What is your earliest memory of your burgeoning interest in art?
My grandmother always painted. Whenever we went to visit she would have all her work set up on a table which I thought was really cool. With the exception of a sweet cartooning class when I was around 12, I didn’t draw or paint in my preteen and early teen years. I did have an innate desire to experiment with making, building, burning, mixing and concocting.
How have you witnessed this early interest reveal itself in your current work?
When I started taking formal art classes in college I was drawn to the materials and the process. I was completely immersed in the color and feel of the paint.
Speaking of your current work, tell us about your recent exhibition at Zeitgeist Gallery. What motivated and/or inspired this show?
The most recent show Chasing the Sun was made over a period of 18 months. This work was really a marrying of newer directions with some ideas I have worked with for decades: on one hand these expansive dreamy gesturally dyed spaces and on the other hand the use of rigid systematized geometries and patterns. Their combination was a conscious effort to use the paintings as a way to set up interactions of visual forms as well as communication across time between different works and directions in my own history of artmaking.
“This commitment to bringing things together mirrors my daily life juggling 10 things at once. I wanted to explore what that compression of activity, time and flow look like within the language of painting.”
How does this collection of work demonstrate a departure from some of your earlier art?
I have gone through periods of making highly labor intensive, tight, repetitive work inspired by quilts and at other times very loose, improvisational work. In this group, there is a considered effort to use these contrasts to set up stories, even figurative stories. This commitment to bringing things together mirrors my daily life juggling 10 things at once. I wanted to explore what that compression of activity, time and flow look like within the language of painting.
How did your work come to find itself at this gallery?
I have worked with Gallery Director Lain York and Zeitgeist Gallery for the last 6 years and I love my association with that roster of artists. When we moved to Nashville the community was amazingly welcoming. We quickly met a network of artists and felt really at home and part of this vibrant conversation. Mark Scala came for a studio visit and invited me to be a part of a show titled Abstractometry at the Frist Museum and I think having my work alongside some Zeitgeist artists helped to have my work considered by Lain into a group show at the gallery.
Has the southeastern US, and specifically the city of Nashville, had any particular impact on your art? Why or why not?
I am always influenced by where I am and the rhythms of my daily life. I find a lot of conflicts here. There is the peaceful quiet of Nashville combined with the chaos of the highways, the chaos of raising kids and working. There are so many small pockets to explore which I find really intriguing. I think of a single painting holding all these different speeds, rhythms and potential discoveries at the same time.
What insights or realizations, if any, do you hope your viewers will understand when they observe your art?
That things can change right under your nose if you look hard enough. My paintings are put together in surprising ways. They look like something until you see it’s just a setup for surprise. Keep looking.
“I am constantly taking pictures during whatever errand or chore I’m handling, and those pictures and their details find their way into the planning of all my pieces. That autobiography and portrait of place might surprise people.”
On the flip side, what are some aspects of your work that may not be evident to your audience based solely on its surface/appearance?
Just how much of my daily life gets baked into every piece. I am constantly taking pictures during whatever errand or chore I’m handling, and those pictures and their details find their way into the planning of all my pieces. That autobiography and portrait of place might surprise people.
Building upon the previous question, what method would you prefer one take when making a critique of your art: a formal, contextual, or expressive approach? Why?
The paintings are made as a mix of approaches and so a good discussion usually also should. We can start with, “That looks cool,” and dig in from there. Each approach alone leaves me a little cold.
Who and/or what are some of your biggest artistic influences? How? Why?
This is a big question, okay. But some important influences (and reasons) are my grandmother (grounded and unstoppable), Sigmar Polke (explorer), James Rosenquist (sweet collages), Yayoi Kusama (lyricism and earnest weirdness), Lynda Benglis (power and unleashed materiality), Agnes Martin (centeredness), Richard Tuttle (touch), Mark Rothko (depth of color), Ken Price (precision and humor), Vija Celmins (nature), Loretta Petway and the artists of the Gees Bend Quilt Collective (pattern and power), Katarina Grosz (epic spray and color).
How does your work demonstrate departure from the above influences?
Hmm… I can’t pretend that my work is as good as those incredible artists, but I’m doing my own weird wild best.
What upcoming projects and/or exhibitions do you have planned within the next 12 months?
I’m in a show now at Cheekwood showing new drawings and paintings from the first few months of the pandemic. With everything going online I have had a couple of virtual shows this summer, with Zeitgeist Gallery here in town and with Mark Moore in Los Angeles. I expect there will be more virtual shows popping up until 2021.
What are your goals for your art within the next 12 months?
It’s a pandemic! Everything in the art world has been pushed back a year or turned into an Instagram Live event. For the last six months art has happened in the small spaces between helping my kids with their virtual learning, keeping the family fed and trying to keep safe. I’m lucky to have my studio in the backyard so that I can escape there from time to time.
“The paintings are made as a mix of approaches and so a good discussion usually also should. We can start with, ‘That looks cool,’ and dig in from there. Each approach alone leaves me a little cold.”
Goals for your life in general?
Oh god. Happy healthy kids, and actively supporting a more just and healthy world. Getting back to the things I loved before Covid like traveling and working in the studio for hours on end worrying only about color and paint.
Since we’ve brought up life in general, what’s your favorite food and drink?
Very tough, exceptional Dimsum and a tie between margaritas and manhattans.
Band(s) and/or record(s)?
First Aid Kit. Frank Black’s Teenager of the Year.
Movie(s)?
Lost in Translation.
Hang spot(s)?
My backyard!
Weekend activity(ies)?
Bike riding, hiking, bonfires.
Money’s not a factor, you will burn no social bridges, and you’re guaranteed a comfortable lifestyle no matter what—where would you live, and what would you do?
Brooklyn and I would mostly urban explore and spend time in my sweet studio. I would find a way for supporting choice of many kinds and the environment. And, since I would have so much cash, I would travel half of the time, and then go back to Brooklyn to drink more coffee.
To learn more about Alex Blau and her work, please visit her online at www.alexblau.com and at her Instagram page @AlexBlau1999.
The following are a selection of Blau’s paintings featured at Zeitgeist Gallery.
