“The idea of a feminine monster is a terrifying thing.”

Interview by Sonja Teszler

Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Where did you study?

I’m from the East Bay in California originally. But, as soon as I was able, I ran towards the mountains and rivers. For many years I worked as a white-water rafting guide near Yosemite National Park, and other regions in the U.S. and beyond; some seasons I worked in Alaska and others in the country of Nepal — these expeditions were anywhere between ten and 14 days, isolated on rivers in the remote hinterland.

I also used to be a snowboarding instructor in the Aspen Valley of Colorado during the winter seasons; my lifestyle prior to graduate school was quite nomadic. Being in the remote backcountry for all those years has provided a wellspring for my creative work, and now I live in New York City, in a different kind of wilderness. In my work I will always chase after and refer to the wilderness within, so to speak.

This outdoor lifestyle is one of the reasons I studied botany at Humboldt State University, in the far northern reaches of California. Located in the redwoods, this region is part of the Emerald Triangle.* My experience in the natural world, coupled with my undergraduate degree in science, has a formative influence on my artistic practice — one that involves meditating on how the natural world influences myth, folklore and pulp/horror vernacular.

I earned an MFA in Ceramics from the University of Nebraska (Lincoln, Nebraska). This was my first time seriously studying art in a formal setting. Moreover, this program was very ceramic-centric, and I was barely familiar with the material. I was under-educated compared to my peers (and some of them let me know it). I had lots of ideas, with minimal skills. Yet, my life up to this point taught me to trust myself. As a river guide, I was constantly practicing perseverance — we would scout the frightening terrain of rapids ahead, and then navigate through them anyway, again and again, for many years. This builds mental stamina. So, in graduate school I took some ceramic classes that taught me how to build things — BOOM. That seemed an easy feat in comparison to potentially life threatening situations.

*Wikipedia says: “The Emerald Triangle is a region in Northern California, named as such due to it being the largest cannabis-producing region in the United States. The region is made up of Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity Counties. Growers have been cultivating cannabis plants in this region since the 1960s.”

Your practice references various mythological creatures and figures from horror films. Could you talk about your interest in the subject of horror and the relationship between that and the female -its manifestations of the feared,  Abject female in visual culture and literature - and how it addresses politics of representation?

“The idea that women are innately gentle is a fantasy, and a historically recent one. Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, is depicted as wreathed in male human skulls; the cruel entertainments of the Romans drew audiences as female as they were male; Boudicca led her British troops bloodily into battle.” Naomi Wolf

“In every woman there is a Kali. Do not mistake the exterior for the interior.” Jennifer Beals

The idea of a feminine monster is a terrifying thing. This is because we associate the female as being the birther, the mother and the nurturer — when we think of her as being monstrous or beastly, we become truly horrified. Jung alludes to this with the archetype of the Devouring Mother, one who psychologically and/or emotionally consumes her children. This infiltrates our collective idea of the feminine — and we can see this expressed in pop culture films and entertainment. For instance, Disney shows us many great examples of the negative feminine — such as the antagonist and sea witch Ursula, in Disney’s The Little Mermaid animation. What’s more, the Mermaid Ariel, can only find her freedom, to be with a (human) man, after she denies her true beast-like nature; then she transforms to become (tame and) human. [And, the human male Prince (what’s his name) never considers how to change into a mer-man to be with Ariel…..]. I much prefer the storyline from the 1986 film, Splash, starring Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks. In this romantic fantasy the mermaid, Madison, exposes her beast-like nature by aggressively devouring a lobster in a feeding-like-frenzy, while on a date with her boyfriend (Allen) in a white tablecloth restaurant. And (like a true hero), he gives up his humanness to be with her and to live in her world.

I create ‘mermaid’ sculptures that are deliberately terrifying (and somewhat beautiful) because if these creatures exist, or have ever existed, they would look more like my sculptures and less like Ariel. See my sculpture Misty HERE in my series She Beasts.

“There is something charming about an animal becoming human [but] when the human becomes animal, then the effect is disgusting.” Simon Critchley

I am a huge fan of sci-fi horror and love Ridley Scott’s Alien films. The protagonist, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), battles the spine-chilling antagonist queen mother extraterrestrial. These main female characters may represent a spectrum of the feminine from the Terrible to the Loving Mother. [The alien was designed by H.R. Giger, who seemed to draw inspiration directly from nature for his creations — a process I also use in much of my work. For instance, I see how a cat skull influenced his design of the Xenomorph alien in these films].

What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?

I’ve been traveling a lot and have seen so much great work — here are a few mentions:
Raúl de Nieves, As Far As UUU Take Me, Company Gallery (New York, NY)
The historical, chronological Ceramics Collection and display at the British Museum (London, UK)
My Head is a Haunted House, at Sadie Coles HQ (London, UK)
The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue, KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin, Germany)
Anna Uddenberg’s work.

