On top of the mountain you can see forever #95, 2007, 24"x24", Oil on canvas, by Ky Anderson
By Dale Conour
Artist Ky Anderson dreams of mountains and then paints mountains as dreams. Her work has the weight of something primal and true, calling on the power the mountain has always held over us to create an iconography of the soul. Photographer Ky Anderson, like most of us, sets out to document, but with her artist’s eye, can’t help capturing those fleeting moments that tell volumes.
Q: In your 20x20o notes about your featured painting there, you wrote:
"Often when I start a painting I like to imagine myself as a traditional landscape painter..."
I read an essay (by Sophie Gee) in the NY Times Books review recently about adaptations of classics into films, and this thought of hers stuck with me: "...the best books always need rewriting, and the best writers know they’re rewriters."
I wonder how this applies to art, especially to work like yours that re-imagines what a "landscape" painting is?
A: When I say I like to imagine myself as a traditional landscape painter it comes from a very romantic place. I do pull from a history of landscape painting, but I don’t have a lot of landscape painting books around my house I look at. I am pulling more from the activity of being a landscape painter, being on a hillside with really good light and a cool breeze. This is how I put myself in the mindset to paint. I use it as a trigger. It makes me laugh to think of myself looking a hillside very seriously while what actually comes out on the paper is something completely different. It’s a nice place to start from, and so loaded with great history and meaning, not only from an art history place but also from places of great beauty.
I do think that artists constantly remake other pieces of art. But it is rare to find an artist who admits this. Thinking about it simply, there are two sides to it. One side is that inspiration can come from a similar place, and the other side is that people can be inspired by each other. Both are very different, I find that most artists are very protective about where their inspiration comes from.
My parents are both artists and this is something they regularly discussed at the dinner table when I was child. (Now that I am older I get in on the discussion) Inspiration to make art, for both of my parents, comes from a similar place, but the final outcome of their work could not be farther apart. They both feel completely original and alone in their inspiration. I think as an artist you have to feel original to validate what you are doing. Its important to grasp the inspiration, own it and feel deep down that it is yours and only yours. If you sat around and thought about the fact you are just remaking art that already exists you might put the brush down and go to business school. On the other hand, there is a part of me that also thinks its important to be aware that you may not alone in your inspiration and appreciate those that came before you and those around you doing similar things.
Q: This leads to something else you wrote:
"My paintings tell stories but by leaving them abstract and simple I challenge the viewer to bring their own story to the work."
The way you use "stories" here doesn’t literally mean plots with beginning, middle and end. I’d love to hear more thoughts from you about the artist as storyteller, particularly in the context of landscape.
A: I think most artist are storytellers, but in many different ways. Sometimes artists have very elaborate concepts behind their work and sometimes it’s the simplicity that is the story. I am somewhere in between. I do tell stories in my work but your right it does not mean a plot with beginning, middle and end. I want the viewer to be involved and make up their own stories. In my work I talk more with metaphors for thought, a simple story can talk about much more. For example when I paint a mountain with an object balancing on top of it, the painting is about the balance and struggle of that object and all that it has to deal with when it spends its time only balancing, never falling. It becomes exhausting. I think in our modern world people can understand how that relates to their life.
The landscape gives the viewer an immediate place. Give it a horizon line and everyone knows where they are. Sometimes if I am feeling unsure about a painting, a simple horizon line can help me know where I am in the painting and it somehow tells me where to go next. As a story teller the communication between artist and viewer is very important. I like to think of the viewer having quiet moments alone with my work, and hopefully my work will cause question and wonder. Of course some people don’t get it. I was once trying to explain this all to a collector and they said "oh, isn’t that nice and happy". I don’t see my paintings as nice and happy. I see a lot of them as pointing out the bad with a touch of optimism.
Two pointy mountains, 22'"x30", Acrylic on paper, 2006, by Ky Anderson
Q: Another quote from you:
"To me the mountain image is filled with meaning. It comes from my first memorable dream of falling off the top of a mountain."
Love to hear more about your attraction to mountains, the resonance they have for you.
A: My first memorable dream started at the base of a mountain, my father and I were getting into our old truck. I had really long arms, so long that my hands flapped out the windows on both sides like wings. This mountain had a road that wound all the way around it like a spiral, as we started to drive up it the weather got worse and worse. Light snow, then ice and then full on blizzard at the top. The roads were very slippery but it was calm and peaceful in the truck. We were almost to the top and our truck started to slip on the ice, we slipped of the mountain and started to free-fall to the bottom. We crashed and I died. I floated up out of my body and saw the wreckage and our broken bodies, then everything went gray. I was about 5 or 6 when I had this dream. This was my first dream of dying, and since then I have one or two a year. I don’t know or really care about the psychology behind it all, but I find that I keep making art about it. It pretty wild to see yourself dead in a dream, it resonates with me for weeks after.
