Brooklyn Watercolorist, Allison Maletz
To paraphrase Eric Kandel, the Nobel-winning neuroscientist in his new book, The Age of Insight, art is all around us, and while a good deal of it floats under our conscious radars, some of it sticks and if particularly alluring and compelling gets deep down into our hippocampus. Kandel explains in a plausible and fairly understandable way how a wondrously captivating piece of art work can fire up a number of distinct and often conflicting emotional signals in the brain. This can cause a huge swirl of emotions which in turn releases endorphins and dopamine, our blood pressure to rise and hopefully, for the artists sake, a lasting positive impression is made.
While I may not fully comprehend Kandel’s neurochemical art appreciation theories I did have one of those endorphin releasing moments a few months back. It wasn’t a Gustav Klimt “Judith” style painting, which Kandel alludes too in his new book that got my attention, but rather a fairly innocuous painting of an older lady. However in her left hand was a severed deer leg. It was on the Artist Daily Blog and was by Brooklyn based watercolorist, Allison Maletz.
It was entitled, “Nana Holding Purse and Leg”, and was completely mad but somehow in her muted lounge gear, soft gaze and pleasant disposition it was perfectly OK. It was one of those WTF moments. I was intrigued, not necessarily in owning the piece, but rather why it was painted, so I visited Allison’s web-site thinking there would be more bizzaro subjects. However, what I found was a very competent and disciplined watercolorist who had the ability to capture fine detail in this very difficult medium. Though all of her work had appealing elements, including the use of negative space, intricate patterns and a great color palette, I still had to find out what this older woman was doing holding onto that leg. I then emailed Allison and got a response explaining that it was actually from a photograph her grandfather took of her grandmother (Nana) on a trip to Alaska sometime in the late 70’s or early 80’s. Apparently, the leg was on the side of the road and grandpa thought it would make a good photo and grandma was a good sport. Riddle solved and a great family story to go along with the painting.
I couple weeks passed and I revisited her site and saw her painting entitled, “Totem Pole.” It’s of two boys with one on the others shoulders and it gave me the idea to have a painting commissioned. So I emailed her and attached two photos of my daughters jamming to Bob Dylan one Saturday morning last summer. We do that often and I thought that it would be a great way to memorialize these weekend jam sessions that I was so fond of.
She soon got back to me and we started working out the particulars.
Below are the two photos she had to work with, the final watercolor painting, progression video and a Q & A.
I had her paint in our dog Tuck since he is usually involved in the chaos as well. The accurate pattern detail she achieves on the dress and nappy with watercolor paints is not an easy feat.
Jam Session, 2012 15″ x 20″ (The Highway 61 Revisited sticker on the guitar was a nice touch by Allison)
So tell me about a few of your works. Let’s start with “Nana Holding Purse and Leg”
“Nana”- Maternal Grandmother, Selma Fisk about 1922-1991
I don’t know much about the original photo as my Nana passed away when I was 10. However, I found the image from “Nana Holding Purse and Leg” 39″ x 27″ in one of my mom’s photo albums. I believe it was my grandparent’s trip to Alaska, in the late ’70s/early ’80s. I can only guess that my Papa saw the leg on the side of the road and told my Nana to pose in a photo with it. Very bizarre… but that’s my family!
“Another Monkey Climbing a Coconut Tree”
“Grandpa”- Paternal Grandfather, Harold Maletz 1922-
“Another Monkey Climbing a Coconut Tree” 87 x 55 inches is from a Black and White photograph that my Grandpa gave me of him in 1947 in Miami. At that point he was out of WW II and working for a traveling carnival. The back of the photograph has the most beautiful handwriting that says “Another Monkey Climbing a Coconut Tree”. I can only guess an admirer wrote that on the back of the image pre-Grandma Evelyn, who entered his life in 1952.
“The Wedding : Grandma Kissing Irving, Grandpa Kissing Ruth ”
This is of the two of them kissing the best man and maid of honor. Also from a B&W photograph. That painting is my largest at 59″ x 169″ – 14 feet long.
Lastly, “Totem Pole.” As you know, this was the piece that set my painting into motion.
Totem Pole is of my partner, Bob’s cousins, Adam and Andrew. Like in your painting, I took a few artistic liberties with this image, creating the patterns, making the colors overwhelmingly primary, and adding in the wolf to create an actual totem pole of boy, dog, boy, dog. 20″ x 15.”
You came into painting sort of late in life didn’t you? Can you expand on that?
