The Studio 'Reflections'

So, I’ve been reflecting on my life and art practice, as they are inextricably intertwined. I feel very grateful for the opportunities and the response to my artwork, which has led to many exciting and unexpected connections. I find it fascinating that my paintings have a life of their own without me and that people are engaging with them on their own terms–in galleries, in their own homes, in public spaces, and on social media.



I met so many wonderful people at this last exhibition at Pagoda Red in Chicago. I am grateful for the many meaningful conversations and for the chance to see my artwork in this new environment, in real life, and at its real scale. I felt that I could understand the work in such a new way once I could see the pieces in relation to other objects and humans. In addition, interacting with other people who brought so many insightful observations and questions added so much energy to the experience. It is no longer just close friends and family that already know me, but strangers that are meeting my paintings before they meet me. In this sense, it is also an unusual experience, as I am no longer there to be explaining (or justifying) everything that I am working on. This brings me back to the point that paintings have a life of their own without you as their maker. I am not always there to answer questions about process or meaning, and in this way, individual paintings can both provoke and defend themselves.





Additionally, I found this show to have a wide range of my styles and it was drawing upon both very recent paintings, in addition to works from 1-2 years ago. It is fascinating to see my work evolve and to also see it all in the same space. I have been reflecting a lot on what it means to have a style as an artist, and I feel very grateful to really feel like I have found my voice in London. I feel that it is exactly where I should be at this moment in the sense that I still have a lot of directions, ideas, and materials to explore, but that I feel that they are all living in my world. It is very important to me to have this flexibility and range within my practice to explore ecological themes with a broad visual language. I think that if I pursued just one of these kinds of paintings or all the same scale of something like that, that I would simply not be interested in making the work. It is the role of the artist and creators to continue to push themselves to explore their medium and their ideas. It is actually a really important thing to emphasize and encourage exploring a range, instead of this narrative telling lots of young artists that they need to pick a specific kind of painting and stick with that. Possibly for open calls, it’s better to have a more concise portfolio, but for a full practice that expands beyond just 3-5 submitted images, it is vital to be exploring a plethora of motifs and/or materials, depending on the practice.







Speaking of, I feel that my material knowledge is really maturing. I feel that I have intensely explored a wide range of inks, pigments, emulsion paint, acrylic, oil, oil stick, oil pastel, chalk pastel, charcoal, graphite, pencil, pens, markers, papers, fabrics (canvas at a variety of weights, muslins+cheesecloths, calico, jute, linen, dyed cotton, recycled cotton, etc), dyes (natural and synthetic), PVAs, gessos, spray paint, spray fixatives, mediums and more. Usually all of this needs to be summed up into a nice concise statement about sustainability with my materials in practice, but as is always the case, this never seems to paint the whole picture. Sustainability is still in my mind, as it is something that I always want to be aware of, and I would say that the most sustainable part about my practice is that I actually don’t use that much of any of the materials when I make my pieces. So while there is a very big range of materials, I feel that my knowledge of how they work and what they do has led me to be extremely efficient. And so, even if an acrylic paint is going to give me the most desired effect, I know how to use it sparingly to achieve the goal.





I feel that I can create entire worlds in the paintings and drawings, and it pleases me that this can happen without needing to fully and thickly cover a large canvas with harsh primers, acrylics, or oils (mostly referring to their turps or other chemical mediums). Not that I have anything against these paintings for other artists, but there is something about them that is not personally resonating with me at this time as a maker. It even started from a personal health decision, in which I did not like the feeling of these kinds of materials on my skin or breathing in their fumes, and so this mostly water-based practice has also helped me be (literally) closer to the work without feeling the toxicity of certain pigments and materials.



Additionally, the themes of my artwork focusing on different ecological studies and research still is very captivating and engaging for me–so far this has included ecdysis, rhizomes, moss+boundary layer, topophilia, seasons/cycles, grounding, limestone, internodes, burrows, nests, etc, and I find that London has a lot of wonderful plants, parks, walls, and bricks that inspire my continuous observation of the strange relationships and textures of our world. However, I would say that I am seriously missing a longer excursion into nature. I have been considering a longer backpacking trip (like my six-month journey along the Appalachian Trail) again at some point or at least a couple of weeks in nature feels like a much needed reset for me. I think these kinds of cities like London and Chicago actually inherently raise your stress level. Which can be both really useful and motivating, but also exhausting. And so, it’s hard to say where I will want to live in the future, as I feel I need the city for more of my community and networking needs at this moment as an emerging artist, but that I need a quieter and more nature filled space to recharge me and to make the work.







Which leads me to my last point, and that being that I think there are many versions of success in this life. One of the things that I am most grateful for about being an artist is that there are so many different directions to go with it. I think we frequently have rather close-minded perceptions about what our goals should be and the truth of the matter is that our goals and success can and will look very different at different points in our lives. While this at times can be a source of anxiety–this never knowing of what is to come next (as everyone experiences, not just artists)--it is also very exciting and inviting to many options for the future. While it may feel like I really need to do x, y, and z to further my career, I am almost positive that that will all end up looking differently than I might have planned. And so, in the meantime, I will continue to keep making, and I look forward (with some trepidation) to the surprises and unexpected path of this creative life.



Text © Issy Wilson

Original Artworks © Issy Wilson

Photographs © Jon C Archdeacon