Studio Fragments with Falon Stutzman

After unveiling her solo exhibition Woman Having a Hard Time at the gallery, Falon Stutzman has returned to the studio with a restlessness that feels almost physical. The new paintings are taking shape slowly, circling questions that energized the last body of work but exploring new palettes and gestures. Working in oil and flashe, Falon continues to let her big-eyed, elastic figures inhabit worlds that are at once claustrophobic and strangely weightless.

We asked Falon what’s been drifting through her mind as she builds this new body of work. What follows isn’t a statement so much as a collection of fragments: scraps of image, memory, environment and influence that hover at the edges of the works.

FILM FAVORITES

I play movies in the studio sometimes. Working Girl is a favorite of mine because I just think Melanie Griffith and Joan Cusack are so charming. Their characters are so endearing while trying to make it in the world without losing who they are. They feel deeply and worry about others, and what’s “right” and “fair”. And the soundtrack in the closing sequence makes me tear up every time. On a completely different plane, every 6 months or so I watch Jonathon Glazer’s Under the Skin. It just gets better and better each time. It’s a deeply feminist movie made by a man. I’m still not entirely sure how he managed to do that. But all of his work has this quality where he stacks surreal, melancholy — even horrific moments, without explanation or resolution and it feels like what living life feels like. I enjoy the faith he has in his viewer. It’s humanizing. The movie Three Women by Robert Altman influenced me in terms of my palette. It’s a 1977 thriller/mystery portrayed in pastels, which is highly unusual. Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek are in it and they have faces that express everything.

PALETTES AND MARKMAKING

I’m working with a pretty paired down palette at this point and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. Right now, I’m getting my ideas across with 4-6 colors on the palette, and mixing what I need. I was reprimanded in art school for using too much burnt umber, but it’s pretty much in every light color I mix now. I use a ton of white, and over the years, I’ve found a series of colors that play well with that. The tints don’t change in temperature too much and so I can use the full scope of that color.

I try to use my brushes in as many ways as possible, right up to their end when the whole brush head falls off into the bucket. So when the brush is fancy and new, flat or round, I use it as that shape. And then as the brush deteriorates, I get this new brush head that’s an erratic, frazzled mess. All my brush heads end up looking like they’ve been electrocuted. About halfway through their lifespan they become more of a stamp that with repeated pounces gives all sorts of broken up color. It’s essentially Ben-Day dots in a lot of my transitions. I just discovered Emily Kame Kngwarreye and her work is such a great example of repetition and rhythm in mark making.

OBJECTHOOD AND UNCERTAINTY

My studio is pretty bare bones; it’s my living room and there isn’t a whole lot there apart from stretchers, old paintings and thumbnails. I put things away for the most part (except for photos or a critique) when I’m not working on them, otherwise I lose touch with what might need changed about the piece down the line. It’s a very small vacuum of a room and I’m curious how my work will look when I have a larger space. At the moment, I work on the floor predominantly. Usually I’ll have fresh flowers which I’ve actually been painting lately. If I’m conscious of anything while working, it’s expressing my idea of the object I’m painting. So, if I’m painting a shoe, I’m not going for accuracy, I’m searching for all the qualities that make a shoe. It’s leathery or shiny or round or bendable. A hand is soft and maybe the fingers are a little pudgy as they grip something. Or I draw from my own hand and the fullness I feel when I hold an object or the memory of holding someone else’s hand. I don’t need to paint it realistically for a softness or tenderness to be felt by the viewer. Sometimes inaccuracies remind us more of something

I like an orneriness in the mark making too, and I don’t want everything answered for me in an image. I enjoy a piece that tells the viewer “you’re on your own with this one”. There are some artists right now that definitely put it out there in a way I love. Janine Iverson is a fave of mine. June Gutman’s portrayal of autonomy/survival (in all aspects of health) is deeply moving to me. Michael Gac Levin’s paintings are my newest wonderful discovery. Artists of the past I enjoy are Philip Guston, Susan Rothenburg, David Byrd and Eugene Von Bruenchenhein.

STUDIO PLAYLIST

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Like There Was a Door by Daniel Norgren
That’s That by Cass McCombs
Space Invader by Ten Fe
Di Mattina Molto Presto by Lucio 48
Follow Me by Amanda Lear
Crick In My Neck by Cass McCombs
Out Here by Big Black Delta
(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am by Nancy Wilson
I Know You Too Well by Sabina Sciubba
White Awakening by Les Rallizes Denudes
Lonely Heart by Neva Dinova
Never Can Be Lonely by Taylor Hollingsworth