Atmos: Thanks for meeting me today. Everyone has a different art background, how they got into this. Can you explain a little bit, how you started?
Jaqueline: Yes, from how far back?
A: Just as far back as you want.
J: I was interested in art in middle and high school but wasn’t thinking of it as a career. Even in college, I decided I wanted to go to a program that had a strong art department. I wanted to have a variety of options to pull from. I was pre-med for a couple years. I really liked science. I was always an art major. UCLA had a nice range of faculty, so I was really excited to be in a conceptually driven program where I could pull from a lot of different media.
I started there, and around the time I was finishing up at UCLA I began thinking I probably wanted to teach and finish up and go to grad school and I knew I wanted to keep making art. That's how I ended up at Columbia and I moved out here right after I finished at UCLA.
A: Oh, wow.
J: Yes. It really wasn't until after I finished at Columbia that I started thinking, "Oh, now I have to figure out how to be a practicing artist." I hadn't really thought through the lifestyle. I was just thinking, "I'll go to school, sell my work, and that will be the end of that." It really started at UCLA because I had such an amazing group of faculty and mentors, and a really strong community of undergrad artists. It was a really rich program. That's where I got invested. At the time I was doing primarily painting and photography.
A: Okay, so you switched mediums?
J: Yes. When I was thinking about applying to grad schools I was thinking should I do photo or painting? The program again was conceptually driven and a lot of the faculty had been CalArts students so the philosophy was idea first, then you choose your medium to fit the content. But even so, you end up finding a place that you sit in for a little bit longer. I was talking to a photo faculty member and he said, "Well, do you want a studio? Because if you want to do both, then you need a painting studio."
With a lot of the photo programs you just had a darkroom. That's how I ended up focusing on painting primarily. I've been sitting in this area for a while now. I feel like I could work on painting forever and not totally feel like I've turned every stone over. I still think about photography, sculpture, and movement a lot in my work. I'm constantly trying to figure out how to cross over. I’m thinking a lot more about collaborating lately, hopefully that'll factor in.
A: Like mixing?
J: Yes, or working with other artists whose primary medium is performance or theater, a lot of that. Just trying to figure out how to bridge ideas and not necessarily make my own work within that medium, but collaborate.
A: Yes. Have you seen Condo? It's a new way to do an art fair. You take all these galleries, go to Hong Kong to do an art fair, and instead of doing one singular tent space they take over Hong Kong-based galleries and either take over the space and do their own show, or collaborate with the curator and curate a show together.
J: Ah, that's so cool. I haven't heard about that. I've been curating more recently, professionally. In undergrad I would haul my friends’ work into a room and we'd set up a show. Now in May I got to actually launch something in New York. I find that whole practice of bringing a show to fruition, researching other artists, and bringing - - I don't know, a variety of media into one space totally inspiring. I feel like that's so fun.
A: It's so fun. It makes it more interesting.
J: Do you know anyone who’s been working on it?
A: It was a young gallerist who started the idea, Vanessa Carlos.
J: I feel like, and maybe this is totally old fashioned, but when I was younger I felt it was more taboo for an artist to be a curator. Now, I feel like so many artists are curating and it's just part of the practice, visual thinking. Curating is like making an artwork, in a room.
A: Yes. Exactly.
J: I think a lot of the strongest curators think that way. It's fun. I definitely don't work in the same way as an art historian.
A: But that's almost more fun, seeing an artist whose life's work is to create versus an art historian whose life's work is to look and synthesize and put things together to have a conversation.
J: Yes, it's two different things but, yes, I find it really fascinating. Also the availability of work on a wide scale through - - it’s so basic but just being able to have so many access points all over. Yes, it's really fun.
A: Do you teach at Columbia now?
J: No, when I got out of school I taught there for a couple of semesters - Beginning Painting and Drawing, and now I'm primarily teaching at museums. The Met, MoMA and the Whitney are my main posts.
A: That's awesome. Do you have a specific thing that you teach?
J: Yes for the Met I do a lot of painting and drawing and that's mostly with high schoolers and adults. Usually, in relation to special exhibitions. For example, if they have a Matisse show we look at the work in that exhibition and think about how to emulate his strategies in the studio.
A: I had no idea that museums did that.
J: It's really great. The Met is unique in that way. I think that the Whitney has some adult programing as well. At the Whitney and MoMA, I do school tours K-12. That also feels like curating in some ways because you are selecting a group of artworks that will help to develop the idea and will encourage close looking.
