Christian Garcia-Olivo Interview
Untitled White Skin, 2020 ( Detail) Acrylic paint skin over polyethylene and polyurethane, on wood panel,48” x 48” x 10”.
CHRISTIAN GARCIA-OLIVO INTERVIEW WITH LAUREN SIRY
Untitled Selections: Christian Garcia-Olivo April 2, 2021 - August 30, 2021 ( Extended through October 1, 2021)
In collaboration with the Porto Vista Hotel, 1805 Gallery is pleased to announce Untitled Selections: Christian Garcia-Olivo. The exhibition showcases a selection of Garcia-Olivo’s most recent works created in 2020 exploring issues of race, gender, and identity.
Garcia-Olivo manipulates paint into forms that resemble textiles; folding, draping, and weaving the material into organic shapes that cling to the surface of the canvas. The artist merges the characteristics of paint and textile to blur the boundaries between fine art and craft.
Garcia-Olivo’s work expands on a larger dialogue regarding craft history and the marginalized demographics that were overlooked within historical fine art narratives.
LS: Christian, as you have stated your approach to painting is entirely sculptural and you are “interested in the way paint can be manipulated and transformed to create different forms and textures.”
CGO: By forcing a liquid medium to behave in a way that is not inherent to its natural state I am trying to control its perception.
LS: What is paint’s natural state to you? Is it dictated by gravity, artists, historical art movements?
CGO: Yes, to me, paint’s natural state is fluid, uncontrollable, and still full of possibility.
Due to history, we know paint as a thin layering of pigment on a surface.
Something that can become “alive” but still restricted to a flat 2D surface.
And why? Isn’t acrylic paint essentially plastic with pigment?
Why can something designed for a specific purpose not be used in many ways?
I want to remind people that a flat image on a flat phone will never replace reality with tangible materials. We have bodies for a purpose! We are “designed” to feel..... Are we being manipulated to also behave differently?........
LS: Are you then transforming that fluid paint into a fixed sculptural voluptuous form, still physically and metaphorically adhering to the formal structures of the canvas?
CGO: Yes, as of now constrained to a formal structure in the hopes of removing it.
LS: Forcing. Behave. Natural state. Controlling perception - It is interesting that you use this language in your artist statement. You are both liberating the material while also controlling it. There is a tension between the two - the forms and folds push out beyond the surface of the canvas but continue to depend on its structure. Perhaps this suggests that in order to liberate one must operate within the structure.
CGO: Yes perhaps.
This is a question I still ponder. But I hope to remove that structure within my work and I continue to question the necessity of structure or perhaps a completely different structure, one we haven't perceived yet.
LS: Does this concept translate to your larger aim at addressing marginalized forms within the history of contemporary fine art?
CGO: Correct. Within history, marginalized groups and forms of art have been “recognized,” brought to the surface and semi “liberated” but still being controlled/manipulated to maintain in that category or label/identity.....
PERFORMANCE/LABOUR:
LS: Although you are “forcing a liquid medium to behave in a way that is not inherent to its natural state” and transforming it into a sculptural fixed form, it is not limited to any singular identity.
The perception of the physical form maintains a sense of fluidity, as it is impossible for the works to have a fixed identity. The work can exist between and is not limited to categories of painting, sculpture, textile, and performance.
CGO: Yes, exactly. So then it translates back to marginalized groups of people and how at the end of the day we too are fluid beings, constantly changing and evolving, not fixed to a certain state.
If this work can exist within all these categories does it make it a new form of art?
Or one that can offer multiple perspectives and also allows for multiple identities to be able to connect to the work as well.
LS: There is a performative aspect to these works as well - draping, folding, and weaving the dried paint strands and sheets. They are not just an object, they are a product of performance.
There are time-based elements and labor involved. You are literally waiting and watching paint dry. An idiom that often suggests a slow and tedious task.
