 |
 |
|
|
 |
Lorraine Shemesh
Lock
2009
Oil on canvas
46 3/4 x 78 1/4 inches
Courtesy of Allan Stone Gallery |
|
 merican artist Lorraine Shemesh investigates and abstracts the human form. She has developed a unique type of contemporary realism that marries figure-based painting with abstract expressionist concerns. Shemesh has worked in varied media, including painting, drawing, fiber, paper, and clay. She studied ballet as a child before discovering painting. This focus informs even her latest body of work, Intersections, which depicts the intertwining movements of two dancers in vivid black and white costumes. The dancers are anonymous and suspended in space, the lines and curves of their forms suggestive of motion and meaning. Shemesh's most recognizable works are her large-scale pool paintings, featuring the play of refracted light on swimmers' bodies submerged underwater. These scenes contain images of everyday life made foreign and spectacular by their treatment.
Shemesh was inspired by Chaim Soutine, Richard Diebenkorn and Edward Hopper. She received her B.F.A. in Painting from Boston University in 1971, then spent a year in Rome with the Tyler School of Art's abroad program, completing her M.F.A. in Painting in 1973 at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. After graduating, Shemesh immediately began exhibiting her work in solo and group shows, as well as accepting teaching positions at Rhode Island School of Design and later at Amherst College. In 1981, she joined the Allan Stone Gallery in New York. She has exhibited her work internationally at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The National Academy of Design Museum in New York, Musee de Carouge in Carouge, Switzerland, Galerij Marc Van Meensel in Zelem-Halen, Belgium, and the Gallery of Landesverband Bildender Kunstler, in Kiel, Germany, amongst others. Shemesh currently lives and works in New York City and is represented by the Allan Stone Gallery.
Art Interview: Lorraine where are you from?
Lorraine Shemesh: I was born in Jersey City and I grew up on the Palisades in New Jersey, overlooking the Hudson River.
Art Interview: Did your family have an influence on your decision to become an artist?
 |
Lorraine Shemesh
Zipper
2008
Oil on Canvas
78 1/2 x 48 1/4 inches
Courtesy of Allan Stone Gallery |
|
Lorraine Shemesh: My parents both valued the arts, especially the visual arts. My father was a food salesman, who drew with me regularly, and my mother, a medical technician, who later became the Program Coordinator in the Department of Pathology at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, also sewed and enjoyed making things by hand. When I was a child, my parents managed to send me to dance class, so I studied classical ballet locally for about seven years. At a certain point, the teacher approached my parents about sending me to a more rigorous program in New York City, but my parents didn't feel that would be possible. They decided instead to supply me with a set of oil paints. I was ten years old at that time, and I remember using the whole box of paint in just a few days. From then on, that's pretty much what I did in my spare time. I don't think one chooses to be an artist. It is simply who you are and how you navigate in the world from the very beginning.
I went to public school, and the art teacher there was an exceptional person. Her name was Joan DiTieri. We studied art history with her, and she took us to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. I pretty much painted my way through high school, designing and working on sets for the school's theater productions and making murals of metamorphosing frogs for the biology classroom. I won several local awards and regional prizes in northern New Jersey. During the summers, I had developed an interest in making patterns, so I worked in a textile factory. On some level, the experience of working in that mill stayed with me and informed the work that I'm doing now. The pickup jobs that you do as a young person when you're first trying to make your way do feed into your work somehow.
When applying to college, I was accepted into the Rhode Island School of Design, but I decided to go to the School of Visual Arts at Boston University, where the program included musical arts and theater. The visual arts training there was intense and formidable.
Art Interview: Would you describe your education at the B.F.A. level as very academic?
Lorraine Shemesh: It was a very classical approach. We studied anatomy and the skeletal system and learned to draw from memory, the origin, insertion and action of every surfacing muscle in the human body. Working directly from life was the basis for all the classes in painting, drawing, and sculpture. It gave me a strong foundation that allowed me to fully express my ideas later on. As students, we traveled from Boston to New York City regularly to attend meetings of the Figurative Alliance, and its members often held heated debates. It was the first time I had witnessed foot-stomping arguments among artists and the factional nature of aesthetic stances in the art world. I received several scholarships and prizes while I was there, and I was inspired by painters like Richard Yarde, David Ratner, James Weeks, and Reed Kay who taught in the program. The visiting artist program included artists like Paul Georges.
During the summer after my sophomore year, I won a fellowship to study at the Tanglewood Institute in Lenox, Massachusetts with the painter Philip Pearlstein. When it came time to graduate, since I had never really traveled, I applied to the program the Tyler School of Art had in Rome. I won a tuition scholarship and later a fellowship in painting that allowed me to complete my graduate work when I returned to Philadelphia.
