, nor do I admire the kind of person or artist, who proselytizes, pontificates or points outward at others. I admire Guston and Diane Arbus and Fassbinder because they show a myriad of internal conflicts. That’s what art is—a struggle filtered through the self. That is how it becomes generous."

"Ever since we were at Yale together, John Currin has said he admires my ability to believe. I remember once in a critique of my work, my teacher William Bailey was furious that it didn’t have enough “fiction building.” He quoted Magritte: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe, Lisa!” I said, “But I want the paintings to be real!” To which he snapped, “Well, that’s not a good goal.” John was at that critique, and he jumped in, saying: “I actually think it’s amazing she thinks they’re real!”"

"That was partly why I made the “Bad Habits” sculptures in 1995. In going from painting to painting I was “recasting” my characters every time. I had to get to know them one by one and understand what they mean. I realized through Fassbinder that it would be interesting to have your blonde—your Hanna Schygulla—as one person in an ensemble of actors who each play a range of characters. The range should be small—you can’t make people be something they’re not. Fassbinder was aware of how to use everyone’s qualities. Their fading looks, like Fassbinder’s own physical deterioration, became his material. They all had to be very smart and not vain to allow this to happen. Fassbinder’s actors came from the theater and theater is close to sculpture, so perhaps they had an awareness of the sculptural properties of their bodies."

"So much of my work is about doing the very obvious. Making art is like finding your Excalibur, the sword in the stone. It’s right there and others can tug and tug, but you have to be Arthur to pull it out. Anyone can decide, intellectually, to make paintings where “colors come alive as characters”—but try to do it! Few people can pull it off. You have to have lived your life in a certain way, and have believed all along that that is possible, in order to make it work."

"I arranged the “Bad Habits” figurines into groups, which I studied to make the paintings. I was thinking about how Tintoretto made wax figures to illuminate scenes and understand complicated lighting. “Bad Habits” is about light. To keep my focus on that aspect of the work, I didn’t want to have to keep reinventing characters. I could have kept working on that series forever but I made myself stop. I realized that as an artist I was about more than that, so I forced myself to move on."

"The interesting thing about Hippies is how those male figures jump out from behind the central woman, and the painting did that to me—in the process of making it, the men said, “Ta-da!” They came out of the work. And I had to ask myself where to take it next. I think that Hippies should have come after the portraits it was shown with at David Zwirner this spring, but it didn’t, it came first. I decided to make six to eight portraits of incubi and succubae using the structural idea of a grisaille painting with a flourish of what is called cangiantismo, a sort of spectral color-wheel effect that contrasts the grays. In the 16th century the Italian viewer understood it as a signal that the supernatural had arrived."

"Painters have always had to believe in formal language. It just didn’t used to be called into question as much as it is now. It is a belief that pictures can be formally coded and tell a story, and that viewers will understand that code even if they are not painters themselves. In contemporary art the language of painting is like a dialect of ancient Greek—most people just don’t understand it. Furthermore I don’t know how many people are willing to relax and let the meaning of the painting unfold, but I like to think they will feel the power of the form, almost unconsciously, whether they want to or not."

"I’ve done grisaille paintings with flashes of intense color over the years. One painting like that would surface as an isolated element in a body of work every now and then. When Hippies appeared I wanted to see what would happen if I just stayed with it and didn’t let up. I really didn’t know where I was going, but at some point the art critic Christian Viveros-Fauné came to my studio and said it reminded him of the “Bad Babies” series [1991-92]. Both groups of paintings personify color. I remember looking at my palette table and telling Christian, “I just want to make this come alive.” It’s such a stupid idea, and yet I think that is what I did. I just had to keep believing in it. When things went wrong, when they veered off course, I would tell myself to just trust the process."