Browne interview

Jens Pettersen: Most of the work in Mediums are paintings on paper, to me it evokes a sense of speed within the substrate and medium itself, sort of flipping on its head, the AbEx notion of drawing as painting – To me these are clearly paintings on a quick or immediate surface. How do you relate to speed or quickness within your materiality?

Gemma Browne: Most of the works in Mediums are paintings on paper and yes I do consider them to be paintings and not drawings.
I love that you spotted that and asked me about speed with my materials. In recent years I have come to see speed as an important part of the process of painting and drawing. Lately I have become paint nerdy about the surfaces I work on. I have always loved paper and it is the immediacy and lack of fuss that appeal to me. I work in quick bursts and usually need to finish a piece in one sitting. If it doesn't work I often just rip it up and throw it away.

I always had a difficult relationship with canvas, it slowed me down too much and I don't really like to revisit the same painting day after day to do battle. I also have three paintings on canvas in Mediums but they have a smooth surface which makes things go quicker. I like that the paint slides easily on the smooth canvas rather than having a bite to fight against. I like to use materials that are more known for illustration work, they seem less pompous and weighty. All of the past year I have been painting on paper with gouache paints and I tend to draw with colour pencils. Just recently I started using acrylic inks and I am really excited about using them on canvas as it brings the canvas paintings into a similar sensibility as the paper works. Two of the canvas works in Mediums are done with Acrylic inks and a little acrylic paint and the third one is done with acrylic paint. All of the paints I use are with water and I tend to paint flat down on the floor, all of which remind me of the natural compulsive art making we did as children.

JP: Your work seems to be aligned with people like Karen Kilimnik, which made me think of Kilimnik’s relationship to fashion – specifically her kinship to Marc Jacobs. Your work depicts models within their context of being observed. How does the slipperiness of the ‘model’ – someone who has the task of asserting themselves within a structure of heightened judgment, act as a subject within your work?

GB: I'm so glad you mentioned Karen Kilimnik as I love her work and she is an artist I always come back to. Her subjects, the models, grand houses, animals, flowers etc are treated by her in a way that speaks to my own approach to picture making. Everything is so beautiful and
lusciously painted and it's the artificiality of it all that I love.

With my own art I like to make pictures of beautiful subjects with bright, enticing colours but which on closer inspection create an emotional punch or unease. The fashion model often shows up in my art and I agree that the model has to assert themselves as a presence under scrutiny. I think these models are a kind of stand in for my psyche when I was a teenager. I can only paint ones who have a particular look or expression, usually a bit moody, quite defiant, complex and not very glamorous. I place them in artificial settings, often outside in nature and I construct those settings from photos I take of flowers and foliage during my walks in the city.

Like the models I have to paint particular flowers and they seem to be the most colourful, beautiful things in nature . Flowers and fashion models are posed or presented for decoration but my models look back defiantly at the viewer . There isn't a lot of narrative in my art works, they seem like brief, snapped moments and contain more questions than answers about the subjects and where they are located. The works make up a kind of autobiography I think and these models' moods and expressions are probably an outward manifestation of my own feelings as a teenager and young adult.

JP: Within the work in Mediums we see an astute shift in subjects, from the portraits to paintings of an urn – its an evocative shift in emotional connotation and mood and makes us view the portraits within a new context, how do you think of sequencing – or the ways in which mashing scenes together, generate larger narratives?

GB: I like the romance and remove of old or antique objects and I paint vases and urns from out of print books and photos I take from antique shop windows. The urn makes us think of death and I think it started to show up in my work last year when a lot of my family members died in the same year. Perhaps a global pandemic is also an influence. Its also a mysterious object as it appears like it could contain something. I think of it as a receptacle that might hold memories. It is posed in the centre of the picture like the models and quite staged.

I like hanging the pictures in sequences and alternating the subjects. The models can be quite intense and the urns mysterious and the flowers can act as a stopgap or breather in between . The variety of subjects widens out the narrative a bit and sets up contrast. I like what happens when a group[of the paintings] hang together. The urn acts like a foil to the models, death and beauty I guess!

JP: You speak about isolated, focused objects like the urn or isolated people – collaged into a documented setting of floral landscapes, the models are located in your own familiar setting – is the work related to loneliness and isolation, ideas of fitting in or being removed, and how relevant is your own particular surroundings within the context of the work, could you make this work anywhere?

GB: Though there is often a focus on a single subject be it a flower, model or urn, I haven't really thought of loneliness as a major theme in my art. Isolation may factor particularly after the pandemic as I took morning walks daily without meeting anyone and found that flowers in their distracting colours and beauty became soothing to look at and they came into a sort of sharp relief.

I think though that I tend to depict single subjects as they in some way stand in for my psyche or the human psyche in general. It is the internal character manifested in an object/subject. We are somewhat always our unique selves no matter what situation we are in. So the individual subjects in my paintings are placed in an environment. There are probably ideas of fitting in being explored in the work, the female models are well dressed and nicely presented, the urns are ornate and the gardens flowery and colourful. It speaks to how we adopt guises or behaviours around other people and how we often want to be liked.

It's very interesting to wonder how my work might change if made in a different environment. For the most part I think I could make this work anywhere as it comes more from my internal world coupled with images I see online and it's not particular to any location. Though the urban area is what I am used to as I have always lived in cities and a town. I have never lived in the countryside and any nature I paint is man made city nature. I don't work from actual people or wild nature, I like to fabricate, 'collage' or insert things together and I like that an artificially created beautiful picture could be a bit fake and uncomfortable or pose questions.

JP:I love the shift of going away from notions of ‘battle’ within painting, especially in regards to time and materials – I think in that way too where there is something slightly funny, but very
‘seductive’ about leaning into the decadency of painting, but also about knowing where to pick your specific battles – We can still engage in criticality without having it be an issue of labor or
being under the scrutiny of ‘hours worked’. Where does the most decisive point of criticality occur to you?

GB: It's a constant balancing game of trying to figure out how far to go with a painting and I too sometimes like to do battle with a canvas to see what comes out. But as speed is a big factor for me, I like to create a piece in a rush of energy almost to get ahead of myself so I don't overthink and labour it. I like the freshness of painting or drawing something with quick marks and not too much material. I want to see the white of the paper or canvas still showing underneath in places. I agree that hours of labour constantly reworking
something doesn't always produce the best results. But I labour in a different way by creating lots of paintings on paper and editing out pieces or destroying wholly unsuccessful ones . So perhaps the battle is unseen. I strive to not be precious or intimidated by canvas and I am trying to get the quick, fresh painting on it that I find easier on paper. Just the cost and more solid object form of stretched canvas can slow me down. That said I have learned over time to buy ready made good quality canvases with a smooth surface.

I think the most decisive point of criticality for me is when I have made a painting outside of myself. It has managed to exist as itself and without my ego or my hesitations thwarting it. It's a mental limbering up before I start a piece, I have to get into the right frame of mind, almost a frustrated, “I don't care what happens” kind of attitude. Of course my interests, observations, likes and viewpoints all coalesce anyway in a successful piece. For me what makes paintings beautiful and exciting is the tension in them. It's that tug between colours, marks, speed, emotions, tentativeness and bravado all squeezed into a rectangle or square and coming to balance, that I find so interesting. I may of course contradict myself later as every artist must be open to doing!