Art of Conversation: Julia Shirar

Julia Shirar—Oakland-based artist—joined me in a email conversation about her upcoming exhibition Wrath is Come at the Rowan Morrison Gallery, opening Saturday, January 16th through February 20th.  Enjoy, and if inspired, please comment below.  Happy new decade!

Steven Barich– Greetings Julia.  I asked you for an interview via Artopic.org because next month you will open an exhibition titled Wrath Is Come at the Rowan Morrison Gallery, in Oakland. Having followed your career over the last decade as colleague and friend in the Bay Area art scene, I’m immediately curious to know the derivation of these recent artworks, what you are planning for the exhibition itself, and where exactly does the title of the show come from?

Julia Shirar– Formally, I’ve always been trying to resolve the question of time within the picture plane.  I’ve worked in many ways, around the same idea.  Suffice to say that I’m beginning to think that my first ideas about the question were the most interesting.  I’m re-investigating some things that I don’t think I looked at with enough patience.

Conceptually, I would say the origin of this work is theatre.  Specifically, Wrath is Come is looking at a few characters during the “apocalypse.”  I use quotes because this word as the description of an event, has lost its meaning, its impact.  In any one current news publication “apocalypse” is used multiple times in different ways.  It no longer refers directly to its dire biblical roots in many cases. The origin of the word “apocalypse” was indelibly fixed in my mind by my Southern Baptist upbringing, however.  When I was a kid, slumber parties at the church included late night flicks about Armageddon: veritable horror films with hooded men on horses beheading the sinners. Now the apocalypse is an equal-opportunity condition and maybe it just isn’t all that bad. Maybe with good old-fashioned American ingenuity, we can muddle through.

The title, Wrath is Come, is taken from the King James Version of the book of Revelations  6:17. “For the great day of his wrath is come;  and who shall be able to stand?” My pictures are of those left standing?  We don’t know.  But my apocalypse is the softened version from the papers and a translation from the greek, “the act of revealing or unveiling.”   I’m investigating domestic interiors and the landscape to see how or if they have been impacted by the morning news.  All is looking fairly well, while somewhere unclean spirits like frogs are emerging from the mouths of false prophets…and they are, really.   The sitters for the portraits are as we might find them on any other day, fulfilling whatever roles.

There will be no one smote and wailing in the middle of the gallery and no frogs pictured.  Nothing will be on fire.

SB– I like how you bring up the aspect of theater, and I’m curious then whether or not your upcoming exhibition—which is also advertised as something of an installation—should it be considered an act within a larger “play,” so to speak?  You also state you are busy with a re-investigation of an idea that requires a greater patience, are you looking for feedback from this show to inform how you will continue with this body of work?

JS– This body of paintings is rooted in theatrical constructs.  I’m thinking about ancient Greece, staging, characters, performance and light and my personal history within the world of theatre.

I think all exhibitions should be thought about as installations.  This one will be no exception.

My subject matter hasn’t changed much over the years.  The formal ideas that I’m re-investigating have everything to do with the expression of time in two dimensions.  I’m thinking about space, form, and perspective. I aspire to personal satisfaction with specific ways I’m handling my tools to construct meaning. I love feedback but it seems dangerous to let it inform my process as directly as you suggest. The feedback that ends up being helpful is usually unrelated to the specifics of my technical investigation and more about an over-all impression.

SB– Portraiture figures prominently in your paintings—to what extent are you interested in a painted realism, in regard to the sitter?  Are these paintings portraits of specific individuals, or are they amalgams or “stand-ins” for aspects of human behavior, the human psyche?

JS– I don’t believe in realism. I’m interested in the idea, but it isn’t possible to make a painting objective or “real.”   Even Edward Hopper was abstract. The only reason to paint is to manipulate reality…because I can.  I like playing with representation, questioning the idea of accuracy.

The portraits are traditional in that they are both specific to the sitter and representational of a more general human psyche.  It is agreed upon within the collaboration and implied by history that the sitter is a bit of an armature for my projections.

SB– In regard to my question of realism, I was wondering if your sitters were in any way “true” to their depiction: they may be in real life slothful, maybe psychologically challenged, or seemingly tortured versus being posed by the artist.  It seems maybe that is where a certain tension lies that I’m picking up on—are your sitters truly living through a modern vision of the “soft” apocalypse, or is this embodiment, the artist’s warning through a visual narrative?
While not a portraitist by any means myself, whenever I’ve utilized friends or family in my artwork, I often later noticed a personal investment into the depiction, either something deliberate or from the subconscious.  Sometimes, I would have to erase the portrait and start again, because it was too overtly personal, or…challenging to look at.  Concerning your paintings now, as they are about to by hung in the show and with the idea that these portraits are of friends and/or colleagues, are you ever surprised by your own “manipulation of reality?”

