Interview with Mark DeMuro
November 2021
1. What most excites you about the pieces you have created?
The process of each piece is exciting. The spark of the idea can come from anywhere. Something I see, read, or hear in conversation can inspire me to reflect on it and follow the thought to come up with an idea and then work it through. Sometimes I just jot down notational words, more often I do quick sketches and then refine the idea in further drawings. There's an immediacy to the initial idea, often followed by an incubation period that requires patience and a willingness to keep working at it, like solving a puzzle.
2. To what should the viewer pay special attention?
Engagement. I'm often attuned to the thought that the piece will be "completed" by the viewer's experience of it. I'm especially mindful of fine tuning the balance and finishes in the works. I also believe it's important to sing in one's own voice. I like the hand to show, the personal human touch. I'm not interested in machine gloss perfection, I prefer to address the human condition, our aspirations, struggles, foibles, and joy.
3. What emotion primarily drives your compositions?
Romance. I fall in love with each idea and work to bring it to fruition. And humor! I've never fallen in love with someone that didn't make me laugh, and made me want to make them laugh. Beyond that, there has to be intellectual stimulation. Art doesn't so much give a concise answer, rather it sets up questions for rewarding contemplation. It's rather hard work, so I like the results to be mentally sustaining and fun.
4. What struggles did you face as you worked on the coconut series and how did you overcome any struggle?
It has sometimes been quite challenging to get good coconuts. I tried visiting Florida and contracting with someone who had a coconut farm. It seemed like a great solution -- I paid in advance-- but it didn't work out. Now I import them from Hawaii. They have larger coconuts and the people I work with there are very nice. Once they arrive, I cure them, more, if necessary, then work with a skilled saw operator with a jumbo band saw to cut them. They aren't exactly symmetrical so you need to kind of zen out when deciding where the cuts go. It's a lot of work cutting, scraping out the dried meat, sanding, and applying layers of gesso before the actual process of painting and sculpting begins. They are incredibly time consuming to make.
Rubin's Profiles Coconut, 2019 - 2020, 18 x 18 x 3 1/2 in.
5. What surprised you about the way each piece came together?
While each one starts as a flash/mental image, there are always changes that occur in bringing it to a physical manifestation of the original thought. Also, because of the nature of the process, connections reveal themselves along the way that can be surprising. Sometimes a work of art can be well along and you suddenly become aware of a change you can make that will alter its function surprisingly. For instance, the Bicycle Wheels Duchamp inspired coconut was exhibited once on a brick wall. The curators asked if I was upset it wasn't on a plain white wall. Actually, I liked it so much I decided to remake it with a faux brick backing panel. This gave it a portable self-contained context, referenced Duchamp's final work Etant Donnes as well, and carried other amusing insinuations. That led me to make backgrounds for each piece, altering and amplifying their presence.
The Apophenia / Pareidolia Twins coconut started in preliminary sketches as 2 girls with ponytail braids. When I connected their braids in a drawing, it was a fun surprise to discover it created a secondary image of a smiley face. It went from being a double portrait to a triple portrait, with the viewer perceiving an overlaying smiley face in their union. This has led to a group of pieces examining Pariedolia, the human tendency in perception to see faces in objects, and Apophenia, the tendency to perceive links in seemingly unrelated data. It occurred to me recently that I was making these "faces" in a period of isolation due to the pandemic. I'm unsure if it's related, but I find it humorous that I’ve been making these new "friends".
The Rubins Profiles Coconut came from seeing a pair of 19th Century silhouette portraits and then thinking about Jasper Johns' figure-ground explorations incorporating Rubins vases. The initial drawing was pretty straightforward, it brought to mind issues of ancestry and reverence for one’s forebears encased in a seed. I was thinking fondly of my parents, grandparents, great grandparents. The silhouette portraits had been bordered by lace, and one day I covered the drawing I'd made with an onion bag. I liked it and went shopping in the Design District where I found some red tulle. When I laid it over the coconuts it imparted a unifying but distancing element and a soft pink glow inside the coconut halves that struck me as suitably romantic. The brick background got a few layers of white wash, which reminded me of the early colonial buildings I grew up with in Old Town Alexandria. So, you see, a number of the elements of the final piece came about in a prolonged period of experimentation and gestation.
The Birds in Space/Cat's Eyes Coconut followed a piece I did inspired by Fontana's slash paintings, where the slits painted in a coconut looked like cat's eyes. Then I was in MOMA looking at Brancusi's wonderful Bird In Space sculpture. I had been looking for Brancusi for a client, and remembered that a curator for Australia's National Museum had discovered an unknown pair of Birds in Space in the collection of an Indian Maharajah. He bought the two, one in white and the other in black marble -- what a find! That led me to correlate the shape of Brancusi's Birds with the eye slits of the cat, but making them in black and white which gave it a surprising twist. The forms of the "pupils" referenced both the seeing and the seen; the gaze and the object of desire.
Birds In Space / Cat's Eyes 2015 -2019, Wood 18 x 22 x 5 in.
6. Can you give our viewers some background that nurtures your creative process?
As I said, the ideas can come from any stimuli, so I believe it's important to always be open, to operate like a mediator that ideas can flow freely through. I don't leave home without paper and pencil. I like to walk around the reservoir in Central Park. It's near my studio and the act of walking in nature and letting my mind run free is like a meditation. I know the path so well it's like a mantra. When an idea occurs, like a seed, you nurture it, turning it over in your mind’s eye and looking at possible growth patterns. Inspiration can be found anywhere; you just have to be open to it. The Met Museum is right across the park from my house, and I love going there. It's my favorite of all the great New York museums and is always rewarding.
