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ON IRONY, KITSCH AND UGLY PAINTING: IN CONVERSATION WITH GEORGINA GRATRIX
Art Blogger Robert Sloon (ArtHeat) chats to Georgina Gratrix about her recent work Master Copy and tries to get to the bottom of what contemporary painting is about.
Robert: The opposition between male and female shows quite strongly in your work. For example: Girl on the Rocks. It's a remake of Henri Rousseau's Boy on the Rocks. It looks like a self-portrait, a girl straddling the world, holding brushes.
Georgina: It was intended as a self-portrait. For me the original, compositionally and stuff, just had such a great sort of logic. About being alienated.
Robert: Are you asserting a strong identity as a woman painter? Or being alienated as a woman painter? Is there such a thing as a woman painter? And what's the difference?
Georgina: There is no difference. It just seemed apt to make the boy a girl. A self-portrait, really. Maybe its just more general, about being an artist, being part of the world but also just observing and looking. That's an artist's job essentially: to look at things a little differently. Well, for me. It's about having a different vantage point.
Robert: I'm interested in the way you look and observe. Henri Rousseau had a naive outlook, as a self-taught painter. There are many elements of naiveté in your work too. How much are they intentional stylistic choices?
Georgina: I suppose I recognise the naive elements in my work and I like to think that they are considered. I wanted to mash everything up: ‘good’ painting, ‘bad’ painting, scribbles, dead straight lines. Everything. Almost in one line. Nothing ‘better’ than the other. I think Rousseau made great paintings…not that I've ever seen a real Rousseau painting.
Robert: But he wasn't willfully making ‘bad’ art, or purposefully dabbling in kitsch.
Georgina: No, that's true.
Robert: Do you think you are using a language of naivety to say something else?
Georgina: They were sincere...Oh this does get a little complicated. Well, I suppose it’s the gesture that is seemingly ‘naïve’. The impulse to just make. But for me it’s more of a logic, a way of working. Thinking visually and solving pictures through making pictures.
Robert: Do you think using these sorts of elements is ironic?
Georgina: Yes, definitely.
Robert: Can this irony coexist with sincerity in painting? Is sincerity important?
Georgina: But I suppose there's a part of me that finds kitsch painting particularly alluring. It's almost the job of kitsch to function like that - to be alluring and repulsive at the same time. I think that's what I struggle with- for me the sincerity in the work is incredibly important but I feel like I’m also aware of the irony- the bad taste- but I’m kind of indifferent. Maybe it's duplicitous. Can one be ironically sincere? I suppose it's more sincere than ironic.
Robert: It ties in strongly with various movements (if you can still say that word) in contemporary painting. There is a lot of Bad is Good stuff. How does your work tie into the bigger narrative?
Georgina: Well, that’s just it. I think bad and good are somehow the same. For example, Stella Vine- she makes horrible paintings. But I adore them. It's the amateur naïve thing for me that’s surface. Essentially it's also about successful images and successful images can include very bad painting.
Robert: I know this is a simplistic question, but what makes a successful image?
Georgina: For me, they somehow attract and repel simultaneously. I like painting that does that. Karen Kilimnik does that at times. It's the difference between like Paris Hilton- and say a plainer girl- with some flaws maybe skew teeth. Sometimes the girl with skew teeth is sexier. Paris is just too obvious. Painting that’s too obviously good, it can all just be a bit too obvious.
Robert: How does that tie in to a wider audience's perception of painting? Do you think the public feels the same way? Or are their perceptions of what painting caught up in something else?
Georgina: There are different audiences. Do we mean a layman's understanding of contemporary painting? In South Africa?
Robert: Maybe. Like my mother, as an example.
Georgina: Well, yes, I think perhaps her expectations of painting may be outmoded though I don’t know her. That painting should be pretty or monumental or stoic or grand.
Robert: Well, she has kitsch taste.
Georgina: Painting now can be anything and is just as comfortable being silly, flippant and…well… bad if it feels like it. The contemplative landscape thing, it's the generic idea of what painting should be that I maybe find distasteful and outdated. But it's all things that art itself is quite comfortable with. It just hasn't spread to ... your mother... perhaps yet.
