Today I am introducing my third figurative painter in my series on contemporary artists who are shedding new light on a traditional subject. The following is an edited conversation with Detroit mixed media artist and writer Erica Chappuis.
JK: I generally don’t speak about art until I see it in person because there are certain aspects of scale, texture, and dimension that might not be fully experienced through digital imagery. But your images were so compelling that I broke my own rules. Can you walk us through some of the materials used in Port of Call, tell us about those choices and create a tactile sense of it?
EC: In Port of Call I used a tawdry but kind of sexy second-hand bodice I found at a thrift store, plus an old sweater of my son's, a bit of silk skirt, a linen tea towel imprinted with various ships, some leather, a vintage lace doily, beads and acrylic paint. I also used quite a few gel medium molds I made of various things such as a sea fan, horse heads, trinkets and other objects. The gel medium molds are something I invented when I needed objects but did not want the weight. I also used wine corks for the fingers. For the woman’s face I used a vintage photo as a reference. She has a sort of peaceful look, in spite of the fact that she is embracing Death.
JK: How did you deal with substances that might change or deteriorate over time?
EC: For the breasts I did not leave in the foam that formed the bust of the bodice. I have seen foam turn yellow and flake, and I wanted materials that might last longer so I used a plain polyurethane Christmas ball which I cut into two halves and placed underneath the bra part of the bodice. It worked really well.
JK: Is the woman of Maiden Voyage one of the mermaids?EC: I did not think of her as a kind of mermaid but as a young woman first setting out in the world. She has a doll's head floating in the debris that surrounds her. She has "put away childish things" and she sinks or swims in the swirling waters however she has prepared herself. It also happened to be the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, so that stimulated my thoughts. My own parents came over from England in an ocean liner and my family worked for all the shipping companies that originated from Liverpool. I think of some of the ships - those that brought family members over - almost as members of the family as well.
JK: In addition to painting and mixed media collage, you sometimes use found objects as well. Does this inform your three dimensional work as well? And, if so, how?
EC: I often find inspiration in found objects and habitually haunt flea markets, thrift stores and beaches. Almost anything can set off a new painting - everything is interesting - bones, glass, driftwood, fabrics, jewelry.. The most basic inspiration is fabric, but after my early days with painting over fabric collage I have graduated to plenty of three-dimensional objects and embellishments. An antique reel inspired a whole assemblage concerning a mermaid, a lighthouse, and a fisherman. When turned, the reel brings a mermaid up from a vintage washboard sea. I like to see where objects that I find will lead
JK: You have made Detroit your home and studio. What brought you to Detroit and what impact has that had upon your work?
EC: We moved to Detroit in 1982. We have lived through decades of the ups and downs of the auto industry, a disintegrated city and a reborn one. But I cannot say that industry has really influenced me or even affected me artistically. The thing about Detroit that has affected me has been the idea of using the cast-offs, the unwanted, while living in close proximity to a maritime culture and history has been far more important. Although we are located inland, we have ships from across the world that arrive in this port. This has tied into my own family's history, as I come from a line of seafarers. The seafaring becomes a metaphor, one which hopefully speaks with some poignancy of time floating by and the discarded and forgotten.
JK: According to the American Civil Liberties Union, nudity or sexual content is the most frequently cited reason for censorship in art. Some of your work is unabashedly erotic. Has that been problematic in having your work publicly exhibited? Have you ever had to pull work from an exhibition?
EC: Censorship is a fact of life these days and always has been. I had a perfectly classical nude rejected by a Japanese print show many years ago, and I have had tasteful nudes displayed in gallery windows receive complaints from neighbors (who always express concern for school children walking past) and the gallery owners finding it necessary to cover up said nude. I had a nude angel rejected by a church art show. I haven’t had much issue with the very explicitly erotic work since I exhibit it in venues where they are only visible to people who directly wish to see them. Clearly I wouldn’t be submitting explicit work to a church show, or allow it to be displayed in a gallery window. But although I am not currently producing explicitly erotic work, my mermaids are nude and my bar girls are often a little risque. In most places that has not been an issue but it wouldn’t come as a great surprise if it were.
JK: How might a woman artist’s perspective broaden understanding about the nature of human interaction, especially between genders?
EC: I’m not entirely certain most women artists can offer much of a difference in the nature of human interaction, mainly because a painting is not a play. It is limited in what it can show without a time-based part of the work - such as would exist in a play, video or performance. If a woman artist is working in those media, then she has a better chance of expressing such ideas. If a painter or sculptor, working in more traditional ways were to attempt it, it might come off as poster or propaganda work. I think some ideas are better expressed via a play, novel, poem or new art media with time based aspects. The best I can do in my painting, so far, is to depict men and women in roles that are the opposite to how they traditionally would have been seen, or else produce something that might feel like propaganda. Also I believe women have inherited a great deal of how men view the world and it takes a different medium to see it differently.
