Amanda Brophy / Artist Statememt

Amanda Brophy: Artist Statement

Artist Statment

I believe that the interior spaces that we experience on a daily basis play a huge role in how we function in our day to day lives. The spaces we live in often go unnoticed or unappreciated; they become a backdrop for our experiences. In actuality, these spaces are an integral part of our perceptions, and shape the experiences of our daily environment. Because of this, interiors can hold a multitude of emotions and memories that people project on them. For example a person’s childhood bedroom is more than just an architectural structure. The room holds intense memories of growing up and the emotions that go with that. The space can even take on a personality or persona of its own even though it is just a room. This is what I am interested in: what makes a space more than just an architectural structure, but rather a space with deep personal meaning.
Working from memory has becomes an integral part of my process, and it also supports the conceptual ideas behind my work. I choose to work from memory because it draws out the ideas behind the spaces I am painting. It allows me to bring out those qualities that caused me to remember the room in the first place. If I were working from observation, my paintings would be direct information taken from sight and then onto my working surface, and I want my paintings to be more than the act of looking. In order to work from memory, I not only have to think about how the room looked, but how it felt, how it smelled, how it functioned, who lived in it, and my own personal moments and experiences in that space.

I start a painting by doing sketches and then full size charcoal drawings. In this stage everything is subject to change and usually does. I collage other drawings overtop of the original and often cut parts out that are not working. I replace areas of the drawing until it makes sense as a whole and matches up with whatever memory I am working from. I then use the drawing as a compositional sketch for an under painting. Because the drawing and composition is worked out completely before I start painting I am able to focus on different aspects of the finished piece while in this stage such as color palette and mark making. I work with oil paint because it is the medium that I feel most comfortable with. It is forgiving, and allows for color subtlety as well as a lot of layering.
This process of working from memory allows for a lot of distortion in my work. Often things that I remember vividly have a more dominant role in the painting, where as things that are more faint in my memory just fall away and often do not make it to the final piece. In the end these paintings vaguely resemble the actual spaces, but for me they are more truthful than a photograph in terms of how I think about that space. In some cases I think the image of the painting may replace my memory of the space, such as the three paintings of my grandfather’s house. The memories I had of his home were so faint and distant that it took months to be able to gather enough information from my mind to be able to make these paintings. I can imagine that from now on I will picture his home that way that I have painted it. The paintings are very close to my memories, more so than a photograph would be. I think that if I saw a photograph of his home now I would not recognize it.

This process also allows me to make paintings that I could not otherwise. Because I am working from my own experiences I am able to paint places that may no longer exist in reality, but only in the recesses of my own mind. I am not tied down to what I can see right now. The process also allows me liberties in terms of constructed space. I can combine one memory with another to make a cohesive whole that does not actually exist in reality, but is still true to my memories and feelings towards that particular room.

I mostly work from domestic spaces because I feel that they are more personal and intimate, and therefore more universal in their emotional content. Most of my own memories that are worth painting happen in domestic interiors. I hope that these paintings are somehow a comment on family life and family structure. When I speak of family I mean the unit of parents and children and the relationship between them in the home. This environment is the only one that I have lived in and therefore comes through in my thoughts of domestic interiors and my paintings. The function of the space that I am painting is one way for me to address these ideas. For example in my work I repeatedly paint kitchen spaces, which is the heart of the home, or table and chairs, which could be seen as a family gathering place. This is no accident as the memories that I am working from to make these paintings are mostly memories of family or family gatherings.

An influential artist in terms of emotional spaces is Eric Fischl. In his work he depicts domestic interiors using a very unnatural color palette and sense of light. I am most inspired by his collage canvases. He breaks up the space and emphasizes several different parts. It gives the sense of physically moving though a space and seeing the room from several different angles, which is something I strive for in my own paintings. I use this collage method as part of my process.
Like in Fischl’s paintings, color palette choices play a large role in the content of my finished paintings. I choose colors based on how I feel towards the space, and how I want my audience to view the space. For example in House Sitting I used a lot of bright colors because the house is new and the light coming through into the space makes this house very bright. In the paintings of my grandfather’s house, I used a more earthy color palette because I wanted this space to feel very old and weathered in a way.

Another artist that I draw from is Pieter de Hooch. He is a Dutch painter working around the same time as Vermeer. His interior spaces often seem golden or glowing with light coming in through the windows. He uses an earth toned palette, but if one examines his work closely you can see that he uses a lot of bright saturated colors as well. This is something that I strive for in my own work. I want to draw the viewer in with my color palette, and only until someone gets close or looks harder can they see all of the color that is really there.

