Suzanne Dittenber, “Untitled”, 2015, oil on canvas, 60″ x 96″
We began this interview with Suzanne Dittenber over a year ago. Shortly after agreeing to participate, Dittenber’s work started to change. We decided to put off finishing the interview while she focused on her studio. Once Dittenber felt ready, she came back to the original questions, though a few didn’t really apply to the new work. In responding to the out-0f-date questions by addressing the changes that had taken place in the work, the focus of the interview becomes assessing change, the effect of place, and the core concerns rooted in an artist’s work that might grow in any number of directions over the course of a life and career.
Visit Dittenber’s website to see more of her work.
Please give our readers a little bit of information about yourself (upbringing, education, location, news, etc.):
I grew up in Columbus, Ohio where I received my BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design, and spent a semester studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. After graduating from CCAD, I moved to southeast Utah where I spent a summer working for the National Park Service as a park ranger – a great experience and visual feast.
Then I moved to New Hampshire for grad school and earned an MFA in Painting from the University of New Hampshire. I currently split my time between Indianapolis and Upland, Indiana where I am an Assistant Professor of Painting, Drawing and Printmaking at Taylor University.
Many of us don’t grow up with painting and art as part of our daily life, our routes into the fine arts are circuitous. Was that your experience? How and when did you say, ‘I’m going to do this’?
Before pursuing a BFA, I was a high school English teacher. Seeking some personal betterment and a respite from grading freshman research papers, I signed up to take an evening continuing ed figure drawing course. I was rather blown away by the experience and found drawing to be more challenging, intense, meaningful, complex, layered, multi-disciplinary (historical, mythological, philosophical, psychological!) than I could have imagined. In subsequent courses, I continued to be humbled before the practice of painting and drawing and hungry to go deeper. I began to understand that taking an authoritative stance in regards to painting wasn’t the point, but if I came to this practice as an open-minded “disciple,” an eager learner – it had inestimable potential to enrich my life.
So in short, I quit my high school teaching job, enrolled in CCAD’s BFA program full time and never looked back.
How does drawing play into your artistic practice? Are there any other mediums—collage, watercolor, clay, etc—that play a role ever?
I love constructing things … building setups, concocting environments, and generally messing with my visual experience until I am sucked in and engaged. In this manner, sculpture plays a role in my working process. Recently, I have been devising means of floating objects in water in specific ways to replicate the sensation of floating. In some ways I see these activities as “drawing” or sketching … working out visual impulses three-dimensionally.
“Expeditions”, 2015, oil on board, 24″ x 30″
Tell us about one useful thing you were taught or told.
A professor in grad school would say, “Don’t avoid embarrassment!” Rather, face embarrassment head on, stare it down, don’t waste energy trying to avoid it. At a certain level, this has never been far from my mind as I approach my work. I aim for a ruthless honesty over a carefully sculpted image.
Tell us about one useful thing you learned for yourself
I just finished a printmaking intensive at Wolfe Editions in Portland, Maine, where I was working with traditional aquatint etching to create a four-color print. David Wolfe is an exceptional printmaker and it was a pleasure to work with him. Intaglio printmaking makes me think about color differently … dissecting color structure while make decisions on individual plates and then seeing these decisions joined together again in the printmaking process. It was nice to experiment broadly with color possibilities and see how the interpretation of one image changes as a result.
What is the hard part of painting for you?
Painting is loaded/seeped/saturated with meaning, the weight of history. The implication: painting involves an intense degree of thinking and awareness. Being cognizant of the present and the past is so important. But it can make painting difficult – a challenge to access something direct and primal.
What is the fun part?
The fun part is … Color! Play! Visual puns! The comedy, the tragedy, the terrible beauty, the unusual communication that is painting and the joy of joining the conversation.
“Opens”, 2015, oil on board, 8″ x 12″
What are you getting better at?
I am getting better at spending my time on things I really care about and not pursuing detours … the things others tell you you should care about.
How important is accuracy in painting? What does the phrase ‘get it right’ mean for you?
In my painting I inquire about the intersection, overlap, fusion, collision of representation and abstraction. Accuracy in drawing or representation is not my exclusive objective, but is offset by other aims … playfulness, for one, and the pursuit of undiluted instances of striking color interaction. Some of my favorite paintings are more about “wrongness” than rightness and I try to let a similar instinct lead in the studio.
