This is an edited transcript of the BOMBLive! video interview: Dana Schutz interviewed by Mei Chin at the New York Academy of Art in November 2005.

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Betsy Sussler This is Betsy Sussler, editor in chief of BOMB Magazine the leading quarterly publication on art and culture. Launched 25 years ago, BOMB pairs established artists, writers, visual artists, architects, composers, and directors in conversation with their peers. In BOMB’s pages artists speak openly and honestly about their creative process. Our now legendary interviews are archived at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. For information about BOMB and its virtual library of interviews go to www.BOMBsite.com. In 2001, BOMB began a series of live dialogues between prominent writers, artists, and curators called BOMBLive! Our Fall 2005 series “The Figure and Narrative” was conducted in conjunction with WPS1 Art Radio and the Checkerboard Film Foundation and generously hosted by our cosponsor the New York Academy of Art. The Academy is the only graduate school in the United States devoted exclusively to the study of the human figure. This series, which you are about to hear, was instigated by the painter Eric Fischl. When Eric suggested that our two organizations work together, I wondered to myself, What does a school devoted to figurative painting and sculpture have in common with BOMB, a relatively avant-garde magazine? Through discussions with Catherine Howe, the Academy’s faculty chair in painting, the answer quickly became apparent. Intellectual rigor takes many forms. The imagination necessary to create art relies upon discipline and craft. This is the connection between the magazine and the Academy. Since BOMB is highly praised for its editorial mix of literary and visual artists, where the spoken word is transformed into a dialectical sort of storytelling, it was a natural for me to pair fiction writers with figurative artists who use narrative in their art. “The Figure and Narrative” opens with a sequel to one of BOMB’s most successful interviews, ten years later: Eric Fischl interviewed by novelist and short story writer A.M. Homes. And no, Eric did not see this coming when he first suggested the collaboration. The next interview is painter Dana Schutz by short story writer Mei Chin and, finally, painter and sculptor Lorenzo Pace interviewed by Poet Patricia Spears Jones. BOMBLive! took place at the New York Academy of Art on consecutive Wednesday nights and was recorded in front of an audience of students, patrons, writers, artists, and friends.

Betsy Sussler Welcome to BOMBLive! on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005 at the New York Academy of Art. We’re Interviewing the painter Dana Schutz by short story writer Mei Chin. I want to thank Katherine Howe, Wayne Linker, and the New York Academy of Art for hosting this event. I’d also like to thank PS1 Art Radio and the Checkerboard Film Foundation for recording it for posterity, and all of you for providing such a lively audience. Mei Chin is a writer who meshes legend, humor, and contemporary savvy in her fiction. She lives and works in New York City and has written for Saveur, Fiction, The New York Times, and Vogue. Last May she was the recipient of the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. We have proudly published her short story “A Chinese Folktale” in last spring’s issue of BOMB Magazine. As an artist, Dana Schutz paints with bravura, wit, and an extraordinary understanding of character development: a visual counterpoint to Mei’s storytelling. Dana was born in 1976 in Livonia, Michigan and received an MFA in 2002 from Columbia University. She has had solo exhibitions at the Nerman Museum of Art/JCCC in Kansas City, Zach Feuer Gallery in New York City, and Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Venice Biennale 2003, Prague Biennale 2003, Victoria Miro and the Saatchi Gallery in London, and the Kunsthalle Mannheim. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

BS A word about this interview: it will be published in the Spring 2006 issue of BOMB. We publish in depth interviews between artists and writers. While tonight you will here the spontaneous version, its transcript will go through a transformation. Ideas will be expanded upon, pulled forward, pushed back, and developed. That’s our editorial process and you will get to follow it first hand: tonight’s interview, broadcast on WPS1 Art Radio, and again published in BOMB Magazine’s spring issue 2006. And now: painter Dana Schutz by short story writer Mei Chin.

Mei Chin So, I’m just going to sort of start off with a really pragmatic question: I want to know, sort of, as an artist, how you structure your day.

Dana Schutz Well, it’s weird, I feel like I’m more of a night painter, like, I like to paint at night. So, usually I’ll kind of wake up later, like around maybe eleven or noon, and then I go in. I’ll usually get coffee and then go into the studio. And then sometimes I listen to—well, I listen to a lot of talk radio during the day in the studio.

MC Which is a privilege.

DS It’s nice (laughter). So I’ll, like, turn on that. Sometimes it’ll be NPR or Air America. I used to listen to, like, if I was painting really late at night . . . . listening to, like, right wing talk radio just to get really angry (laughter), sometimes. And it would, like, really keep you up, you know, like, late. And then, so, I’ll start and then, I don’t know, I kind of . . . Usually before I start making a painting I’ll sketch or I’ll write or sometimes I’ll, like, write lists, either ideas for paintings, or — and they’ll kind of be descriptive lists, kind of, and sometimes they won’t end up being paintings that will be made, but, you know: paint a girl with a bird mouth, or something. You know, just ideas: a time machine, or something. And that’ll start getting things going. But usually, then, I’ll mix paint for, like, a really long time and then start painting. I’ll go out. I work — actually I moved from Harlem to Brooklyn, New York. I’m in a studio building with a lot of people who . . . A lot of great artists, and who people who I had gone to school with. So it’s nice, it’s kind of social, so there’s a lot of social activity in the day, so, and you can still go back in and work, you know.

