David Wien
Conversation
To coincide with his solo exhibition at Ampersand, American Artist, we asked David a few questions about this new collection of paintings and his working process in general. You can check out all the paintings here.
You mentioned that there is a significance to the title, American Artist. Can you elaborate on that?
I feel like the title American Artist fits on many levels. For starters, I’m American and always have been. I think it must inform my approach to making art. Being American to me feels like having the choice to embrace or reject various traditions, or create your own. Also, for more than a year now, I’ve been living a nomadic life—seeking shelter where I can find it, and sometimes failing at that. At the beginning of this series of 19 paintings, I was drawing in sketchbooks in California. In search of shelter and safety, I found myself in Colorado for the month of December, 2020. There, for the first time since leaving Portland the previous May, I could stop living in my van and start to enjoy ‘the great indoors.’ It gave me a space to really focus on drawing.
But then New Year’s found me driving from Colorado to a shelter in Florida that I could use for two months. In Florida, I continued drawing, which ultimately led to the making of 15 paintings in about a month and a half. There, in Florida, 15 canvases complete, I loaded everything and drove back to Northern California—for work and also a cabin I was in negotiations to rent. Both prospects, which I crossed the country for a second time in pursuit of, fell through. So I was back in Humboldt County, where I’ve lived off an on for the past several years, houseless again and feeling out of luck on the West Coast. I unloaded my storage unit of all my belongings and crossed the country in my vehicle for the third time in a period of four months. I’m now in southern Vermont at ‘home’ where I was born and raised, relying on family while I figure out what’s next. Shortly after I arrived in Vermont, I made four more paintings. So the title, American Artist, not only touches on the fact that 15 of these 19 paintings crossed the United States by highway with me three times, but also the unique and frankly traumatic 'endless adventure' I have been on—how it has shaped my perspective and my artwork. Since leaving Portland in May 2020, I migrated south to the southern tip of California, then over the Rockies and to the Atlantic Coast of Florida. Back to California to have dreams crushed only to come whimpering back to Ma and Paw here in Vermont. I saw a lot of the country from my vehicle in a year when we were all being told to stay home, but all the while I have been looking for a home where can actually stay. There’s something fundamentally American about that, I think, this restless quest to find a place that feels like home. One more thing about the title, American Artist … I like how it encapsulates a feeling I have about my approach to making art right now. In a way, I think I’ve rewired my brain to a new approach. Keeping things simple. But also, philosophically, I want to be basic in every meaning of the word. I think that’s how I was able to get myself painting and actually enjoying it again, this processes of reminding myself that I’m not special, I’m not trying to make an object to be considered special. I’m not attempting to show off or impress anyone. All that is vanity and ego. I’m not a Buddhist or new-ager, but on a very utilitarian level vanity and ego are the mortal enemies of creativity. With this new set of rules—no showing off, no trying to impress anyone, no setting of an expectation on myself that, in order to paint, I have to make a ‘good’ painting—I found myself free and unrestricted in a perfectly fertile environment to work. A new mindset—and isn’t that what we’re told we can do in America?”
Even though this show is painting, a lot of the things you painted feel sculptural. They even have the shapes, marks and textures that look like your wooden sculptures. Is this intentional?
Yes. I’m seduced by the sensory experience of art. It’s a tactile thing—tangible. Made by the hand. Can be felt by the hand. I think I’m realizing that my connection to art isn't specific to any one genre, subject, style or material. There is something deeper about Art itself. The act of shaping and molding material. Making marks. Translating reality into abstraction into illusion and back again. Using the hand and using the eye—there is ritual and there is magic somewhere in there. A successful piece of art has a life and a presence of its own that transcends the maker and its material. I want my work to be about this magic. Not trying to recreate it, since that would be attempting to fly too close to the sun. But I think my motivation right now is to have a simple humble art practice. Paying homage and respect to all the greats that have come before and also roam the earth today. To make art is to have a conversation among Gods, and I’d rather think of myself as a lowly monk or student than a prophet.
Your practice as an artist over the past years has shifted between sculpture and painting. It seems like if you are heavy into sculpture you don’t paint and vice versa. Is there a reason for this? Do you think the two mediums inform each other? Is there a different kind of head space required for both?