7. What experiences have impacted the theme and concept of your work?
There are so many... For this series I was very taken with the idea of using a seed as the starting point. As there is a good deal of variety in the works, the container provides a bit of continuity. There is the romantic element of working from nature. I've always revered nature and find it nurturing and sustaining. In these days of climate change using a natural seed seems perhaps even more pertinent to our time.
8. How do the forms and patterns speak to any overall narrative?
As in life, I'm not sure there's an overall narrative, or at least any singular approach to it. I look for development but try to avoid stasis. Some of the artists I love best have taken the most surprising twists in their work. I'm thinking of the variety of works produced by Francis Picabia, the incredible versatility of Max Ernst, the leap from Ab-Ex to figuration in late Philip Guston, Andy Warhol's late experiments with abstraction and religious iconography. All these speak to me of the adventure that is life. It's unpredictable, and the beauty of the human response is reflected in a willingness to explore in an ongoing attempt to embrace it.
9. Talk about your studio space. What aspects offer inspiration? What is the ideal studio?
I've been studio challenged lately. I love my studio, it's in the same building as my apartment. But between Covid restrictions and the horrendous construction noise of a new building going up across the street I fled to the lake house. It's beautiful and quiet, but doesn't offer the space and freedom of a dedicated work space. In the country I work outside and set up a make-shift studio space in the dining room, but now winter is arriving and it's getting very cold there. It's great to go to the studio and be in your private place to make art. Happily the noise is winding down and I'm looking forward to moving back to the city and being in my studio again soon.
10. Do you have a certain routine you follow? Comment on your approach.
I have coffee and eat something, try to get art dealing out of the way, go to the studio, put on music, have a puff of pot, lay out supplies and start. Sometimes you pick up right where you left off, sometimes draw more, other times it's important to sit and reflect on the pieces in process--to look at possibilities, to layer meaning, and figure out how to solve technical issues.
11. What do you want the viewer to take away after seeing your work?
Pleasure, engagement, reflection.
12. Do you spend much time sketching out each piece?
I draw a lot, from quick sketches on post it notes to development drawings where I'm refining ideas, and working out how to actually make them come to life. I love to draw and do it every day.
They Say Her Eyes Follow You Around The Room, 2015 - 2020, 30 x 30 x 5 in.
13. Where do you get your materials?
All over. From Hawaii to Home Depot, from my recycle bin to a little art supply store in a nearby town.
14. Have you experienced any new sense of self-discovery?
Daily, I wake up and see I'm still here, and most days bring some sort of revelation to anyone paying attention.
15. What memorable experiences have you had as an artist?
Too many to mention, but happily a film producer and a documentarian recently asked if they can film me telling stories. They said "You have a thousand great stories, let's get together, have martini sessions and film you". I'd been thinking of this for a while as it seems far preferable to the arduous process of sitting down and writing--plus they're both fun friends, so I immediately accepted. I've had the good fortune to meet and engage with lots of incredibly interesting, talented people both in and out of the art world, and have had a great time doing so.
16. Because of their size, are your works intended as pieces/places of contemplation or entertainment?
BOTH, but size has little to do with it.
17. Talk about the size, constraints, and as vessels of inspiration.
As I mentioned, I wanted to work from a seed. Coconuts were the biggest seeds I knew of, plus I had coconut palms conveniently growing in my yard in Miami when I made the first one. Even the largest coconuts aren't very imposing in scale, but a few years ago a gallery I worked with arranged to have images of my sculptures projected wall size at a party in a nightclub during Art Basel Miami. They came across so differently I loved it and began to think about printing them in a jumbo scale.
18. Talk about the incipiency and germination of the series.
I was living in Florida and wanted to make a portfolio to apply to Grad School in Europe that would make an indelible impression on the selection committee. I was sitting outside when a coconut fell out of a tree and I had an Isaac Newton moment. I thought, YES! A Seed! A Boite En Coconut! So, the first one was Mark in a Nutshell, and held images of the art I had made in Miami, playfully referencing Duchamp's Boite En Valise, his portable museum in a box. Unfortunately, it was quarantined in customs and missed the application deadline. They sent a telegram saying they were convening a special meeting to consider my application-- pretty funny! I got in, but they had already given out the scholarship and Teaching Assistant funds I wanted so I demurred. They encouraged me to re-apply the following year. That summer a friend's father put me in an outdoor show at Southampton's Parrish Museum. I sold a painting to a lady who had a gallery in New York. She offered me a show and I moved to Manhattan. I fell into a richer life than I could have imagined. New York was an absolute banquet!
I've returned to using coconuts a number of times over the years, and each time new ideas and parameters occur. I recently started photographing my cut and prepared coconuts, drawing and painting on them. This allows me to expediently explore ideas without spending hours of preparation on each piece. The resulting works are an extension of the project and offer the potential to work in a different scale. I love combining a printed photograph of a raw state sculpture with fresh handwork, and the freedom rendering two-dimensional illusions that painting affords. So now there are both sculptures and paintings using coconuts. The possibilities for growth appear endless!
- Kathrine Page, Project Director for John William Gallery, with Mark DeMuro