Thank you Elise Morris for interviewing me for the Studio Work blog!
The undulating, space distorting paintings of Lorene Anderson will inspire you to look deeper – they seem to move before your eyes – surprising us with their sense of slow movement. So interesting to learn that the work comes from many influences, including her “fascination with layering of time, space & parallel realities.” Reading about her process might just inspire us to create our own “controlled chaos” in the studio.
How did you come to be an artist in the Bay Area?
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In my early twenties, I moved to the Bay Area for graduate school at U.C. Berkeley. Like many artists, my plan was to move to NYC after graduating but I was hooked by the Bay Area. I loved the light, openness, and pioneering spirit of the West Coast & still do.
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In my early twenties, I moved to the Bay Area for graduate school at U.C. Berkeley. Like many artists, my plan was to move to NYC after graduating but I was hooked by the Bay Area. I loved the light, openness, and pioneering spirit of the West Coast & still do.
How does a painting start for you? How do you find inspiration or ideas?
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I start by staining a canvas with a wash of color to jump into a painting. The wash sets up volume and space. Literature, mathematical/spatial configurations, cosmology, topology, physics, and natural phenomena inform the work. I play with paint and/or ink to create underlying structures of the natural world/cosmos, building marks and shapes like subatomic particles and dark matter. One brushwork can create space and volume and change a painting.
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I start by staining a canvas with a wash of color to jump into a painting. The wash sets up volume and space. Literature, mathematical/spatial configurations, cosmology, topology, physics, and natural phenomena inform the work. I play with paint and/or ink to create underlying structures of the natural world/cosmos, building marks and shapes like subatomic particles and dark matter. One brushwork can create space and volume and change a painting.
I constantly look at other painters—historical as well as contemporary. I’m fascinated with perception & seeing: what occurs between the canvas and the viewer, and what happens in the eye itself, what materializes between the works in my studio, and how the paintings ‘speak’ to each other and work together to create an environment of sorts.
I loved discussing your creative process – all the different techniques that you are using. Can you tell us how this way of working came about?
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I want to surprise myself with my work. Around 10 years ago, I decided to challenge my mark making: I removed the ‘hand’ and eliminated using brushes. I painted with the canvas flat, tilting the canvas to create a ‘controlled’ chaos, letting the paint roll and drip and make its own patterns and marks. I made ink drawings with marbles, I sprayed water onto paper or canvas and then”connected the dots” with ink or paint. Over the past few years, I’ve incorporated brushes again—some home-made—also making marks with squeegees to carve out the striations on some of my new work.
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I want to surprise myself with my work. Around 10 years ago, I decided to challenge my mark making: I removed the ‘hand’ and eliminated using brushes. I painted with the canvas flat, tilting the canvas to create a ‘controlled’ chaos, letting the paint roll and drip and make its own patterns and marks. I made ink drawings with marbles, I sprayed water onto paper or canvas and then”connected the dots” with ink or paint. Over the past few years, I’ve incorporated brushes again—some home-made—also making marks with squeegees to carve out the striations on some of my new work.
We talked about how a residency that you did in France was an especially influential experience. Tell us more!
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I recently spent five weeks as an Artist in Residence at La Porte Peinte in Noyers Sur Serein, France. I made small paintings & works on paper that are now informing my large paintings. The influence of being at La Porte Peinte—the rolling, stripes of the surrounding vineyards & fields of barley, the layers of time & living in a medieval town (literally being on top of layers of history) fed my fascination with layering of time, space & parallel realities.
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I recently spent five weeks as an Artist in Residence at La Porte Peinte in Noyers Sur Serein, France. I made small paintings & works on paper that are now informing my large paintings. The influence of being at La Porte Peinte—the rolling, stripes of the surrounding vineyards & fields of barley, the layers of time & living in a medieval town (literally being on top of layers of history) fed my fascination with layering of time, space & parallel realities.
In France, I experimented with various tools which had an impact on my mark-making. I purchased antiquing brushes, grouting & scraping tools in specialty & hardware stores and started experimenting with stripes—drawn and/or scraped.
Space seems to be important in your work – or in a sense, both creating and warping it. What are your thoughts?
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The new paintings’ stripes mimic landscape, but I use the marks to bend the surface into a churning composition, referencing multiple spaces, realities, topology, subatomic particles, shifting light, sound waves. Striping bends and vibrates, constant folding and unfolding. The new striated/striped works are linear but I also think of them as a cross-section of layers—some are parallel, some intersect. I use landscape as a footing, giving me entry into the reality created on the canvas. The striped landscape is language to exploit—to work with and against.I play with figure-ground; sometimes using reflective paints, mostly using scraping and striping to play with the negative/positive. Figure-ground ‘vibrates’; positive and negative take turns being in the forefront. The scraping off during the striping process creates new spaces “on top” and “in between” within the painting.
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The new paintings’ stripes mimic landscape, but I use the marks to bend the surface into a churning composition, referencing multiple spaces, realities, topology, subatomic particles, shifting light, sound waves. Striping bends and vibrates, constant folding and unfolding. The new striated/striped works are linear but I also think of them as a cross-section of layers—some are parallel, some intersect. I use landscape as a footing, giving me entry into the reality created on the canvas. The striped landscape is language to exploit—to work with and against.I play with figure-ground; sometimes using reflective paints, mostly using scraping and striping to play with the negative/positive. Figure-ground ‘vibrates’; positive and negative take turns being in the forefront. The scraping off during the striping process creates new spaces “on top” and “in between” within the painting.
Where can we see your work in the Bay Area and beyond?
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My work can be seen at K. Imperial Fine Art in San Francisco, where I recently had a solo show. Through the Alameda County Art Commission, one of my paintings is part of the Walnut Creek Public Library’s Permanent Collection. Several artworks are also in various private collections.
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My work can be seen at K. Imperial Fine Art in San Francisco, where I recently had a solo show. Through the Alameda County Art Commission, one of my paintings is part of the Walnut Creek Public Library’s Permanent Collection. Several artworks are also in various private collections.
