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A Survey Df Paintings, Prints and Drawi by Sabina Ott, 1991·1999

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A Survey Df Paintings, Prints and Drawi by Sabina Ott, 1991·1999 A Survey df Paintings, Prints and Drawi by Sabina Ott, 1991·1999 August 31- October 1,1999 Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College subrosa #10 84" x 72",1 992 oil & encaustic on panel SO: Frank Stella's paintings were riveting; I espe­ cially loved the Pro­ tractor series. The work of Eva Hesse and Lynda Benglis is velY important; it was the first work I saw that gave me a glimpse of a space in between things and of the pos­ · . .pleasure where there is a passage . .. sibility of hybrid forms. 48" x 60",1998 It was full of contradic­ oil & encaustic on panel tions: abstract and con­ crete, decorative and structural, inside and The following interview with artist Sabina Ott was methodology was a means to understanding outSide, painting and sculpture. that figure-ground relationship by overlaying conducted over seveml days by Clough-Hanson art, history and culture. Feminism and concep­ text, and perhaps, in a different scale, I'll invelt Gallery Director Marina Pacini in March 1999. tualism were the dominant art movements, and I love being baffled by things that can't eaSily another landscape reference. Or possibly make I struggled to reconcile those issues with my be categorized and look for artworks that something extremely textural that within formal Marina Pacini: How would you describe your work? love of painting and art history. hover between categories but are very physi­ logic should be flat, alternating from smooth cal, velY real. Femaleness is connected to this spaces to striated. It is important that my work Sabina Ott: I see my work, in addition to being The example of medieval art, which was a quality for me. Just tlying to define the term is is both vulgar and refined, like a lewd intellec­ discrete paintings and installations, as an blending of narrative, abstract and philosoph­ frustrating and exciting. I can't pin it down, it tual. I shift terms constantly between the literal accumulation of markings and traces that ical strategies, also touched me. What fasci­ is indefinable. What we already know can be and the abstract. The same thing happens in my describe movement-physical movement, psy­ nated me was the way space is collapsed and named, but I am interested in what is paper pieces and installations. chological movement and cultural movement. perspective becomes fluid, without a fixed unnameable and beautiful. It is a kind of document of reciprocity between point, or how representations of objects shift So hopefully there is a constant movement myself and the world. My paintings are a visu­ scale depending on the significance of the MP: Do you feel that your art attempts to describe between all these representations and sensa­ alization of the play between signs, materiality image. I felt a direct correlation between the this recognition of unnameable things? tions, and hopefully that movement suspends and language. way I experienced the world and this history, the quick settling into already understood ter­ a kind of postmodern moment. SO: Yes, through using multipliCities, contradictions rain. I guess the point is to heighten aware­ MP: How did you get to this point? and of course, accidents. For example, in my ness of relationships and how they make and MP: You mentioned alt movements of the 1970s. paintings, I'll reference landscape genres, but change form, how they make and change us. SO: Well, I had always worked with images as Are there other postwar artists or movements disrupt the construction of perspective by inselt­ signs. I studied art in the late seventies when who shaped your practice? ing an image or changing the point of view MP: Can you talk about the influence of Gertrude the study of semiotics and deconstructive from frontal to aerial. Maybe then I'll displace Stein's writing on your work? ... this is never nearby ... Mater Rosa #10 30" x 22", 1997 48" x 36", 1991 monoprint oil & encaustic on panel ration of difference makes room for similari­ plasticity-it is both sign ties. Her otherness-as a woman, a lesbian, a and Signifier-with mul­ Jew, an American-gives her another perspec­ tiple historical, literalY, tive from which she can say to us, "Act as if religious and popular there is no use in a center," and then make references. Questions of herself and her work a center. gender identification and construction always MP: Is there a specific text that is most meaningful arise, alongside sexuali­ to you? ty, spirituality and all the conflicting things the so: Because her work is literary, not visual, I so: Well, she reveals her optimism in her chil­ rose has been used as a have enough