Jackie’s Kitchen, 2013, Oil on Canvas, 80×48 inches
So I have to ask, when are we going to start seeing some paintings of Indiana? You’ve been there a few years now I think, are you finding yourself attracted to the anything about that landscape yet?
It is not the landscape in and of itself that interests me in painting. Before moving to Indiana I was living on Badger’s Island in southern Maine in a home owned by a landscape architect – needless to say, an amazingly beautiful spot! The allure of this particular location compelled me to begin painting the landscape – salt air, tidal patterns, every available space where plants could possibly thrive occupied by verdant, lush texture. I spent years painting en plein air to respond as directly as possible to the feeling of fullness this environment provoked; to be in the thick of it.
Moving to Indiana provided an impetus to shift my practice back to the studio; I was eager to tease out new conceptual notions. I am attracted to the rural Midwestern landscape in certain ways. It is austere, unembellished, spare. There is something arrestingly stark about Grant County, Indiana. And while I am not currently going out into the landscape and painting this subject matter directly, the vibe definitely influences my work. I find myself searching for an increasingly sparse, paired down language in my painting. When painting in New England, I wanted to pack as much information into the work as I possible. The paintings could not be full enough. Here I am responding to an opposite inclination.
So here’s something about your work that seems really idiosyncratic and interesting to me: the point of view never feels quite stable or stationary. Because of the shapes at the edges, repetitive brushwork, and color, the paintings tend to feel like short walks rather than fixed views. When you are working do you have moments when you are feeling this, like you are feeling a movement and the painting feels like it’s going in the right direction? Or the opposite, where the forms get too locked in and you push (or question whether to push) more of a pathway into the painting?
I do not typically make paintings in one session. Most often a painting comes to completion after many sessions. Disjunctive moments result. While I haven’t thought of my paintings as “short walks” per say, I think this an apt description … coming to knowledge or familiarity after obsessive inquiry from multiple points of view. I like to think of my painting practice this way.
“Anywhere With You”, 2015, oil on board, 11″ x 14″
There’s a tendency in your painting to have these moments where you abandon local color and insert bright primaries. What feels right to you about inserting these colors among more neutral and natural tones?
Spontaneous urges. Sometimes right, sometimes wrong.
But on the more rational, thinking side of things … Robert Henri talks about how given the right conditions, neutrals (“grave colors”) can usurp intense colors – take their spot as the show stoppers. When using intense colors, I am often thinking about this. I want the surprise that comes when these colors are forced to quiet down and simultaneous contrast allows the neutrals to take center stage.
Name some names. What are some colors and paints that work for you?
Williamsburg when I am feeling spendy and Gamblin otherwise. I have been using earth tones more recently and I love Williamsburg French Ardoise Grey.
What are you looking at lately? What are you listening to? What are you reading?
I am reading Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston, Pico Iyer’s The Art of Stillness, and an Agnes Martin’s biography. From Pico Iyer: “Going nowhere is the grand adventure that makes sense of everywhere else. Sitting still is a way of falling in love with the world and everything in it. Going nowhere is a way of cutting through the noise and finding fresh time and energy to share with others. Talking about stillness is really a way of talking about clarity and sanity and the joys that endure.” I do see this as related to painting – an activity where, for me, I work to make sense of the chatter in myself and in the world.
A friend recently directed me to Robert Bordo’s paintings of postcards, which I love! I have also been looking at Louise Bourgeois’ textile works after seeing a few examples at Miami Basel. This summer during a visit to Dia Beacon I spent a fair amount of time with Agnes Martin’s work and these paintings continue to be on my mind.
Music influences? Most recently I am loving Bonnie Prince Billy – for the tragi-comic lyrics amongst other qualities.
“Layered”, 2014, oil on board, 12″ x 10″
We always ask artists about these three things—what she or he is reading, listening, looking at. I wonder is there anything else we should be asking about that would talk more about your creative activity: What are you eating? Where’s the best place for coffee around there? Do you ever see deer in your yard? etc. etc.—-Is there anything else we ought to be asking you about?
I siphoned this from a painter friend … the harmonious pairing of swimming and painting. Ocean, lake, bathtub – they have a few things in common. An easy, fluid, calligraphic movement across a surface. Becoming unfettered, immersed, transported … reborn. Maybe I should sit on the beach and dutifully catch up on my latest issue of Artforum? Or, hell, maybe I’ll just go for a swim.
All right! Have fun either way! Thanks, Suzanne!
Read more MWC artist interviews here.
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