MC At this same time is it a bit like a dormitory, you know, where you can’t feel too much like a slacker.

DS Right, oh, well, you see, it’s nice because you can see people working and take a break and talk about things too or get opinions (laughter) it’s boring.

MC I guess the idea is that, I mean, do you ever get blocked? I mean, as an artist do you ever sort of just, I can’t work for a week, or I can’t work for a month. And how do you deal with that?

DS Well, I always feel like if I’m not painting I get really tense a lot of times, but I will get blocked. Like right now I almost feel kind of blocked, you know, but it’s . . . I think to get out of it sometimes I’ll usually that’s when I’ll start writing and thinking, you know, about different ideas. A lot of time I’ll sort of respond to things that I’ve just made, or, you know, yeah . . . . I mean, I think that’s part of the process, you know, like that kind of getting really frustrated and then starting to get a bunch of ideas after that.

MC Well, you’re definitely one of, sort of, I don’t know how to say it, but you’re definitely one of the more fictional . . . I mean, you’re definitely a very fictional artist and it’s . . . I mean, obviously every artist is fictional. But a lot of your paintings, I feel as though you’ve invented not only the scenes but even the faces and the characters that you’ve put in. And I think that I’ve read in a few interviews that you actually give them their own back stories. Can you give me . . . ?

DS Well I’ve never really like . . . I never want there to be a lot of back story, like where you have to know the whole story to get the painting. Like I always feel like, you know, whatever is in the painting is what you see, you know, like what you see is what you get (laughs). It’s a painting of a person eating their hands and they’re eating their hands. But l’ll — lots of times I do. Like, I’ll invent kind of hypothetical situations and they’re . . . . I never want them to be . . . I always feel like they’re kind of logical, for example, with the people who eat themselves it was . . . Maybe that one’s not so logical (laughter). With the Last Man on Earth from Observation it was this . . . It came from sort of the question, like, what would this person look like if there was only one person to sort of say what he looked like sort of one audience member and he would be the only audience member for the painting. And then . . . And it wasn’t . . . The paintings never went into too much of a narrative about, like, how would we find food or what would we do together, it was more, like, him as a subject and how he would sort of change in each painting. Like, each painting he was sort of different each time or, you know, like, what would happen if I got really sick of him and then I could sort of take him apart and build other things out of him. But he was a material that was there.

MC But you gave him a narrative and, I mean, I’m actually curious with your series, your Self-Eaters series, your Frank, you know, Last Man on Earth series, whether you begin with an end in mind.

DS Yeah, usually . . . Well, the thing about Frank was that he was . . . He sort of could be killed off and could always sort of come back to life and I kind of also felt like, because there was a lot of horizon in that painting that, you know, like, time could be really malleable. And there wasn’t really any event going on, so there was no sort of markers of time. There was never really any clear end in mind, or really a beginning. Like, I never really thought, Oh well this is how we all ended up getting there, there was this big explosion and then, you know. I sort of thought about maybe what he did before he was there.

MC What did he do?

DS Well, I thought maybe he worked in an office. Well then he kind of had a grown out comb over or something, so it was, like, information like that, that I would think about. And he kind of had a kind of old work shirt, or something, at one point. But he kind of only had a chair and a shirt and then he had no shirt (laughs). And the chair could become, like, any number of things.

MC And did you feel like you were being mean to Frank at any point?

DS Not really, I mean, I didn’t really . . .

MC Because you sort of disassembled him, killed him a number of times and, I mean, is there any element of Frank that is, you know, is . . .

DS He’s a bastard, right (laughs). No, no, I never, I didn’t really . . . I think in some cases he was, in most cases really, mostly he was either posing for me or, but . . . . He was always kind of out of it in all of the paintings, though. And then there’s a kind idea of like, well, maybe he doesn’t even exist anyway, because who’s to say, if there’s just two people. Like, you know, you always need, someone to sort of check reality with. So he, yeah, he—I never really felt I was being really that mean to him, you know, because he was . . . He could always come back to life anyway.

MC Yes, but that would be your decision.

DS Yeah. Yes, no, I don’t know, I never . . . There’s moments where I kind of empathized with him, you know, like if he was really sunburnt or, you know, like I could feel like it could be almost like an empathetic portrait. But I never felt really any guilt about taking him apart because I always felt like, well, he’d just become something else and then, kind of just more about making the picture or the painting.

MC Right, okay. I was looking at your Self-Portrait As A Pachyderm which I think a lot of people have seen as being very sad, but I got . . . . I interpret it differently because you’re sort of hiding behind all these layers of skin whereas all of you subjects . . . I mean, I think that you’re fascinated with subject’s skin and you’re fascinated with sort of skin tone and what you can do with it. And, I don’t know, do you think it’s an artist’s privilege to be able to hide behind layers of skin while you strip your subject’s skin away?

DS Well with that painting, yeah . . . I thought that that painting was more liberating in a way because it was sort of like a rhinoceros skin and I was still sort of, kind of, happy in the picture, or something.