Robert: So do you think the kitsch she likes is different from the kitsch you like? Is there kitsch that is more appropriate? More tasteful? More useful?
Georgina: I think kitsch is a huge landscape in itself. I think maybe the problem lies in first being able to acknowledge and understand something as being kitsch but like it anyway. The problem arises if you aren't able to recognise why something is in fact kitsch.
Robert: There is quite a love affair with the materiality of paint: Straight lines, chunky impasto, visible brush-marks. How did that work when a load of stuff was made by assistants? Does it make a difference?
Georgina: Working with assistants was just a logistical necessity, but also it seemed collaborative: finding the right skill to match the idea. I enjoyed having work that was so ‘perfect’ and calculated, something that I find difficult to achieve.
Robert: The Woman Wallpaper Series takes famous paintings of women, Les Demoiselles, Olympia and a De Kooning piece and translate them into stripes. While they're as funny and ironic as the other work, these particular works seem much more serious. A little more pointed and critical.
Georgina: Yes, they were quite a lot more calculated than the other work. I wanted to make a painting that was completely banal on one level- to be wallpaper- but also incredibly funny and angry a little too. Inane and angry and funny and stripes.
Robert: It's good combo. All these men taking out their anger through painting women. And you just tease them.
Georgina: It's looking at modernist masterpieces - perhaps even the modernist masterpiece. Which happens to be of women. Necrophilia. Communicating with the dead. Tickling them in their graves. It seemed like a fun thing to do. But also serious. Serious and fun.
Robert: Like ironic and sincere?
Georgina: I suppose I like matching the two. Yes, duplicitous, double edged, to get opposites to sit next to one another.
Robert: Do you think most of your work has that necrophiliac element to it? How much of painting is fucking the past?
Georgina: Painting is a loaded medium, but that’s what’s great about it. It’s dead, dying, no one really cares.
Georgina Gratrix is a painter. She graduated with a degree in Fine Art at UCT in 2006. While she has been on numerous group shows, Master Copy is her first solo exhibition. She is currently represented by Whatiftheworld Gallery.
This interview is edited from a longer one available on ArtHeat
Robert: The opposition between male and female shows quite strongly in your work. For example: Girl on the Rocks. It's a remake of Henri Rousseau's Boy on the Rocks. It looks like a self-portrait, a girl straddling the world, holding brushes.
Georgina: It was intended as a self-portrait. For me the original, compositionally and stuff, just had such a great sort of logic. About being alienated.
Robert: Are you asserting a strong identity as a woman painter? Or being alienated as a woman painter? Is there such a thing as a woman painter? And what's the difference?
Georgina: There is no difference. It just seemed apt to make the boy a girl. A self-portrait, really. Maybe its just more general, about being an artist, being part of the world but also just observing and looking. That's an artist's job essentially: to look at things a little differently. Well, for me. It's about having a different vantage point.
Robert: I'm interested in the way you look and observe. Henri Rousseau had a naive outlook, as a self-taught painter. There are many elements of naiveté in your work too. How much are they intentional stylistic choices?
Georgina: I suppose I recognise the naive elements in my work and I like to think that they are considered. I wanted to mash everything up: ‘good’ painting, ‘bad’ painting, scribbles, dead straight lines. Everything. Almost in one line. Nothing ‘better’ than the other. I think Rousseau made great paintings…not that I've ever seen a real Rousseau painting.
Robert: But he wasn't willfully making ‘bad’ art, or purposefully dabbling in kitsch.
Georgina: No, that's true.
Robert: Do you think you are using a language of naivety to say something else?
Georgina: They were sincere...Oh this does get a little complicated. Well, I suppose it’s the gesture that is seemingly ‘naïve’. The impulse to just make. But for me it’s more of a logic, a way of working. Thinking visually and solving pictures through making pictures.
Robert: Do you think using these sorts of elements is ironic?
Georgina: Yes, definitely.
Robert: Can this irony coexist with sincerity in painting? Is sincerity important?
