Potser ho hauríeu de mirar amb més deteniment. Hi ha molt més en aquesta pintura del que es pot veure. Sí, és una pintura en acrílic d'un home, però no l'he pintada a sobre un llenç sinó directament a sobre d'ell.
You may want to take a closer look. There's more to this painting than meets the eye. And yes, it's an acrylic painting of a man, but I didn't paint it on canvas. I painted it directly on top of the man.
Al meu art no faig servir pas llenços i si vull pintar-vos un retrat, us el pintaré a sobre, literalment. Això vol dir que acabareu amb les orelles plenes de pintura, perquè he de pintar les orelles a sobre de les vostres. Tota l'escena (la persona, la roba les cadires, les parets...) es cobreix amb una capa de pintura que imita allò que és a sota. Així, puc fer que una escena tridimensional es converteixi en una pintura bidimensional. Puc fotografiar-la des de qualsevol angle i es veurà en 2D igualment. Aquí no hi ha Photoshop: només és una foto d'una de les meves pintures tridimensionals.
What I do in my art is I skip the canvas altogether, and if I want to paint your portrait, I'm painting it on you, physically on you. That also means you're probably going to end up with an earful of paint, because I need to paint your ear on your ear. Everything in this scene, the person, the clothes, chairs, wall, gets covered in a mask of paint that mimics what's directly below it, and in this way, I'm able to take a three-dimensional scene and make it look like a two-dimensional painting. I can photograph it from any angle, and it will still look 2D. There's no Photoshop here. This is just a photo of one of my three-dimensional paintings.
Us preguntareu com se'm va ocórrer la idea de transformar persones en pintures. Al principi, però, no tenia res a veure amb les persones o la pintura, sinó amb les ombres. L'absència de llum em fascinava; volia trobar la manera de fer-la material i definir-la abans que canviés. Se'm va ocórrer la idea de pintar les ombres. M'encantava poder amagar a l'ombra la meva versió pintada i que fos quasi invisible fins que la llum canviava i, de sobte, l'ombra pintada es deixava veure a la llum.
You might be wondering how I came up with this idea of turning people into paintings. But originally, this had nothing to do with either people or paint. It was about shadows. I was fascinated with the absence of light, and I wanted to find a way that I could give it materiality and pin it down before it changed. I came up with the idea of painting shadows. I loved that I could hide within this shadow my own painted version, and it would be almost invisible until the light changed, and all of a sudden my shadow would be brought to the light.
Vaig dedicar-me a rumiar en què hi podria posar ombres i vaig pensar en el meu amic Bernie. No volia pintar pas només les ombres, sinó també els tocs de llum. Volia crear un traçat al seu cos en escala de grisos. M'imaginava exactament com havia de ser i, mentre el pintava, m'assegurava que així fos, però hi havia una cosa que fluctuava al meu davant. No estava molt segura de què mirava fins que vaig donar una passa enrere i màgia: havia convertit el meu amic en una pintura. No m'hauria imaginat que quan volia pintar una ombra, faria sorgir aquesta nova dimensió, que cediria, que prendria una pintura, la convertiria en el meu amic i després el transportaria de nou a la pintura.
I wanted to think about what else I could put shadows on, and I thought of my friend Bernie. But I didn't just want to paint the shadows. I also wanted to paint the highlights and create a mapping on his body in greyscale. I had a very specific vision of what this would look like, and as I was painting him, I made sure to follow that very closely. But something kept on flickering before my eyes. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at. And then when I took that moment to take a step back, magic. I had turned my friend into a painting. I couldn't have foreseen that when I wanted to paint a shadow, I would pull out this whole other dimension, that I would collapse it, that I would take a painting and make it my friend and then bring him back to a painting.
Això sí, tenia sentiments oposats, perquè em vaig emocionar molt pel que havia trobat, però m'anava a graduar en ciències polítiques i sempre havia somiat anar a Washington, D.C., seure a un escriptori i treballar pel govern. (Rialles) Per què s'havia d'interposar en el meu somni?
I was a little conflicted though, because I was so excited about what I'd found, but I was just about to graduate from college with a degree in political science, and I'd always had this dream of going to Washington, D.C., and sitting at a desk and working in government. (Laughter) Why did this have to get in the way of all that?
Vaig prendre la difícil decisió d'anar-me'n a casa després de la graduació i, en comptes de pujar al Capitoli, vaig baixar al soterrani dels meus pares i vaig convertir l'aprendre a pintar en la meva feina. No sabia per on començar; la darrera vegada que havia pintat era quan tenia 16 anys en un campament d'estiu. No volia aprendre a pintar copiant als mestres clàssics o posant una estesa de llenços per a practicar una vegada rere l'altra sobre aquesta superfície, perquè per a mi aquest projecte no tractava pas sobre això. Tractava sobre l'espai i la llum.
I made the tough decision of going home after graduation and not going up to Capitol Hill, but going down to my parents' basement and making it my job to learn how to paint. I had no idea where to begin. The last time I'd painted, I was 16 years old at summer camp, and I didn't want to teach myself how to paint by copying the old masters or stretching a canvas and practicing over and over again on that surface, because that's not what this project was about for me. It was about space and light.
