Quick Draw Artist Interview #13: Nancy Jones

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

Quick: vast (broader than fast) yet surprisingly - careful. Remember the story I wrote to you in a letter? The one about the winterized treehouse, searching for your scarred, pet baby bunny and then finding it damp in the alcove...then the part about finding the floating, glowing crystal sphere in the middle of the forest?  I just received your own version - repackaged as mail art again - and I think I like it a lot better than the original. Especially - since then - it has all come true. just real and raw. Draw: art about art.

Nancy Jones lives and works somewhere else although plans to settle in Berlin this summer. She has her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute. She is currently working on her PhD at EGS in Switzerland with a focus on the image and how symbolic formation can create identity. Her work is primarily painting however she works with many mediums. Jones' work involves the manifestation of energy as a force; the synergistic effect of a sentient presence in all things.

http://web.mac.com/nancy_jones/iWeb/nancyjones/NancyJones.html

Today

9:28pm

Nancy

Hi Otino, are you on?

9:30pm

Otino

hey

9:30pm

Nancy

hi! perfect timing

9:30pm

Otino

yes

9:30pm

Nancy

did you do your reading?

9:30pm

Otino

Yeah - just finished reading your essay "Hungry Images: An Iconophilic Relationship" http://nancyjonesart.com/read.html

Very relevant to your work - right?

9:33pm

Nancy

yes, it is.

although my work is mostly about energy.

9:34pm

Otino

I was struck by your concept of celebrity images: how they both infringe on the star’s privacy as well as manipulate us as image consumers.

And how we are strangely linked to celebrities in this abusive market trade of visuals.

true?

9:35pm

Nancy

definitely.

it's a concentrated essay.

I'm currently writing my dissertation about the image and will go back to my focus on Bernays.

we see images even if we don't consciously consent to it.

I'm most interested in the influence of images on our identity.

9:37pm

Otino

I think your work traces the border between seducing the viewer and making obvious the process of visual propaganda.

Is this your intention?

9:38pm

Nancy

lol, it's a relationship.

9:38pm

Otino

Let’s talk about specific works to make the dialogue more concrete.

My favorites are the ones featuring cartoon images of women.

9:40pm

Nancy

The series in “Aftertaste” works like that - yes those ones.

9:40pm

Otino

"Singer" features a minimal B&W line drawing of a woman holding a microphone with colourful (sexy?) butterflies hovering near by.

9:41pm

Nancy

It has definitely got a seductive element yet the simplification and switch on perspective gives it more of a dialogic element.

9:41pm

Otino

"Plums" shows a similar cartoon lady on the phone with plums hanging close above.

I feel like I've seen these images before.

9:42pm

Nancy

It is the stereotype of a woman, entertainer and stylized shape.

They are sensual.

9:43pm

Otino

They look iconic to feminine product advertising.

9:43pm

Nancy

I used combined imagery to create the style: old playboy cartoons mixed with coloring books - a little disturbing.

9:43pm

Otino

Ah. I was close.

9:43pm

Nancy

The ideal

or one from a perspective.

9:43pm

Otino

"Bubbles" shows a woman spilling champagne on her.

9:44pm

Nancy

Yeah, she's fun.

She's very happy, an explosion.

9:44pm

Otino

So, to return to my earlier point...

It seems you are teetering on both sides of the aesthetic and conceptual equation:

These works are hot and loaded.

9:45pm

Nancy

definitely - and very simplified - to be read.

9:45pm

Otino

We swallow them easily as they are familiar and tasty.

Yet one can't help but feel the stomach ache afterwards

as there seems to be a moralizing element in the wings.

Is this a fair read?

Are you trying to challenge the viewer with images known to them?

And then insert a critical edge?

9:46pm

Nancy

I try to stay away from that - but yes, the viewer and viewed both have power.

Yes, it's pointing out those stereotypes might still be alive.

I have some different agenda or interest than the original perspective:

The looker is being looked at.

The viewer is also being seen, the viewed has a presence not previously considered - the relationship between the two is what's interesting.

It's not necessarily one is wrong - but there is an awakening to the other's presence on another level - one with probably more inconsistencies and desire than one might find comfortable.

