Art Sync: Echoes of Collected Stories

Elizabeth Johnson: Your imaginary world is full of people, creatures, trees, airplanes: a plethora of things all interacting in unexpected ways. Looking at your website, I can see that your painting and drawing developed from and alongside working sculpturally. Does 3-D let you express what would be hindered in 2-D? Is one better than the other for storytelling? Do you make preliminary sketches for pieces? Do you use source material?

Maren Less: Working in 3-D allows me to explore space in ways that directly inform my paintings. With three-dimensional forms, I can layer and overlap elements, observe how shadows fall, and physically experience spatial relationships. I often think of my 3-D work as a tool for understanding space in my 2-D practice. And it’s where I turn when I’m feeling stuck in a painting.

If painting is the act of creating space where none exists, then constructing with cut paper and flat materials becomes a way to play with illusion and depth evoking the world of shadow puppets and theatrical play. When this exploration returns to the canvas, I hope that it carries with it a sense of that same playfulness and constructed space.

ML: I’m drawn to work that feels truthful, artists whose paths reflect a deep internal drive and a desire to reach beyond the confines of the gallery into something more universally human.

I've always had a rich inner world and a longing for the magical. I was and still am, a big reader––or, more accurately, audiobook listener––and I’ve always felt most connected to life when there’s room for wonder and the unknown.

As a child, I imagined no boundary between the internal and external. I try to keep that gray space alive in my practice: a space where hope, possibility, and play still thrive. I was enchanted by the worlds of Shel Silverstein, Maurice Sendak, and Lewis Carroll: artists who trusted in the intelligence of children, humor in the scary, and the mystery of being.

EJ: The poems in pieces such as Predators and Prey, The Black Goat, and Dropping into Midnight access dark things, such as animals eating each other (“They mean well they really do. They may have even liked you.”), and an airplane’s crash landing (“They could have landed calm and lightly. But in the plane they held on tightly.”).

Extermination Day advises: "It's okay if you are worried. Feelings that come are often best not hurried." Talking through joy and suffering like a kid equalizes and flattens extremes, because imagination values change over attachment. Are these works about harnessing imagination to navigate life?

ML: “Imagination values change over attachment” speaks to the idea that creative thinking favors transformation over clinging to what’s familiar. I interpret the work as more about harnessing intuition: tapping into an internal process of self-discovery. Getting to know yourself can be both exciting and unsettling. But at its core, understanding––even of difficult truths––is a process of knowing.
 

ML: ...In a way, the poem relies on the painting, but the painting doesn’t rely on the poem. Truthfully, the painting doesn’t need to exist at all: it serves no practical purpose. If it were to disappear, the poem could vanish with it. Maybe that’s the essence of capturing an inner landscape: it’s used to being unseen, and it could slip back into invisibility with almost no effort.

EJ: Stylistically, you seem influenced by Cubism and Modernism: Picasso, Jean Arp, Max Beckmann, and Niki de Saint Phalle, just to name a few. Which artists have you always loved? What kind of art speaks to you now?

ML: For a long time, I was deeply drawn to the CoBrA movement, especially the bold, spontaneous, and sometimes childlike work of Karel Appel. I’ve also been influenced by artists like Paul Klee, Red Grooms, Bob Thompson, and Henri Rousseau, each of whom approaches creating with a specific kind of freedom.

Lately, one of my most constant sources of influence has been Paul Hamlyn’s book (Indian Miniatures) on Indian miniature paintings. I return to it whenever I feel stuck. I’m captivated by the intricate detail, the layered narrative quality, and the stylized depiction of each element. That combination evokes a sense of awe in me, the kind that reminds me what I am striving to create in the first place.

ML: The dance between painting and writing always begins with the image. The painting comes from a drawing, and the drawing feels like it arrives from nowhere. As I work on the painting, I think I’m subconsciously turning over its meaning. The imagery feels dreamlike, symbolic, and intuitive. Interpretation is essential, not in a literal way, but as a way for my subconscious to communicate.

The poem usually arrives when the painting is nearly complete. The first draft often comes fully formed, as if dictated from elsewhere. I’ll spend hours revising it, but that initial version feels gifted. With my last painting, I wasn’t quite ready for the poem when it came. I had to ask it to wait until I could get a pen.

EJ: Did you intuit the words?

ML: That’s a good question. It is more of an inner voice reciting the words.

EJ: The Riverbank is Piling Up seems to comment on your internal process, as it seems aware of so much material needing to be expressed. This painting is different because it's limited to a magenta, gold, white, and teal palette. Was there a reason you limited color?

ML: That’s a great question. I’ve always been drawn to the way shapes repeat and mimic each other: it’s just how my brain seems to pick up on patterns.

My paintings usually begin with recurring themes that show up in my notebook, almost insisting to be explored. In that sense, I don’t feel in control of what I end up painting: it’s more like I’m following these repeating images.

This series began during a chaotic period of change in my life. Over time, the work shifted and became more about space than density. That change felt like a necessary next step, as it allowed me to explore depth within a two-dimensional surface, something I had more often pursued in my three-dimensional work.

Now, as my compositions begin to feel just a little more crowded again, I’m hoping that the sense of depth and light I’ve been developing will remain present and bring new clarity to the complexity.

ML: I never have a full narrative in mind while I’m painting: if there is one, it usually only reveals itself after the work is finished. And it’s never a true narrative, but more of an explanation. The imagery feels more like the narrative logic of dreams: fluid, shifting, and unresolved. I don’t assign specific meanings to the characters; they just exist within their own world, playing the roles they’ve been given.

Even in the writing that accompanies the work, there's no hierarchy, no heroes or villains. The figures feel more like minor characters in a play that has no central plot. They aren't part of one cohesive story, but they carry echoes of many.

 In a way, each character might represent something we all experience: a fear, a hope, a dream, or a role we find ourselves in. Sometimes we’re at the center of that feeling, sometimes we’re far from it. The characters shift like we do, sometimes leading, sometimes fading into the background.

––Elizabeth Johnson
(elizabethjohnsonart.com)

edited by Matthew Crain
(@sarcastapics)