An interview with yours truly.
Monday, November 2, 2009 at 9:12PM For pre-exhibition publicity purposes, the most excellent Wes Gardner kindly conducted an interview with me. It was to appear in a magazine that has vanished off the face of the planet, perhaps because they were so horrified at the idea of publishing something about me. It would be a shame to let the interview go to waste, however, so I thought I'd post it here.
An Interview With Jessie Ngaio; An Artist or Something
A bloated, brightly coloured monster hovers through a moody evening sky, pot-belly and cavernous eye sockets brimming with what seems to be candy. It is one of many works by New Zealand artist Jessie Ngaio that dances along the line between cute and unsettling. Her paintings fuse bold, luscious colours with a flair for the disturbing; creatures glowing with bright rainbow hues, vacant eyes staring zombie-like into the middle-distance. Browsing her paintings gives you the sensation of watching something beautiful being degraded – as if you’d seen a unicorn overdosing at a train station.
There is a savagely sexual undertone to Ngaio’s artwork, and given her day-job at an ethical erotica website, this is not too surprising. Her new exhibition, ‘Cold Salt Skin’, opens at Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, on October 23rd and runs until November 5th. Her work can also be seen at her website, jngaio.com
Part of being an artist involves trying to explain your stuff every time you meet a new person. How do you usually describe what you do?
Well, I usually start by saying how my work deals with issues of sexuality, gender, the Other, monsters, primitivism, kitsch and humour. I tell them I'm primarily a painter, though I try to take this into the mediums of film, soft sculpture, photography etc. Then I tell them I like to paint boobs and they say "Aha! So you’re a pervert!" and I nod thoughtfully.
Colour and texture are two dominant forces in your paintings. How important are these elements to your style?
Colour is incredibly important to me! One of my favourite artists, Yoko d'Holbachie (a painter of beautiful monsters), said in an interview that she ruminates on using colours like spices. I like that. For me, colours have an intensely sensual, often sexual impact and I think some people like myself (or the crazy old lady who I see walking down the street dressed in lemon yellow with pink hair and bright fuschia lips – I love you!) are addicted to colour and the more intense the hit, the better. As for texture, I suspect this might come from growing up in a geothermal landscape. Texture just feels earthy and honest to me and though I often paint in a pop, cartoon manner, I suppose it helps me move away from the clean flatness of a lot of pop art; texture is dirty and dirty is good.
Many of your sexier subjects seem to have a vacant or distracted gaze. What is it that keeps you returning to this motif?
I keep thinking about the "male gaze" and the way (female) subjects of the male gaze often look coyly away or invitingly at the viewer. I have a compulsion to subvert that. I also feel, in a bizarre, ridiculous way of mine, that eyes can be so cliché in art. We humans are very good at reading facial expressions, so if you paint someone with sad eyes, people know that this is a sad painting. I want my characters to be more ambiguous, generally speaking. I want them to be unreadable, masklike, inhuman and perhaps empty. I get the feeling that there's something simmering and dangerous behind this vacant look.
Some of your work is very primal or savage in nature, in a way that seems to draw attention to the ‘savage’ as the ‘other’. Does your history with Maori art play a part there?
I went to a small art school in New Zealand where, among other things, we focused on colonialism and its effects on Maori art. I was really interested in the colonial fascination and fear of the "savage" who was often seen as closer to nature, more sexual, more dangerous. These are of course simplistic notions but I can understand the appeal of them too, and I suppose my art embraces the tacky tourist aspect that comes out of it. I also feel a strong connection to Maori and Pacific art, the carvings particularly, and perhaps that is because I grew up surrounded by the stuff in my home town, Rotorua, which is both a tourist town and a place with real spirit, a rich history and a living culture.
Quite a few of your pieces have an overtly surreal sense of humour to them, especially those with a cartoony style. How do you feel about the place of humour in art?
I think humour can be a powerful tool for disarming, subverting and highlighting absurdities. It's a real thrill when you get to see people laughing at your work, like you've just made their day a little better. I want galleries to be places that people really want to visit, instead of the sombre, serious stereotype, so I try to do my bit. Also, it's just a hell of a lot of fun to be ridiculous while making art and I hope as I get braver, I will become utterly, preposterously nonsensical.
Alongside the larger paintings, you often have a place for kitschy, craft-style art using found objects. Is there a disparity here, between the 'proper' art and the 'craft' pieces?
I think a lot of people realise that the line often drawn between high and low art can tend towards being pretentious and elitist. I have always been drawn towards folk and craft art, particularly stuff which is crudely made; there's something about it which is incredibly human and makes you think about the creator in ways that sleek stuff perhaps may not. Perhaps there is a disparity, this is something I often wonder myself... I think there are underlying themes which I often return to and explore in different ways with different mediums, so perhaps that's where the similarities lay.
What have you been thinking about while working on your latest exhibition?
Mermaids. My upcoming exhibition is about mermaids. I was obsessed with them as a child – every family holiday at the beach was spent trying to will myself to grow a tail in the water. I've always felt a very strong affinity with the ocean and a real desire to discover its secrets. But it also ties back into my obsession with freak shows and monsters – fake mermaids were a common display at the carnival freak show, where people could gather and gawk at deformed humans that they found both repulsive and fascinating. The mermaid, to me, represents a lot of the stereotypes of woman - she tends to be driven by her emotions, she is beautiful and desirable but dangerous to man, she is incredibly animalistic and represents what we want but are afraid of. This exhibition looks to be the beginning of a journey exploring these notions; I keep getting more and more interested in them the deeper I look into them.
Wes Gardner 2009
Reader Comments (8)
I tried to re-read this but got embarrassed and started to second guess everything I said... so I stopped reading it.
I think to become utterly, preposterously nonsensical is a great ambition :)
i appreciate this, it does actually help me to understand your work a bit better. i sometimes like the way an artist talks about her or his work even more than the work itself, and of course it adds a layer of meaning to the work and points out some things i might not have noticed. your remarks on textures and pop art are especially helpful for me as a viewer of your work.
Jake, obviously, I agree!
Bee, cool! Glad you got something out of this. I tend to try to avoid talking about the conceptual stuff behind my artwork because I always end up feeling like I'm either sounding like an idiot and/or a pretentious tosser. Perhaps I should write about it more, though, I used to enjoy it during the early days at art school.
Oh yes and also I'd like to mention that every time you self-depricate an angel - a Christian one - gets its wings and flies through the office window of a first world chief of state and fucks him or her, impregnating them with the Gospel, which ultimately loses to 'the will of the people' in vying for weight in their policymaking.
x
Wow, what a fabulous read, including the comments. I love what you say about the vacant gazes. I think I might also have an addiction to colour. Maybe there should be meetings.
I also especially liked the stuff about the unicorn and the ethical erotica website, maybe we should just call ourselves the E.E.W, has less of an awkward tone about it.
BS you're so funny sometimes.
Bee, I had no idea. In that case, I'm basically the cause of practically all the world's problems! At least the angels get to get laid, though.
Bobby, I've been totally using the E.E.W. thing for all the mileage it's got! You tell people you're an artist and it's a little bit ho-hum... you tell them you're an artist who also makes porn and their ears tend to prick up!
Heh. Prick. Up. Heh heh heh.
Porn is cool.