Georgina: But I suppose there's a part of me that finds kitsch painting particularly alluring. It's almost the job of kitsch to function like that - to be alluring and repulsive at the same time. I think that's what I struggle with- for me the sincerity in the work is incredibly important but I feel like I’m also aware of the irony- the bad taste- but I’m kind of indifferent. Maybe it's duplicitous. Can one be ironically sincere? I suppose it's more sincere than ironic.
Robert: It ties in strongly with various movements (if you can still say that word) in contemporary painting. There is a lot of Bad is Good stuff. How does your work tie into the bigger narrative?
Georgina: Well, that’s just it. I think bad and good are somehow the same. For example, Stella Vine- she makes horrible paintings. But I adore them. It's the amateur naïve thing for me that’s surface. Essentially it's also about successful images and successful images can include very bad painting.
Robert: I know this is a simplistic question, but what makes a successful image?
Georgina: For me, they somehow attract and repel simultaneously. I like painting that does that. Karen Kilimnik does that at times. It's the difference between like Paris Hilton- and say a plainer girl- with some flaws maybe skew teeth. Sometimes the girl with skew teeth is sexier. Paris is just too obvious. Painting that’s too obviously good, it can all just be a bit too obvious.
Robert: How does that tie in to a wider audience's perception of painting? Do you think the public feels the same way? Or are their perceptions of what painting caught up in something else?
Georgina: There are different audiences. Do we mean a layman's understanding of contemporary painting? In South Africa?
Robert: Maybe. Like my mother, as an example.
Georgina: Well, yes, I think perhaps her expectations of painting may be outmoded though I don’t know her. That painting should be pretty or monumental or stoic or grand.
Robert: Well, she has kitsch taste.
Georgina: Painting now can be anything and is just as comfortable being silly, flippant and…well… bad if it feels like it. The contemplative landscape thing, it's the generic idea of what painting should be that I maybe find distasteful and outdated. But it's all things that art itself is quite comfortable with. It just hasn't spread to ... your mother... perhaps yet.
Robert: So do you think the kitsch she likes is different from the kitsch you like? Is there kitsch that is more appropriate? More tasteful? More useful?
Georgina: I think kitsch is a huge landscape in itself. I think maybe the problem lies in first being able to acknowledge and understand something as being kitsch but like it anyway. The problem arises if you aren't able to recognise why something is in fact kitsch.
Robert: There is quite a love affair with the materiality of paint: Straight lines, chunky impasto, visible brush-marks. How did that work when a load of stuff was made by assistants? Does it make a difference?
Georgina: Working with assistants was just a logistical necessity, but also it seemed collaborative: finding the right skill to match the idea. I enjoyed having work that was so ‘perfect’ and calculated, something that I find difficult to achieve.
Robert: The Woman Wallpaper Series takes famous paintings of women, Les Demoiselles, Olympia and a De Kooning piece and translate them into stripes. While they're as funny and ironic as the other work, these particular works seem much more serious. A little more pointed and critical.
Georgina: Yes, they were quite a lot more calculated than the other work. I wanted to make a painting that was completely banal on one level- to be wallpaper- but also incredibly funny and angry a little too. Inane and angry and funny and stripes.
Robert: It's good combo. All these men taking out their anger through painting women. And you just tease them.
Georgina: It's looking at modernist masterpieces - perhaps even the modernist masterpiece. Which happens to be of women. Necrophilia. Communicating with the dead. Tickling them in their graves. It seemed like a fun thing to do. But also serious. Serious and fun.
Robert: Like ironic and sincere?
Georgina: I suppose I like matching the two. Yes, duplicitous, double edged, to get opposites to sit next to one another.
Robert: Do you think most of your work has that necrophiliac element to it? How much of painting is fucking the past?
Georgina: Painting is a loaded medium, but that’s what’s great about it. It’s dead, dying, no one really cares.
Georgina Gratrix is a painter. She graduated with a degree in Fine Art at UCT in 2006. While she has been on numerous group shows, Master Copy is her first solo exhibition. She is currently represented by Whatiftheworld Gallery.
This interview is edited from a longer one available on ArtHeat
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