MC But you’re essentially hiding. Whereas a lot of your subjects are stripped naked and vulnerable.

DS I guess maybe that could be part of it in that painting. The thing with the, there’s sort of this swell in the painting, where sort of a lot of paint sort of built up underneath and I follow . . . I had done that before in other paintings, where it would, like, parts of the painting would sort of protrude, but it would kind of be in places where, you know, like, something should protrude in a picture, but within that I sort of liked how it was more irrational. So I guess, like, the skin was kind of covering something. But, yeah, I never really . . . I don’t know, it’s funny, I never thought of it as, like, kind of a real personal painting, in a way, like, you know, like, in terms of its, kind of content. Maybe there is a little bit of that there in some way and I’m probably embarrassed to say it (laughs). But, yeah, I think that it’s a self-portrait but it’s sort of also as something that’s kind of built too, like, you know, that I was sort of building as I was painting.

MC Yeah but its a self-portrait as you’re hiding behind a lot of stuff.

DS Yeah, maybe.

MC I don’t know, maybe that was my interpretation.

DS I don’t know. Well, I kind of thought about it like it was kind of . . . It, in some ways it was kind of a sculptural portrait, in some way. I mean it was kind of like I could, if I, it was sort of neither male or female or anything. It was just kind of like this lumpy figure, or something (laughter).

MC But it’s a lumpy figure, but, I mean, and I guess it is . . . It’s the question of whether you feel as though you can play God in your paintings, in your creations.

DS Yeah, well I think that’s definitely there in terms of, like, how, like, situations where there definitely is a maker in the painting or it alludes to a kind of maker. But, there’s never any really sort of any beginning, like, this was the beginning of the world or anything. But yeah, I definitely, like doing that. I think when I make the paintings I do that. So, like, I’ll, like, kind of paint a space and then sort of put things in it, you know. Because I don’t really paint from photographic sources, so, there is sort of this feeling that you can, you know, really put anything in the space of the painting or kind of make any space that, you know, you want to make.

MC Where do you get sort of, you know, all your crazy landscapes? I mean, I just, I always see it as really jungle and you know I see you as a Michigan girl who painted in Norwich and Cleveland and New York and didn’t go to the jungle. So, where did that come from?

DS Well, initially I started painting woods because I thought it could be this . . . I was thinking about Abstract painting a lot and, you know, I’m not an Abstract painter, but I was interested in it mainly because, especially kind of painterly Abstract painting, because I was kind of wondering kind of what it could mean today (laughs). Because there’s no real dominant belief system and I always feel, like, kind of, Abstract painting, at least in America, was kind of really over-determined and now that there’s this feeling that anything is really sort of possible, now, like artists can do so many different things, so. You know, I was thinking about it as I wanted to make these paintings. I think that that was . . . And I never ended up really making fully abstract paintings. But, I kind of like the space of the woods, it was really chaotic and it was . . . It’s not that I’m that interested in the difference between abstraction and representation but it was really this kind of continuum. Like, it was a really, sort of, where something could be realized, in one area and something could kind of represent it in a different way in an other area and . . . Because you could never, like, really see the whole woods, you know, all at one time. So, I think it was a way to sort of fragment the picture. You know, a while ago it was really tough for me because I would always think of, like, the thing I wanted to paint and then there’s the problem of thinking, like, Well where is it? What kind of space is it in? And so sometimes I would think about, like, landscapes from Michigan or places I had been, just to start, to begin the picture and I think that’s part of the beginning of the painting, that kind of thing: well what is this thing and where is it and what’s going on, like, what’s the weather like, or something (laughs).

MC How did it start? I mean, how did you decide that you wanted to be a painter and you were in Michigan and, you know (question sound) and whatever age, you know, and when did you start creating these fantasies, and did you think that Michigan had something to do with these fantasies, or those woods, or . . . ?

DS Well, initially I never had . . . You know, I used to play the flute, like in high school (laugh). And then there was, like, this . . . My mom was, like, a junior high art teacher and I always thought that I didn’t want to, you know, make art, kind of, because she did, or something. But I think it was around, you know, when I was in high school and it was just really exciting because my parents were really cool because I could like use the basement and just go down there and have my own sort of space. So, that was, it was just really fun because if felt like something that I was involved in, and I didn’t know very many other people who were involved in it. I thought it was really romantic at first, you know, the whole thing. I don’t know. And then I went to art school at the Cleveland Institute of Art and, you know, I kind of liked the idea of being an artist because it was this kind of thing of, like, whatever you put into it is what you can get out of it. Like if you really, I don’t know, if you . . . Like, I guess whatever you put into chemistry you can get out of it, but . . . I was just thinking that you were kind of in control of what you were doing by making art, that was really interesting for me. So, then I went to school at the Cleveland Institute of Art and I always really wanted to come to New York, because, I mean, I think that was also something that I kind of, you know, romanticized too, was New York City. So then moving here was really great too. I kind of, really . . . I stopped playing the flute.

MC Did you start painting? Was painting your first thing, was Abstraction your first thing? I mean, what was your . . . ?

