AD: So you've shown me a lot of your artwork, including a bunch of your old stuff. Can you tell me how it differs from the work you're doing now? How it's changed?
JV: Yeah. So in the past I was doing abstract expressionist paintings, and I realized that it only applies to people who have knowledge of art history and whatnot. It's not democratic. So me making the geometric works - they look almost secular, like symbols and posters - it can apply to everyone. They're easily recognizable. Ya know, something being legible is really important in my work, and that's why the work i'm doing now incorporates text.
AD: Do you find that doing this kind of work is therapeutic for you?
JV: Not really. I mean, I don't really like doing super hard edge paintings and drawings, and basically a lot of my paintings are sign paintings. So, it's like a discipline. So it's like adding a tool to my belt. I'm trying to add a structure to my work, and once I do that, I can kind of move on and create even more democratic socially accessible things. Because art is visual, so that's the most important thing.
AD: Yeah. Last time you spoke about art acting as a discipline for you, and you like that challenge.
JV: Yeah, yeah. I really like trying to hone my skills and my crafts because I don't think you can really progress until you master what you do. Once I master the hard edge and sign painting, then i'll move on and do something else, ya know? But i'm kind of dabbling right now into installation and sculpture, because those objects are ones that are really accessible to everyone; really recognizable garbage bags, shitty computer print outs, extension cords. You don't need to have any art knowledge to recognize those objects as art forms.
AD: And you said something similar about the sculpture that you're doing; how you're kind of bringing the images on your canvas to life by giving it dimension.
JV: Yeah cause, ya know, my paintings are really flat and two-dimensional, and that's intentional. (NICE RHYME!) But by working three-dimensionally, I wouldn't say they're more interactive but they're more real and tangible. So they're not being put on a painting pedestal, because painting is about institutional critique and how the painting works within the four corners, or in a gallery space. By doing these really crappy, kind of really weird, installations… it kind of defies that.
AD: You were talking about the project that you're planning with the brail, and how it incorporates a sculptural aspect that invites the viewer to come up and touch the image.
JV: Yeah. I'm gonna be working on a series of brail paintings, and feeling paintings. I'm gonna do a painting that turns on and off.
AD: Oooh….
JV: So, it's kind of questioning how we look at art. Ya know, surveillance - whether we can touch something or not. It's a big…it's a scary factor in a gallery space. Ya know, art's so elevated above colloquial objects. So for people to be able to touch them, feel them, and control turning them on or off - whether you're gonna look at it or not…. it makes it more of a feeling based thing that non-artists can also participate in. That discourse, not just looking. It's about experiencing. And especially with the brail paintings; they're going to get dirty. And that's okay. Because everyone looking at it should leave a mark on your work, because it's creating conversation. So if they leave a physical mark, it's even more tangible.
AD: With some of your geometrical paintings, it's like you're taking images that have been done before and redoing them and modernizing them in a way. At the same time, with your brail project and your idea about inviting people to come and touch it, it seems to me that you're interested in breaking some kind of boundary or doing something that's just really new.
JV: Yeah, I am mean I understand that when people look at my work they automatically think- geometric minimalist paintings. And the paintings themselves don't look groundbreaking. And like you said before, "I've seen that before but I don't really recall where…" I mean, I'm definitely referencing art history, but i'm trying to deny it its tradition. So the way I'm looking at it is, not geometric paintings as "painting for painting," or making paintings about painting history, but i'm kind of looking at them as methods of control and structure. Like I said, within prison design, the geometry of the prison and the layout - "the Panopticon", "surveillance" - all of those things, they way it's set up controls the way you move and it controls efficiency. And efficiency is so important. And that's why I do my paintings so quick, they're clean and all of the same shapes are repetitive because they're all recognizable. Who doesn't know what a triangle is? Who doesn't know what the color orange looks like? And that's why i'm doing the brail paintings; because if you're blind…you can't see them. Ya know?
But everyone can touch.
AD: You said you grew up in a silk screen factory. Where do you see that influence in your work?