A: Do you like teaching the younger kids more than the older?
J: I love the range from little ones to seniors. I don't know, I just think everybody brings such an interesting field of responses to the work and I find myself seeing things in new ways every time I sit down with any group. It's really fun.
A: So you lead the tour and then do you teach them and ask questions?
J: Yes, the idea is that you are asking questions that will guide them in looking. There are a lot of interactive components especially with the younger ones.
A: That’s so cute.
J: It's really sweet.
A: Do you see yourself doing that for a while?
J: I don't know. I really enjoy teaching and being in the studio for me happens to be a very solitary practice, so I like the balance of having something that's a little bit more social and public. I get really inspired by students’ work and their ideas. I feel like it's a really nice compliment to what I’m doing in here. In terms of professional work outside of the studio I’d love to do more curating, but in terms of financial stability I love the teaching. I feel like it’s the perfect complement to my studio practice if I have to do anything outside of the studio. It lets me look. It lets me research.
A: Yes, it is really nice compliment and you are getting paid for it which is also wonderful to get paid for doing what you like.
J: Exactly.
A: What was your first gallery show?
J: Early on, UCLA had a really nice opportunity for undergrads to curate exhibitions in galleries on-campus. I was doing a lot of that work with friends and also had a few solo shows towards the end of the program. Then I had maybe one show in LA, one small show in a tiny gallery in LA before I moved to New York. When I finished at Columbia, I had a small show at a gallery in Brooklyn that doesn't exist any more. I’ve had a lot of really amazing opportunities to do solo exhibitions over the past 10 years or so. They were mostly new galleries that were just getting going.
The show that felt the most solid to me in terms of my beginning to enter the art world here was my exhibit at 106 Green in Greenpoint. I think mostly because the experience of working with three artist-curators felt like such a nice synchronicity in terms of the way they were providing freedom in choosing work and giving me a platform amongst a community of artists that I thought was really strong.
I feel like that was my first big solo show in New York. Since then I've had some nice opportunities for group shows. It’s kind of grown incrementally since I got out of school. I feel so lucky any time I have a chance to show the work because it feels like getting it out in the world and getting a response to it is really the goal.
A: Yes, totally. Is this the body of work you've been doing for a while?
J: Yes. You're sort of catching me in between things. I just spent two weeks in Indiana installing a solo exhibition, which I can show you images of. That involved eight paintings, which I made here over the course of the last two months. These two paintings that are out right here were in that show that I curated at Crush Curatorial in Chelsea in May. These are the most recent finished works.
The other three that are in the room I just started so they're not finished. This is the work I began, I guess in the beginning of July when I got back from that installation. I was there for two weeks painting the walls of the gallery so I could make more of an immersive space.
A: I think I remember seeing an image of that. They were standing.
J: Yes, standing. This is the most recent work but you're seeing it in progress. These two are complete and then these three are just getting going.
A: I really like them. This one's kind of dark...
J: I feel like they go between the absurd and a little bit of existential. [laughter] I like for there to be humor in them but there's also something uncanny about the situations that they get propped up in.
A: Yes, totally. Are there a few specific things that inspire them?
J: Yes, the figures come from a lot of different places. But the paintings always start with the figures engaging in some sort of gesture or interaction. That might come from something I've read or something I've seen in a film or something I've just seen while moving around the city. Observing people on the train or out on the streets.
The spaces I usually build in relation to these gestures. Sometimes it'll be something much more concrete or specific like they're sitting in this car. Sometimes it'll just be sort of the way that someone has moved in a space. I'm trying to capture that feeling of movement or a static and choppy quality. It just depends on the initial gesture.
A: It starts with a gesture and you build from there. What is this canvas?
J: Oh yes. I've been experimenting a lot with working on fabric, using a lot of different materials. This one and this one are burlap. It's been so fun to paint on it. Almost feels like cheating because the texture is so satisfying and it just does some really different things.
A: Yeah, I couldn't tell what it was.
J: It's kind of obvious but I have a lot of friends who've painted on burlap forever and I've never really thought to experiment as much in this way. Lately though, I’ve been really interested in using that color and texture as sort of a starting point for experimenting with the space that they're in. Yeah, this was kind of fun because a lot of these things happen by chance for me. I'm really interested in allowing for that element to enter the work.