DS It was always, I mean, you know, I was like in high school so, like, Expressionism was really exciting, because, you know, I think it was the, you know, it was really melodramatic, and I was really kind of melodramatic in high school, you know, so that was . . . . I was looking at a lot of those paintings. And I’d always sort of be collecting all these books. And my mom, she had sort of a box of old paints, and something. She sort of never told me how to clean off the brushes so they kind of dried up into kind of these sticks and then I ended up just sort of painting with my hands for a really long time and then ‘til, ‘til I went to art school where I felt stupid, but anyway (laughs). So, then I stopped that, painting with my . . . But that was kind of how it started.

MC But where does, sort of . . . But where do the visions come from? I guess as a writer there’s always the temptation for me to say, Okay Dana, Well where in your past is . . . I don’t think of you as a particularly morbid painter but I think possibly people could . . . Where does it come from?

DS Well, I never think of them as being autobiographical, like sort of, like, about my life, or about so much about my experiences. I don’t know, except for recently I started painting a few things that were in my life, but it was, like, I painted a picture of my landlord.

MC Oh, you know, I want to talk about the landlord, because, I want to hear about him . . . . Later. (laughter)

DS But they, yeah, mostly I sort of make decisions and a lot of times I’ll think in terms of like adjectives or adverbs, like: this person is sort of like this, or, you know, his nose comes down in a certain way. Or, you know, I guess I really, I don’t think that they’ll . . . I sort of construct them as they go along, or they’ll kind of relate to the situation, you know. I tend to put things in a box when I’m painting. So, like, you know, there’ll be . . . The format of the canvas is really important to me, kind of, like, how things are structured within it. And that, I get a lot of decisions from, you know . . . . I think I make a lot of decisions from that. It sounds very boring, I think of a rectangle.

MC Well, you do. But, I mean, your last exhibit was called Teeth Dreams and, you know, that’s the idea of dreams, and the idea of neurosis and the idea of paranoia. I mean does it come from yourself or did you pick it up in a book or . . . ?

DS Well, with that one I was thinking about a situation that . . . I was actually thinking about, like, what’s going on right now, like, within the world. And those paintings were actually less serial, so in some cases I was taking things that were happening in the media or that I was sort of thinking of as distractions but sort of symptoms for contemporary situations and sort of the idea of myth, or how things, I don’t know, like, for example, I painted a picture of a Men’s Retreat and it was . . . I was thinking about it like there was these situations . . .

MC What are the two guys doing in the corner, by the way, in the Men’s picture?

DS Oh, they’re face painting.

MC Oh, I thought he was smash . . . Okay. They’re having a moment, okay.

DS No, I was thinking, you know, that’s a situation I could never really have access to or I could never really go there. I always sort of wondered what goes on at those retreats anyway. What do they . . . they’re kind of these elite places where they invite people, men, to go to. That became sort of like a site to almost, like, to begin to imagine what could go on there. Or there was a painting of, like, the autopsy of Michael Jackson. And that was a weird painting for me, because I didn’t really think about it. Because, at one point I was kind of, you know, really skeptical, like, you know, everyone’s really just talking about Michael Jackson and all this other stuff is going on that we’re not really hearing about, and . . . But in some ways he’s the most sort of self-made man there is to the point of it becoming maybe really scary. I was also thinking about it too, like, here’s this, like, I guess in some way like a contemporary monster, or something, he’s such a cultural creation, and, but he’s alive. But I was thinking, He probably will die in my lifetime, so in that (laughter) . . . In that painting I was actually sort of thinking about photography, like a picture that hasn’t been taken yet but will be.

MC Will be, okay.

DS You know, it was weird when I was painting it because there’s all these questions. I’m like, okay: so Michael Jackson’s a guy, and, like, how old is he, what sort of, like, shape is he in when he dies, finally, and then what does he look like naked (laughter). You know, but then, when I started painting it I started to have all this, sort of . . . I felt very funny about it, you know, like, because it was, like . . . I felt like one of those people who actually was like very interested in that whole sensation and everything. But he ended up just kind of looking much more like, just, kind of like a dead man. But he did sort of have, like, leg extensions. But, I thought of him sort of, like, a site for . . . . I think he represents a lot of things about America, you know, in some way, like, whether it’s like . . .

MC Preserved?

DS Pardon?

MC Preserved?

DS Well, no, but, I mean, there’s like the whole like . . .

MC Preserved and re-made. (laughs)

DS Yeah, well, there’s like the whole kind of like, [inaudible], plastic surgery, like, celebrity, you know, you don’t know if he’s black or white, there’s, like, all these sorts of . . . In some ways he was sort of like this weird sort of symbol and so I was thinking of him like a site.

MC Well, you just sort of started recently incorporating well-known figures in your work. So, what was the motive behind that, like Michael Jackson or P.J. Harvey, was it P.J. Harvey?

DS Well, she was earlier on.

MC She was earlier on, okay.

DS I always think of, like, that painting was more of performance, in a way, too . . .

MC Well, The Breeders was earlier on as well, and that was cool because that was Frank, wasn’t it Frank?

DS Yeah.

MC . . . Being disassembled as The Breeders.

