On the cold winter afternoon of January 23, 2009 I arrived at RedLine Studios, Denver, Colorado, to meet contemporary, abstract artist, Bruce Price, where I was promptly offered (and eagerly accepted) a pre-interview cup of tea. I started off asking Bruce to discuss his newest works. This being the first time we had met, I wanted to get a feel for how our conversation would go, what questions are more appropriate, etc. As both Bruce and myself are quite chatty the ‘interview’ flowed casually and I felt almost right away that I should simply throw my questions out the window. I started by discussing his current, ‘in-progress’ works hanging around the studio.
He began by explaining to me that as type of ‘exercise’ he had bought out the entire stock of small, pre-stretched canvases at a local art store, about 52 of them. He said that ‘working small’ was experimental, to see “how things change in a visual progression”. “Within a body of work there are positive and negative constraints.” He began as he indicated to his small, preparatory canvases scattered around the room. The pieces play with these constraints by needing “less looking” and being “more expressive, quick works”.
He starts describing the pieces, “I think a lot about difference; difference between and within paintings; difference enacted in a fractal way.” As he explains this I note numerous examples of this on his wall and it’s not difficult to find these references through his body of work: in contrasting textures and colors, within his compositions, and between various, individual pieces. These new works are no different, filled with mesmerizing contrasts. Here, I begin discussing his ‘creative process’ asking what inspires the work. He begins saying that in his works there exists multiple parts for consideration, first there is “the I (himself) in the object, and there is the object in the world.” he explains, “They really are two different things.” When I ask how this affects his work he continues, “The reason I do it is, I accept the difference between why I do it and the reception in the world.” He explains he doesn’t try to make his work a “vehicle of conception in the world.” and that “there are just peoples reactions… I ‘m interested in that. I like playing off people’s expectations of what I’ve done in the past.”
"Crosscuta"- Bruce Price
This of course, is easier to do now that Price has a successful body work and experience to play off of. As we’re discussing this work and in reference to his small canvases I ask,
“What/who then are you influenced by? Writers? Philosophers? Artists?
“Philosophy and science, specifically Emergent Theory; systems that self organize.” He answers, and continues to discuss his interest in science and how he considers himself a “material transcendentalist” enjoying the idea of the deconstruction of materials. “Moving from parts to where each part is it’s own organism… an auto-catalysts where the forces at play come together enough where they are not just a set of sensations but a meta-organism” He also talked about his artist influences from his graduate program in the Maine College of Art, Sheryl Canada and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, from whom he borrows the notion of being, “driven mainly by ideas, to privilege sensation and to pleasure the senses”. “Conceptualists are suspicious of pleasure” he continues, “heretical to notions of seriousness.” We discuss this in more detail before I continue,
“How do you know a piece is finished?” For Price, this becomes an issue of over-working,
“I used to say my interest was making a painting that convinced me of it’s self.” He continues to explain that key is to stop “the moment when the painting is convincing “.
I then go on to ask, “How do you then define a successful piece?” He went on to discuss how certain pieces are more significant, whether in his career as an artists or within his body of work, such as “The Decorative Transgression of Utopian Geometry” of which he described as “extremely decorative and ornamental” opposed to a painting like, "Quasi Casual Operator" in which he described problems with the painting in his eyes, but that became, “a significant piece to do”. He described how it was the first larger scale piece where, “the geometry became a gesture” and “a field of pattern became a brush-stroke” and how “that was significant”.
“The Decorative Transgression of Utopian Geometry”- Bruce Price
"Quasi Casual Operator"- Bruce Price
We continued to discuss his work and art in more general terms and we moved on to the subject of younger artists as he mentioned, “Now, I would say that artists aren’t in charge of their work… I’m not trying to control the reception of the piece because, well, it’s tyrannical on the one hand.” And more importantly because “meaning is not stable, it’s temporal. It’s a kind of conceit in the notion that I’m in charge of the meaning of it, it’s more interesting, the meaning that someone might make of it” At that we winded down our conversation before my departure from his studio.
The meeting as a whole was an informative one, in which I found myself better understanding both Price’s work and the artist himself. I found delight in the passion he puts forth in his work and his intellectual play through his concepts, but most of all I loved the pure enjoyment he gets out of making it.
- Amelia Carley, Plus Gallery Intern, Spring 2009
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