Praeterita

Continuing the interview series in which I pose the same six questions to each artist. Today's interviewee is Donna Hapac, an artist from Chicago who makes intricate sculptures from natural materials, twine, and pigment, that extend up from the floor or out from the wall in a process of improvised growth. You can see more of her work here . "Figure 8 Infinity," 2011 ,  21" x 16" x 43",  reed, wood, waxed linen, wood stain PH: What medium/media do you chiefly use, and why?   DH : I primarily use natural materials, such as reed, cane, and waxed linen. I like their flexibility and resilience. I initially was drawn to painting and drawing, which I pursued for many years. Then I discovered fiber art about 25 years ago and was very much taken with the idea of building forms out of these materials. They are drawings in space and containers of meaning. The forms, structures, and patterns that I find in nature inspire me. My process is very meditative and...

A few months ago, I visited the studio of artist Dimitri Pavlotsky at his home in Chicago's Logan Square neighbourhood. I met Dimitri online when we both took part in Paul Klein's Klein Artist Works program last fall, and we then got to know each other IRL (in real life, as they say nowadays to contrast with the spectral 'meetings' that occur via the internet). After I arrived at his house, we sat in his kitchen for a while, drinking tea, and talking about Dimitri's journey in life from an upbringing in Russia to his present life in the United States. The walls are covered with his work--paintings from different times of the last ten years or so, but all having in common a thick impasto style and an image that at least begins in something representational, usually the human figure. The impasto is so thick that Dimitri says it can take months before a painting is finished, as each layer of oil paint, juicy and oozing like cake icing, or a slithering mass of...

Continuing the interview series in which I pose the same six questions to artists, writers, and other creative people. Today's interview is with Stella Untalan, whose stunning works on paper caught my eye one time on Google Plus. You can see more of her work here . soundings #2,  matte vinyl paint, graphite, and white drafting ink on 22 x 30 Rives BFK White, drawing 6.5" x 13", 201 2 PH: What medium do you chiefly use, and why?  SG : I’ve recently returned to drawing with inks. For the past several years my drawings were made with pastels and graphite. Almost all of my work is on paper, museum quality board or synthetic papers like Yupo. My paper of choice is Rives BFK. I use traditional drawing tools but am very interested in using tools co-opted from untraditional sources. These are essential to discovering different ways to create new mark vocabularies. PH: What piece are you currently working on? SG : Right now I have 5 or 6 projects underway--I can’t wor...

The 28th in an interview series in which I pose the same six questions to artists of all hues. Willi Bambach is an artist living in Berlin, Germany. He works in a mixture of media, always finding surprising combinations of textures and images in his juxtaposition of different materials. If you live in the New York area, you can currently see his work in Long Island City at this venue . "Untitled (Crash 201)", 2011,  silicon, paper, acrylic color  and varnish-color, plastic sheets on Canvas,  98" x 61" PH: What medium do you chiefly use, and why? WB : My creativity circles around paintings, sculptures, and installations. The main substance I work with most is probably silicon. Why? Maybe because I feel that it's a perfect mirror of our zeitgeist.   PH: What piece are you currently working on? WB : Usually I work on several pieces simultaneously. One that I'm working on now is a large painting in my plast-art style, like the one you might...