DS Well that painting . . . I sort of thought initially that I would make all these paintings of Frank and he’d be different in each one and then I sort of got really antsy about it so I ended up . . . I thought, Well maybe he could be . . . You know, I could turn him into other people or he could be a group of people with a function, you know, like a rock band. And I was interested in that you couldn’t really exactly represent music in painting but there is like this . . . You could try but it always . . . It would be very hard to do (laughter). And I was thinking about it that, you know, he could be . . . I wanted . . . At that point, that was, like, the last CD that I had gotten, was, like, a Breeders CD, and I was thinking about, like, what could he turn into, like the Rolling Stones, and I’m like, Oh, That’s really lame. But, like, and I kind of didn’t know about the painting either, it could get really corny. But, like, I was, you know . . . I liked the idea that they were both two women and that it’d be sort of like taking him apart to make them and in that way that, you know, he wouldn’t be the audience any more for the paintings in that situation, but it would . . . Like, I would be the audience. And, I don’t know, kind of like, being on stage, I like that, it’s kind of like it just addresses an audience. And so I thought, Well, How would I make them? And then I took two halves of his body could be, like, the base for the women and, you know, I could only remember . . . I only really knew what two of the members look like. So I thought, Well, It’ll just be the two girls, which I like, I think. And then the painting of P.J. Harvey, I was interested in sort of . . . I thought maybe she could sort of be built, or something. I was sort of thinking about her, like, being this kind of goddess type of person. And, I don’t know, I think for me, there was, even painting it this sort of this kind of performance. I never really know, like, what to say about that painting or about those paintings of, like, the big women musicians, in a way, other than that I was interested in painting them because I thought that they were strong women and I kind of wanted to sort of approximate their, kind of, their music with my painting. So that was the, kind of, that was the attempt.

MC Have you ever experimented with sculpture? Because so many of your characters, I’m going to call them characters, seem to be sculpting or be sculpted, whether it’s out of their own shit or whether it’s out of, you know, body parts, or . . . . Have you done that yourself?

DS Well, I have made sculpture before and I’m thinking about doing it now, but I think what I was thinking about with the paintings was I like it because, you know, you didn’t have to worry about gravity in the paintings (laughter), when you’re painting sculptural objects, or that kind of in-between being . . . . They’re standing for something real but also kind of something material too. Yeah, definitely, I want to make sculptures right now, but I . . . For me, I always have this problem with it where I think about, where does the sculpture really end, then. You know, ‘cause I end up thinking about like, Should it be on a base, or, like, not? Is that the end, you know, the dividing element between the reality and sculpture? Or, like, how does a sculpture kind of negotiate reality, you know? I don’t know, I feel like in the paintings I sort of propose a reality initially, but then it can go off from there. So, I never think about them as being surreal, because I think that, you know, they’re kind of set up to be like fact to begin with. But, yeah, I definitely, I want to make sculptures. I don’t know what I’d make them out of.

MC I was just going to say, What’s going to be your choice of material?

DS Yeah, I don’t know. I guess, it’s so typical, right, for painters to make sculptures out of clay. So, I don’t know, like, I think that I’d feel more comfortable, like . . .

MC Or maybe you could eat yourself and defecate and . . .

DS Yeah, that would be nasty, no (laughter). Maybe some dirt sculptures.

MC Dirt sculptures.

DS Yeah, no. Steel. Polished steel (laughter). Not exactly.

MC The one thing that I’ve actually been dying to ask you, I mean, we were talking earlier on about your imagination, where that must of come from: did you read fairy tales when you were a kid? Because that’s sort of something that always comes up when I look at your paintings.

DS Well, when I was a kid I did read fairy tales, but I never . . . I don’t, I never think of the paintings as being . . . In some ways I feel they could relate more to being, sort of, satire. I was really upset when I made this painting of like a gravity fanatic and I wanted to paint that because I thought, well, that would be one of the hardest things to be a fanatic of, is gravity. And then, like, sort of like, How would I paint that? And then it started to, like, sort of look like Gulliver’s Travels kind of situation and I didn’t like that as much. But (laughter) then I was fine with it, because it, you know . . . I kind of liked it, that story. But, yeah, I don’t think of the paintings as being so much like fairy tales, I think when I think about the information that’s going on in them, you know, I’ll start with a set of circumstances and then try to imagine how it goes on from there. So, like, for example, like a person who could eat their head or something, like I imagine that that would be a really hard thing to do, you know, and then like how would that happen and how would I begin to paint that, you know, like where would . . . How would that whole process begin?

MC Where did that come from? I mean, I want to go with Self-Eaters — because I love the Self-Eaters — come from, I mean?