Art Interview: What was Philip Pearlstein like?
Lorraine Shemesh: He was the first teacher that I had who was really active in the New York art world. He made me think about things in a different way and forced me to step outside of the box. I learned from him how to really use the figure as a way of designing and composing a picture plane in a very abstract way. It wasn't about academic concerns; it was really about making abstract shapes and locking them together in a personal way. We got to see him work and it was eye opening to see someone work in a different way.
Art Interview: How did that experience compare to studying in Rome?
Lorraine Shemesh: The year in Italy really opened my eyes to the world. I was overwhelmed and over my head in Baroque and Renaissance art. That time, on a certain level, made me understand that the imagery I was most interested in, concerned American structures. When I returned to the U.S.A., after that year, I began digging up every Edward Hopper image I could find. I was looking for very simple kinds of shapes. Although, I remember that during my year in Italy, Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski) was in residence in Rome, at the French Academy. I loved his invented street scenes and the original manner in which he used space. The work I was drawn to most in Italy was the sculpture rather than the painting. Although I liked the drama of the Caravaggio's, it was really the sculpture that was most moving. I was always drawn to strong form, and Italy was certainly a country filled with that. The light was also pretty amazing.
 |
Lorraine Shemesh
Link
1998
Oil on Canvas
67 x 66 3/4 inches
Private Collection, Purchase, New York |
|
Art Interview: What led you to your decision to attend Tyler for your M.F.A.?
Lorraine Shemesh: I had applied to Yale University, and I made the first cut there, but the financial aid form at Yale was eight pages long, and because both my parents worked, I didn't think I would qualify for assistance. I was offered full financial aid at Tyler and they had a program in Rome, so I decided to discontinue my application to Yale and go to Italy instead. When my final year of graduate work was coming to an end, that inevitable question of, "What now?" reared its head, along with questions concerning how I was going to keep painting and support myself at the same time?
Art Interview: Did you have to hold a job while you were attending university?
Lorraine Shemesh: I held jobs in the summers. Since I had received a fellowship, I had a stipend of money each month that allowed me to buy paint. I lived in a very tiny place, and I didn't do much except paint twelve to fifteen hours a day. During graduate school, I was pretty much in the studio all the time. When I got out I started applying for teaching jobs and I found myself at the College Arts Association Conference that was held in New York City that year. I managed to get the last interview on the sign-up sheet with the search committee from the Rhode Island School of Design. They were looking for an instructor in drawing that year. I was 24 years old, didn't have much experience, and over 800 people had applied for the job. So, I didn't think I stood a chance. The interview went well, and I soon learned that I was one of three finalists for the position. They flew me up to Providence, Rhode Island for the day for another interview, but then I didn't hear from them for over a month. Finally, I couldn't handle the suspense any longer, so I called the school and was at last told that I had gotten the job. That was a major moment in my life, because I knew then that I was going to be able to keep painting.
Art Interview: Were there any professors that influenced or supported you at Tyler?
 |
Lorraine Shemesh
Ellipse
1998
Oil on canvas
78 x 43 3/4 inches
Private Collection, San Francisco, California |
|
Lorraine Shemesh: John Moore was actually the person that I went there to study with. He was doing cityscapes of the kinds of American cities I was familiar with. Also, Charles Schmidt, whose graphite drawings I greatly admired, was an influence.
Art Interview: Were you attempting to emulate these role models?
Lorraine Shemesh: Not literally. I liked Edward Hopper's work, and I was also interested in the work of Chaim Soutine, Wayne Thiebaud, and Richard Diebenkorn. I liked very juicy paint handling.
Art Interview: Have you had a difficult time developing your own style?
Lorraine Shemesh: You know, I never really thought in those terms. I was just working all the time. I wasn't thinking of a style. Little by little, it developed. You look at a lot of work, you make a lot of work, and eventually you step out of the box. But, I didn't set out to find a style. Everything that I did, all the decisions I made, were just about being able to work.
Art Interview: How did your early work differ from what you're doing now?
Lorraine Shemesh: I think the abstract base is more substantial now than it was in the beginning. Initially, I was working completely from life. I would set up a specific circumstance. Now, I work more with a series of shapes, and although there are models at some point, much of it is made up. I use a lot of different things to get to the finished image. So, the process is deeper now.
There are certain connecting threads to my earliest works: I always loved patterns on form, light, and the figure. Sometimes the pattern wrapping around the form is created by light striations, sometimes by surface patterns on fabric, and often by color shifts.
I have to say, teaching at RISD really extended my education. The kinds of design problems that people dealt with were very inspiring.
