New York Artist Catherine Mosley uses geometric shapes and patterns to evoke a sense of depth and movement in her pieces, simultaneously conjuring mathematical calculation and chance in her creative process. While her past works have included collage and whimsical narratives, Mosley has gravitated in a different direction with her latest show, Up Down & Sideways, which just opened at A.I.R. Gallery. Though there is a sense of uniformity and structure in this set of work, each piece has its own equation that Mosley has come to by means of a meditative artistic process and just the slightest of variations. I sat down with the artist to discuss this process, to take a look at her work, and to understand her intentions for the show on a deeper level.
Nora Kovacs: Your prints have a lot of complexity to them in terms of depth and layering. Do you begin with an initial sketch and add layers until you reach a finished product, or do you have an image in your mind of what exactly you want it to look like in the end?
Catherine Mosley: I start with these large, stenciled grids and just keep printing them until I feel like it's finished. Sometimes it's a completely random process and other times I use the ghost prints to sort of mirror the first inked prints. For Up Down & Sideways, I did a lot of the pieces in pairs, so one is a reverse of the other, it’s a complete flip. I'll start with the dense, orange ink, keep printing it, and then the black is laid on top. I generally use what’s left over for something else; I don’t like to waste anything. I save all the ghost prints because I know I’ll find a way to use them later on. Normally they go on newsprint and the newsprint gets thrown away, but I just thought, "Too much good stuff is going on the newsprint! I’ve got to save it and use it for something else,".
NK: It’s pretty wild how three-dimensional the pieces end up looking, just from layering and making use of those ghost prints. How do you manipulate the colors you use to get that effect?
CM: The pigment is so rich, so dense, it resonates so much more than paint. It’s embedded in the paper, pushed in with the press, so it takes a long time to dry, but once it dries it will never fade. You can leave it in the sun for hours and it won’t change. And the thing about this ink is you get a really beautiful half tone. It’s still rich enough to make color and then reversing it reinforces the unity of the pattern even though it’s going in different directions. That's why a lot of people see the work and they think the original idea might have come from a computer. But it’s just a coincidence.
NK: Yeah, it's almost a cross between a digital, computer grid and a city skyline.
CM: Right, well I have done some other pieces with a deep blue and bright yellow and the yellow really jumps out. That, to me, is closest to a New York skyscraper at night, blue and yellow and orange. The digital aspect is really just a coincidence, but it works because the pieces are so lively.
Catherine Mosley, 'Scatter", Installation, 2015
NK: Why have you chosen the orange/black color palette for this show?
CM: Well, the orange is just such a strong color. I’ve done some in red and black as well, but it’s almost too conventional in terms of the Bauhaus, or Malevich, or the Constructivists. It’s too classic. There’s so much art that’s red and black…I wanted it to really pop out at you and the orange does that. But I've also done ones in yellow and black, the "Dancing in the Dark" series has an added layer of splatter paint, and others have transparent, streaked layers of ink, so there's a good amount of variation that goes into them. People always ask if I’m a textile designer. These would be pretty difficult to duplicate, though. Even though it looks like there is this concrete system, the outcome is still quite random.
NK: Is that what drew you to printmaking as a medium- this relationship between calculated variations and random outcomes?
CM: I fell into printmaking in college, back in the 70's, and then I got a job working with an artist who had a print business. There’s one level of printmaking that you learn in college and then there’s another level that’s more professional and he really taught me that professional level. I always did drawing, painting, and printmaking, but I decided that my painting hand was just too generic. You’ve got to have the touch in painting and it’s got to be special, and there was nothing special about mine. There are so many unique, self-invented ways of painting and I think you need that to be a good painter. It can’t be copied. And people try so hard to find new things to incorporate into their painting, like plastering different materials- jeans, soup cans, whatever- onto a canvas, they'll try anything. Artists really struggle to find that unique touch, so I turned to printmaking as a way to mediate between myself and the work. I realized I can make something unique using this machine, which I could never do with painting. That dawned on me quite a while ago.
Catherine Mosley, "Here/Square Series", 2015, Monotype on panel, 28 x 28 inches
NK: Why have you chosen the orange/black color palette for this show?
CM: Well, the orange is just such a strong color. I’ve done some in red and black as well, but it’s almost too conventional in terms of the Bauhaus, or Malevich, or the Constructivists. It’s too classic. There’s so much art that’s red and black…I wanted it to really pop out at you and the orange does that. But I've also done ones in yellow and black, the "Dancing in the Dark" series has an added layer of splatter paint, and others have transparent, streaked layers of ink, so there's a good amount of variation that goes into them. People always ask if I’m a textile designer. These would be pretty difficult to duplicate, though. Even though it looks like there is this concrete system, the outcome is still quite random.
NK: Is that what drew you to printmaking as a medium- this relationship between calculated variations and random outcomes?
CM: I fell into printmaking in college, back in the 70's, and then I got a job working with an artist who had a print business. There’s one level of printmaking that you learn in college and then there’s another level that’s more professional and he really taught me that professional level. I always did drawing, painting, and printmaking, but I decided that my painting hand was just too generic. You’ve got to have the touch in painting and it’s got to be special, and there was nothing special about mine. There are so many unique, self-invented ways of painting and I think you need that to be a good painter. It can’t be copied. And people try so hard to find new things to incorporate into their painting, like plastering different materials- jeans, soup cans, whatever- onto a canvas, they'll try anything. Artists really struggle to find that unique touch, so I turned to printmaking as a way to mediate between myself and the work. I realized I can make something unique using this machine, which I could never do with painting. That dawned on me quite a while ago.
Catherine Mosley in Studio, 2015
NK: There are so many variations and inputs you can tweak and alter in printmaking to get a different output, and it's never fully expected.
CM: Yeah, some people really can’t stand that mediation and others incorporate the mediation into their thinking, using transparency, adding layers, building upon different ideas. So it’s just a different approach, a different creative practice.
NK: You've also experimented with other mediums and types of work, like in the mixed media pieces in the show, is this something you are interested in expanding upon?
CM: I'm always experimenting with other things. I LOVE the square because you never know what’s the top and what’s the bottom, it's almost interchangeable. I could honestly keep making these grids for the rest of my life, but for this exhibition I wanted to take it further than printmaking with the mixed media pieces. It’s nice to build upon them, to move out of the space of the print, add another dimension. I would also like to bring in some more pictorial elements, but it’s hard to bring any sort of figuration into this much geometry. It’s a tricky thing to do. But once again, for me it’s all about graphic design, it’s not about any representation of the body. It’s all very stylized and cut-out, I maintain the same sort of concept. I’m so locked into my method, I couldn’t start painting on canvas if I wanted to.
Catherine Mosley, "Dancing in the Dark" series, 2015, Mixed media collages on panel, 28 x 28 inches
Interview by Nora Kovacs, PR/Social Media Intern, A.I.R. Gallery