Joyce Yamada
Interview by Emma Snodgrass, SciArt Intern
ES: Your paintings span emotional landscapes of all shades and hues, evoking a poignant sense of tragic inevitably, but also of hope, awe and humor. How did you come to bring scientific content and emotive representation together in your work?
JY: What a perceptive question! My parents encouraged my interest in science - I remember kiddie books about worms and bugs and a natural history encyclopedia that I read cover to cover. In school I was always good at grasping concepts in biology and physics (not math!). By the time I finished high school I knew I was an artist, but my understanding of the world has always been through science. The books that engage me most are written by scientists for interested lay people. I keep a journal in which I jot down images that come to me, often while pondering whatever I’m reading - I keep ideas on the boiler sometimes for many years, until I find a way to turn the mental images into paintings.
I have to be emotionally engaged to paint. I am not a conceptual or political artist; I am too attracted to paradox, mystery, humor, and odd disjunctions to present a clear agenda in my work. But whatever I am painting has to engage my feelings on some deep even if inarticulate level or I can’t be bothered. In some ways I have a built-in urge towards expressionism, but have always veered away from personal autobiography. So since I am not painting scenes from my life, the emotion gets attached to more abstract things like ecological concepts, to memories of place, or even to the paint itself. I like to make up imaginary scenes. I also have a very active sense of awe so that I can be totally gobsmacked by the smallest or most fleeting things like clouds and light over Brooklyn; these things can enter into a painting and be the hook that keeps me working.
Interview by Emma Snodgrass, SciArt Intern
ES: Your paintings span emotional landscapes of all shades and hues, evoking a poignant sense of tragic inevitably, but also of hope, awe and humor. How did you come to bring scientific content and emotive representation together in your work?
JY: What a perceptive question! My parents encouraged my interest in science - I remember kiddie books about worms and bugs and a natural history encyclopedia that I read cover to cover. In school I was always good at grasping concepts in biology and physics (not math!). By the time I finished high school I knew I was an artist, but my understanding of the world has always been through science. The books that engage me most are written by scientists for interested lay people. I keep a journal in which I jot down images that come to me, often while pondering whatever I’m reading - I keep ideas on the boiler sometimes for many years, until I find a way to turn the mental images into paintings.
I have to be emotionally engaged to paint. I am not a conceptual or political artist; I am too attracted to paradox, mystery, humor, and odd disjunctions to present a clear agenda in my work. But whatever I am painting has to engage my feelings on some deep even if inarticulate level or I can’t be bothered. In some ways I have a built-in urge towards expressionism, but have always veered away from personal autobiography. So since I am not painting scenes from my life, the emotion gets attached to more abstract things like ecological concepts, to memories of place, or even to the paint itself. I like to make up imaginary scenes. I also have a very active sense of awe so that I can be totally gobsmacked by the smallest or most fleeting things like clouds and light over Brooklyn; these things can enter into a painting and be the hook that keeps me working.
Jellyfish Invasion, 44x66”, oil on canvas, 2008. Image courtesy of the artist.
ES: The process of painting itself seems to inform the final character of your works. This is especially evident in Accidental Cloud Paintings, in which there is a collision of content and interpretation: a dialogue between intent and result. How would you describe the importance of this phenomenon to your work as a whole?
JY: I consider myself a painterly painter. It’s hard to explain, but to me it means going beyond conscious intention through the process and act of painting itself. What works best is to be in the state psychologists call “flow”. It’s similar to improvisational music performance-- over time you internalize some reasonable guidelines for composition and know intuitively what is working and what isn’t. Nearly all of my painting is improvised. I might start with an idea that survives in the final piece, but the actual form the painting takes happens in the moment of doing it. I change my mind a lot, re-do compositions, turn work upside down. The Accidental Cloud Paintings are at one extreme of this process; I start those pieces without any idea in mind, just fling interesting black and white patterns on the paper. I then let them sit, and images just have a way of occurring to me as I play with them. They don’t always work. This series functions as a loosening up exercise. My more complex and larger work usually starts with a much clearer image in my head, but the process is much the same--a constant cycle of improvisation and editing.
JY: I consider myself a painterly painter. It’s hard to explain, but to me it means going beyond conscious intention through the process and act of painting itself. What works best is to be in the state psychologists call “flow”. It’s similar to improvisational music performance-- over time you internalize some reasonable guidelines for composition and know intuitively what is working and what isn’t. Nearly all of my painting is improvised. I might start with an idea that survives in the final piece, but the actual form the painting takes happens in the moment of doing it. I change my mind a lot, re-do compositions, turn work upside down. The Accidental Cloud Paintings are at one extreme of this process; I start those pieces without any idea in mind, just fling interesting black and white patterns on the paper. I then let them sit, and images just have a way of occurring to me as I play with them. They don’t always work. This series functions as a loosening up exercise. My more complex and larger work usually starts with a much clearer image in my head, but the process is much the same--a constant cycle of improvisation and editing.