The creatures you’re looking at in your works are demonic (or demonized) female subjects, yet you sculpt them into hybrid creatures with accessories of kitschy excess, “bedazzling” them, as it were. They’re almost reminiscent of a crossover between a horror-monster and a character from Mean Girls - the leopard print, the nails, the hair juxtaposed to tails, claws and sharp teeth. Thus they also carry an element of humor, perhaps even irony and pastiche. Could you talk about what drew you to your particular hybrid aesthetic, and whether it is potentially a means of reclaiming these demonized female figures in the present, intervening in the iconography of horror and mythology?

Since the ceramic medium has such strong historical ties to decorative objects and perceptions of “beauty,” as defined by the status quo, when people see more confrontational ceramic sculptures, it can be simultaneously jarring and exciting; it disrupts our preconceived notions. I try to maneuver this to my advantage, and even draw a visual parallel between sentiments of beauty, and how that relates to craft and the feminine — tradition tells us that these notions are supposed to be predictable, shallow, kitschy and formulaic (similar to pop music). In my work, there are collisions of nature and fantasy, the absurd, the playful, the ironic and the grotesque.

The grotesque and humor are inextricably linked. Transgression, distortion and exaggeration are all elements of the grotesque — all motifs I use in my work. Moreover, somewhere in between the human and the animal, the real and the fantastical, the funny and the frightening, exists the exhilarating territory of the grotesque.

Being partially jaded by my imagery, I think I see more humor in my work than the novice viewer. And, just like people, some sculptures have a better sense of humor than others;)… Humor is expressed through themes of the absurd, the ironic, black humor, even ‘dark-whimsy’ — especially in sculptures like Becky, Delft Punk (Left Paw) and Pizza Face. I think humor is important because it provides levity to certain subject matter and it is able to offset visually arresting imagery. To me it also makes the work feel more current and of our time. Our evolving global existence is inundated with a collision of anachronic information provided by the internet and, thus a hybrid aesthetic of, say, an oversized monster paw with decorated and exaggerated nails, fur, candles, crystals, gold chains and dice, seem fitting. You ask if I am ‘reclaiming these demonized female figures,”  — rather, I think I am reinterpreting them, updating them and making them accessible to our current reality.

Do you think horror as a genre and language can serve as a mirror of the Zeitgeist of its time and if so how does that feed into your work?

Transgressive work is a more accurate expression from a culture that has been engaged in war as long as we can remember, one that has a severely unequal stratification of wealth, a culture that disproportionately locks up poor minority groups for maximum sentences (while the same crimes from white offenders are penalized with rehab), religious groups that denounce science and inspire their congregation with fear and hate — not love and tolerance. In this polarizing climate, abject work is relevant. It holds a space and gives us permission to be outraged, to feel deep emotion and to express vulnerability. To cry out. And, ultimately to unite and stand against oppressors as humans have always done.

[This quote by me was published in the Huffington Post, in the article, “What It Means To Be An Artist In The Time Of Trump,” by Priscilla Frank]:

Here is an excerpt of the prophetic essay, that has had a big impact on my work, "NOT ABOUT MEL GIBSON," written by Richard Flood for the Unmonumental catalog and exhibition from the New Museum (2007):

“Our time demands the anti-masterpiece. Things that are cobbled together, pushed and prodded into a state of suspended animation feel right. Stubby, brutish forms that know something of the world in which they are made tell the contemporary story….run parallel to life.”

and another from the same essay:

“In the twenty first century, everything exists simultaneously in an unending tumble cycle. Society is victimized by the nonempathetic fluidity with which the media cuts from Britney Spear’s money shots to the Iraqi quagmire, from a crippled global environment to pandemics drifting around the world like tumbleweed….from rising crimes against children to American Idol…Reality is a collage composed of whatever grabs our attention, and the competition is limitless. People lunge heedlessly into traffic with the Survivor soundtrack playing on their iPod. Others sit in restaurants alone with their mobiles or stalk the Web in search of meaning.”

You’ve recently had a duo- exhibition at Duve Gallery in Berlin with Oli Epp - what elements do you think his paintings brought out in your work as has that in any way shaped ways in which you’re thinking about your practice?

Oli invited me to be a resident artist at the residency program he co-founded with Aindrea Emelife in London called PLOP. I was there in the month of August, right before our show opened, so that we could make some works in tandem for our exhibition Karma. In fact, we each made three new pieces based on our interactions and dialog in the studio. Becky is just one example of Oli’s influence of my work. Previously, I made feminine busts with melting cave faces (see Bedroom Eyes, 2018), wearing the latest fashion trends — But without Oli’s influence, I would not have added the tongue-in-cheek, emoji-inspired lips and hearts superimposed on the terrain of stalactites and stalagmites. At the time, Oli was working on his Cabaret painting of a flamboyant creature on stage, with flirtatious and full lips that most would envy. For me, the addition of eyeballs would have been more in my wheelhouse but, he pushed me beyond my comfort zone and I am truly grateful for that, as Becky is a surprise to me. And, I think this piece will inform others to come. In addition to the luscious lips, both our figures wear leopard print.