9:51pm

Otino

Is the painting "Bookends", 2003 related to this theme of suddenly becoming aware of viewership as well?

9:51pm

Nancy

The simplification plays into it, making it more like text rather than an experience.

It's an exaggeration to the point of abstraction.

I found some sorority girl dolls - so stylized - and shot photos of their heads.

I animated them and finally ended painting those bodies on them.

9:54pm

Otino

Some details look silkscreened like the faces.

So were these works both silkscreened and painted?

9:54pm

Nancy

Yes, I definitely worked a lot with silkscreen alongside painting:

enamel and oil.

The faces were quite small so the dots show up as details blown up. 

The heads were silkscreened on the enamel panel and then I painted the bodies.

I sorted out the bodies and then projected them onto the panel after printing the heads.

9:57pm

Otino

Your work is very slick.

9:57pm

Nancy

Yes, it is. I love the clean line and reference to text.

However, they are not so smooth up close with the black-

it actually has a texture.

I can't seem to get away from texture – even in my smoothest paintings.

9:58pm

Otino

I perceive the elements in the "Thumbs Up" series as vinyl or printed.

Are they painted instead?

9:58pm

Nancy

I started that way - painting them all by hand and then I ended up wanting to create several of them and so I later did prints.

Silkscreen.

Enamel.

Actually there are some dots I applied as decals but they aren't on all of them - do you see those?

They are Mickey Mouse hands.

I liked the affirmative feel of them.

10:00pm

Otino

Ah... Those hands looked so familiar and I was trying so hard to place them.

Are the floral elements in the "Thumbs up" mural, (mixed media, 2005) also appropriated Disney designs?

10:02pm

Nancy

Oh no, that was my studio.

I just got carried away.

They were from coloring books probably, various places.

Only the hand was Mickey's.

10:04pm

Otino

With these paintings I definitely see the risk of the overall design and look of the work possibly obscuring the conceptual intention.

10:05pm

Nancy

how so?

10:05pm

Otino

I imagine by replicating a simple element - one already copied so profusely in modern culture - you are trying to saturate its original intended effects.

I think there is a danger of these paintings to simply be consumed again as the original modern designs are.

Mickey is easily digested daily -

and purchased.

10:06pm

Nancy

my repetition takes it out of its normal context.

I don't know exactly what the ‘thumbs up’ might have meant within the Disney context. My intent was more of experience.

10:06pm

Otino

Experience of…?

10:08pm

Nancy

…the repetition of the image, with its color and pattern, the experience of what it feels like to see it in this way.

I intended to create a depth along with the flatness.

Symbol depth is reinforced visually and with the time spent viewing a repeated element and the idea is strengthened.

10:09pm

Otino

You employ cartoon eyeballs and laughing mouths using this similar repeating effect.

What exactly is strengthened through repetition?

10:09pm

Nancy

A warm affirmative experience is what I was thinking of:

looking, viewing, being viewed.

The smiles are more like the thumbs.

It's almost a collective laughter.

Yes, maybe even being spied on -

and that things are alive -

a sentience of things.

10:11pm

Otino

In your works featuring 'googly eyes' on top of various landscapes,

the viewer is being watched by the art that in turn has become the viewer.

Where are these landscapes from?

10:12pm

Nancy

old postcards, old landscape paintings.

I actually didn't plan it as ‘art watching the viewer’ yet that's interesting.

10:12pm

Otino

Are they found paintings?

10:13pm

Nancy

Yes, I found them at flea markets, then, I paint oil or other media on them.

The eyes are drawn on with white pen and black pen.

10:14pm

Otino

Are the surfaces of the real works fuzzy or is this just a result of blurry documentation?

10:15pm

Nancy

There are fuzzy soft areas of the painting.

I've painted in clouds or fog, energy, a moving fog in some scenes like in “treeyetime”.

The eyes are clear and sharp in each painting though.

10:18pm

Otino

You mention your recent focus has been on "Energy".

Starting with works like "Energyzgrave",18”x 14”, enamel on masonite,  2005, you have developed an eclectic collection of works on this theme depicted in mysterious ways.

