Hello everyone! This is Jackson and welcome to the eighth interview for my blog, 3 Art Questions With Jackson. This time I interviewed Liza Sylvestre. She is a talented artist. She is also nice and we have some of her art hanging on our walls. Thank you for reading!
Jackson: You make many different kinds of art. What kind do you enjoy making the most? I really liked your Soap Factory show.
Liza: This has been a tough thing to work through. My background is in painting, and it's this commercial gallery work that many people know me for. But for the past two years I've been creating multimedia conceptual artwork, like the work for my Art(ists) on the Verge show at The Soap Factory. It has definitely felt like I am juggling two separate studio practices, and I've struggled to justify them. Now that I'm finally at a place where I don't have any more painting shows I'm committed to, a breakthrough has occurred, and I'm so grateful for it. I can finally let go of some things, and with some past ways of working in my studio, and move forward with with new work. It's really easy to fall into a rut once you've had some measured success. People will purchase something and it's easy to feel like you should make 100 more of that something so that you can pay your bills! But the truth is that I was feeling stagnant in my studio until this new multimedia work came along. And now I see ways in which I can utilize my drawing and painting skills with the same sensibility that my new media work requires.
Jackson: How did you become an artist? Did you see a specific artwork? I guess that is two questions.
Liza: I think becoming an artist was just a natural inclination. It's a way of life for me, and for my family (my partner is also an artist and we have a young one and a half year old son together). I studied art in undergrad but "being an artist" felt so large and impossible and out of reach at the time of my graduation. I moved to Miami, I worked as a fashion designer there and in London, and I took my time coming back to art. There was a moment, while I was still living in Miami, when I made a really conscious decision to dedicate more of my time to my artwork, to make it a serious focal point of my life. I signed a lease on a an art studio and showed up every day, no matter what. That was a really pivotal decision, and one that all of the art-steps I've taken have followed. It takes so much work just to learn how to work, and it's so important to figure it out. It's all still a process, I'm still becoming an artist, or evolving as an artist.
Jackson: If you could meet any artist, who would it be and why?
Liza: Oooh, tough one. In my experience, often times meeting an artist is really not the same thing as enjoying their work. But, in an ideal world, Ann Hamilton and I would sit down, and she would share all of her art making secrets with me, and we would become the best of friends.
