Quick Draw Artist Interview #22: Bobbi Woods


Quick Draw Artist Interviews are a series of interviews conducted by Otino Corsano using Facebook's IM Chat feature. Spontaneous conversations with international artists are recorded and documented specifically for publication on this blog.

Quick: match. Coats like Sherman-Williams (i.e.: Cindy and Christopher). When it’s pass or fail, an abandoned studio photocopier sure can help with processing. Hidden away in the electrical room. First covered with silver leaf. Then you fixed the fuse. Draw: art about art.



Bobbi Woods (b. St. Louis, MO) received her MFA and BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. Solo exhibitions of her work have been presented at Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland; Workspace, Los Angeles; Annie Wharton Los Angeles, Los Angeles; and 2nd Cannons, Los Angeles; among others. Woods's work has been included in many group exhibitions at Night Gallery, LA; Charlie James Gallery, LA; New York, NY; Cirrus Gallery, LA; International Art Objects Galleries, LA; Almine Rech, Paris; Actual Size, LA; Asia Song Society, NY; and Daniel Hug, LA; among others. Woods lives and works in Los Angeles, and is represented by Pepin Moore, Los Angeles and Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland.

Her work was recently on view at Pepin Moore’s group exhibition, “Raze; Revert; Repeat”, through 8 December 2012 and featured in the exhibition, “Romancing the Stone”, at Fourteen30 Contemporary in Portland through 2 December 2012. A solo exhibition of Woods's work will be presented at Pepin Moore in 2013.



Bobbi Woods

Chat Conversation Start

Today

Otino
9:30pm
Hi Bobbi!
Are we set?

Bobbi
9:31pm
Hi Otino!
Yes!

Otino
9:32pm
So how's the weather like in L.A.?
ha.


Bobbi
9:33pm
Ha! It's nice & sunny and like 60 or so.
Winter is nice, clear and crisp, a good time of year here.

Otino
9:34pm
No surprise weather report:
The best of LA doesn't seem to change.

Bobbi
9:35pm
Yeah, LA weather is so full of surprises!
Every summer it's on fire and then there are the landslides from the winter rain.


Otino
9:36pm
You are originally from Saint Louis.
Can you say Los Angeles is home now or is there still a lingering sense of displacement?

Bobbi
9:38pm
Hmm, well, I have been in LA just over 10 years so I am certainly comfortable here and it does feel like home. However I really enjoy going back to St. Louis.

Displacement is always a part of Los Angeles.

Otino
9:39pm
When I lived in LA I worked as an intern at a gallery.
The kind, prominent Director took me under her wing and I remember her saying something to the effect of:
"The film industry in Los Angeles hesitates to support the Visual Arts industry since they see their own work as 'art'."
I'm wondering if this can be a relevant starting point in discussing your work?

Bobbi is typing...


Bobbi
9:41pm
Sure!
I am intrigued by film and art’s relationship to one another and there are crossovers, yet not as I would have expected.

Otino
9:42pm
Your work clearly references the 'location' of LA as a film center.
Like Ruscha's widescreen sunsets or screen text?


Bobbi
9:46pm
Yes, Ruscha has been a huge influence – obviously - as well as the entertainment industry here; yet not so much the films specifically.

Otino
9:46pm
Where do you find the movie posters you employ and alter?


Bobbi
9:48pm
I roam the dark alleys of eBay, every…
OH my friend just rang the bell - she is picking up keys one sec.

Otino
9:48pm
No worries. I'm not leaving.


###


Bobbi
10:01pm
Hi I’m back!
She is looking in on my cat while I’m away.

Otino
10:01pm
Where are you off to again?

Bobbi
10:02pm
I am going to St. Louis for a week.

Otino
10:03pm
Nice. Home for the holidays.


Bobbi
10:04pm
It's also nice to go back because there are so many new places to visit that weren’t present when I lived there.

Otino
10:05pm
While you were away I thought of a neat conceptual art game we could play to get us back up to speed...

Bobbi
10:05pm
Cool, like what?


Otino
10:06pm
You know the one where I say one word and you say the first word you think of - Only we play with two words.
Game?

Bobbi
10:06pm
OK…

Otino
10:06pm
“John Baldessari”.

Bobbi
10:06pm
OK, I’m game.

10:06pm
“John Baldessari”.
ha.
Two words,
not twice!

Bobbi
10:07pm
“Funny dot”.
Haha… ok, just one “funny dot”.


Otino
10:07pm
“Morgan Fisher”.

Bobbi
10:07pm
“Film splice”.
Is that how you spell it?

Otino
10:07pm
I think so. We are FB friends
I just checked.

Bobbi
10:07pm
No I mean "splice"
Haha!

Otino
10:08pm
Ha! Too funny.

