Art Sync: A Way, A Direction

Elizabeth Johnson: In your statement on the Gross McCleaf website, you state that you are inspired by certain details in suburban landscapes. Does working from preparatory drawings of compelling details forestall succumbing to new enthusiasms? Do you ever relax your focus and follow tangents? 

Celia Reisman: The initial detail/object/subject that inspired me to sit in my car and draw from the location is incorporated into the drawing as a focal point. I compose as I draw, selecting aspects of the place, assembling parts for the foreground, middle ground, and background while incorporating the main subject. As the painting develops, I try to stick to that initial detail. If the painting starts to shift for various reasons, I’ll use another organizational format. I wish I could say that when this happens, it’s exciting because it carries me into unknown territory. But I’m a planner, and so I feel on shaky ground. When things change, inspiration comes from the painting rather than the drawing. My instincts sometimes take me in the right direction and the painting comes together. Other times I put the painting aside, take a break so I can see it with fresh eyes.

CR: My paintings are complicated, with many objects and spaces in them, so simplifying shapes, orchestrating color, and eliminating details is something I’m concerned with in my new work. However, it’s difficult to betray one’s way of seeing and making, so I accept my paintings when they use a wide range of color and dense scenes.

There is something about British artists that attracts me. Their work tends to be linear and less painterly and carefully executed. I’ve always liked Ben Nicholson’s abstracted still life paintings. Also, Francis Towne, an 18th century British landscape draftsman. His work is so reduced and contemporary yet made two hundred years ago. Stanley Spencer’s exact manner of description always provides inspiration.

EJ: Looking at your new piece, Building Blocks, a snow scene with simplified buildings, I feel your abstract invention dominating without overpowering reality. The winter light and composition feel natural, especially how you depict light and shadow on snow. Your abstractions are powerful, since you can build with pure form, but the forms don't need to occupy more territory.

CR: This painting was worked on for quite a while. One of the ways I have been trying to become more abstract is to use large areas of simple color in the foreground and background. Simplifying these areas creates a contrast with detail, multiple color, form. That’s what I attempted with this painting: snow in front, simple white with some form and large blue sky compressing onto the color buildings. This location is in a small town in Vermont, nothing special, a sliver of a scene compressed between two buildings. I eliminated the rest of the buildings to concentrate on this small scene. But to reply to your remark about reality, I remember this quote by Corot:

“Reality is one part of art; feeling completes it. . . . Before any site and any object, abandon yourself to your first impression. If you have really been touched, you will convey to others the sincerity of your emotion.” (Note 1.)

 EJ: I love Norwich Night. It’s shocking to see the moon in the middle of a composition. Not that it wouldn't happen in nature, but it calls attention to point of view. Why did you put the moon there? Painting glowing lights at night contrasts with your usual daytime houses. Did you make a color study to capture this effect? How does painting reflected daylight differ from painting glowing light held in snow or night scenes?

CR: This is another place that I noticed one night in Vermont and made a quick black and white drawing. My impulse was to concentrate on the lines made by the lights strung between the trees. Since I’m tied to location, I incorporated the buildings. Over the years, I have made many nighttime paintings where tonality takes over. I invent the light and the monochromatic color rather than try to depict the light realistically.

CR: When I began painting architecture and the suburbs, I knew it was considered a pedestrian subject matter. The suburbs present a homogenous, uniform personality. I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland Heights. Now I live in the older suburbs of Philadelphia. Because I do paint the smaller, private places of people’s homes, I’m saying these places provide comfort, and identify quirky aspects of people’s personalities. In the larger sphere, the owners say: “I am here, I am my own person, I am the master of my own destiny.” This makes me a voyeur looking on to that stranger’s world.

I hope my paintings make viewers understand that by looking one can see things in a different way. I don’t think I’m addressing threatening issues of day-to-day life.

It's hard enough to have each painting work on its own, and I can’t imagine how I would construct an image with political overtones. I have a friend in Vermont who thinks making art, any kind of art, is a political act. As someone who does not address the issues of the day in my work, I might feel marginalized. However, there’s a freedom in doing what you want. I think pursuing beauty, paying attention to nature and our planet, honoring it by painting and looking, and sharing it with the public is important. 

More than ever before, I’m considering the emotional response my painting gives viewers. Some have said that my work is surrealistic, perhaps frightening, and unsettling, and though that's not my intention, I accept that it’s a feeling some viewers have. Lately, I would like the work to be quieter, a place that one wants to enter.

EJ: Green Gardens is oil on silk panel. Is working on silk new for you? How did you discover it? It looks like the color seeps a bit more to create a softening effect. Since there is more nature in Vermont than Philadelphia, and since I’m thinking of the strength of Building Blocks and Snow Day - Side by Side, I ask: is this sharpening, simplifying, and maturing the result of decades of balancing of natural and manmade forms?

CR: A friend showed me how to attach silk or fine linen to Masonite panels. I started using them when I paint on site. Because I paint thinly, the silk or linen provides a lovely delicate surface. Also, I don’t repaint them, so the material is apparent and makes the work softer. Achieving this with the large oils is still something I grapple with.

Being more conscious of planning the larger relationships of a painting and using five to seven color areas in the larger studio work helps me integrate dark and light areas. A tree can become part of a building because they are close in value, or a roof can be part of the sky.