I went to the fabric store looking for more of this burlap and they only had this whole other range of crazy colors available. I was kind of moving towards the most muted I could find, which happened to be this sort of lavender, which my sister yesterday said read as grey. Colors are relative though so that makes sense.
It's been really fun to play with. I think for somebody like me who's totally invested and just in love with experimenting with color it's been really nice to have something that pushes me to work with a whole new palette. I feel like if you have this other starting point that is so dominant then it kind of initiates this completely different train.
A: Yes, absolutely. How long does it typically take you to finish it?
J: It really varies. I'm trying to get into the practice of developing a group of work at once so that they all build together. If I get stuck on one I can move between them and they inform each other. I would say on average it probably takes me four to six weeks for a large work. I'm also making small paintings and drawings at the same time. I tend to build up ten large paintings over the course of the year. I don't know, sometimes more, sometimes less.
A: That's really cool though that if you get stuck on one you just work on another until that one comes back to you.
J: That was sort of a really important strategy that one of my teachers, again in undergrad, introduced. It was like, you need to be able to be working constantly in the studio and you can't just stop when something's not telling you what it needs to do. Having a lot of work going at the same time has been super helpful. In fact, before I left for Indiana I stretched all of these canvases just so I knew that I had something to go back to. I just didn't want to break the momentum, you know?
A: Yes. Did you finish anything when you were in Indiana?
J: Yes. Basically, all of the paintings that I shipped there were complete, but the time that I spent there was really just doing this wall installation. It was a space with about 20-foot high ceilings, a thousand square foot scenario. That was what I was working on while I was there. It was black and white paintings on the wall. That was so fun because I didn't have a plan really. I setup the paintings in the space thinking that I would do something in response to them. The concept was mirroring, this idea of echoing gesture or behavior. I just started from one end of the gallery and worked my way over. Every day I got to go in and invent and play with the way the figures were navigating the space.
A: Did you do sculptures too?
J: The sculptures I had made a few months prior and they were part of that show that I had done at Crush Curatorial last September, so they were part of this space. That was how the whole idea of an immersive environment came to be in Indiana. I had been invited to work in this smaller space that Karen Flatow at Crush gave me the opportunity to play around with for two weeks. And then Max Weintraub, who runs the Marsh Gallery in Indiana, had seen these images and said, "Do you want to come try something similar out on a larger scale?"
A: For the Indiana space, were you on a ladder painting?
J: Yes. There's some pretty funny footage. They were trying to use a GoPro - - there’s a video of me getting up on a high ladder and filling in sections of the wall painting.
A: Yeah, was that so exhausting?
J: It was so fun. Honestly, it was the most fun I've had creatively. It was just fantastic to have that size canvas available to you, it's really incredible. When they first put me in there they gave me a nine foot ladder and they came in the next day and saw that I had been on the top step reaching up and were like "We can get you a larger ladder actually."
A: "It's not a big deal." [laughter]
J: That was better.
A: That's good.
J: I was definitely flying.
A: Yes. Oh my gosh, what if you were afraid of heights? Can't look down.
J: Yes, I don't think I could do that sort of work if I was.
A: When you were at UCLA, was there any specific advice that a professor told you that really stuck with you?
J: Gosh, there were so many things. One of my favorite professors there was Lari Pittman. I just felt like everything he said was gold. I really connected with the way that he thought through making. I don't know, I guess one thing he said to me was that if you let the paintings talk to you and tell you what to do, then there's a little bit less pressure to figure out what you want. It's just more about the work. I've always found that incredibly useful.
I don't know, I felt so lucky there because there were so many incredible faculty. Catherine Opie was there, James Welling. They would spend eight hours with us a week, just hanging out and talking about work and introducing us to new artists and ideas. It was so ideal. I really valued my time there.
A: That's amazing. Do you prefer the LA art scene or New York better?
J: I feel like they're so different. When I moved out here I was just totally overwhelmed by the range, and also the conversation around art here feels more specific. It feels more steeped in history. LA is on its own planet. I always feel like it's a little bit more idiosyncratic and people are off in their own pockets, doing their own thing. I love both. I felt so lucky when I got to New York to work with the whole New York faculty artist scene and to be immersed in that end. Because it did feel completely distinct.
A: I love being here and you're just surrounded by it all the time. If you want to go see something you can.