For the paint to disrupt its art historical roots it must first undergo a slow and tedious transformation only to protest its hierarchical structures by operating within them. How does the process inform your larger narrative around marginalized forms of art-making? Are you considering time and labor as a significant element to your process and to the work?
CGO: It does take a lot of time and practice to make the work but I never really wanted to focus on that. However, now that you bring it up..... Time is an environmental factor that we can’t really control and can become very frustrating. But isn't this another lesson to learn? Patience. Transformation and evolution doesn’t occur instantaneously. Does it inform marginalized forms of art-making? Yeah, oftentimes labor and time spent on things aren’t considered. And in order to coexist in this “normal” world, the artist has to reach a higher level of intellect which still doesn't guarantee being seen on the same level. And that causes more separation from people for the artist. The artist is now separate from its marginalized identity, struggling to be “normal”..... And now making art for only a certain group of people.
So how do we change that? Now that we transform ourselves do we have to continue to operate within these structures? Can we not just change the structures? The structures that continue to bring us down...
MATERIAL/SURFACE:
LS: There is a change of instruments in the production of these works. Is the production of painting called in question? - In Untitled Blue Gray, 2020 and Untitled White Skin, 2020, there is a synthetic appearance - removing the brushstroke, favoring a slick surface, whether glossy or matte, it influences the perception of the work and it takes on a new dimension that is anonymous.
The hand of the artist is not visible therefore the labor is concealed despite the hand of the artist’s influence on the movement of the acrylic sheets of paint.
Are you empowering the paint to transform beyond the limitations of the flat canvas? Is it more about the material rather than the surface?
I recall Lucio Fantana referring to the gaping holes in his canvas that he slashed wide open with an ice pick, he does so with the aim to ‘escape symbolically, but also materially, from the prison of the flat surface.”
Untitled Blue Gray, 2020. Enamel paint on wood panel, 28” x 18” x 5”.
While Fantana, almost violently attacks the canvas, you treat the surface with an additive approach, manually layering on and delicately folding sheets of dried acrylic paint that cling and obscure the edges of the canvas. There is a sense of a gentle and intimate application that demonstrates more care for the form. The high gloss paint draping over itself in Untitled Blue Gray, 2020 creates an illusion of movement and sensuality that is reminiscent of the marble figurative sculptures of Italian Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. But while Berinin’s drapery suggested the concealment of fleshy voluptuous human forms, your forms are composed of sultry layers of dried acrylic paint over the flat edge of a canvas. And while the flat edge of the underlying structure is visible at the top it becomes overwhelmed by the sculptural form that folds and drapes out beyond its underlying structure.
Using the term “Anti-Form”, Robert Morris calls for a renewed emphasis on the process of making: as can be seen in this work, he advocated “random piling, loose stacking” and “hanging” as a means of letting material determine its own contingent—rather than enduring and determinate—form. What is your process when working with the materials? In the process of making, are you allowing the material to determine its own movement? Is there an element of chance involved?
CGO: I believe it is a back and forth exchange.
Overall, the making of my work combines a meditative, intuitive and chaotic process. I start with an intention and methodically pour acrylic paint onto different surfaces to create strips or sheets of paint (“paint skins”).
But in order to “control/manipulate” the paint, I need to understand it, play with it, work with the qualities it has(such as thick/thin/, flexibility, etc) Which also comes from a lot of observation, even while it dries. As Morris says “letting the material determine its own contingent” is its own identity. However, I am also there to guide, and influence whether that is by force (glue or purposely folding (although still considering its limitations and fragility/impermanence). At times I also go back and reinforce certain areas in order to ensure the paint continues to “behave” a certain way or I simply let the environment do its thing, opening the opportunity for its own exchange/dance with its surroundings. For example, during my residency, it was extremely hot in the studio and it caused some large paint strips to overstretch due to both gravity and heat. And even though it wasn't my original plan/intention, it was beautiful. There was a natural element to it that also reminds me of my human influence and limitations as well.
