Georgia Elrod
Georgia Elrod
http://georgiaelrod.com/
In Arteles residency May 2011
1. Where were you born and where do you come from?
I was born in Memphis, Tennessee in the United States. My parents are from the south but moved to New York City to be artists in the 1970’s. They were visiting family when I was born, two weeks later we returned to New York City where I grew up. I was lucky to spend time in other places growing up; my parents had various teaching and artistic opportunities that allowed us to live/spend time in Vermont, New Mexico, Hawaii, Mississippi, Amsterdam and England.
2. How did it happen that you started to do art and why?
As the only child of two painters I have grown up around art, making art. However, it’s still a choice and something I’ve come to in my own way as an adult. I explored other possibilities until in my early twenties there was no denying that I too am a painter. Being a second generation painter is great; I grew up around lots of art, and I have the support and passed-down knowledge of my parents. But it can be complicated as well. Like all artists I have to create my artistic identity, one that is my own. I work hard to cultivate my sensibilities, study, read and create my community of peers. My work is very different from my parents work.
3. How and where are your ideas born?
My ideas are on-going and cumulative. I often have a loose structure for groups of work but each painting is individual. I make paintings that stem from sub-conscious and imagined imagery; I make many drawings and some of these become paintings. Exploring video is exciting right now because the initial conception is the same but the process is very new and different.
Mental images float through or pop into my head. I will come back to them and eventually draw them out. I get into a zone where I listen to music and draw and I try to bring them out. Sometimes they’re so strong that I just start painting. Once I make some drawings that I like, I hang them on the wall. Then I start painting without really looking at them. These drawings are not a blueprint, just loose references to glance at. This way of working is exciting to me right now for a lot of reasons, but also because I used to work from photographic sources. At some point I may return to specific visual references, but right now I want to produce paintings that come from some internal reconfiguration.
4. What kind of working methods and technical equipment have you used before, and what would you like to use next?
I use oil paint and oil pastels. Sometimes I work with acrylics as a base. I paint on canvas and paper and sometimes panels. Oil painting is such a traditional medium but to me there’s always more to learn. Video is a whole new world for me. I am using a standard/low-grade digital video camera and in the work I’ve done so far I like the fuzzy quality, it can remind me of painting. I would like to make multi-media 3-D pieces, these would be in videos. These are mostly ideas at this point.
5. How do you see the state of art in the future in national and global context?
I think western concepts (of “fine art”) will continue to spread and become more accessible to people all over the world, via the internet especially. This could create more commercially based or homogenous art scenes. I think art really comes down to people needing to make something, and people enjoying making/sharing/expressing. Art markets may expand and grow or burst, humans will continue making art and people will hopefully continue being able to receive it.
6. How do you finance your art and artist life?
I have a business doing interior decorative painting and historic preservation in New York City. I’ve been doing this work for about 10 years and I’m finally at a point where I have a nice amount of flexibility working for myself. I do mostly wall treatments, rarely imagery or murals. I enjoy this work but mentally I try to keep my job and my art very compartmentalized and separate.
7. What are the subjects and topics that interest you? Art wise and otherwise.
Dualities (beauty and absurdity, flexibility and control, openness and repression), contradictions, balance, sexuality, living creatures (humans, animals, plants), mysteries and ambiguities, the nature of humor, transformation and birth… Also paint, images, light…
8. Does your art have a principle? What do you want to communicate to viewers through your work?
To me, painting is exploratory. I am interested in creating works that are fairly open and suggestive of multiple meanings. They allude to the body, machinery, and nature among other things. I want to make images that can be simultaneous.
Most human-made images we encounter are specific and effective. I think painting (visual art) is fascinating because it leaves more room for its viewers. What we see and get from any image is subjective. An image is mostly how we perceive it.
9. Do you work alone or do you prefer working with others and why is that?
I work alone and I really enjoy my privacy. I like what can come out when no one is around. It is special time but it can also be really difficult. I have collaborated within my video work and look forward to doing more of this.
10. What or who would you mention as the biggest influence to your work?
What I see, read and listen to. My peers and their work inspires and influences me a lot. Living in New York is inspiring, I get to see a lot of great work regularly.
11. What does the term “big artist” mean for you? – What kind of a position would you like to have in the future?
That term makes me think of “big ego”. It also brings to mind someone who has made it to “the top”, someone that has financial success and fame. It makes me think of competition. As for me, I would like to be in a position that allows me to consistently make work, to challenge myself and others, and to show my work regularly. I would like to show my work internationally and engage in a larger dialogue; I would like to share my work with other artists and non-artists.