Something stuck with me when I had that dream, even when I painted as a child I painted mountains. It’s a bit compulsive. When ever I get really into the mood from painting, I think the same simple thought, "man, that painting would be great with a mountain in it" then I paint the mountain, and it feels really good, very satisfying, like really good sex. Then I sit back and think, "oh man, I painted that damn mountain again! What is wrong with me!?" Sometimes the whole thing feels ridiculous. But then I remind myself that I am probably not the only artist out there to be compulsive and repeat themselves.
Yellow Mountain, Blue Circle, 22" x30", Acrylic on Paper, 2006, by Ky Anderson
Q: ..And I wonder how viewing Close Encounters, with the main character’s obsession with Devils Tower, impacted you... ; )
A: Actually when I first saw that movie it made me really uncomfortable, because I was already aware of my compulsion. I thought, just as long as I don’t start making mountains with my mashed potatoes everything will be okay! It was pretty funny.
Viewing the mountains, 2007, 22"x22", Oil on canvas, by Ky Anderson
Q: How is your approach to photography different than your approach to painting. How is it the same?
A: Sometimes I pull from similar themes that are in my paintings, but mostly I just shoot. I take pictures and then pull out the series later. Its great to see the series emerge from a pile of photos taken over the years. I love to document, and for me that is an instinct that comes from a sentimental place.
I have one series that emerged from my photographs after more than 10 years. Without realizing for years I had been taking photos of my friends when we went out to eat. I ended up with a really large series of pictures of my friends eating or looking at the menu or getting irritated with me for taking pictures of them. It’s a great series, it shows time in a wonderfully simple way. It shows people coming in and out of my life, and the life long friends shine. Once I noticed the series I became too self conscious to take those photos anymore, and when I tried to take the photos they felt forced. So I learned that I don’t like to push anything when it comes to my photography. My favorite photos are spontaneous. I suppose my painting is the same, the spontaneous paintings are some of my favorites.
Jaime, 1995, by Ky Anderson
Q: What’s your favorite way to get a nature hit?
A: Gardening! Oh man, in the spring it takes over my life! I try to grow and can food to eat all year. I have a huge garden that is sometimes more than I can handle. I don’t know if most people would call that a nature hit, but I think it is. I love being outside all day and being completely covered in dirt and mud at the end of the day. When the garden catalogs start to show up in the spring I call them my garden porn magazines! I spend hours looking at them and planning my garden.
Swimming in calm rivers and tubing down them is also a favorite pastime.
Q: What’s a perfect world look like to you?
A: Wow that is quite a question. With all the politics in the air lately I have been thinking a lot about promises made by people no different that you or I. Sure they have more power and money, but they are still people ruled by their moods and emotions, people who make mistakes and regret decisions they have made in the past just like everyone else. One minute we think one horrible thing like lets bomb them, then the next we are ready to say we are sorry. How can we possibly have a perfect world when people are so irrational, and everyone has an entirely different view on how the world is supposed to be without any acceptance of the difference. I would like to think that if we all took some time out to really think about our decisions and think about the future the world might benefit. In a perfect world everyone would have compassion, empathy, and openly embrace difference.
Every week I drive over a huge bridge that was built 50 years ago and only designed to last 50 years. An 8 lane bridge over the Hudson river that tens of thousands of drivers rely on every day. Every time I drive over that bridge I think about the person in power who made a financial decision to not build a better bridge, they knew they were leaving a huge problem for future generations but they did it anyways, and nobody stopped them. That is a small example of something that would not happen in my perfect world.
Rodeo, 2007, by Ky Anderson
Q: What have you always wanted to be asked as an artist? And what’s the answer?
A: Of all the things to do in this world why do you make art and don’t you think its kind of selfish?
I make art because if I don’t I turn into a real grump. I make it because it triggers a true joy inside of me that I cannot achieve any other way. In that way it is selfish, but not if you talk to people close to me, they know I am better person to be around after I have had some time in the studio.
I think about the selfish aspect of making art all the time, sometimes I think I should be doing more with my life to have an impact on the greater good. On the other hand, I do believe artists have a very important role in the world. A role to help others see things in different ways, I hope that throughout my life as an artist I can achieve this.
Handing it to me, 24"x24", Acrylic on Paper, 2008, by Ky Anderson
I have an old family friend who passed away a few years ago, he was also one of my painting teachers at The Kansas City Art Institute. Lester Goldman, he was an incredibly prolific artist, the amount of work he did in his life is enormous. His wife recently put all of work on display and last week I spent several hours looking through hundreds of paintings. Looking at all of his work together and seeing the timeline of his life in his art put making art into a different perspective for me. It made it all feel worth while. His wife and I did a painting trade, so I got one of his great paintings. I hope that after I am gone someone will feel something remotely similar to how excited I feel that I get to live with one of his paintings.
Links: Ky Anderson, Ky Anderson at 20x200, Sophie Gee’s NY Times article
Let’s stay in touch.
I mean, Christ, the Ellen Page-Barbara Walters interview is on the TV in the background right now, and who comes off as the wise, soulful woman with great emotional depth? (And which one has had every last wrinkle magically brushed away in her photo?)
Plato), who used them to illustrate his famed paradoxes, and then resurrected millennia later by Lewis Carroll to show off a paradox of his own (to come later in the book, promises Hofstadter).
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