Installation image of Smoke Signals, Vaughn Spann
Almine Rech Brussels Courtesy the Artist and Almine Rech ©Vaughn Spann
Photo by: Hugard & Vanoverschelde
Florida-born artist Vaughn Spann has continued to push boundaries with his stunning paintings which vary from textured abstracts to surreal figurative paintings. By synthesizing the natural world and political statements into his paintings, Spann creates his own world and each exhibition of his becomes a part of an extended conversation in the Spann collection. Indescribable and constantly shifting, Spann continues to evade definition and in turn, creates his own narrative surrounding his works.
Spann’s latest exhibition proves that he is capable of pushing past the previous boundaries often placed on Black artists to create figurative paintings, and prove that he is able to produce abstract works in the same openness and freedom as any other artist.
Flaunt had the opportunity to talk to Spann about his latest exhibition, breaking into the art world, and his creative process into producing these works.
Vaughn Spann The exchange (north star), 2020 Polymer paint, fabric, mixed media on canvas 236,9 x 390,5 x 9,5 cm; 93 1/4 x 153 3/4 x 3 3/4 inches (framed) Courtesy of the Artist and Almine Rech
**Starting off with a little bit about your newest exhibition, what can you tell me about it?**
For me it's important that I always mention this to folks that don't really know my work in general and to folks that also do know my work that every exhibition is sort of building off one another. I'm not the type of artist that really has a definitive idea, I mean sometimes I have a definitive idea that I'm trying to execute it or a concept and try to see it out but for the most part, I really like these extended conversations. The exhibits are never really punctuations, and are just extensions of existing conversations around my work. For the most part this exhibition could probably be seen in the same vein that on one hand it's exploring formalist elements like line, color, shape, and all that good stuff that invigorates painters to keep making their work.
On the other side, it's really exploring the internal psychosis of the studio and my day-to-day lifestyle right now, just thinking about cycles and life cycles and time and these sort of cyclical iconographies. That's the start of the work and some of the bodies of work you'll see, where I'm really trying to hash out the duality of spinning this newfound time. I think everyone's getting to this point where we're all like 'Life is super short.' We're seeing our favorite writers, authors, movie stars, and elders, people who are suddenly passing away, so I think everyone is sort of reevaluating their relationship to space and time and nature. In one sense, it's sort of me just trying to parse out those two elements of life and prosperity and really sort of thinking about the politics going on right now as well.
Installation image of Smoke Signals, Vaughn Spann
Almine Rech Brussels Courtesy the Artist and Almine Rech ©Vaughn Spann
Photo by: Hugard & Vanoverschelde
**So what inspires some of the structures that you've created within your new exhibition, 'Smoke Signals?'**
There is of course a continuation in the show from my 'Marked Man' series which came from a police stop and frisk, and it really sparked my interest in the formalism behind the ‘X’ and the way that my body sort of became an 'X.' I had to really decipher what that meant in the sort of current political moment. That's always this moment that's internally in the back of my mind, this moment in which your body can be profiled or erased, all these implications of black existence today and the other forefront of some of the newer works in the show, there's explorations into color and I would say land and space. I've been spending a lot of time outdoors and trying to find what I would say is a positive healthy mental space and, I feel like you get a lot of that by trying to find time to put myself in nature and thinking about being outdoors. So a lot of the works that have almost like, I don't know, some people keep referring to these circular paintings as like suns, or orbs, or light, all these sort of light relationships and I feel like that's a fine read to dig into the works because that's sort of the space that I've been dwelling in for a while, thinking about horizons and line and sunset and nightfall and the way that the days feel very much like circles because the coronavirus and the way in which we are experiencing time at this moment.
Installation image of Smoke Signals, Vaughn Spann
Almine Rech Brussels Courtesy the Artist and Almine Rech ©Vaughn Spann
Photo by: Hugard & Vanoverschelde
**Going back to your metaphor with the 'X,' I'd say that's a very pertinent conversation right now, how would you say that art and politics is intrinsically intertwined?**
I think I want to afford myself the opportunity to have the same openness and experimentation as every artist has come before me has had, especially when it comes to non-artists of color in that regard. The sort of freedom to interpret their words and the freedom to enjoy their work on their own merit , without having to discuss the political. For me, I feel like everything I make is going to be inherently political and I feel like I oscillate with that the more and more people get to know me as an artists and get to see me as an artist and think about where I come from and my background it sort of becomes an underlying interpretation in the works which I've tried to problematize a little bit, complicate a little bit in general on the conceptual front it's like now with those works it's given me this open path and this freedom to explore like as a symbol, explore the universality behind it and how everyone comes to it in their own sensibilities but then explore some of the internalized intrinsic parts of the work are really key to me. The more people read about the works, they'll get it and there's some people who instantly come to it and they're like 'I get it, you know I see through that lens,' but for me I never want to lock down the read but expand on what it could be mean or what that body of work could signify for various people, various cultures, various individuals in general. I stand to say that somebody might come to the 'X' paintings and be like 'Oh great, another X' and somebody may come to it and question what the artist is trying to do or somebody may come to it and see that direct relationship to one's body as they experience the work in scale. So it's just the idea of moving through these different ideas and anchoring them but also allow them to sort of open up new nuances to interpretation.