HISTORIES/CRAFT:
LS: It is impossible to avoid the references to historical painting, specifically the monochrome and abstraction, a symbol of spiritual purity and simplicity, highlighting the painting's physical form, color, and texture.
You use ‘craft techniques such as weaving and collaging, as a way to examine and challenge contemporary issues of race, gender, and identity, bringing attention to the hierarchy of art mediums and the ongoing subordination of craft.
CGO: “By elaborating on craft’s marginalized status in the art world, I aim to address the identity politics of “the other.”
LS: You channel concepts of craft within your work. Craft often suggests that the object has a function, a textile to wear, a vessel to eat or drink from, essentially a form that serves.
“Craft” was often considered a lesser form of art until artists began challenging the differences in the 20th century by using craft techniques in their art practice.
This is especially evident in Untitled White and Pearlescent Green on Nacreous, 2020.
The work is a series of acrylic loops adhering to the surface of a white square canvas.
Up close it is an abstract pattern that mimics a woven textile but from a distance, the pattern flattens out, the distinction between each loop is lost and a faint stripe of olive green remains visible within an invisible white border that frames the textured surface. It would appear flat if not for the glimmers of light that shine off the pearlescent surface.
This body of work brings together the histories of two traditions, two concepts, and characteristics of art.
LS: When I think of craft art I immediately think of textiles. And textile’s inherent nature, like paint, is fluid. It is always in motion - it can shape and reshape in any environment or by any hand.
By alluding to the nature of paint and paint’s ability to act like a textile you are establishing a connection between textile and paint, that equalizes them; disrupting the hierarchy of fine art that considers Craft a lesser form of art.
This work locates the commonalities between two arguably disparate forms of art, painting and textile work, merging the characteristics of paint and textile to not only unify them but to empower them to expand beyond their expected or determined roles, only to then demonstrate how the structure within which they operate is what confines them.
CGO: Yes !!!!!!
LS: It’s clear that you are expanding upon a dialogue that challenges hierarchies of Western notions of fine art and perhaps suggesting that the inherent fluid nature of marginalized forms of art is suppressed and confined by Western tradition.
Western Historical painting mainly celebrated the works of white men, Rauschenberg, Pollock. etc. Do you consider yourself a Mexican-American Artist that is appropriating the language of Western historical painting to disrupt the Western hierarchies in place?
CGO: Yes, you can see it that way. Personally, I assimilate it to my Mexican/American identity and its creation/evolution of “Spanglish”. Disrupting tradition with something that already exists but we are taught it can not and should not. We are conditioned to see it as two completely separate and different worlds, nothing to do with each other.
I am not appropriating, I am simply displaying a language that already exists. Calling for a change in structure.
Untitled Selections: Christian Garcia-Olivo will be on view at Porto Vista Hotel through August 30, 2021. Please contact lsiry@1805gallery.com to schedule a private viewing.
Porto Vista Hotel is located at 1835 Columbia Street, San Diego, CA 92101
Christian Garcia-Olivo (b. 1988) received his BA in studio arts from San Diego State University (SDSU) in 2015. Christian was an Artist In Residence at Bread & Salt, San Diego, July through September 2020. Past shows include C-Note at San Diego Art Institute; Site Unseen at the Latin American Art Fair; Palm- Sized Oceans at Permanent Storage Projects in Los Angeles, CA. He was also recently featured in KPBS top 5 works to see in San Diego.
Lauren Siry is an Artist, Curator and Art Consultant based in London, England and San Diego, California. Siry collaborates with emerging artists and organizations to enhance everyday experiences with artistic interventions. She specializes in consulting and creating custom Arts programs for museums, hotels, property groups, and shopping centers. Her curatorial projects and Arts programs feature artists working in painting, photography, digital, video, performance, sculpture, and installation. Siry aims to strengthen the ties between the Arts community and local businesses in an effort to provide a platform for diverse voices and spaces for critical thinking.