Els meus primers llenços varen ser coses que no utilitzaríeu com a tal, com el menjar fregit. És quasi impossible fer que la pintura es quedi a l'oli de l'ou. (Rialles) I era encara més complicat que la pintura es quedés a l'àcid de l'aranja. Esborrava les meves pinzellades, com si fos tinta invisible. Si hi posava alguna cosa, se n'anava a l'instant.
My early canvases ended up being things that you wouldn't expect to be used as canvas, like fried food. It's nearly impossible to get paint to stick to the grease in an egg. (Laughter) Even harder was getting paint to stick to the acid in a grapefruit. It just would erase my brush strokes like invisible ink. I'd put something down, and instantly it would be gone.
I si volia pintar sobre la gent, bé, m'empegueïa una mica de portar gent al meu estudi i de mostrar-los que em passava el temps al soterrani posant pintura a les torrades. Semblava que tenia més sentit practicar pintant sobre mi mateixa. Un dels meus models preferits va ser un home jubilat a qui no només no li importava seure immòbil i emplenar-se les orelles de pintura, sinó que tampoc posava massa problemes si el duia a un lloc públic per a exhibir-lo, com el metro.
And if I wanted to paint on people, well, I was a little bit embarrassed to bring people down into my studio and show them that I spent my days in a basement putting paint on toast. It just seemed like it made more sense to practice by painting on myself. One of my favorite models actually ended up being a retired old man who not only didn't mind sitting still and getting the paint in his ears, but he also didn't really have much embarrassment about being taken out into very public places for exhibition, like the Metro.
M'estava divertint molt amb aquest procés. Aprenia jo tota sola a pintar en tots aquests estils diferents i volia veure què més hi podia fer. Vaig trobar una col·laboradora, na Sheila Vand, amb qui vaig tenir la idea de crear pintures en una superfície poc habitual: la llet. Varem omplir una piscina de llet hi varem ficar na Sheila i vaig començar a pintar. Les imatges eren sempre completament inesperades al final, perquè podia tenir una imatge molt específica sobre com resultaria i pintar per fer-ho coincidir, però quan na Sheila es tombava a la llet, tot canviava. Estava en canvi constant, així que en comptes de lluitar-hi, havíem d'acollir-ho, havíem de veure on ens portaria la llet i compensar-ho per a millorar-ho. De vegades, quan na Sheila es tombava a la llet, la pintura dels braços desapareixia i pareixia una mica barroer, però la nostra solució era "'D'acord, amaga els braços". Un cop, tenia tanta llet als cabells que li netejà la pintura de la cara "Molt bé, doncs, amaga la cara." Així varem acabar amb una cosa molt més elegant del que podríem haver imaginat, tot i que en essència va ser la mateixa solució que un nen frustrat empra quan no pot dibuixar bé unes mans i les amaga a les butxaques.
I was having so much fun with this process. I was teaching myself how to paint in all these different styles, and I wanted to see what else I could do with it. I came together with a collaborator, Sheila Vand, and we had the idea of creating paintings in a more unusual surface, and that was milk. We got a pool. We filled it with milk. We filled it with Sheila. And I began painting. And the images were always completely unexpected in the end, because I could have a very specific image about how it would turn out, I could paint it to match that, but the moment that Sheila laid back into the milk, everything would change. It was in constant flux, and we had to, rather than fight it, embrace it, see where the milk would take us and compensate to make it even better. Sometimes, when Sheila would lay down in the milk, it would wash all the paint off of her arms, and it might seem a little bit clumsy, but our solution would be, okay, hide your arms. And one time, she got so much milk in her hair that it just smeared all the paint off of her face. All right, well, hide your face. And we ended up with something far more elegant than we could have imagined, even though this is essentially the same solution that a frustrated kid uses when he can't draw hands, just hiding them in the pockets.
Quan varem iniciar el projecte de la llet, quan jo vaig començar, no podia haver previst que passaria de perseguir el meu somni de política i de treballar a un escriptori a ensopegar amb les ombres, convertir gent en pintures i pintar persones en una piscina de llet. Però, un altre cop, crec que tampoc es pot preveure que pugueu trobar allò desconegut en allò conegut sempre que volgueu mirar més enllà del que ja es mostra a la llum, que volgueu veure el que hi ha sota la superfície, entre les ombres, i admetre que hi ha molt més del que es pot veure.
When we started out on the milk project, and when I started out, I couldn't have foreseen that I would go from pursuing my dream in politics and working at a desk to tripping over a shadow and then turning people into paintings and painting on people in a pool of milk. But then again, I guess it's also not unforeseeable that you can find the strange in the familiar, as long as you're willing to look beyond what's already been brought to light, that you can see what's below the surface, hiding in the shadows, and recognize that there can be more there than meets the eye.
Gràcies.
Thank you.
(Aplaudiments)
(Applause)