Installation image of Smoke Signals, Vaughn Spann
Almine Rech Brussels Courtesy the Artist and Almine Rech ©Vaughn Spann
Photo by: Hugard & Vanoverschelde
**What was it like to break into the art world?**
Well, one thing that I'd say about myself is that I'm overly ambitious, very much a hard worker in a stereotypical way. I'm always the one that thinks that hard work pays off. I just recall when I graduated school just being in my mid 20s and I'm also married and have two young kids now, I had a young daughter when I started grad school. I just remember feeling so much anxiety around the professional side of being an artist. It's interesting enough because I've been having this conflict internally like of myself and other artists where I feel like in the art world it seems like folks legitimize artists when they are struggling. I feel like if you're not struggling then you're like people somehow think you're a sellout or not as legitimate as an academic so I think this conversation around the artist needing to eat and pay their bills sometimes falls to the wayside and this sort of idea of legitimacy in some ways so for me. I just remember being so pressed because I just had my family to provide for and I just wanted to be able to be in a position where I could make my works and just do that. I didn't want to teach, I don't even think that I'd be a good teacher but like just the idea that I knew that I wanted to have a practice where I would thrive and I could just be on my own just focusing 100% percent on my work was my main goal. I just remember having these key moments early on in my career that were really instrumental that I'm super thankful for. It's funny because when I was graduating school, and to piggyback off of that I just remember cold calling like cold emailing my favorite galleries that galleries that I wanted to show work with and sending out just like so many emails and nobody responding. It's almost like that cliche stereotype of the artist back in the 80s or the 90s walking into the galleries trying to get someone to look at their portfolio and now in this digital age, artists do the same exact things that they used to do but digitally. That's exactly what I was doing, I was just going through these gallery's inboxes and trying to see if somebody would just look at my work or try to get into a group show or something like that and being rejected so many times. It made no sense but that stereotype of those one or two times the one or two people that would respond that actually was like the key. One for my moral and two is just, all you need are those one or two responses to move you somewhere so that was super important to not give up because man, rejection is tough and there was definitely a lot of that for sure.
Installation image of Smoke Signals, Vaughn Spann
Almine Rech Brussels Courtesy the Artist and Almine Rech ©Vaughn Spann
Photo by: Hugard & Vanoverschelde
**Given the current reality of our lives have dramatically shifted over the last year with coronavirus and isolation, how would you say the role of art has changed?**
For me, I've always seen art as this not solely therapeutic but having this sort of therapeutic power and can have transformative tendencies and have a transformative relationship to one's mental space. I feel like in this year, I feel like everybody should really be assessing their mental health because I think we're all going through some sort of tremor that's happening for everyone, even at all walks of life. I feel like really trying to take the rein on mental health is really important because even for me, I get very anxiety prone and this year has been really high anxiety because it seems like there are so many uncertainties around every aspect of life. So how do you keep staring forward positively in a healthy mental space has been like a really big reckoning for me especially having a young family and trying to thrive. It's been a thing but I feel like more than ever, art is really going to play a role in that mental space, and also on the activist side on the political front. Just using art to send messages and to tell stories and preserving that dynamic is really important.
Portrait of Vaughn Spann. Courtesy of the Artist and Almine Rech. ©Vaughn Spann.
**I'm looking at some of your pieces and this exhibition especially is more abstract than your previous works, when you begin one of these pieces what is the thought process that goes into creating?**
All of the works tend to bleed into one another, I've always found that my making has always shifted so I've been working with figuration for a long time and working with abstraction for a long time. I think in terms of where those things began, it was during my formative time as an undergrad or high school. I would always draw people and draw images, things of people in like cartoons and all types of things like that so that became like the foundation of myself developing into an artist. When I got into college for example, I was just really thinking about resources and material and a found environment. I was living in Harlem with my soon-to-be wife at some point and just sort of letting that environment influence my work. I would travel and walk to the park and take in the street vendors and that type of stuff so I felt like that's when my work began to explore more attraction to a material sense. Thinking about what sort of materials signify, and things like that.
For me, it's like I never really done one or the other I've always been self-oscillation based on my interests and my conceptual front but this show, I specifically chose not to show any of my figurative paintings because just on a conceptual front with this moment in time where figurative work is so hot right now, which is important, it's amazing. For me, as a black artist it's also not falling into what people want to make of your work so it was so funny because I had done a few other press interviews for my New York show and I just recall, out of the three or four articles that had come out about the show, everyone's articles highlighted one of my figurative paintings which wasn't a problem because I don't put a hierarchy in the work, but I thought that was interesting. If you let someone control your narrative, they will put the narrative they want to see on you, so there was some interesting psychology about that moment where I was like 'Oh, so that I guess that's it's moment in time' but it's like this show had twelve abstract paintings and like two figurative paintings and it was like everything was just a figurative work so I thought that was a peculiar moment.
This show was like a moment to throw people off and not to let people get too expectant of my work in general and just to have a different kind of focus so that's why I chose to have this show strictly abstraction because I'm always trying to go away from the grain in that regard, and it felt like the right moment. In terms of the works in general there is always something brewing in my studio whether or not it's this sort of 'Aha' moment in the material or whether or not it's this sort of iconographic moment or symbolic moment. I just allow the works to take me the direction is most significant the one I'm most energized with and there's moments where I have to recalibrate and I'm like 'Yo, I've got to paint with the brush, I've got to make in a different way and think about things in a different lens,' and there might be a different spark and there's moments when the works are just very physical, like I need to let it out, I need to be with the actual material in a very literal sense. That's the sort of space I've allowed myself to be the most productive in.
