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2 posts tagged fine art
Artist Aryn Zev
When you are thinking about a new project how much do your ideas around gender and your identity with (or without) gender in particular, fit in with the process?
This answer would be very different if you asked me a year ago. At the time I photographed “Box” or “Inversion,” gender was one of the primary motivations—although I think my work raises more questions about gender assumptions instead of operating as a statement of my ideas. I was also obsessed for a while with the idea of naturalness—there is still this myth going around about natural bodies and natural sexuality. Some trans and queer discourse has argued for the naturalness of trans experience or queer sexuality, and there are definitely examples in nature of sex changes, variations in gender roles, and non-hetero sexuality. I’m very skeptical about human naturalness, though, and think humans are too artificially cultured and medically enhanced to claim naturalness of any kind. I fully embrace the artificiality of human experience including my own gender expression and sexuality. My work now has evolved from those concerns and is currently more focused on the ability to reinvent the self, creating vehicles for consciousness and total environments rather than issues of gender in particular.
What would you say to those who are new to the art world? Specifically, what would you impart about being an artist in todays society who are trans / genderqueer / gender-variant identified?
I hate giving advice, seriously. There are so many ways to approach the question. I guess one suggestion would be to explore whether you are a trans/gq/gv artist whose work deals with these issues or whether you want to make work about other things because I don’t think every trans/gq/gv person needs to make work about their identity or have that as a focus. And don’t let anyone pigeonhole you into it. I strongly encourage avoiding narratives of oppression and repression in the mold of the evolutionarily straggling mass media. Instead, create your own unexplored models of cutthroat genius.
Please tell us what your plans are for the future for your work.
As I mentioned before, I’ve become interested in the potential for recreating the self and the environment in total, not just an identity shift within a singular person. If creating new names, new careers, new life conditions can be considered art, then that is my main project—I am constructing multiple identities and operating under those conditions to obtain experiences. I am also working on a number of collaborations, performing in several films by Jake Davidson and videos with Ingrid Staats, and participating in occasional live events with Shadow Lover. I have tentative plans to collaborate with Juan Bethancurt on some performances, photos, or videos utilizing his vast collection of sadistic domestic objects in the near future.
Bio: Aryn Zev is a digital media and performance artist based in Brooklyn, New York.
Find Aryn at this website: arynzev.com
A Short Interview With Artist Simon Croft
Simon Croft is a London based trans-man and visual artist with a particular interest in the rapidly evolving artistic expressions of the FtM trans experience and how they contribute to trans community and culture. He has exhibited in LGBT shows both in the UK and US, and also occasionally writes, curates and provides publicity images for other trans events.
NUTS by Simon Croft
What brought you to begin work as a fine artist?
Transition, really. I’d done nothing artistic since I was about 15. Looking back at what I was doing artistically at that time, I was repeatedly drawing myself as a boy though I didn’t recognize it at the time! Then I just stopped doing anything art based – I guess my art was telling me things I wasn’t ready to deal with. I started making work again at around the time I transitioned about 13 years ago, to try and re-engage with my creativity and it was only five or six years after that, that I started explicitly working with trans themes and deliberately drawing on my trans experiences.
Side view - NUTS by Simon Croft
Are you often, if ever, pigeonholed as a “trans artist”? If you are, does this bother you?
I describe myself that way. I work with and from my trans experiences so in reality it’s a fair description. I want to make work that speaks to other trans people; I’d like it to be seen more widely but I don’t know how realistic that is, at least for now. I’m conscious that as and when I move on from working thematically in this way, I could be stuck with a label I don’t want, but at the moment it doesn’t bother me. Ask me again in 5 years time, if I’m trying to paint landscapes or something!
HAIRSHIRT by Simon Croft
Being a trans identified person, how does this identity lend itself to being an artist?
Transition is a creative act – as are most other ways of trans-living. Art is a good way to reflect on it. It gives you something to say, a different perspective from most people; we see things many people never get to see and that’s quite a privilege.
I also feel that living long term, it’s important to have a space to consider and value my transness, which will always be part of me – that’s very important to me.
As well as creativity, transition involves risk – if you transition physically, you don’t know what’s really going to happen. Changes to physical appearance, how you think and feel, relationships – it’s just not certain. Pretty much everything is back in the melting pot. At a certain point I just had to trust myself to handle whatever would come along when I made the choice to transition.
I see taking risks and trusting yourself as part of making good art too. Some of the ways I work parallel the transition process; I’ll set a process up – like dripping ink onto a cardboard house - and let it run and see what I get at the end.
Close up HAIRSHIRT by Simon Croft
What words would you give to those out there who are interested in beginning their careers as artists?
That’s a difficult one!
Find a way of working that fits with you and your life – whether that’s a little everyday or setting aside intensive bursts of time, or some other way – but make sure you deliberately set aside time and actually make work.
Take a look at the constraints you have to work with – usually time and space and funds - how can you make them work for you as opposed to blocking you?
Get your work seen – submit to shows and publications etc and get some feedback.
Be organized. Making good art isn’t enough – you’ve got to have a whole load of other skills like self-promotion, negotiation (learn how to read a contract), fund-raising, admin (it’s no good missing the shipping deadline for a show). As an artist starting out you have to do most things for yourself because you probably won’t be in a position to pay anyone else to do them for you, and that is likely to mean self-discipline to do the bits you don’t naturally take to. Take a deep breath and don’t leave them to the last minute.
Probably the best tip is to read Michael Atavar’s book – ‘How to be an Artist’. Someone suggested it to me and I revisit it quite often.
Good luck, and don’t forget to have fun!!