J: Yeah, there’s great art in LA and then there's so much good programming there. But there is something here - - what I noticed immediately is you'd go to a night of openings and you'd run into all of your friends. You didn’t have to make a call, you just knew if I go out I'm going to see all of these artists who are part of this larger conversation. It just felt like a very strong community in that way.
A: Everyone here just wants to see and experience new pieces, and artists, and learn. Everyone's eyes are open here and I love that about New York.
J: One thing that I’ve found now that I've been here a little longer and I feel more comfortable is, even just reaching out to other artists that I don't have an introduction to, I've just met through the internet or whatever, is possible. People are very open to having that conversation, and letting people into their studios, and sharing their work.
A: I love that so much, and I feel like that's very art-specific too. The fact that they just want to help show people their work. Is there an artist whose career you really admire, like the way that they've gone about building themselves?
J: It's rare that I think of artists in that way, but it's really interesting to think about. I'd just like to pause on that. There are artists whose body of work I really admire I guess regardless of their exhibition record. When I think of career I think of exhibition opportunities, and growth over time. Maybe I'm just not as familiar with that trajectory. I don't know. I was actually looking at Rosemary Trockle today and Louise Bourgeois. Those are both artists that I am totally enamored with. I tend to really gravitate towards artists who are thinking in a range of media, and who are really pushing themselves in each body of work to get into new territory. That's really exciting to me.
A: I feel like Rosemary Trockle in particular, even her older work, I think is so specific to now. The fact that she's working in a traditional women's medium. I love her work.
J: I'm excited by both the material content and the conceptual content. That's always amazing. Then just like what you said this idea that you could feel so relevant across a range of time periods, it's really fun.
A: What have you seen that you've been liking lately?
J: I've been teaching at the Met a lot so I've spent some time at the Commes des Garcons exhibit. I’ve been thinking a lot about collaborations so I love the fashion and performance and body elements entering that work. It's beautifully installed. The architecture in that space is like its own artwork.
A: I always love those shows.
J: Always very thoughtful about installation which I feel very sensitive to so that's really exciting. I'm looking forward to the New Museum show but I haven't seen it yet. I've been researching a lot of artists who are working in theatre. Recently that's what I've wrapped my head around lately. Rauschenberg did a lot of set design. They have a little bit of video footage of that work at his MoMA show. I was remembering recently that I think he did a cover for The Talking Heads. All of these fun cross-collaborations.
A: David Salle used to build sets before he was a full blown artist. In one of his series, the tapestry series and his ballet series, they're all based on his time building sets before.
J: Yes, it's just so fun to let somebody - - I feel like a lot of times what you're doing as a practicing artist is setting your own limits in the studio, and letting somebody else set those limits it's just so fun.
A: Totally. When you're in the studio do you like listen to music or quiet?
J: No. I'm a total nerd about it. I'm really sensitive to sound so if I listen to anything, it's like an interview or I'll talk on the phone but for whatever reason the beat of music I find totally distracting. It affects the pace of the painting for me.
A: Yes, every time I talk to an artist who listens to music, it's really interesting to me because for me if I were painting, it such a musical thing, I really feel it would get me off track.
J: Yes, well it can be really inspirational and there's such a wide range of artists who are guided by sound. Actually, when I'm drawing I can listen to music, so it must just be a different part of the brain. There's more repetition there and the rhythm of the mark-making is the same throughout.
A: Is there a mistake you've made in the past and how have you learned from it?
J: I always joke about how mistakes in a painting are assets in my mind because sometimes you just want to mess something up in order to get to a new place. I mean maybe that's cheating on the answer but I do feel the way that I'm working is very responsive and intuitive and allows for a lot of places to go off track and then return. I kind of look forward to those moments.
A: Do you like working in the large format more than the smaller?
J: I’ve always wanted the figures to be close to life size so that the space in the painting could allow you to feel like you might enter it. From the beginning that was something that felt important, that you could feel an almost one-to-one relationship with the bodies. I do feel very comfortable working on a larger scale. I'm always pushing my students to go there. It's funny because I feel like most people are much more confident when there's less space.
A: Less space to mess up?
J: Yes, but more control. I do really take a lot of pleasure in being able to move across the surface in that way physically.
A: Do you have a thing with noses?