In my mind painting and sculpture, while being the original ancestors to all Art, are both complementary and diametrically opposed. Painting uses an additive method, while carving a sculpture for me happens as a reductive method. Drawing is the base for both, but once you set on either track from there, the worlds couldn't be more opposite. I think I developed problems in my painting process because I couldn't stop adding. I think I've probably over-worked every painting I have ever made. Also, the paradox of choice became paralyzing—to a comic effect. The last painting I made before taking a three year break I remember revising the colors over and over somewhere between 8-12 times for each color. It felt like torture. When it comes to carving a sculpture, all of those problems are turned on its head. No longer endlessly adding, instead strictly subtracting away debris until the object exists, then move on. It felt good to me. It felt easy when painting felt hard. I explained it like: I couldn't possibly imagine how to make a painting of an apple that would be interesting to look at, but I could carve an apple and that felt better, made more sense. I still desperately want to be making sculpture. But without a semi permanent workspace it's too difficult. Painting and drawing are more flexible to my situation—it was really not a choice, because I felt I couldn't do sculpture. I think for sure my sculpture has informed the 2d work I'm doing now. In some ways obvious and some ways subtle. But I'm not trying to make painting about my sculpture (well maybe sometimes). I want to use painting as an effective tool inherent to the medium itself. I am a painter first. I took a break, but it will always be there—sometimes easier than others.
The paintings have a narrative quality to them. Is this pure imagination. Or is it informed by other types of story, myth and whatnot?
Yes, I have made a conscious swing towards narrative. My last paintings three years ago were very much focused on abstraction and minimalism. Narrative feels like the opposite side of the spectrum. So, yeah, narrative is about telling stories—using the imagination. I noticed a fantasy or storybook style emerging that I was both excited by and uncomfortable about. But I want to work with narrative again because I’ve noticed as a viewer of art that narrative has been speaking to me on a deeper emotional level in a way that abstraction wasn't doing. I almost felt a conscious split when the pandemic hit—everything changed. I was making sculpture that was about being primal and minimal, oversimplification to the point of abstraction. All those aesthetic choices, once the pandemic happened, made less sense. The art that was speaking to me was telling stories about the human experience. I realized I wanted to tell stories instead of obscuring images into abstraction.
There’s a wide range of subjects. What inspired these? Places you were at when making them? Memories. Places you want to be?
I realize the range of subjects make no sense, but it might if the viewer can experience the work in the order it was made. I started with the castles. I don't know why. I wanted something simple that I could do multiple versions of—a way to find my painting voice again. It is obvious that I'm literally working out my rules: do I use line or color blocks? Do I paint with volume or flat? How real am I trying to make things look? Is this an illusion or a crummy attempt at one? From the castles I made the Interior with Statue. I really enjoyed making this painting. Then I made the three cat paintings. I realized I was working with "typical" subject matter and it felt good. That’s when I made the Lutenist, which was easy and fun to do. I felt like I was making someone else's art that was destined for the office of a dentist somewhere. I was listening to classical music making a typical painting, having a very NOT unique painting experience—just having a blast.
I made the Still Life with Shell, Curtain next. To be honest, the least remarkable painting I've ever attempted. But somewhere around this time a bit of a switch flipped in my brain and the idea for Beach Trip came to me fully formed after a most blissed-out return from an actual trip to the beach. This painting was the most cathartic for me to make. I surprised myself with it, in many ways. It’s just a good painting, I think. I was still making typical art in the sense that a painting of the ocean with some clouds is about as typical as possible. But a little touch of magic happened to me with that painting, and I felt liberated to explore less "traditional" subjects. So I painted the airplane, Wien Air—this painting is my third favorite in the series, I think. When I finished, I felt like Moses returned from mount sinai. Finally, I felt like I could make the tractor paintings I had been visualizing since working around tractors all summer in Humboldt. So I painted Bobcat and then The View. For Bobcat, I was thinking about what if Philip Guston and Fernando Botero came together to make a painting of a bobcat? I was probably still thinking about Guston with The View, but it feels 100% my voice. I wanted to do the tractor paintings because I’ve been thinking a lot about work. Those machines are incredible what they can do—effectively, destructively. Usually I'm the guy not operating the machine. I’m the one doing all the hard manual labor around it. The machine becomes a bit of a god. The tractor paintings are about work because I was working around tractors, doing labor, all the while thinking: wouldn't it be nice instead to make paintings about this?
The painting Untitled was an idea that started in my mind when I first drove from Colorado to Florida. Something I saw driving late at night captured my imagination. I saw some things and I had more questions than answers. There were colors and machinery and night and it was desolate and I wanted to capture the feeling, but not answer any questions, because I don't have any answers. That's why the painting is untitled. I don’t want to or simply can’t give the viewer anything else about it. I thought about the police car painting, Babylon, for a long time. It hit me when I was staying in a motel in the eastern part of southern California. I saw that truck. It was so shiny and scary. The vision came to me strong. I just knew I had a few problems to solve. It was the first painting I made when I arrived in Vermont. I was actually painting it and crying when they announced the Dereck Chovin verdict.
