Interview with Erin Donnelly

Erin Donnelly has returned after taking a year off from school to complete her undergraduate study. She is a painting major completing her thesis this year. 

JF: What grade are you in?

ED: This would be my final year. Technically, I really only have thesis left.

JF: Technically you’re a senior then?

ED: Yes

JF: I know that you had said to me that you were a painting major and I don’t see any paintings, more like sculpture pieces. Do you do mixed media pieces or do you consider yourself strictly a painting major?

ED:I think they do exist in the realm of painting because I feel like I’m in that dialogue and what has taken me to all of these pieces here has been this search in understanding what painting actually is or what it can be or what it means for me. I started painting figures and now I’ve arrived here. That was my first year at mason gross. I was a transfer student and I was in Painting II and I started painting figures and was lost.

JF: So you went from painting the figure into working more with fabrics?

ED: Right.

JF: How was that transition from painting the figure to working with material?

ED: I started to think about paint as a material and I was having difficulty moving it or with oil paint, I was used to acrylics. Here I was encouraged to use oil paint and it was frustrating. So I started to think of the meaning of it and I was looking at Lucien Freud and he dealt with paint and it was really thick and I started thinking about paint as an object itself.

JF: I notice that you have certain patterns, you have some pieces where the colors are kind of muted or pieces with earthy and neutral tones and you have some pieces that are more vibrant in color. Why is that? Why do you have a very strong contrast in color between your pieces?

ED: The color palette depends on the material I decided to work with. So the pieces you were talking about with the earth tones are actual pieces of leather.

JF:So the color is dependant on the material of the fabric you are using?

ED: Right. It is found material. So for example this piece is of a leather jacket. These pieces are textiles and with the bright colored paintings, those are left over scraps of canvas from other paintings that I was working on.

JF: And you painted on those canvases?

ED: Yes, those are more dyed strips of excess paintings I’ve worked on. So a lot of the ways I was working on these particular pieces were taking the queue from either the shape of the found material or the design that was already there and trying to work with it.

JF: I find that some of these materials are pretty specific. Like this one in particular already have a fabric with a pattern on it or the leather pieces already have a texture to them.  Are there materials that you find you are more drawn to? Whether it be pattern or texture.

ED: I was exploring the idea of what a painting was and I was thinking about the material of canvas. So from there, I started to think about canvas as skin and vellum and this history so I started working with leather and I chose second hand thrift store jackets to use, not so much because of how it looked or felt but because of the idea that it has this history, it used to be lived in and things of that nature. As far as the textiles, that was another train of thought that some of the other works opened up where I was thinking about high and low art, textiles, found imagery and trying to work with the black and white leaf motif and then taking something like this that looks very much like upholstery and seeing how I can make a painting with it. So with the upholstery one, I took the queue with the buttons which was a big part of the work because I started to think about how to make this 2-D object, this sculptural thing belong on the wall. Like you had said earlier, they exist in this in between land so because of that I started wondering, why am I thinking about painting as opposed to sculpture and why am I so stuck to the wall? So I made a reason why these were supposed to be on the wall. These buttons actually attach to the wall and then the painting affixes to it.

JF: A painting is supposed to attach to it?

ED: Yea, this piece is removable if we had the capacity to have this permanently attached. I’m trying to think of ways to make them belong to the wall.

JF: Another question about the fabric choices. You had said these particular fabrics you had found at thrift stores. Do you find yourself searching for these particular fabrics, is it something where you go to a thrift store and say hey these fabrics would be perfect for what I want to create or is it something you find in your house or do you work with leftover canvas? What is your decision for choosing the fabrics that you choose. Sort of similar to my previous question right, but im thinking more specifically, did you go to a thrift store strictly looking for a fabric like that or did you come across it?

ED: It is a little bit of both. There were certain parameters, such as it needed to be leather and it needed to be from a thrift store, like already used.

JF: Why did it have to be leather?