Hunter’s Corridor, 40x60”, oil on canvas, 2010. Image courtesy of the artist.
ES: I see a dichotomy, especially in Disaster Paintings and Creatures of the Sixth Extinction, of humans as vulnerable to their biology and environment as well as responsible for massive environmental destruction. How do you see the role of art and science, as human productions, in terms of this dichotomy?
JY: You’re right about the dichotomy...This is a difficult question to answer. I have been thinking of a neurologically damaged patient I read about who had intact intellect and reasoning abilities but damaged emotional centers. He could investigate all aspects of a potential decision, weigh the pluses and minuses, but he could not for the life of him ever make a decision--he waffled endlessly. It seems that emotions are somehow essential to good decision making, as counterintuitive as that sounds. In some ways we are in a similar position as a culture. Science is telling us how the world is functioning; we know the massive destruction we as a species are causing, and we know that without urgent change our children and grandchildren will face serious ecological disruptions that will beggar anything we have experienced so far. But we are frozen, oddly without the will to effect change. I think that science can present the facts, can urge action. But it will take cultural paradigm change to give us the will and the vision to act. Art plays a large though rather mysterious and sometimes hidden part in shaping a culture. I am thinking about belief structures, a sense of meaning, of right and wrong, of purpose-- the things that can motivate change and action. There are reasons that religion at its extreme can be the motivation behind otherwise quite insane and destructive wars and persecutions; I don’t fully understand, but suspect that tribalism, a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, meaning, direction, and the activation of powerful emotion, unfortunately usually hatred - all play a part. I have been wondering for years how we as artists and concerned citizens can help motivate positive change.
I'm not sure what we can do--but for myself I think of extolling the value and the joy of our diverse biosphere, embracing science and the information it gives us about our world, understanding and then enjoying the things we should do to live sustainably. We have to buck the immense inertia of business as usual, and we have to hope... As an artist, I do the best I can to make good paintings. It seems almost futile at times, but it's what I do best. Trying to make a point, being political doesn't work for me in art, but I think that some of the things I think about and care about do come through. I think this is true for all artists... We can only hope that being true to ourselves and making powerful and engaging art can in the end become part of positive cultural change....
Joyce lives and works in Brooklyn, NY as a full-time artist.
You can contact her at [email protected] and see more of her work at www.joyceyamada.com.
JY: You’re right about the dichotomy...This is a difficult question to answer. I have been thinking of a neurologically damaged patient I read about who had intact intellect and reasoning abilities but damaged emotional centers. He could investigate all aspects of a potential decision, weigh the pluses and minuses, but he could not for the life of him ever make a decision--he waffled endlessly. It seems that emotions are somehow essential to good decision making, as counterintuitive as that sounds. In some ways we are in a similar position as a culture. Science is telling us how the world is functioning; we know the massive destruction we as a species are causing, and we know that without urgent change our children and grandchildren will face serious ecological disruptions that will beggar anything we have experienced so far. But we are frozen, oddly without the will to effect change. I think that science can present the facts, can urge action. But it will take cultural paradigm change to give us the will and the vision to act. Art plays a large though rather mysterious and sometimes hidden part in shaping a culture. I am thinking about belief structures, a sense of meaning, of right and wrong, of purpose-- the things that can motivate change and action. There are reasons that religion at its extreme can be the motivation behind otherwise quite insane and destructive wars and persecutions; I don’t fully understand, but suspect that tribalism, a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, meaning, direction, and the activation of powerful emotion, unfortunately usually hatred - all play a part. I have been wondering for years how we as artists and concerned citizens can help motivate positive change.
I'm not sure what we can do--but for myself I think of extolling the value and the joy of our diverse biosphere, embracing science and the information it gives us about our world, understanding and then enjoying the things we should do to live sustainably. We have to buck the immense inertia of business as usual, and we have to hope... As an artist, I do the best I can to make good paintings. It seems almost futile at times, but it's what I do best. Trying to make a point, being political doesn't work for me in art, but I think that some of the things I think about and care about do come through. I think this is true for all artists... We can only hope that being true to ourselves and making powerful and engaging art can in the end become part of positive cultural change....
Joyce lives and works in Brooklyn, NY as a full-time artist.
You can contact her at [email protected] and see more of her work at www.joyceyamada.com.