JS– I’ve asked one of the sitters and he says, “ I am not slothful, but I’m maybe psychologically challenged and occasionally tortured.”

I think it is too late (not to mention egotistical, really) to pretend that these portraits are somehow a warning.  They are an observation of the status quo during apocalypse-lite.  As a citizen, trying to assess and priorities the possible dangers and potential problems at this moment of media saturation and global duress, is a bit absurd.  In my mind it puzzles our fight or flight instinct to the point of dulling the impact of the said crisis or the ability to discern its personal relevance.  At times the front page of the paper is laugh out loud funny with terror and complexity. But we go to work, to school, we have children, people die, we watch a great deal of television, we discover planets, enjoy friends, take anti-depressants and life continues. We have trouble knowing where to begin with saving our world.  We recycle, plant gardens, compost, buy locally, save electricity but we are dwarfed by our circumstances and the corporate interests that continue to create them. No matter how active, it is as if we are inert.

In many ways, Rome is burning and we are all playing our fiddles, however inadvertently.  We are citizen observers, armchair warriors.  In this case, we are privileged Americans.  All of the sitters with whom I’ve collaborated have helped me discover different layers of the absurdity of the every day that I describe.  All of them have appreciated and contributed to the slightly morbid humor with which I present the work.   We’ve worked together to create a few, hopefully engaging, tableaus ala Modern Americana.

The sitters have agreed to be models.  They become collaborators by virtue of this agreement.  There is a reason that “Bunny(and the smoke of her burning)” is draped and wearing underwear.  She did not want to be exposed.  It becomes a part of the painting and a part of our idea of her.  It is a wonderful accident that my friends have agreed to be models.  They are keen that I riff on their true identities, their portraits, to position them as characters.  I’m not sure I’m manipulating reality enough in this work. It seems conservative to me.  In fact, after this discussion, the show might come off as rather pedestrian.

SB– The paintings themselves could almost be considered mixed media works, since you incorporate various types of canvas, cloth and board as well as paper into the compositions and underlying structure.  How deliberately does the paintings surface and structure relate to the context of these paintings you’ve chosen for Wrath Is Come?  Would you consider the stitched together canvases, multiple sections of board-formed compositions and the cascading small sheets of paper bonded together as distinctive to a particular style in your work, in your daily painting practice?  How “controlled” are you when beginning your paintings, and to what end, as you’re finishing them?

JS– Painting is a way of thinking about things, or at least that is how I look at it.  Painters have always worked in a multitude of media and on many surfaces.  I don’t think that I’m too divergent.  Sometimes I white glaze with fabric instead of paint and sometimes I draw with thread, but I’m always working with painting ideas.

The surface is never random.  The pieced-together quality of my paintings has always been a way of building an environment.  It is the beginning of the drawing and often an under-painting. The fabrics, papers and boards that I use are very specific.  In some cases they are composed of elements I’ve carried around for years for which I’ve finally found an honorable end. Through re-use, I pay homage to a specific history and to history itself. The surfaces are built so that I can always add on, so that the composition is not dictated by the surface but that form follows function.

I strive toward lack of control.  I’m always trying to learn something from the work.  If I’m controlling it, I’m not listening.  That is how I was taught.  I’ve never learned it well enough but I’ve never shaken the idea.

SB– Going slightly off topic of your paintings, this upcoming show is the second you’ve had at Rowan Morrison gallery.  It can be a challenging space in size, especially when I consider the near life-size format of your paintings.  What do you consider when looking for a gallery or exhibition space in which to display your work, or to make an installation in?
Furthermore, do you see yourself as part of the Oakland art scene at large, and does your artwork have any specific relation to this particular East Bay environment? Besides being active in the viewing of art in Oakland (I see you at the gallery openings rather often…), what, if any, pros and cons do you see with Oakland now and in the future?  Having been more-or-less based in Oakland for the last ten years, I’m very interested in your overview.

JS– I would love to show at Rowan Morrison even if it were a closet.  The gallery’s new boutique-sized footprint will be an interesting thing.  I’ve looked forward to it for some time. The owners, Narangkar and Pete are genuinely curious, inspired people who like art and offer it to their community.  That’s something I like in a space.

I’ve actually lived here, on and off, now for 15 years.  I’m part of the community.  My environment is always a part of my work.  I can’t imagine how I would make it otherwise.  In these paintings, Oakland is very much alive in the light.

WRATH IS COME
New Work by Julia Shirar

Rowan Morrison Gallery, 40th and Broadway, Oakland, CA, USA

Opening Reception: Saturday January 16th, 7 – 10pm
Show runs January 16th through February 20th