ED: Because I was thinking about painting and the canvas kind of as the skin that gets stretched over the stretcher bars. There is also a history of painting and drawing on vellum which is animal skin and as I was trying to understand what painting was and understand what the canvas was, I was trying to sit through all these ideas. Knowing that I wanted something leather, I guess there is a humongous amount of old leather and they all were very quirky and these ones that I found worked together or seemed to be really rich in this imagery. Like you said before, there is this found texture, this really strange 1980’s bad leather look to it which kind of adds another element.

JF: I noticed that these are all clearly sewn. Is this all your doing? Did you know how to sew previously or did you take up sewing to specifically do these things?

ED: I knew how to sew previously but I was not very good at it. I have a sewing machine and as I worked over the past couple of years, it has gotten a lot easier. This is all later stuff, you should have seen the beginning stuff; it was really poorly sewn. It was a struggle.

JF: I find also that everything, as well as the patterns and textures being different with each piece, I feel that the sizes of them are different too. All of you’re pieces are all visually very different texture wise and color wise but also im thinking sizes as well and how they are all put together. For instance these are rectangular, these are as well but there is something not entirely cohesive about it. Are you looking for cohesion? Are you looking for each piece to stand on its own or do you want to see them as a set?

ED: That is actually a really good question. I actually have a lot of work and the good thing about sewing and putting it together like this is that I can do a lot of it. A lot of what you see now is different threads of thought. But actually the way I work, one pieces is generative of the next. If you saw the entire body of work, there would be I think a more clear train of thought that you can trace but a lot of it is I would argue that it is serial in that nature but visually with format and size and stuff like that, these things change a lot depending on the new question that the last work sparked. Because I am not working image based, so say I was thinking about something like a narrative like about a mom going to work. You could probably see it more clearly in that way.

JF: Like you could see more clearly the transition as the story goes on?

ED: Right but because it is so much about the material, it is harder to see in a way

JF: Are you saying that you are growing with each piece? That you are not really focusing on it being a cohesive piece, its more being a transition from one piece to another and what you learned from each previous piece?

ED: Before I kind of put this big emphasis and weight when I approached this big empty canvas that it had to be this magnificent final product but when I work like this, it is more about small ideas being okay to generate an entire painting. So it is this one small thread that links them all because it came from the last piece but it takes on its own.

JF: And what is coming from the last piece? The actual thread you are using to stitch them?

ED: Or an idea. So for example with this one in the top row and the one on the left, they came right after each other so I started with this one and I was dying the canvas, I was making a piece before that like I said and these were the leftover scraps and then I thought okay if I use the actual leftover scraps, what if I used the drop cloth that I painted everything, so that is another leftover scrap so how would that turn into a painting. And I was thinking about tracing over these profound shapes or forms so that these triangles and things like that were already existing and I was trying to piece them together like a puzzle. So that thread of thought followed into this one because where I sewed, I followed over pre-existing forms as well. So in that way that’s how I find how one work talks to another and that one generated maybe a whole new question about the idea about inflating this piece of garbage and making it important by putting it on the wall and pushing the boundaries of painting because now that you see it is inflated, it is coming apart at the seams and it looks like this big pillow and is really clunky against the wall. It doesn’t want to stay so that is the train of thought that sparked off of that painting and thinking about that and how it can manifest itself into another painting I would say generated whole new ideas. But they don’t particularly look the same but they are thinking about the same questions.