Your approach appears to incorporate Sci-Fi phenomena and classical religious iconography revisited with a contemporary design flare.

10:19pm

Nancy

thank you! I'm fascinated with the idea of it. I'm working on two large paintings right now.

10:19pm

Otino

What's going on here Nancy?

These are haunting visuals.

Forest light phenomena…

10:20pm

Nancy

I did do some work with the idea of the halo yet removed the figure.

I just liked the energy.

10:20pm

Otino

group therapy…

10:20pm

Nancy

forest light - is that with the little buildings?

10:20pm

Otino

with the deers.

"Energyscene", mixed media, tapestry, 2006.

10:21pm

Nancy

Same energy - leading the deer.

it's like a magnet pulling the deer to them.

10:21pm

Otino

‘Assumption of the Virgin’ compositions redux via loose abstract watercolours...

"Energylight", watercolor,3’5”x5”, 2006 as religious book illustrations?

10:22pm

Nancy

the paintings with groups of people - it's a similar energy - connecting people - it's not therapy or religion - it could be music, sports - I see it as energy - patterns of energy.

“Energylight” watercolor was actually people at a nondescript gathering - no religion there.

Are you getting religion?

It could be one interpretation but not what was intended necessarily.

I actually have no idea what some of the people in the works are actually doing.

I do know one group of people was playing a game.

They look kind of dorky but I like the connection they have to some form of energy - it could be a language.

10:25pm

Otino

I see.

Interesting since in your essay, "Hungry Images", mentioned earlier you equate the decline of religion with the increase of the visual consumption of images - as a placating device.

Are you creating these works to satiate the new hunger for this visual spiritualism?

Or are the works meant to be satirical?

10:27pm

Nancy

The works are not really satirical because I think people need to comprehend their world.

Consumerism and religion are not really answers – they are screens.

I can understand wanting a screen but ultimately I’m most interested in reality without one.

I also think there is a need to, not only comprehend our world, yet also to have some control over it with our own decisions.

10:29pm

Otino

Do the "Magic Networks" 2006 and "Forest" 2009 installations enable the participant to find this kind of comprehension?

10:30pm

Nancy

ha.

The relationship between nature and society is linked with this patterned energy.

buildings are small in a supernatural world.

the lights on the buildings are synchronized - on an off.

It looks like the buildings are communicating.

10:35pm

Otino

It's strange... your watercolor "angel clouds" is seductive despite its original religious content and regretful imagery.

10:36pm

Nancy

I can see that.

what is regretful?

10:36pm

Otino

Flying nude children with prosthetic wings.

10:37pm

Nancy

yes, there is a sadness there.

10:37pm

Otino

true.

What's with the "Rock band" paper cut outs?

10:38pm

Nancy

I just got into a grove with symmetry and imagery – their shared energy into abstraction.

10:38pm

Otino

Do you remember the band used for the template?

10:38pm

Nancy

I have at least one of the pictures still - do you recognize them?

one of your favorite bands?

10:39pm

Otino

My guess is Aerosmith although I generally dislike rock.

10:39pm

Nancy

I actually don't know their names but I would recognize Aerosmith - more hair than them.

leather, shiny pants…

10:40pm

Otino

Oh that's a great clue. They all wear leather shiny pants!

10:40pm

Nancy

for some reason I really wanted to merge them with trees.

10:41pm

Otino

Green Day then?

10:41pm

Nancy

Yes! now you know exactly who!

Maybe - I'm afraid I don't know.

I just like the image and didn't even look.

10:41pm

Otino

AAAAhhh - you just killed me.

10:42pm

Nancy

ha!

10:51pm

Otino

I wish we had more time to discuss your perception of this ‘energy’ and how it relates to your perspective and work.

Final clues?

10:56pm

Nancy

Okay.

Maybe it's something everyone has to deal with.

I can see the energy and the sentience of a tree because it's not always understood in me. I'm not a tree but there's life and energy looking back.

I may be an object of some kind but I'm also a living flowing thing too.

10:57pm

Otino

Yes you are Nancy. Thank you.

10:57pm

Nancy

sure! 

Thank you!

It's been nice talking with you.