distance to see her methodolo­ dren's story, "The World Is Round," which metaphor for. What I gy clearly. That's why literature and theory in describes the journey into autonomy and self­ am t1ying to do is con­ general are such useful sources. Stein used determination of a little girl named Rose. 1 found these significa­ shifts in syntax to reshuffle relationships-our She takes a blue chair, goes up a mountain, tions through the repeti­ relationship to language and our relationship and then stands on the chair and calves "Rose tion and fragmenting of to the world. Her writing reveals the repres­ is a Rose is a Rose" around a tree. Rose finds the form, and to give sive nature of naming by repeating and shift­ herself through Eros. I use this loosely as the room for another mode ing the configuration of carefully chosen meta narrative of my work. The titles of the of experience. words, until the "name" becomes one ele­ new paintings are phrases from Stein's prose. ment among others whose meaning changes MP: How does the process as the context changes. A word, in her The image of Rose, the rose, is also present as of making your paintings relate to your technique is always in relation to its oppo­ hands, loses its prescribed meaning and a metaphorical structure in Dante's Divine sources of inspiration? site. All the images and methods are repeat­ opens itself up to be experienced differently. Comedy, Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry, and some ed within each painting and within all the What is perhaps so important about Stein is of Virginia Woolf's novels. Lewis Carroll's Alice so: The paintings are made of oil paint melted paintings. The painting is finished when a that she focused so much on the exterior and in Wonderland is another great source. into sculpture wax. In my current work, I clear set of relationships can be perceived, on the materiality of words. She created a begin by spray-painting overlays of horizontal although these relationships are not neces­ kind of ever-present present, w hich gives MP: Do you see the rose, which is a common and vertical stripes or stencils of letters or sarily predetermined. freedom to the imagination. She destroyed image in your art, as a symbol with both con­ fl ower shapes. Then I pour large surfaces of hierarchies of value, giving all kinds of temporalY and historical resonance? wax and begin to calve roses, letters, stripes Currently, I am working with text (the letters objects and actions-cake, grammar, geogra­ or hand-drawn maps. I build a kind of topo­ r-o-s-e) and landscape structures in addition to phy, fl owers, people and war-equal impor­ so: The image of the rose brings many things graphical "space," adding and subtracting. It contour line draWings of roses, drips, spills, tance. One can see her influence on many together for me. The image has an exceptional becomes difficult to tell w hat surface is dots and grids. I am fascinated with the idea artists, particularly Andy Warhol. However, w here within the space of the painting. The of shifting horizon lines and differing points of there is an openheartedness to Stein'S love of 1. Gertrude Stein, "The Wo rl d Is Round," in Gertrude Stein: surfaces have a variety of textures: some view. Sometimes the space defines itself from the world that was not impliCit in the practice Writings 1932-1946, Catharine R. Stimpson and Harriet areas are smooth and some are built out four above and sometimes from below, or is of the pop artists of the sixties. Her explo- Chessman, eds. (NY: Library of America, 1998), 537-574. or five inches from the panel. One image or skewed sideways. I want my paintings to be very physical, velY material. I want people to Tiepolo paintings where the clouds become desire to touch them or be reminded of food, the ground for the figures and they all float. Eros #6 and then to be pulled back and forth between Xena. Courbet seascapes. Tibetan Buddhist 18" x 24",1998 desire and repulsion, a kind of love machine. painting. East Indian miniatures. Teletubbies. mixed media on paper MP: Given your interest in multiplicity and sign MP: With such a wide range of sources, can you systems, do you draw inspiration from outside briefly summarize your approach to' making alt? the fine arts? so: As Gertrude Stein once said, "Whatever you so: I have been looking at rave posters, computer­ can play with is yours." generated graphics and a lot of Japanese ani­ mation films-they are amazing mythic stories with lots of form shifting going on. Working Marina Pacini, Curator & Catalog Production with Photoshop, I have been able to develop Larry Ahokas, Catalog DeSigner sketches for my work. I also videotape real Carlisle Hacker, Catalog Editor phenomena quite a bit-events that somehow suggest movement or flow.
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