JF: I have never personally seen this idea where you are adding a material in the canvas to make it looked puffed out like you said almost like a pillow and you are questioning maybe how a canvas can be limiting and maybe how you can change that. I guess that is more of an idea not a question. I’m really glad you explained that, it is a really interesting thought. It makes you’re pieces sculptural because you are adding another element such as cotton or some kind of filler in the canvas to make it much more…

ED: Yea it brings it out into your space. It does a lot of things for me. I think because before I was thinking about putting the paint on top of the canvas and creating this world on top of it. Then I started thinking about building it or creating it, that was what I liked about art, was getting my hands dirty and feeling like I was constructing something. That’s how this all got started. I started to think about the language of painting like the canvas and things like that and started stuffing it with meaning because then with these it becomes more so like when it is stretched up on the wall, you start to feel the tension and you see the buckles in the fabric and these look like lumpy cellulite and that starts to be the image because now you question what happens to the fabric and what happens when its installed. It’s like I injected the meaning and what the painting is all about into the fabric instead of it being topical.

JF: I know that you refer to these as paintings and I think from my standpoint not knowing much about painting, I think its interesting that you refer to them as paintings. Another question that I would have is that your concern so far has been the material of the canvas and I’m wondering would another concern of yours be the actual paint because that is the other side of painting. There is the material you use to paint on then the actual paint you use. These pieces are highly material based, will there be more materials where paint will be added onto it?

ED: I still do work with paint. I do keep talking about the material and the canvas but I am definitely concerned about the other painter’s problems and that is why they exist as paintings more than just one note because I am not just talking about canvas I guess the way that I am talking about paint is how for example this found pattern can do the same thing as paint. As far as paintings, its need to be on the wall and why the way I work I still feel so drawn to the wall and having these exist on the wall rather then have them exist by themselves or why I question that too a lot. Why am I so stuck to the wall and I think that that question keeps me working. And as far as all of this deviating and being so different from normal painting is not a rejection of it, its like a deep reverence. I feel like I am pushing the limits of what painting can be. Not to be a rebel or a badass but I felt like I didn’t understand it so much that I needed to start asking these questions so that it could reveal itself and its nature and its limits to me. I never expected it to come to this point at all. I guess it’s just questions. Any idea for me is a good enough idea because I feel if you keep working even if its not great work, that at least I learned something from it.

JF: Going back to how you said the pattern of this fabric can kind of mimic paint, do you think with these fabrics having such a specific form and pattern to them, could they ultimately replace paint to you? Do you think it maybe wouldn’t be necessary to paint black leaves on there if you can find a pattern that already has black leaves on it?

ED: I guess that is exactly what it is asking, that question. And that was what drove these paintings into fruition; that exact question.

JF: Do you feel that they can?

ED: I feel the answer is yes. It can be a stand in. Not in every case obviously. Im not saying that for everybody’s painting, this is not going to be a substitutable stand in.

JF: Because looking at this piece, there is a border. I’m looking at it almost like a frame. I would take a picture and frame it. It’s almost like this fabric would then be the painting. It takes the place of the actual paint, like you are talking about. This is what it reminds me of. Actually all of them have this kind of border around it, is this acting as a kind of frame or is that something you weren’t even thinking about.

ED: I think on some of the earlier ones, I did stumble on that and seeing how it still existing in this rectangle. This traditional painters form, like the shape of the canvas and then leaving this fringe and having the insides start to bubble out where its definitely calling attention to the border and attention to its insistence on being considered a painting. I’d say it definitely emphasizes that you have to consider what I put there. Whether or not you except it, that is a whole other thing I’d have to think about.

JF: Where do you see yourself taking this idea. The idea of you questioning what painting is. You said you wanted to extend the limits of painting, like adding fabric to the canvas or changing the texture of the canvas. Do you have ideas already of furthering this?

ED: I guess it wasn’t so much extending it, I was to find what the borders were like, trying to find these outer limits or rules because I felt like there had to be a strong wall to push up against and knock against to let me know okay this is ground zero and now we can build back up. So I guess what I’ve been searching for is this language or this ability to say something through painting in a succinct comprehensive language that I would find by searching in the limits but I guess I realized there probably is no ground zero I’m going to find and maybe its this search that is going to sustain my work. I want to find this beautiful succinct language and will maybe never find it but that isn’t going to stop me.