DS Well that, it came from . . . You know, I was making these paintings and I was like thinking about abstract painting and painting large women and like (laughter) you know I was sort of feeling, like, Man, like, I don’t know, I was sort of feeling, like, kind of lost and I was making all these drawings . . . I guess this is were it starts to get personal. I was starting to feel, like, really tense, you know. At that point there weren’t a lot of other people in the studio building, it was like, you know, I was just there, you know, all day long, and you know. I was kind of feeling like, you know, I guess, like, overwhelmed. So, I started making these drawings and I was thinking . . . And I started to like them, like of these people . . . Like, they were in the rectangle. A lot of times when I start, like, making an idea for a painting, I’ll just start, with just drawing the format and then try to figure out, like, what’s going on within it. So, I thought, Well, like, Gosh, I can’t, like, make paintings of these things because they’re just really, you know, garish, they kind of look like therapy of something and, like, I didn’t want to do that. But then, you know, I liked them in a way, so that I thought, well maybe in some ways these things are like abstract paintings, in some way, because they’re so, I guess, so self-involved, not that abstract painting is self-involved, but, they also were kind of very structural, like, they kind of felt like they were very much crammed into the space. I started just getting all these different, like, ideas about different ways people could eat themselves. And I thought, Well, then, Well, that’s not enough. Well then, so they eat themselves, and then what happens, it’s like, Well then they can sort of remake themselves and they could remake themselves to whatever kind of form they wanted to be. And I think with this, with the paintings, and I think with the paintings of the Last Man on Earth it was like, What they were making, would it be considered art? Because there’s . . . it’s kind of only one audience, there’s a function for what they’re making. I mean, you know, like, they’re making their own leg or something. And I was thinking, like, oh, well, survival of the fittest, would be like who’s really . . . Well, they’d have to be pretty good at making things because otherwise they’re kind of screwed, or something, you know (laughter) because, like, if you make your leg and its not really functional it’s not a very good leg . . . I don’t know, like, so then, like, I sort of start thinking, yeah, they just make themselves to however they want to be. But then I was, and I was thinking about the conditions for that, like what else could I paint with the picture and there wasn’t that much, because I was thinking, well, in order to . . . Well, they wouldn’t really need very much because they wouldn’t need to to travel, because they wouldn’t need to find food or they wouldn’t need to, you know, talk to each other because they don’t need to reproduce . . . it was just like all these . . . they were kind of, just, so autonomous. So I thought, well maybe there could be this group that could begin to try and form communities, or something. Like, maybe they could like try to build a building together and then its sort of this community building. But, like, a lot of the ideas, come from, like, problems that will come about, like, in the paintings and that’s how I end up like getting a lot of information for them.

MC What’s your favorite work that you’ve done so far?

DS Yeah, that’s tough, I don’t know (laughter). I like that painting Happy, it was a person who was completely self-made. And It was kind of purple-y and I like the self portrait with the . . . of . . .

MC . . . with the magnificent crowd.

DS Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s weird, after, like, not seeing a painting for a while because it begins to, like, change. Or sometimes I’ll feel, like, I really, like, hate things I’ve done and I feel like those feelings are, like, much easier to have than to be like, Oh that was great (laughter). Yeah, no, I mean that’s like, you know, the reason to keep on changing and stuff.

MC I mean, how do you project, sort of, where you’re going right now in, I guess, stylistically where you’re going?

DS You know, I feel like in some ways the . . . You know, I thought before that, Oh I don’t want to make anymore situations or narratives, that I want to paint, like, what’s going on in the world or, you know, sort of paint things from my life. But now, I’m starting to think of, like, these other sorts of situations, like, I’ll end up thinking about them despite myself. So, yeah, I don’t know. I think it just, like, comes through, you know, painting. I never want to, like . . . I don’t feel, like, that I really paint in series, even, like, in a way where I’m like, Okay, now I’m going to make all these paintings and they’re going to be about this, like. I always feel like I kind of want to, like, you know, as I’m making the paintings and then things will begin to come out and stuff so . . .

MC But do you think you’re evolving in some way?

DS Well I definitely think that from . . You know, for a while, that, well in terms of palette, like, the paintings got much more saturated a few years ago. Yeah, I don’t know, I mean, I get really self-critical too, you know, like, I don’t consider myself to be, like, an Expressionist, but then it came up. And then I have this feeling, where, of, you know . . . I’ll say, Actually, I’m not an Expressionist. And then I’ll look at the paintings and I’m like, Oh my god, like, what happened? Like, how did I get to this point?(laughter) You know, but, I mean, and I didn’t think of myself as an Expressionist because I wasn’t thinking about how this was how I was feeling when I was painting, you know, it was more like, a lot of times I’ll like think about building the space in the painting or, like, you know, like, almost painting it in a descriptive way, like, how do you describe this thing, you know, or this event? And, so, you know, but, I don’t know, its weird, I mean it’s like . . . So now I’m, like, having all these questions, like, Man, maybe I should just, like, scrap everything (laughter). Start over (laughs), all over. But then I started painting again, you know, and I think it’s like this thing when you get into the painting you start responding to, like, what’s going on in the canvas.

MC And what are you doing now?

DS I’m painting a Man with a Mustache.

MC You’re painting a Man with a Mustache? Tell me more about the Man with a Mustache.

