Thanks, the feeling is mutual. I appreciate the clean, minimalism to your approach—makes the work iconic—and I love its color. After having visited your website I could not help but notice that you are obviously prolific, which is also impressive.
Is there a guiding principle in your studio practice?
For me, the collages I made between 1983 and 1989 were all about intuitive findings and as you say, looking for the right thing to use in a work or catalyze it. When I went to grad school I gave myself a little challenge--to test if I was too reliant upon collage materials--and I gave up collage proper (pasting paper) and I decided to work with only what my hand could make. I wanted to deal with appropriation and what I perceived to be interesting about Salle's work: the hand is capable of appropriating different styles, different moods etc. and I wanted to practice that. When I finally returned to collage proper around 2000, I found that I had lots of series work and each series generated rules for what to collect or how to use what was found. Oddly enough, my most recent work was a bit of a return to the original way I worked nearly thirty years ago. So I guess the short answer is that I work differently depending on the body of work I am developing. I love this and actually have about a dozen different series going on at any one time, which keeps me always moving in my studio.
Todd Bartel
Thanks, the feeling is mutual. I appreciate the clean, minimalism to your approach—makes the work iconic—and I love its color. After having visited your website I could not help but notice that you are obviously prolific, which is also impressive.
Is there a guiding principle in your studio practice?
Jan 8, 2012
Todd Bartel
For me, the collages I made between 1983 and 1989 were all about intuitive findings and as you say, looking for the right thing to use in a work or catalyze it. When I went to grad school I gave myself a little challenge--to test if I was too reliant upon collage materials--and I gave up collage proper (pasting paper) and I decided to work with only what my hand could make. I wanted to deal with appropriation and what I perceived to be interesting about Salle's work: the hand is capable of appropriating different styles, different moods etc. and I wanted to practice that. When I finally returned to collage proper around 2000, I found that I had lots of series work and each series generated rules for what to collect or how to use what was found. Oddly enough, my most recent work was a bit of a return to the original way I worked nearly thirty years ago. So I guess the short answer is that I work differently depending on the body of work I am developing. I love this and actually have about a dozen different series going on at any one time, which keeps me always moving in my studio.
Jan 17, 2012