JK: I’m curious about what might feel like propaganda to you. Can you explain how you mean that?
EC: Propaganda art can be as simple and as crude as a war poster, whether pro or con, a message from the health department, or it can be art that in some way supports a certain political or social view. It may or may not be subtle. The Nazis were famous for enjoying certain works that promoted a particular physique and social structure - we call that totalitarian art. And art that would attempt to fashion or even to blatantly question issues between men and women, feminist art, can also be rather transparent and therefore come across as somewhat crude and simplistic. That doesn't mean it isn't useful - it is! But it actually has a different purpose than what we usually think of as "fine art". Sometimes propaganda is so elevated that it becomes unquestionably fine. I think the paintings of Robert Henri, for instance, informed as he was on social issues and compassion for the poor, the non-white, the earthy and genuine, do attempt to project a dignity on what were considered humble subjects. He did it so well and with love for humanity's infinite variety, that it completely transcends propaganda.
JK: You frequently depict images of women in your work. In contemporary art criticism, much has been made about the "male gaze" in art and cinema. In what ways might images of women created by other women change that gaze? And it what ways might it not?
EC: I think women see via "male gaze" every bit as much as men do. We have inherited all of art history and so its limitations are ours as well. Also, a lot of women, especially young women, revel a bit in the male gaze. John Berger says that men look at women and women look at themselves being looked at. I think this is profoundly true. I see young women enjoying their sexual expression and the effect they have on men. I think they know how to "stage" themselves and enjoy doing it. I don’t see my work as much different in its erotic nature from that. "I know what boys like" every bit as much and stage my paintings to express at least some of that. And do girls like anything all that different? I’m not so sure they do!
JK: How does an artist, then change the way, say a woman is viewed in an artwork and thereby broaden perspectives?
EC: The only way I have been able to find for myself a way to change the gender of the viewer in my paintings is to change the gender of the subject and even that is no guarantee that I’m getting away from the "male gaze," because my male Siren is going to appeal to some men. In fact, my female Sirens may appeal to women more than men. Women do look at other women and enjoy looking at female bodies as depicted in art. We have adopted the "male gaze" and use it, both for our enjoyment and for the manipulation of social situations. It has never changed and I doubt it ever will. It has been since the cave paintings of Lascaux - paintings that may well have been made by women as well as men for all we know.
JK: What about how women, especially women artists, might fix their gaze upon themselves?
EC: I do see how some women artists equate the earth with their own bodies, some who create works with earth and other natural elements, and others who do work using photographs or video with a "Goddess" attitude or philosophy behind it. Although many of those works are very beautiful and often poignant,, I’m not sure that they are very different in kind than a female (or male) nude "served up" erotically to the viewer. They are still women looking at women - which apparently women prefer to looking at men, from all the studies I’ve ever seen. This is an appreciation for everything that a woman’s body contains: symbolism, magic, creation and eroticism.
JK: You collaborate with writers and write very proficiently yourself. How has writing balanced your visual art and what is the relationship between text and image?
EC: I have collaborated with other writers, mostly illustrated the erotic tales of Vanna Vechian, whom I have never actually met. I also co-wrote a couple of stories with her. I am not sure she has a website currently. The writing on my website is all my own. I do quite a bit of writing, mostly micro-stories that are stimulated by the process of my own painting - an ekphrastic style of writing that comes to me as I am actually painting.
I have also illustrated the stories of Subcomandante Marcos the spokesman of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico.
Those stories may be seen here: http://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/Chiapas95/CWDTableOfContents.html
...and are also available for purchase from Amazon.
I also illustrated a couple of Marcos stories privately and have published one of those in a very limited edition handmade volume.
JK: Many artists I have spoken with have someone in their lives that serve as their professional advocates. This might be a formal arrangement through a paid agent or an informal one via a friend, spouse, or child. Whether formal or informal, these agents allow an artist to spend more time in the studio by taking over the business and social, and promotional aspects of being an artist. Is there someone like that in your life whom you wish to acknowledge?
EC: There is no question but that this would be my husband, Laurent. He has supported me and my work since I met him in 1977, when he was an exchange student from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and I was a first year art student at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He has been steadfast in his support. That means he has done his best to provide studio space and technical support whenever possible and of course emotional support throughout our relationship.
JK: You collaborate with writers and write very proficiently yourself. How has writing balanced your visual art and what is the relationship between text and image?
Links:
www.ericachappuis.com
https://www.aclu.org/other/freedom-expression-arts-and-entertainment
http://theconversation.com/how-john-berger-changed-our-way-of-seeing-art-70831
http://www.daisy.co.uk/sites/VannaVechian/vannastories.htm
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