Putting Form to Feeling with Alex Leav
“By making something physical, you're pushing back a little bit by saying this is still important.”
G: Hi Alex, thanks for joining us! Can you start by introducing yourself and tell us a little bit about your background?
Yeah! I grew up in New York and was always into art, but did it more as a hobby. It was like my passion project. I went to the University of Michigan and I studied History because I didn't think I was wanting to totally commit to it. I was scared and I thought I should just get a classic degree, but everything that I did at Michigan led me in this direction. I actually started doing photography for this magazine at school and then that kind of spurred my interest. Right after undergrad, I went to grad school at the School of Visual Arts. I started in photography, and then started painting throughout the program and now here we are, a year later. *Laughs* I have a studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn and we're just chugging away. We're trying to make it happen.
H: Would you describe your work to us?
Right now I'm making abstract paintings. I kind of started out really interested in social media and identity, and I was making these sort of figurative slash abstract hybrids with limbs and sneakers and sort of human body parts enmeshed with products like moisturizers and, you know, hairbrushes or toothpaste. I was fascinated by this idea of person as product or the melding of form. So there was kind of figurative abstract blend.
As of late, I think I've been trying to get a little bit more just abstract and kind of leave the recognizable forms behind. It's still a lot about identity in the digital age and questioning if it’s possible for the individual to exist without surrounding influence and all of this stuff that you see online - and what does that look like? I guess abstract painting is putting form to something that doesn't really exist in real life.
H: What is your creative process of going from a blank canvas to a finished work going up in an exhibition?
I unroll the canvas, put it on the wall, tape it off to the size that I want, and then sketch something onto the canvas with pencil. I use oil paint, so it takes a really long time to dry. To get a bunch of layers, you kind of have to work on multiple things at once, so I'm kind of bouncing back and forth between works. It's all just experimentation, which is really fun, but also kind of scary because you can't really control what you do. I don't necessarily have a plan for when I go in, it's just like, ‘What have I been thinking about and what can I do today?’
G: Some folks say that you really have to sit with your work physically on a wall and write about what you're seeing to come to an artist statement. If you also write about what you've been thinking about a lot recently, which might have nothing to do with the work, you might find ties between the two. Do you ever feel like that happens with you, that you realize things are appearing in your paintings that you didn't even really necessarily plan for?
Yeah, totally. I think that's the most fun part about it. Like ‘Why am I making this?’ and then you kind of look at it and you're like ‘Oh, like this is why.’ Do you know the painter Philip Guston? Someone asked him, ‘How long did it take you to make this one painting?’ And he answered something along the lines of ‘Well, it took me two hours or 35 years, depending on how you look at it.’
It's a constant process and I think it's really important to be patient. Which I am not and I'm really trying to work on that. Like I said before, the oil paint takes forever to dry, and I have to realize that ‘Okay, I can leave the studio today, even if it's not done, even if I am not happy with it, and then come back tomorrow.’
H: How often do you complete a painting and think, ‘I absolutely love this’?
Hmm. I would say once every three months, four months maybe.
G: What is your dream space to see your art in?
I think a gallery. I hate to feed into that whole thing, but there is something about a blank canvas and a blank space where you can really just focus on what it is that you're looking at.
H: What is something that you feel like you've learned about yourself recently?
I think I've learned that I don't really know myself yet. Through making paintings and making this work, I'm kind of learning what it is that I want to say and what it is that I have to say.
H: What do you think people need to hear right now?
Maybe just go for it. Just do it. Do what you wanna do. And I mean, the world is kind of messed up right now. We just need people to kind of go for it and do what they can to help with any form of expression.
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