I actually taught myself watercolor from nothing but the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) when I was 10, and spent a lot of time copying Disney images. Then I had a great teacher growing up that taught me how to draw. That helped me eventually get into RISD. But I abandoned fine art for photography for about 7 years, and consequently had virtually no formal technical painting or illustrative training throughout my time at art school! But I learned how to think and compose and design and use color. I was with a gallery in Chelsea for my photography and that was great for a while. Then I started to feel the photography was getting a little stale and impersonal. I went back to get my MFA from The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL in London, which, having helped to produce the YBA’s, was much more open minded to a photographer becoming a mixed media artist, than an American art school would have been. I started making very large scale watercolor a there, along with sound installations. I still don’t feel as though I received any technical guidance there, but if Slade gave me anything it was the confidence to accept that I could be a mixed media artist, so long as my ideas were consistent from artwork to artwork. And photography is still very much apart of my work. I paint from photographs, sometimes they are mine, sometimes they were taken before I was born, sometimes they are commissioned. And lately I have been re-photographing aspects of my paintings and am turning them into wallpapers (1. Further supporting my connection to photography, 2. Further building my connection to the repeat patterns appearing in the paintings, such as yours, 3. Further supporting the domestic suburban themes raised by the subject matter and medium.)
Would you agree that watercolor painting is a difficult, unforgiving medium?
You are correct Chris, watercolor is very unforgiving. There are two thoughts on white paint in watercolor, those who do, and those who don’t. I don’t use white paint. The reason I don’t use white paint is because white is opaque (more like Gouache). White watercolor tends to make paintings look milky or cloudy, which works well for some painters, but I feel it negates the general idea of watercolor- which is transparent. I use the white of the paper, those areas are finished from the first moment I see the paper. In other words, if I want to make pink, I dilute red paint with water. Now, you can use water and paper towel or sponges to remove some paint, but once you paint over the paper, it is unlikely that the paper will ever go back to being pure white. So, yes, you really can’t make too many mistakes with watercolor, or just paint over areas you’re not that keen on, like in oil or acrylic.
What other artist do you get inspiration from?
I’ve had a long term love affair with Egon Schiele although the connection between our work is dwindling constantly. I also find inspiration from Walton Ford, and lately, Norman Rockwell. I also love Martin Parr, a photographer with a knack for color, humor and the ability to exploit his own culture in a way that turns him into a kind of foreigner looking in from the outside- something that I have found inspirational since I was beginning to make photographs over a decade ago.
Are commissions such as mine something you get a lot of requests for and if so how do you go about choosing which ones to do?
I love doing commissions like yours! An ideal commission is when I’m working with someone who really wants a painting in my style, as opposed to a painting that they have totally fabricated, and they just need a craftsmen to make it happen. I feel like you wanted an ‘Allison Maletz’ painting, and you wanted something a bit quirky, and strange, and that totally appealed to my own sensibilities subject wise and compositionally. You didn’t just send me a close-up snap shot of your girls smiling for the camera, we worked with 4 different images, and you gave me plenty of leeway to compose my own composition (and patterns for the clothing). However, if the image feels completely unrelated to my aesthetic, if it’s not the kind of thing that would belong in my portfolio, I will sometimes turn it down. You know, it’s kind of like Lucian Freud’s Portrait of Queen Elizabeth. You are asking that artist to make something for you so you have to expect that you’re going to end up with something that the artist creates for themselves to a degree, in their own style. Otherwise, commissioning that particular artist is pointless. I’d like to think I’m getting to that point in my career where people are commissioning me for one of my paintings, but it wasn’t always that way!
I am currently doing several commissions right now of Dog Portraits for patrons, they buy the painting, and then I am going to make a wallpaper of Dog Portraits. It’s quite kitsch, but I’m really enjoying it, and people seem to love having their pets painted, so that is good all around.
Do you have any upcoming shows you want to tell us about?
I am currently in talks with the Christopher Henry Gallery near the Bowery in NYC about a solo show in March 2013. I am also working with a few curators on some up coming shows for the fall, possibly at NurtureART in Bushwick, Brooklyn NY. I’m planning to lay low this summer and paint, paint, paint, as the last six months have been a lot of showing in various cities across the US (both for painting and sound installation). I’m really looking forward to some quality time in the studio.
Artist Bio
Allison Maletz is a contemporary mixed media artist. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. Maletz began as a documentary style artist-photographer, traveling throughout the world making photographs about being normal, yet misplaced. Wanting to branch out into different mediums and art communities, in 2007 she moved to London. There she started making sound installations and large-scale watercolor paintings from photographs that further developed the concepts in her previous work. In recent years Maletz has focused on the idea of the domestic, platonic- yet secretly dysfunctional western family. Her artwork is bright, humorous, and nostalgic, yet she pushes it to a breaking point, when the works pleasantries overtake it. As a result, her artwork starts to evoke discomfort, allowing for the possibility that something grotesque is trying to surface. She is currently living and working in New York City, and has exhibited various mediums in the Liverpool Biennial, New Contemporaries UK, Zoo Art Italy, The Royal Watercolor Society in London, and the Moscow Biennale for Young Artists at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.
Thanks Allison! You are a real gem and a pleasure to work with.