DS It’s great, right. Well, I don’t know, it was always like that situation, like . . . And maybe that’s the thing with the Expressionist thing. Like, I went to Santa Fe and, because there was some paintings up in Santa Fe, and I started hearing all this stuff. People saying, Oh, you know, like, you’re such an Expressionist. And I’m like, Oh no, I’m not really. I was thinking, you know, kind of about the . . . So I thought, you know, well maybe I’ll try to make the most Expressionist painting I can make, and then I found at that it actually wasn’t very Expressionist at all. I was making this Man with a Mustache because there’s . . . You know that situation where if you wear a mustache, for people who have a mustache this is going to sound really weird (laughter), you know, how like young hip people, like, wear mustaches to be, like, almost ironic or something and then they just become, like, a Man with a Mustache. So, I’m painting that man (laughter). I don’t know, but, yeah, I was sort of thinking about, like, a lot of different things right now. But, It’s kind of an in-between time for me.

BS Dana, you keep mentioning the audience and you’re not really talking about the audience outside of the painting. You’re talking about you in relationship to the painting and the characters in the painting. So, could you talk a little bit about that? That’s a very interesting idea.

DS Yeah, well, that’s the situation with . . . With the Last Man on Earth I was sort of taking the situation as, you know, as it, like, kind of believing in that situation, so, as it . . . Like, if I’m painting this man, you know, then I’m sort of the last painter and he’s the last subject and then that way he’s kind of the only audience for these paintings, in that way. And in that way I was sort of wondering, well, then would they really function as sort of art or have some other sort of function, like, does he need them to see himself, you know? Or, does he need them to, you know . . . So, that was sort of the case with those paintings.

BS Does he need them to exist?

DS And then maybe, yeah, maybe he needs them to exist. Like maybe that’s, you know, that’s maybe the only way he exists, in a way. So, because then it was like, as it was going on, the painting was, like, started to, like, splinter off: so there would be, like . . . I would start painting other things that had washed up from the world to that situation, like, things that, like a record player, or things that wouldn’t have a function if they were broken, or something. So, then, what is this object, if it doesn’t have a function? So, or, there was a painting of a pile of slugs . . . And I just started thinking about painting that painting when I was going to bed one night, like, kind of like this moving wall of like something not very concrete. So then there’s, like, this division of things that were observed in that situation and paintings of him and then almost, like, still lives or things that were, like, made out of him. So, it was kind of like, well, what . . . Maybe he doesn’t exist at all, maybe he’s just as real as the pile of slugs moving, so, I don’t know. I like, I think I like that situation, like, or felt more free inventing things in that situation because there was no kind of, like, real concrete reality. And I think that like, for me, I can’t kind of like just . . . I always feel like I need some starting point to make a painting, you know, like, something, I don’t know, sometimes it’s even just a phrase or something to like, “man with a mustache is a man with a mustache” or something, and then it, like, kind of expands as I’m making it. And maybe the painting’s not even about that at the end, but, you know, even the sort of fictional situation of that man, like, there’s all these sorts of potential ways to get information for the paintings.

Audience Member I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the function of color in your paintings. Sometimes to me it seems like to be for a purpose and then sometimes it seems like to be more of a decorative just thing, like, on the side. And I’m wondering how you thing about, like, color in relationship to the building of the painting?

DS Well, a lot of times, well, I’ll use . . . It’s starting to become more saturated, I think, when I started making the paintings of Frank because it’s a more subjective kind of space. So, a lot of times I’ll use colors in a way so they’ll . . . To either describe what I’m painting or for how they react with each other and I never think about them, like, literally so much as . . . For example, like a painting of like, Poison Man, like, a man who’s been poisoned, like, I’m thinking about, like, how his skin could turn out. So, I was thinking, like, okay, like, What color is really sick, or something? And there’s, like, these kinds of, like ochres or greens or even like when veins kind of react with it and they’re, like, purple or something. Certain kinds of purples feel, like, really cold and kind of sick or something. And, so, that became, like, the decisions to begin making those. So, I think, kind of like what you’re saying, like, there’s this mix where I think sometimes it can be . . . Like, I’ll use color to like, to sort of activate a space or make it sort of more spatial, or it’ll be to sort of describe, or more flat, you know, or it’ll be to sort of describe the subject or the state of the painting.

AM With the people eating themselves, is it a metaphor or a symbol for something specific or is it more open to interpretation?

DS It’s pretty, it’s open for interpretation. I mean, because I figure, I mean, in some ways, I mean . . . Yeah, I think about it as open for interpretation. I mean, they’re kind of like . . . Well, there’s the, you know, the saying you are what you eat kind of thing (laughter) and it turns it in on itself. But, yeah, I mean I think of them like these self-consuming things. I started thinking about them initially, you know, like, Oh, you know, maybe, What kind of people are these people are they, like, are they compulsive or kind of manic or something? But then I started to feel, like, maybe they have no idea that they’re even doing it, because they can’t even see themselves, you know, as something separate from the outside world, or something. Like maybe they have no . . . Yeah, I don’t know, I think when, I think definitely when they started to, like, build the building together and try to reconstruct things I was thinking about maybe contemporary situations, but, I don’t know.

AM What do you think about the idea of desperation, in your work, is that anything?

DS They could be desperate (laughter). Well, I mean, I think with the situation with the Self-Eaters, like, making this was this sort of necessity, you know, they had to make themselves to exist, you know. And, yeah, I think, you know, I almost never really even think of them as, like, so narrative so much, because I don’t know it I actually get, like, what is narrative painting. But, I think that they kind of set up situations where there could be a cause or, like, an effect, even if its, like, in a limited way within the painting. I think those sorts of tensions, you know, like something’s about to happen or something could be happening, you know. So, maybe something’s desperate to happen, in some ways.