“Dark Light”


Bobbi
10:08pm
hmmm… “dark light”

Otino
10:08pm
Yeah.

Bobbi
10:08pm
“Ed Ruscha”.
ha.
No, scratch that!


Otino
10:08pm
I'm not going to repeat it again. I know your trick.

Bobbi
10:09pm
“Jack Goldstein”.


Otino
10:09pm
Ah. Much better.
I said “Dark Light” since I think your strategy or approach touches upon the classic LA art theme: dark and bright at the same time.
You have to admit there is a shadowed element in your work - right?
Behind the glitz…

Bobbi
10:10pm
"Sunshine Noir" hmm...


Otino
10:10pm
Or more “Cinema Eclipse”?
It seems you do a wonderful task of both obscuring and illuminating meaning...

Bobbi
10:11pm
Well, there is cover up/concealment and, at times, the way a word or phrase is sort of hovering....

I have a couple of different things in mind as a way to talk about that....


Otino
10:13pm
More doubling.
It appears you offer two views at once in the work.

Bobbi
10:14pm
You think so?

Otino
10:14pm
Signifier and signified.
Poster - paint.
Material and metaphor.


Bobbi
10:15pm
And I think of an image somewhere in between.

Otino
10:15pm
Hovering?
As in a
“Third meaning”?

Bobbi
10:15pm
“Punctum”
- oof

Otino
10:15pm
Yeah, Barthes seems too heavy.
Plus were not in photography anymore.


Bobbi
10:16pm
I love Barthes!

Otino
10:16pm
"A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments".
Everyone does I suppose.

Bobbi
10:17pm
I am not so unique in my affinity for that one or “The Pleasure of the Text”.

Otino
10:18pm
So where are we then?
Let's take your most recent:


“Warm for Your Form”, 2012
Enamel on Poster
41 x 27 inches

I would say it appears Warholian if the term didn't elicit a groan - the feeling of a default, popular read.
Yet it seems to make sense,
not just because of the silver....



Bobbi
10:19pm
Maybe in the repetition?

Otino
10:19pm
I'm reading a balance between fame and its disillusionments.

Bobbi
10:20pm
How so?

Otino
10:20pm
Well, you are employing the context of cinema as both media and ground.
In the same way Warhol's "Race Riot" and "Marilyn" prints were silver screens...
yet imbued with a sadness -
not regret -
more a realization of the reality of its construct.
Arriving at the artifice - alone.
I really like the handprints.


Seen 10:22 PM

Bobbi
10:24pm
Wow, that does sound sad!
I was thinking about the trace, touch and desire/pleasure for/from an image.

I also think about humor, yet, I guess my sense of humor is dry and so the stark or sparse appearance could seem a bit dark/sad....

The handprints initially were incidental.
They appeared on one piece as a result of having handled it while tracing and taping a portion of.


I also wanted to keep it a bit light-hearted so I chose a title for both the work and the show which I thought might lighten the mood.

Otino
10:26pm
What do you have in store for your upcoming solo show at Pepin Moore?


Bobbi
10:27pm
I am going to show a combination of work, having different ways of working presented all together will be a refreshing shift.


Some pieces are just cut, some are painted, some feature text or are without words.  I am also making my own posters based on video stills from my work ...along with a DVD video edition/take away.

Otino
10:28pm
Can you tell me all about your work, "Does Brian Kennon Make You Cry?"?


Bobbi
10:30pm
YES.
I will tell you about that piece.
I love that piece.
It was shown alongside this Marilyn Monroe series…
I had been thinking about how odd it felt to include Marilyn in my work: as an icon, not just as Marilyn Monroe, but she is also Warhol and Louise Lawler.
I wanted the reverberations of this art history present and as a way to show a haunting sort of history: how she is, as a sign, so over-fulfilled by others.

Otino
10:32pm
Fame and its disillusionments after all.
As "art and its disillusionments".

Bobbi
10:35pm
I wanted this image from Louise Lawler of a Warhol; but I wanted my friend Brian to produce it because of the way he works, which relates to Lawler.



It made so much more sense to add Brian into the process rather than attempting what he does.
Am I making any sense?

Otino
10:36pm
Sure thing.


Bobbi
10:36pm
No, I mean, I don't mind that layering.

Otino
10:36pm
I got it.

Bobbi
10:37pm
I really admire their work. So simple and so direct with minimal means.


Otino
10:38pm
As minimal as coating a work with a new layer of meaning.
I can't wait to 'see' the new show - more realistically - 'read' about it online.

Bobbi
10:39pm
Ha! Thanks!


Otino
10:39pm
Pepin Moore seems to be the right place.

Bobbi
10:39pm
I am looking forward to it and am excited about it!

Otino
10:40pm
Thanks Bobbi.

Bobbi
10:40pm
Thank you, Otino.


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