JV: Well, the text plays a big role in all of my work. All of the images I saw my parents working on…they're all logos and they're all symbols. The pencil lines in my paintings too. You can barely see them, but it shows the artists hand in the really hard "machine" looking paintings. Everything that i'm really influenced by is machine made. Ya know, loss of the aura. Like something being produced so many time and constantly in transit, like all the type and images on trucks, seeing the industrial printing presses going so quickly producing these cultural objects. They're constantly being made, and worn, and thrown out… Text not matter what is always being infiltrated in to art and every vision that we see. So the
text almost functions as a poster or a book. I think the text is really important because once again, art is a form of visual vernacular- its a communication device, and text clears a way to get it across. And also its not just telling you what you're see it. If anything, it's making fun of what you're seeing. With something like that…(SHE POINTS) You think that doesn't exist in the real world…but it really does. It's just an under current, or an undertone. All geometries control the way we move and think.
AD: What else are you intorested in that effects your work?
JV: Socialism, and art as a democracy - not a hierarchy. Art doesn't only have to exist within power structures or institutions. Intellect exists everywhere. And so do shapes. I want to make it more legible, so that's why i'm doing text.
AD: It's really funny to me how everything you say really relates the to prison structures that you were telling me about. The repetition, the form….
JV: And even the sporadic drawings are still within a structure, and that's the way prisoners function too. In Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon Writings, he talks about the central watch tower in the prison…and I wrote a wrote a thesis and I argued that, the little sliver of area that the panopticon can't watch, or cover within the overall of it's view, is where the most violence happens. So that little sliver actually promotes problems. And you can see it in this piece here. (SHE POINTS AGAIN) It's all white but in the little slivers… there's still violence. Turmoil within the small spots.
AD: Yeah, I can actually see it in every piece right here. Even here in this painting - on the one half of the canvas where you haven't controlled it with the stripes is where the energetic, neon pink gesture pops up.
JV: When there's not structure….ya know. I think expression in painting or any other art form is kind of arbitrary…you don't need it. If you're trying to communicate something, you're trying to reach a point and let viewers know what your works about… If your they only one speaking your language, ya know doing the mark making….how the fuck is anyone else supposed to read it? It's exclusive - it's like an inner circle. Like the artists school of thought. So whenever I do have brush marks, they're really jarring, critical, almost making fun of that kind of style…like abstract expressionism. It's all about expression, but it doesn't do anything. It's not direct.
AD: So are there any things that you would like to incorporate into your work that you haven't gotten to yet…or that you've been thinking about?
JV: Well yeah… I'm comfortable with the paintings that i'm doing…but once again, it's a painting, so it's only in one particular field. It's not like a billboard. It's not like a book or newspaper, or anything that's accessible to everyone. You don't have to go to a gallery. You don't have to go to an art school. You don't have to be a painter, or a sculptor or a designer, ya know? I want to use materials that aren't just exclusive to one art field… I want to do things that are exclusive to everyone. Which….
AD: Haha, exclusive to everyone. I like that.
JV: Ya know, like colloquial objects. Shit that you just find around. I want them to be artful, but not in art context. You can be a cleaning lady and do your job in an artful way… Everything can be artful and I think that's really important and something that i'd like to communicate. Ya know, you can be a biologist and be artful.
AD: And to wrap her up…what are your intentions once you're done with school?
JV: I'd definitely like to apply for a residency somewhere… I really like the idea of me going to Germany, because I think in itself… it's history is really interesting and even though it's not really spoken about..I think that speaks volumes about their discipline. Whether it was the Holocost or the denial of… both are adamant of their discipline… And I'm also influenced in a lot of German artists and musicians - krautrock, the Bauhaus school…all of those things. A lot of the modernists that I really like, and constructivists came from Germany. So.. grad school, and hopefully writing full-time for The Brooklyn Rail. Definitely developing a discourse between the arts and the work, and help other people develop their skills, not my own. Because…that's kind of selfish.