I also draw on how De Hooch arranges his space pictorially. He always gives the viewer a way out either through an open door to another space or to the outside. It addresses how one would move through one space into another. This is something that I do in my own paintings as well. I rarely show just on room. I always show that there is something beyond the space that I am depicting whether that is another space or room.

Recently I have started to include outdoor light into my paintings through windows and doors. I want there to be a clear division between outdoor and indoor light, and how the outdoor light affects the interior space. An artist who does this is Philip Geiger, who paints domestic interiors with figures. Most often in his paintings there is light coming in through windows or doors that affects the space with a more intense light. Because of this, his paintings feel very familiar to me. Often times his paintings remind me of my own home because of the warm color palette and the openness of the actual interior. The rooms he paints are usually open to one another without doors to separate them. The light in his paintings comes in through the windows and then reflects throughout the rooms glaring off the floors and furniture. I often see light reacting in the same in my own living space. This sense of warmth and familiarity is something that I hope to come across in my own paintings. I think that light has a familiar quality and can be reminiscent the same way that the sense of smell can bring back memories.

Another artist that I look to for inspiration is Edward Hopper. Hopper often has abstract shapes that are close to the viewer in the immediate foreground, or a close wall that crops off the picture plane. This is something that I do in my own work extensively for two reasons. First, these shapes project into the viewers’ space in turn drawing the viewer into the painting space. Second, it serves as a way to invite the viewer in but keep them out. In some of my paintings there is a very narrow passage way into the painted space because of cropping and an extreme foreground object. This way the viewer wants to go into the space, but feels physically blocked off. I enjoy this tension in my paintings.

Narrative is also a strong factor in my paintings. I want the viewer to imagine themselves in the space that I create, and I want the experience to be unique to each viewer. This is why I choose to leave the figure out of my work. Even though all of the artists that I study for reference include figures in their interiors, I do not see the need to do this in my own work. I can focus on spatial qualities of light and memory without specific people or events. In this way, these rooms in my mind are not bound by time. They are a conglomerate of memories and experiences with that house and the people that live there, as opposed to a specific day or moment. I am interested in showing the presence of human life without depicting actual bodies, but rather by referencing the presence of people through inanimate elements. When the figure is included the viewer becomes more of a spectator or a voyeur. The viewer thinks about the figures and the relationship between the figures more than their environment. I do not want the figure to be the focus in my paintings. With no figure present the viewer is free to project themselves into that space and make their own associations.
I think of my paintings as portraits of the person who inhabited the space. Usually the person I am painting holds a very important role in my life or memories, and therefore I feel that I can not express who they are by just showing their outward bodies. These paintings are in some way an expression of my feelings towards that person. For example when I was planning the paintings of my grandfather’s house I knew that I wanted them to be quiet, reserved, and very warm in their palette. The colors in these paintings are very earthy and warm because I feel that they are an expression of my grandfather’s nature and personality. I also wanted these works to feel aged and weathered in some way. These paintings are quiet and calming because that is the way that I feel towards him. One the other hand, the paintings of my cousin’s home, titled House-sitting, are very different in there intent. The color palette used is very bright and bold because their home is brand new, and the couple that lives there is just starting out on a very new and exciting life. There home in my mind holds a lot of excitement and possibilities which comes across in the composition as well, which is more extreme in format than other paintings I have done.

Edward Hopper, like the rest of my source artists, also depicts interior spaces that include the figure. Like Philip Geiger his paintings also seem very familiar to me, often times when looking at his work I am reminded of somewhere that I have been or lived. His painting Hotel Room reminded me of a room that I stayed in over the summer, so I decided to make a painting of that space and use his compositional decisions. The familiarity in his work comes from the ambiguous quality of his spaces. Often times his rooms are very generic and non-specific leaving the viewer to project their own associations onto the space, the same way I did with Hotel Room. I achieve this same quality in my own paintings. Often times the rooms that I paint seem vacated or abandoned, this is in part due to working from memory. I can not always remember the fine details that make a space feel lived in. Sometimes I leave that painting this way because I want the space to be non-specific so that the viewer can project their own associations and experiences into the interior space.

In conclusion, through all of my formal decisions such as cropping, format and color palette I am supporting my conceptual ideas about space, memory, and emotional significance. As an artist, I want to share with the viewer the importance of their living space, and remind them of all the emotions and memories that a room can hold. My goal is for my audience to better appreciate their everyday surroundings and realize that their environment holds and important role in their lives. I want people to leave the gallery and go home to see there homes in a different way, and see that somehow that space has left an impression on them, and is also effecting how other people view them. I am doing this by sharing with my audience my own personal and very emotional memories through these paintings of interior spaces