Quick Draw Artist Interview #2: Faris McReynolds

Quick Draw Artist Interviews is a continuing series of interviews conducted by Otino Corsano using Facebook's IM Chat feature. Spontaneous conversations with international artists are recorded and documented for exclusive publication on this blog.

Quick: precipitates, split the twitter faster than a teen idol, no vain history clears, no lies, no hide and seek or bar room drivel; just real and raw. Draw: art about art.

Faris McReynolds is a visual artist who lives and makes work in Los Angeles California. His first LA show in almost 4 years titled "The Primitive Electric" opened at Roberts and Tilton Gallery on October 17th, 2009 - just a few days after this interview.

8:22pm
Otino
Hey Faris

8:22pm
Faris
hey otino

8:22pm
Otino
I finished my first "Quick Draw" Interview
it was with Ron Santos
remember him?

8:23pm
Faris
cool, i just offered him some studio space the other day
he passed

8:23pm
Otino
Wow. Crazy coincidence.
small artworld

8:23pm
Faris
yeah
keeps feeling smaller

8:23pm
Otino
So are you game for a "Quick Draw"?
Here and now?

8:24pm
Faris
sure, what is that exactly?

8:24pm
Otino
I shoot you questions off the cuff about your work and you bounce back freestyle.

8:24pm
Faris
ok sure

8:25pm
Otino
Great. You may have to get me up to speed with your work.

8:25pm
Faris
i'll do my best
ha

8:25pm
Otino
Last time I saw your work it was in that triangular gallery in West Hollywood.
Far back huh?

8:26pm
Faris
wait,
at low gallery?

8:26pm
Otino
That’s it.

8:26pm
Faris
i've never been in a show there

8:26pm
Otino
Ok take two.

8:26pm
Faris
ha

8:26pm
Otino
I remember conceptual record covers.
close?

8:28pm
Faris
interestingly enough, I had talked about doing a fake record store project with another artist as we were coming out of school, saw the work you're talking about and shelved the idea

8:28pm
Otino
O.k. take three...

8:30pm
Faris
check out the gallery links www.stardustlane.com if you want the drive-by of recent work

8:33pm
Otino
How about we start with the apparent shift in your work leading up to your new show at Roberts and Tilton opening this Saturday titled "The Primitive Electric".



8:42pm
Faris
About six years ago my work split in two directions:
oil paintings, that were aggressive and high contrast,
and mixed media (acrylic, gesso, gouache, inkjet, watercolor) paintings on prints, which were much more internalized and subdued, more nostalgic and less fearful.



8:43pm
Otino
I see this duality in the degree of realism in each approach...
The oil paintings are savage with palette knife cut lines.
The mixed media works are far more refined, detailed yet still fluid.

8:43pm
Faris
I'd always shown them separately, even though I can't make one without the other. This show will have both works.
They come from the same source imagery and are just attempts at saying different things with an image.

8:45pm
Otino
How does this separation of style specifically relate to the overall concept of your new show "The Primitive Electric"?

8:48pm
Faris
For this show I decided to have the group portraits be extroverted and the individual portraits be quieter and more isolated.

8:49pm
Otino
Is there a narrative that links the paintings in the show?
The subjects in "Potato Eaters 2" appear to be reprehensibly preoccupied.
Although I’ve experienced more dysfunctional social circles.



8:50pm
Faris
If there is a narrative at all, it would be feeling a little bit like an alien visiting a zoo of people.
The “potato eaters” are escaping
just like the strippers in “Speedway”.

8:50pm
Otino
Your subject range is completely eclectic.
Is this similar to Gerhard Richter’s attempt to exhaust the medium of painting?

8:52pm
Faris
I'm trying to exhaust every medium of expression I can get my hands on:
playing music mostly, besides painting

8:52pm
Otino
It’s like you are on fire lately.

8:52pm
Faris
Painting has severe limitations.

8:52pm
Otino
Funny - I'm listening to your vocals with the Ex-Detectives online as I write this. You are good.

8:52pm
Faris
ha
thanks

8:53pm
Otino
Does the band take away from painting time?

8:53pm
Faris
No, it came out of a vacuum painting left behind.



8:55pm
Otino
Have you ever heard of the painter Shaan Syed?

8:55pm
Faris
no

8:56pm
Otino
Your crowd paintings remind me allot of his early work.
Lets get back to subject matter. Are any of your sources from film stills?

