Audrey Kawasaki refuses to meet me face-to-face. No matter how I plead, cajole and threaten, she won’t do it. ‘You have to meet with me,’ I tell her. ‘I jumped through hoops to get Lifelounge to let me do this interview. If I don’t sit down with you, face-to-face, they’ll think I’m an incompetent journalist and next thing you know, Neil Strauss will be their American editor and I’ll be going door-to-door selling subscriptions. You don’t want that, do you?’
‘i’m not a good talker or explainer or story teller,’ she tells me via email. ‘i’m really not. i’m a bit of a social weirdo too, and get really nervous and anxious ... If you sat me in front of you and started asking me questions (especially about my work), i’d probably get all fidgety and just say, ‘um ... i really don’t know ... Can i do this some other time’?
She writes exactly like that. Without capitalising her Is. At first, I go through the transcript and change all the little Is to big ones, but then it occurs to me: this tells me more about Audrey Kawasaki than any interview question and so I let the lowercase Is run their course. What follows is the result of two weeks of email correspondence, complete with emoticons.
LL: Tell me your basic stats (age, where you’re from, background, etc.).
AK: i’m 24, born in Los Angeles. My parents are from Japan. i grew up pretty immersed in that culture. i went to Japanese school every Saturday throughout my school years. i grew up reading manga and watching Japanese TV shows, listening to Japanese pop music. i was most comfortable in that language too. People i meet are so surprised that i speak it so fluently, considering i’m second generation. After high school, i moved up to Humboldt County, in a small town in the redwoods, then moved back to LA and then to Brooklyn New York to attend Pratt Institute to study fine arts painting. i didn’t graduate though. i was over it after two years.
LL: How did you first get involved in art? What was the process that brought you to your style now?
AK: i first started drawing from mangas when i was a kid: girls with big dreamy twinkle eyes. In middle school, i started taking private fine arts classes. Weeks and weeks of drawing bottles and cups and vases and porcelain rabbits. With pencil. Then charcoal. Then to oil paints ... Meanwhile i kept doodling in my personal sketchbook. i collected magazine images of women and bodies and colours and moods, cutting and pasting them, drawing over them.
Since i was young, i was attracted to female faces and forms, especially the darker sombre ones. Sensual. Erotic. And i was pretty comfortable with such subjects. i was never embarrassed. My parents might have shrugged a bit, but they never forbade me to draw what i wanted to draw. They were always encouraging.
i started experimenting with painting surfaces at a life painting class of nude models. Canvas was too white and rough textured for me so i went on scavenger hunts in alley ways and picked up planks of wood and panel. Old and eaten up. i didn’t even think of sanding them down back then, just brought them to class.
LL: These days, what is your process for creating a piece?
AK: Today, in preparation for a new project i’ll be working on, i bought large wood panels, about four foot. tall. It’s going to be a panel of four. One for each girl. Sisters. Life size. i’ve never worked this big on wood, so this should be fun. Anyways, it’s plywood, and the patterns and grains didn’t look very smooth and pretty when purchased, but i took them home, and cut the edges round, and sanded the surface down real hard with my electric circular sanding tool (which i love and adore) and VOILA! They look absolutely silky beautiful now. i must say, this is one of my favorite parts in the process: sanding the wood down so fine, so smooth. i love running my fingers down the surface.
So then, i need to plan what to draw. i draw directly on with pencil. i usually don’t do sketches or transfer an already drawn image and this is why the drawing process sometime takes the longest time (or at least it feels like it) and most of my energy. i do lots of rough drawing on there, lots of erasing, lots of sanding down to clear out the un-erasable pencil marks. Sometimes this takes all day or two or three. After the complete drawing, i seal the wood and pencil with acrylic gel medium. This makes the wood surface paintable. i then use oil paint. thin layers and washes at first. i like to leave the wood grains and patterns divisible and translucent, the concentration on her face and eyes, lips, expression, then embellish her with decorative patterns and colors. The piece is complete once i coat a couple layers of polyurethane, which is wood furniture gloss/sealer.
LL: Why don’t you do interviews?
AK: i’m not a good talker in person. i feel much more comfortable typing this down at my own pace. My brain doesn’t function as quickly as most people, maybe – too aloof perhaps – plus i can never find the right words to match what’s going on inside.
i grew up pretty sheltered. Too shy. Too reserved. i was never a good talker. Was and still am a horrible story teller. But on paper, or on canvas or wood, with a pencil and brush in hand, i can be as loud as i want! i am clear and explicit as ever. There is no fear, no shame, nothing to worry about. i am honest and blunt and direct, and loving it!
LL: What do you do at your art openings? Do you mingle or hide in the corner pretending to be somebody else? Or a plant?
AK: Hahahha. Yes. i wish i could get away with that. :p
My first few art openings are complete blurs. Having to present myself that way, and having to talk to strangers frightens me. i usually get super nervous and fidgety and anxious and wide eyed. i can never remain calm at those things.
LL: Do you have any plans to make an action figure? Would you if they asked?
AK: i don’t plan to, but if someone can somehow translate my girls into a simplified vinyl toy figure, i wouldn’t mind. Not for a couple years though – same with making a little book.
LL: What should I know about you that I haven’t asked yet?
AK: This is something that’s been bothering me actually. i think my eyes are completely lopsided. My right eye is higher than the other, so when i try to draw a symmetrical face, i end up drawing her left eye much lower then where it should be. This is proven when you take one of my supposed-to-be-symmetrical head-on girl faces into photoshop and flip the image horizontally, as in a mirror reflection she turns out to be completely twisted and distorted and lopsided. This frightens me. i am starting to doubt my vision and the way i see things ...
LL: Tell me about some of the pieces you are submitting to Lifelounge for this interview.
AK: My favorite pieces:
Octopus girls – i enjoyed this one. It was larger than what i’m comfortable with, but this gave me room to experiment. i like the dark wet hair of the two girls. The one on the right, at first, seems like the more seductive luring one, but the passive dreamy one on the left is the one who will spellbind you and keep you coming for more.
Butterfly wing in her eye, skull in her head girl – this one, it’s not so much the imagery, but the feeling when i made her. i was in a melancholy phase, and usually this distracts me from working, but this one came quite naturally. Sometimes, like anybody, i make up silly worries and sad, mad stories in my head, that involve acquaintances or friends or lovers or strangers. and i start to believe it’s true. These made-up, fictitious, paranoid, worrisome stories. And then i drew and painted her completely sad and miserable and disturbed. It turned out alright i think.
LL: When is your next show?AK: The next show is at ThinkSpace in Silver Lake California, September 8. It’s a ‘PICKS OF THE HARVEST: BATCH THREE’ group show. i’ll be doing a wall installation in the front little room and then 30 or so awesome artists in the main room.
www.thinkspacegallery.comhere’s the lineup:
www.sourharvest.com/thinkspace/images/Thinkspace_sept_postcard.jpgthis should be pretty exiting. It’s my first attempt to work on so large a scale.
OK, so that’s about it.
i enjoyed doing these questions actually (i think the few beers helped :p). It’s really a great way to look inside yourself.