News
Lori Field
[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]H[/dropcap]yper-realistic neon colors depicting lady-like creatures with two headed kittens in place of a normal one is what Brooklyn-based artist and textile master, Lori Field creates. Her characters are drawn and composed together in busily pleasing ways heavy with the mythical, mythological and paranormal/ science fiction. Along with shape and color, Field plays with layering in her paintings. Markings from an earlier layer will be visible through the milky clear skin of the androgynous faces she adorns her often tattooed figures with. Repetitive imagery creates a sort of déjà vu feeling; that with the softened shapes and colliding patterns lend a hand in depicting Field’s allegorical fairy-tale. She sits down with CULTURE to talk artistic inspiration and personal thoughts on cannabis.
What format and mediums do you enjoy working with and why?
I am in love with drawing, the more obsessive and detailed the better. Most of my work, even the painting is drawing based. My encaustic (pigmented wax) paintings incorporate detailed color pencil drawings embedded over and under the wax medium. I think drawing allows me to go into a trance of sorts, and work very intuitively, especially with silverpoint drawing where you can’t erase.
How does femininity play a role in your art?
I have been told over and over again that my work is feminine. This is a cool thing to hear but that interpretation is not intentional on my part, just kind of what my vision ends up looking like. I’ve been told there are no male figures in my art. I think that’s true to an extent. I tend to create androgynous and gender bending little creatures that don’t fall into any neat categories. I also make a lot of anthropomorphic figures and sometimes use colors that are deliberately fluorescent or brilliantly toned . . . I guess you could say they are feminine colors. However, I choose these colors to kind of heighten the experience of the work as representing “the other”—they are psychedelic to stress their otherworldliness not their femininity.
Who, and what inspires you most?
The things that intrigue and inspire me are seemingly endless. Such as Chinese acupuncture charts, medieval botany drawings, Elvis in Las Vegas photos, French erotic cabinet cards, exotic bird etchings, tinted flapper postcards from the roaring twenties, vintage first aid manuals, you name it, I’m obsessed with it. When I begin a new body of work I tend to sift through these piles of references and take out the things that are calling out to me at the moment. I later sift through that smaller pile and begin to compose what figures I’ll be working on next in whatever medium. As far as other artists, I am inspired again and again by Henri Rousseau, Henry Darger, Kiki Smith, Hans Holbein, Louise Despont, Roger van der Weyden, Hieronymous Bosch, Frida Kahlo, and Balthus, but there are many many more who ring my chimes.
What are your personal thoughts on the legalization of cannabis?
Marijuana smoking personally makes me so paranoid I’ve actually fantasized about my dead relatives climbing up my leg while under the influence, so I don’t imbibe anymore. I do love hashish however, can we legalize that?! But back to marijuana, for other people, please legalize it already . . . my stupid Governor “Chrispie Crème” never will . . . so while you’re at it, can someone impeach him or vote him out of office too?
What can we expect to see from you in the coming year?
I am working on a series of lithographs that I started in the summer of last year. I love lithography because it’s the printing method that is the most drawing intensive. I’m also going to be preparing a new body of work on black grounds, producing an artists book and a special tarot deck, designing a rug and textiles featuring my creatures, designing more of my wearable sculpture and wearable drawings for a small solo project in Albuquerque, and beginning the process of collaboration on an animated film of my mythological creatures in action. I would also like to curate a show somewhere in NYC this year or next . . . we shall see. I’ve got most of the artists lined up and the title, just need the venue. I am in several group shows coming up in NYC and Nashville.
