Art Sync: Tone, Color, Depth, and Mystery

Elizabeth Johnson: Last time we chatted, we talked about work that "comprises mainly empty spaces, and individual people, or separates the viewer from a space that they either can't enter or can't fully see into." How do ideas for paintings begin?

Leigh Werrell: I use drawings and photos as references for my paintings. Usually something I see during my day-to-day life triggers an idea for a painting. I’ll take a few snapshots of the scene, make a note of the idea in my phone, and then it will normally percolate in my brain for a time ranging from one week to a year. Somewhere in that process I do a drawing, and this is the point where the idea either blooms or fails. After that, I may take more pictures, but I often rely on the snapshots because I find that if I have too clear a reference, the painting loses the magic that comes with my mind making up details that I can’t see in the pictures. I am never simply copying the forms or colors in the reference photos.

In paintings like Wine Bar, Night Nursing, and Long Morning I didn’t have a picture of the exact scene, but I made my husband, Ben, reenact his posture in each so I could get a more accurate handle on the perspective.

EJ: Nursery and Night Nursing witness nursing, your partner and the new baby from a distance, expressing domestic privacy in low light and your signature glowing lavender and blue tones. Why did you take the overhead view in Night Nursing? Is Nursery an expression of security, quiet, and order between what I presume must be busy days? Would you compare Nursery to Whistler's Mother, which made composing a static figure and rectangle(s) famous?

LW: Both those paintings came from the haze of new parenthood, as I held my newborn in the dark hours of the morning. In Night Nursing I used an overhead view to include my husband sleeping in the bed next to me to emphasize that, even with a wonderful partner, caring for an infant is an overwhelmingly isolating and exhausting task. Still, there is so much love and devotion in the act of caring for our baby, and I wanted to show that, as well. She is over a year old now and it’s much easier! I don’t think that the mental and physical load of new mothers is talked about enough, especially considering that in the US, unpaid maternal leave averages only 10-12 weeks, though many people take off less time. It takes 6-8 weeks on average just to recover physically from giving birth!

LW: I love this review, and the book sounds very interesting! I have been thinking about this idea of motherhood as an adventure to integrate into one’s lived experience, rather than a new identity that eliminates the person you were before.

There’s an idea that has been persistent throughout recent history that becoming a mother means foregoing any other life goal, especially one of being an artist. As a single mother, Alice Neel notoriously felt torn between motherhood and her practice (and has often been criticized for focusing too much on her work, and not her children––try to find a male artist who gets the same criticism!) Many women painters from the 1960s and ’70s chose to forego children to focus on their art.

I believe that there is a systematic reason for the difficulty women artists experience balancing their practice with mothering. Parenthood was never meant to be a one-person task, and the days when one income supported a household are long gone. With many women being held to the impossible task of both running the home and working full time, it’s not surprising that they would give up their artistic practice––or any goal outside of that. The only solution is an overhaul of inequitable capitalist practices, eradication of domestic inequality, and building communities to support new mothers.

EJ: Inside Out contrasts a tree branch pattern, a flat yellow light and a simplified, dark portrait. Likewise, Street Lamp contrasts a similar light, tree branches, and night sky. The patterns recall gazing out the window at darkness and letting one's mind drift. Considered with Little Window's external view of illumination, I feel the poignancy of a thin, yellow surface that separates internal and external views, operating as a porous witness.

It's almost as if you invite the viewer to inhabit a delicate scrim between inside and outside. Do you identify personally with this liminal space?

LW: This space has always fascinated me. It’s the point at which something changes, and makes everything beyond that point take on a completely different tone, texture, or shape. I titled my show at Gross McCleaf For the Moment because the work in the exhibition reflects the current point of transition of my life. Though it’s been a year since Hazel was born, I feel like my entire future has changed color, but I can also still see the clear hues and shapes of the past. Neither one is better or worse, but I am certainly in a space where I’m looking both backward and forward in an intense way.

EJ: In our last interview you summarized, "I focus on familiarity in artwork. I want to connect to the scenes and objects in my work, and I believe that if I am connecting with them, other people will too. People are in the world to be seen, and the best expression of being seen comes with learning that you have had the same experience as someone else. For instance, reading a book that you can relate to or observing how another person has been as delighted as you have been with a shape or color that you have seen in a different context. Inhabiting their perspective can shift your ideas about that object, scene, or story."

Does painting situations with some detachment perhaps create lingering empathy in your pieces?

LW: Yes. That is one of the main tools that I use when painting. By finding the line between directness and ambiguity, I get the story started for the viewer, so that they can go on their own journey within the narrative. This quality isn’t something I think about consciously, I tend to gravitate towards scenes that are mysterious in some way.

LW: My husband is a bass guitar player and I think using grey is similar to including that instrument in a band: most people tend to pay more attention to the lead guitarist or singer, but the bass is always there in the background keeping the rhythm and enhancing the other parts to allow them to stand out in the best way possible.

EJ: I admire how you combine foreshortening with many different ruddy hues in Wine Bar, and Fence seems to explore detachment as a balance between deep space and limitation. Can you talk about thinking in color in sculptural vs. flat terms? Is it a challenge to mix sculptural depth and perspectival depth and still use color?

LW: I have one semi-sculptural piece in this show, Nursery, and the crib is raised up slightly from the panel. This element adds to the piece because it is so dark, and I wanted to bring the crib to the forefront without making it much lighter than the surrounding room. It is dark enough to speak to the experience of many other mothers who, desperate for a break, hang blackout curtains, perform elaborate nap-time rituals, and rock their baby for what feels like hours in the hopes of prolonging their naps. (Other new mothers may sympathize with my despair over Hazel’s twenty-seven-minute naps through her first eight months!)

Leigh Werrell is an artist living and working in Philadelphia. Recently the subjects of her paintings include her experiences as mother to a one-year-old, views of her Mount Airy neighborhood, everyday scenes with her family, and views of and through the windows of her home. She is originally from Durham, NC and came to Philadelphia for an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

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