J: Yes. [laughs] I don't know when that entered the work exactly except maybe it's just close to my face or something that feels familiar. I think that they started as just this short-hand, like a quick way of developing a body without looking at an image. I wanted to figure out a way to just get a very immediate idea down in sketches. Then I realized that I really didn’t want to have to refer to an image at all in the larger work, once I had the opportunity to not pull from a photo or some other source. This sort of short-hand developed and I've gotten very comfortable with it.
I feel like there's something humorous about the graphic and exaggerated quality of the figures. I think a lot of the content can be heavy sometimes so I'm having fun with that balance, but they are pretty quirky.
A: They are quirky. Do you collect other artists' work?
J: Yes. I've been trading a lot lately, not technically collecting, but I'm so excited to have my friends' work in the house. I feel like it’s so nice to live with all your favorite paintings. I feel much more eager to do that lately. When I was younger I wasn't making small work first of all so nobody had space for my giant paintings. Also I felt more precious about saving and holding onto things. Now, I feel I make so much work and I'd rather it be out in the world. I'm always thrilled to trade work with other artists. I have a pretty nice collection going now. I'm trying to build it. I really love having all of my friends’ work around.
A: When you were growing up were your parents interested in art?
J: Yes. My dad's an actor so they're definitely in that world. I don't think they thought that my sister or I would become artists. Because the lifestyle is just so insane.
A: Is your sister an artist too?
J: She's in film. We both ended up that way and I think they were totally surprised. But very supportive. I grew up seeing a lot of theater and film. We had a lot of painting around the house and they loved going to museums. That was a big part of the conversation for sure.
A: Oh wow. That's awesome. Then you just grew up and became what you wanted.
J: [laughs] I'm very lucky. I always tell my students when they have parents that are really supportive of them, that it’s a huge asset. I felt that and there was never a question. But I have friends who definitely had a whole different story.
A: I think it's really common to find parents who don't understand. They're like why would you want to be a starving artist?
J: Yes. Honestly, I feel that naivety on my part was such a gift. My father was, luckily, a very successful working actor all of our lives. Even if there was struggle and tumult I did not see it. I was not privy to it. I really entered this world thinking, yes, this is possible. No big deal.
A: Are there any galleries in the city that you really like going to?
J: There are so many. I love what the Sculpture Center does. The New Museum is curating so many amazing shows. Luckily I'm out teaching at the Whitney and MoMA all the time so I get to see those exhibitions just in researching. But in terms of smaller spaces, I just saw the Alice Mackler show at Kerry Schuss. And those sculptures, she's really amazing. She's a ceramicist. And Derek Eller. I guess I'm always excited about smaller spaces. Helena Anrather’s new gallery. I feel like I could go on and on. It's so great to be in New York. It's also so overwhelming. Every month, there's just a whole new set.
J: Any (shows) you would recommend?
A: I feel like I haven't been in the city at all this summer.
J: That's nice. That's what you're supposed to do.
A: Yes that’s why all these shows are random group shows that they throw together. I still want to see the Rauschenberg show. I need to see that before it closes. All anyone is talking about is that. I actually didn't think I was going to enjoy this, but what I ended up liking a lot is the Met rooftop commission.
J: Oh yes. You know, it's so funny. I’ve spent a lot of time recently with students up there. What did you think?
A: I had seen images online and I was like, I'm not going to like this. My parents were in town so we were going to go see it. Then we were up there and first of all, that space is gorgeous.
J: Yes, did you see the PsychoBarn when they did that?
A: Yes. I hated that.
J: Oh really?
A: I hated that. So coming off of that, being like, "I hated this. I'm not going to like this one." I don't know. I really enjoyed it. It was like weird and unexpected. They're not marble, what are they?
J: It's a mix. He did these 3D scans of works and people and then re-presented them.
A: Whatever it was, it was just like taking a really, what felt like, traditional, sculptural thing and making it weird and modern. I really liked it.
J: That was a work that I felt like I was able to appreciate more once I really started getting into it with students, hearing their feedback. It's so fun to re-enter a work a few times over and see the different ways that it presents itself.
A: Do you have any advice for aspiring young artists?
J: I guess I always like to say, talk to as many people as possible, ask a lot of questions, be curious, and mess things up a little bit and see what happens. My big thing is just to look at a lot of art and make a lot of art. Just keep making constantly.
A: Awesome. Thank you so much.
J: Oh, yes. Thanks for coming. This was so fun.