Powerlines 1 and Powerlines 2 came to me and came back to me again every time I saw the powerlines during all my driving. To me they are captivating. Ever since a kid, I always thought they seem to have a supernatural quality. Somehow this subject is and also isn’t typical. But for sure, not the most original concept. I was thinking about how similar the powerlines are to Kachina warriors. I wanted to try to respectfully touch on that if I could. To me these paintings are so American and also the most abstract in the series. I like the way things are making less and less sense in this order. Things just are—that's the way it is in the world. Everything DOESN’T make sense, even though we want it to. The last painting I made was The Frog Prince. I was driving near the Louisiana-Texas border and I saw a mural of a frog wearing a crown below a bridge. The mural was huge and crummy and glorious. The frog was fat, poorly drawn, pathetic. I saw this mural out of the corner of my eye for a fraction of a second and it was gone. I know it didn't occur to me: the frog prince is a folk tale. I think I was just a little high, and giggling to myself—a frog wearing a crown and a tiny vest is pretty funny. I liked it, liked thinking about it. It stuck with me. Way back in Colorado, I was drawing frogs. I’m not sure why, but I wanted to keep doing it. Then in Florida, that frog's face came up again in another drawing. I’ll spare you the gory details of my personal love life over the past year, but I can summarize it with the word lonely. I knew I wanted to paint this crown-wearing frog, but I swear to you that only once I started the composition did I realize the folktale I was painting. Of course it’s a universal tale, but also 100% autobiographical. I think it best summarizes the lonely place I’ve been for over a year now. On a road, alone, taking in endless stimuli across all spectrums, still no one to share my experience with. It’s a lonely type of magic—and I think I almost sort of captured it.
What about colors and textures, do you have a specific way you see the and like to use them?
I think when it comes to color and texture, I’m becoming more refined. Maybe? I have had an interesting relationship to the color black as long as I’ve been a painter. My understanding is that traditionally black isn’t used by painters. Personally this makes sense. I don't wear black, I’m not into black. I’m into brown. I think black coffee brown is my black. Even in the painting Babylon, which is very much about the color black, I didn’t use black. I’ve also been growing more and more fascinated by grey. There are so many. They are so beautiful. I would like to paint with only grey sometime. Other than that, I’m still learning about color. Powerlines 2—I finally learned what “Indian Yellow" is for. The Frog Prince was a major study in green. When it comes to texture, I am just trying to be a little more painterly. I’m jealous of the truly painterly painters. I wish I could paint like them, but I always paint more like a house painter or a sign painter. Ha ha, I’m trying to be more artistic!
What artists are you looking at these days? Or styles? Does any of it end up influencing the work?
In Colorado, I took a deep dive into Bosch, then Bruegel—and kept looking at medieval period art, which I have loved for many years. When I arrived in Florida, I was equally obsessed with Thomas McKnight and Morris Hirshfield. The Interior with Statue and the Lutenist are both blatant homage or rip-off of Thomas Mcknight. The cat paintings are more about Morris Hirshfield, although Day Cat feels like Fernando Botero. Botero will always be God, but there are so many others. There are lots of contemporary artists whose work I follow closely. Sometimes I need to stop looking for fear of copying or absorption. Sometimes I will gladly "borrow" another artist’s solutions to a problem I’m trying to solve.
Does your are art respond to the current moment in any way? If not the images specifically, then the spirit of the works and how you go about making them? The way you go about living?
I think so. I know that going with narrative over abstraction was a conscious decision. I think that Art being too much about aesthetics—not enough about substance—boiled over in this past year. Being into abstract minimal art can feel like an elitist pursuit. Something slick to hang on the wall of your slick apartment, you slick mother fucker, you’ve got it made. I don’t have it made. I’ve been living in a van for a year. I can’t identify with the materialism involved with hanging a decoration inside a domicile. Something to look at, something that looks nice. Something that marks your status. I think I started to see abstract art as speaking this way to me. Narrative was reaching through my abdomen and grabbing my guts by the fist. I would like to be able to work with this visceral power of art. I want to grab my own guts. Distorting or abstracting an image isn’t achieving this effect for me. Focusing instead on what the story is that’s being told—how do I want to tell it and most of all embracing being a flawed narrator. What are the elements that make a narrative really grasp the imagination? The way I’m going about living, I’m just figuring stuff out. Always changing and always growing. Always returning to my childhood. I think my work is a reflection of this.