8:57pm
Faris
most of them are film stills:
pictures I've taken myself with a camera in front of the tv.

8:57pm
Otino
Do you ever create compositions without photographic references?

8:57pm
Faris
Yes.
more recently, I've been working from no source in places, and on some paintings entirely

8:58pm
Otino
So do you toss yourself in with the rest of those mash-up postmodernist kids making new messes out of old trash?



9:01pm
Faris
not sure.
it can be viewed that way, but I feel some sort of reverence for the sources I work from. I don't attempt to put that across in the work, but realistically, if you're going to sample something and use it, it embodies something you're after.
I don't feel like I'm after trash.
I do flirt with bad taste as much as I can with the oil paintings but mostly as a way to force myself out of convention

9:02pm
Otino
Can we choose one of your favorite paintings to explore - so we have something more tangible to focus on?

9:02pm
Faris
sure

9:13pm
Otino
Lets talk about "It's No Journey"

9:13pm
Faris
ok
works for me

9:14pm
Otino
I imagine this is a screen grab.

9:15pm
Faris
Yes, it's a cropped image from the screen.
I have a running theme of 'stare' paintings - this is one of those.
I wanted this painting to be beautiful, somewhat icy and distant, like she is watching tv

9:15pm
Otino
I see. Jogging memory and mining distant visions.
From what film/tv show is her image taken from?
Who is the actress?

9:15pm
Faris
Yes, exactly. Stirring the 
unused memories a little.
The image is from Columbo. I love the aesthetic of the old Columbo shows. The Actress is Blythe Danner; yet to me that's irrelevant as long as the person seems somewhat familiar.

9:18pm
Otino
Is "The Leaving Party" image from a teen film?

9:18pm
Faris
Everyone's motivation is always to ask me who and what, a lot of times I don’t remember.

9:18pm
Otino
Good for you.

9:18pm
Faris
I use a lot of generic comedy as source and a certain tv era.

9:19pm
Otino
Do you worry about the fall out of appropriation?

9:19pm
Faris
Like being sued?
or meaning more theoretically?

9:19pm
Otino
Yes to both - and the idea that the imagery is second hand and thus one step removed from poignancy.

9:20pm
Faris
Sure. It's not supposed to be sentimental, in stead more of a sentimental rendition

9:20pm
Otino
Sometimes the way you use a palette knife reminds me of Jean Paul Riopelle. Like in your "Water Mirror" painting

9:20pm
Faris
Whos that?

9:21pm
Otino
Nevermind. Just adding the required Canadian content.

9:22pm
Faris
Yeah, the palette knife has as many limitations as a brushstroke in that you're calling to mind any number of things that are both good and terrible.

9:23pm
Otino
As you stand back from this recently completed new body of work, what is your overall impression?
Does the distance from an installed show bring new insights not perceived in the studio?

9:25pm
Faris
This show came out of a much larger body of imagery that I ultimately set aside and will use for something else. So to me it feels very pared down to my basic interests in painting. Portraits, group portraits, boredom, escapism, humor.
Yes, my studio is small.
The installation will highlight the links between the works.

9:26pm
Otino
What are those links?

9:35pm
Faris
The idea of someone (or a group of people) losing themselves in a moment, and how that idea can be painted in different ways and in different contexts, with different tonalities and voices.



9:35pm
Otino
Back to your music: Are the "Ex-detectives", "Caveperson", "Brass Badger" and “Bon Skelete" all you?

9:36pm
Faris
no. I'm caveperson. I write most of the songs for ex-detectives. I play drums for brass badger and I do the beats and synth for bon skelete.

9:38pm
Otino
I meant to say you are involved in all three operations.
So the various names are a result of different configurations of musicians?



9:38pm
Faris
Yeah, the three bands are made up of different people

9:39pm
Otino
Do you have another show lined up after this current exhibition?

9:40pm
Faris
I have a show in Antwerp in March of 2010, and a two-person show with Jimmy Baker sometime in late 2010.

9:40pm
Otino
You are a busy man.
Thanks so much for taking time out to talk about your work.
Congratulations on the show opening this weekend.

9:41pm
Faris
Thanks, I hope that lent insight.

9:42pm

Otino
Great stuff. Thanks again Faris.
Visit Canada soon.

9:43pm
Faris
Thanks Otino.