Art Interview: Do you consider yourself a photorealist?
 |
Lorraine Shemesh
Lasso
2000
Graphite
15 3/4 x 10 1/2 inches
Private Collection, New York City |
|
Lorraine Shemesh: I use photographs as part of the process, but I don't really categorize myself in that way. I use photography as a means to something else. I work with live models and I do a lot of drawings. I am interested in a kind of specificity that precludes illustration and transcends photorealism both in content and painterly acumen.
Art Interview: What do you believe the medium of paint, combined with realist depiction, brings to our understanding of an image?
Lorraine Shemesh: The potential for visual magic , for me, lies in the union of the two. I'm interested in a lot of the concerns of the Abstract Expressionists. I like the spontaneous nature of a certain kind of mark making and the challenge of marrying that to the figure. Combining the two has the potential to fortify the painting. I try to balance intuition with preparation. Developing the form with various paint viscosities makes one see differently. You're transforming the object, so I think about it as a kind of synthesis.
Art Interview: Do you break through the surface plane or act upon it?
Lorraine Shemesh: Well, sometimes a combination of the two. I had a solo show at the Butler Institute of American Art Museum in Youngstown, Ohio that was called Breaking the Surface. The title referenced not just a metaphorical relationship, but a physical one, as well.
Art Interview: That being said, are you attempting to go beyond the technical issues of form, shape and color within your paintings?
Lorraine Shemesh: Absolutely. When you choose to deal with the figure, you are dealing with a charged form; psychologically, physically, and certainly visually. There are certain conceptual issues that I'm confronting, like disjuncture and continuity. You know, how do you use the figure in today's world and make it relevant? How do you make it something vital, pulsing, and sensual?
 |
Lorraine Shemesh
Studio Shot with Intersection paintings
|
|
 |
Lorraine Shemesh
Lorraine Shemesh working on the painting Eddy
|
|
Art Interview: Can you describe your studio?
Lorraine Shemesh: I work in a renovated old factory building in midtown Manhattan. It is a large loft space.
Art Interview: Do you work in your studio every day?
Lorraine Shemesh: Yes. I get up early, take a ballet class, return to the studio, and work about six or seven hours, have something to eat, and then work a second shift.
Art Interview: Do you have assistants working with you?
Lorraine Shemesh: No. I hire people to build the stretchers, and I hire models, but I basically do the work of making the paintings myself. It's challenging certainly, but it's truly what I like to do. Pretty much every decision that I've made in my life has been based on the desire to make my own work.
Art Interview: Have you experienced fluctuations in your productivity through the years?
Lorraine Shemesh: I'm a worker and I've done a lot of different kinds of things. I work slowly but steadily. Sometimes life impacts the work that you do, but I've pretty much managed to work through difficult times.
Art Interview: How many works do you currently average in a year?
Lorraine Shemesh: Most of the paintings are very large, some of them are seven feet high, and they take months to do. If I'm working smaller or in other mediums, I can do many pieces in just weeks. It depends on what I'm doing.
Art Interview: Why are you attracted to oversize works?
Lorraine Shemesh: Scale is important to me because when I work large I feel as if I'm entering the world I'm creating. It's transporting. I'm not a wrist painter. I don't hold the brush the way I hold a pen if I'm writing a letter. I like to use my whole arm when I work. I like to stand, or put the canvas on the floor. Painting is very much a physical activity for me.
Art Interview: What bridges the works that you have created in differing media?
 |
Lorraine Shemesh
Lock
2009
Litho Crayon on Vellum
8 x 11 inches
Private Collection, New York City |
|
|
Lorraine Shemesh: The bridge between all of them is drawing. It is the manner in which my ideas first begin to germinate regardless of the medium that I eventually choose to use to develop the piece.
Art Interview: Do you work on multiple pieces at a time?
Lorraine Shemesh: Right now, I have a large painting in the studio, but I've also been working on three-dimensional things with paper pulp. I've been cutting out images in paper. They don't have a figurative element in them, but there's patterning involved that's driven by the same impulse. I've been working with pulp since last summer. It's something I've never done before, and it's quite engaging. It takes color in a very interesting way, and the possibilities are endless. It's affected the new series of paintings that I'm working on. It's hard for me to be more specific than that.
Art Interview: How did you come to work with the legendary art dealer, Allan Stone?
This oral history transcript is the result of a digitally recorded interview with Lorraine Shemesh on 30 April 2010. The interview took place over the telephone between Berlin, Germany and New York, New York, USA. Brendan Davis conducted this interview for Art Interview Online Magazine. Cara Cotner wrote the introductory text at the beginning of this interview. |
|
|
|