Glazed ceramics are becoming a quite popular medium currently in contemporary art, especially within female artists usually producing objects that are quite aesthetic and decorative. Yours on the other hand use a variety of other materials and play more on the grotesque, in a way hijacking the purely aesthetic ornamentality of the works.

I have always approached clay as a medium to express oneself, even since my first ceramic class. As a beginner sculpting with clay, I simply thought of the material as a sculptural art form and, I wasn't concerned with distinctions separating 'art' from 'craft' — at least not until I was in graduate school studying ceramics; I discovered that this topic was really important to my professors and peers. The belief that ceramics was a ‘lowly craft form’ never sat well with me. But this prejudice did fortify my relationship with the material and, I was intent to transcend the limits of clay and to exploit ceramic history. I realized how I could utilize the preconception of ceramics as being innocuous and frivolous kitsch, to my advantage — “hijacking [its] purely aesthetic ornamentality” is a great way to put it (and also just the beginning)….

Wild Minerals is a series of my work that depicts deconstructed flayed heads of beasts that petrify into something else. The interior of these sculptures like Bark at The Moon (2016), do not reveal what we would expect to see on the interior — there is no viscera, no gore, no blood. Instead, the viewer finds a nod to decor and ceramic / craft tradition. Specifically, on some of these forms, the interior is adorned with cobalt designs on ‘porcelain,’ a direct reference to “China” or the traditional and meticulous practice of cobalt painting on porcelain OR, and perhaps more appropriately, Delftware, the Dutch “fake” version (because they did not have or know of kaolin at that time, the major porcelain ingredient). This ‘fake’ porcelain was terracotta painted with white slip or tin glaze, a similar process to some of my creations. In the absence of blood and guts, in the interior of these flayed heads, the viewer finds a hint of traditional, historical “beauty.”

Could you talk about what attracts you to working with clay and glaze and sculptural forms in general rather than painting, how that relates to your subject matter and your interest in manipulating the medium?

In later versions of this latter body of work, the sculptures of flayed heads are glazed brilliantly, and in a more uniform way. I use an iridescent over-glaze to unify the piece, and to make it more mineral-like. This is because I am fascinated by how ceramic practices mimic geology. Clay is in a constant state of flux; it morphs from a malleable material into a hard one. The firing process, adding an element of heat, further parallels metamorphic rock formation. Then glaze is applied which melts and crystallizes onto the surface, like igneous rock. This sublime relationship between the natural world and ceramics has informed the imagery of my sculptures. Pieces like Karma Chamillionaire, Microdosing and Wild Mineral are conglomerate-like animal/beast heads, sliced and cut in half to reference a geode. I think of how a head may petrify and crystallize over time, transform into something else, like a mineral or fossil. The interiors of these flayed heads are not gruesome — in fact, similar to a geode, they are an amalgamation of decorative elements such as geometric shapes and alien-like textures; they seem otherwordly. With these sculptures, I also think of ways to allude to a new mythology.

Earlier this year I was in the group show, Spiritual Art Advisory in New York, curated by Caroline Larsen and Sarah Potter. The selected works in the exhibition were based on the archetypes of the Tarot’s Major Arcana. Artists were able to choose their card and, I chose the Devil Card. It was important to me that my depiction of the ‘devil’ would be unpredictable, even sublime. For instance, instead of sculpting flames and hooves in a palette of red and black, my interpretation of this demon is iridescent, feminine and ‘crafty’ (in its reference to Chinese Blue and white pottery or Delftware). In the Observer article, “Spring/Break 2019 Looks More Like a Typical Fair, But the Best Booths Show Its Offbeat Heart,” Paddy Johnson wrote, “Roxanne Jackson’s splayed Chinese ceramic head Third Eye Fuck, Devil’s Card,…[reveals] a glowing pearlescent vagina,” (March 7, 2019).

See full article HERE

How do you go about naming your work?

I have a list of potential titles in my phone that I refer to on a regular basis. Any word, song lyric, phrase or thought that I read or hear and that I find funny, evocative and/or intriguing, gets immediately typed onto this list — it’s sort of an ongoing brianstorm session for titles. The list is daunting in its length but it is worth its weight in gold.

Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?

Currently I have work in two group shows in Brooklyn, NY: The Mushroom Show at Sardine Gallery, and Fur Cup at Underdonk Gallery. This December I will be showing sculptures at Untitled Art Fair, Miami Beach, with Richard Heller Gallery (Los Angeles). Early next year, I will have work at the NCECA** Conference, in the 2020 NCECA Annual Exhibition in Richmond, Virginia. Many other things, sculptures and exhibitions are in the works — stay tuned ;)

NCECA** -- National Council on the Exhibition for the Ceramic Arts

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All images are courtesy of the artist and DUVE Berlin
Publish date: 24/10/19