AM Your career’s kind of exploded in the last couple of years, you know. I was wondering if that’s a sort of double-edged sword because the art world is a market place and I was wondering if there’s a lot of pressure to sort of maintain your brand as a sort of successful young painter.

DS Well I don’t know, I think it’s . . . I think where it gets bad is when people stop seeing the work for what it is and people start seeing the system outside of it. Like, in my everyday life it’s really nice, because, I mean, I kind of like, I see all the people who . . . I have, like, this community around and, so, I don’t really think about that because it’s, like, I mean, I can’t control it anyway. So, I mean, maybe that was the thing with Expressionist painting too because it gets so attached, you know, to that kind of system. It wasn’t like that, you know, five years ago and that’s not my concern in making the paintings at all, but, if people stop seeing the things that are going on in the paintings the, you know, I feel, like, kind of conflicted, like, maybe is that something I should take on, if it means despite the work? I don’t know, I think it’s really, I don’t let it bother me too much. It’s not important for my process, so, like, I don’t, you know, think about it. Everything still feels the same, like, where, I mean, kind of, it’s weird. I mean, I’m here on the stage, it’s just weird (laughter). No, but I mean, things like, I still see, you know, like, my friends and we talk about art, we don’t talk about, like, the art market, you know.

AM Going back to Mei Chin’s first question this evening about creative block, and thinking back to that, what do you think you’ll do first thing tomorrow morning, after tonight?

DS Yeah (laughter), well, I’m going to go back to that Man in the Mustache and it’s . . . The horizon’s not working out so it’s . . . I’m going to move that. I might move that tonight, you know, like late tonight, but, yeah, I mean, like, I don’t know the questions always, like, Oh what are you working on now? Because I feel like I’m in that moment where I really want to, you know . . . Where things are shifting around, you know, but I’m just going to go paint, you know, I’m excited to paint.

AM You mentioned painterly Abstraction a few times, are there any Abstract painters past or present who you particularly respond to or who have influenced you?

DS I like a lot of . . . I’m interested in, like, The Cobra Group or, like, Kandinsky, like, I’m sort of thinking, like, European Abstract paintings. Because, I mean, I thought . . . Sort of interested in that because it wasn’t so over-determined. Like, I feel like a lot of Abstract painting in America, like, may have been. Like, it becomes . . . It’s only over-determined if you read it that way. I mean, I kind of liked how, you know, like, how these paintings weren’t necessarily, aiming to sort of define themselves but, like, talking about other sensations, like, whether they were trying to, like, represent music or had . . . I don’t know, I’ve been thinking about those paintings a lot: sort of European Abstract painting from the turn of the century (laughter) and stuff.

AM Can you talk a little bit about your technical process in terms of, you mentioned kind of inception, of coming up with words that sort of inspire you or adjectives and so forth, but in terms of turning that into, is their a process of sketches, or do you just begin painting and see what develops or what sort of, more technical I guess?

DS Yeah, no, I definitely, I . . . When I make sketches they’re not like finished drawing sketches, they’re kind of really rough, like, you know, trying to figure out how things sit in the format of the painting or, like, how big should a head be, or something. So, yeah, I think . . . But, when I’m starting a painting, a lot of times I’ll start with, like, a wash, or something, on the ground and then, like, I’ll sort of mix a lot of colors beforehand, like, maybe, like fifty because I don’t like to stop when I’m painting, and I kind of like that, you know. And then I’ll like kind of respond to those and mix other colors and, like, change them, you know, if they’re not working, so that. And then, I don’t know, I feel like a lot of times I’ll, like, I’ll kind of put something down and I’ll build something on top of it, so it’s almost like a kind of really logical kind of building of things.

BS Mei began the interview by asking you how you started your day and you mentioned talk radio and that in relation to you comments, which were very interesting about Michael Jackson being the self-made Frankenstein, really, which, you know has been talked about in the general population as well, and so I’m just curious as to how talk radio when you’re painting seeps into your characters? Or if it does, if there’s sort of like this general malaise that, you know, you incorporate and then use to take characters apart and put them back together.

DS Well, for . . . What’s weird, because now that I think about it I only sort of listen to talk radio when I’m mixing paint, so it’s something when, like, if I’m really bored (laughter) I’ll be listening to the . . . But then I listen to music, you know, like, when I’m painting like all the time, like really loud music.

BS What kind of music?

DS I don’t know, I mean, I just got that, I mean, it depends on, like, how I’m feeling, like, when I’m painting, like, if I want to listen to something really fast. Like, I don’t know, what I was listening to before I left for here was The Shaky Hands, I don’t know (laughter). But, like, I’ll listen to, like . . . I had this sort of post-punk CD that was really great to paint to. That was fun.

BS Alright, well, thank you all, you were great. Thank you.

BS You have been listening to BOMBLive! at the New York Academy of Art on WPS1 Art Radio. For more information on BOMB Magazine go to www.BOMBSite.com