ART CAKE RESIDENT PRESENTATION SERIES
WILLIAM FLEITES
NOV 6 - NOV 17, 2021 (BY APPOINTMENT)
SATURDAYS, NOV 6 & 13, 4-6P
For the second year of the studio program, Art Cake is pleased to present a solo presentation by participating artist, William Fleites. On view is a new site-specific installation and accompanying photograph. The artist notes, “This installation is an expression of the experience of making a painting.” On Saturdays, NOV 6 and NOV 13, the artist will be on site welcoming visitors from 4-6P. To reserve a time to visit in person, please email info@artcake.org.
This is the sixth part of a series that Art Cake has organized for the participating artists-in-residence as an opportunity to present and document their work made during the pandemic outside of the studio.
Please view the artists-in-residence for a deeper look into each artist’s studio practice.
WILLIAM FLEITES IN CONVERSATION WITH MARINA GLUCKMAN
MG: For the last year while in residence at Art Cake you have been experimenting with large scale abstract paintings in an extensive color palette.
WF: The physical act of painting I enjoy. I wouldn’t consider myself a painter. It’s really the act of trying something new and trying to use canvas as a medium. That’s not really easy to do if you don’t use that medium all the time. Trying to get that to work is a little bit difficult because essentially the painting, the canvas, they’re just material. What I’m trying to be able to do is talk through that material. That is not an easy thing to do.
This type of work that is part of the presentation series––conceptual artwork and photography––is something that I am comfortable with.
MG: Can you tell us about the installation and the intentions behind the project?
WF: It’s essentially a deconstructed painting. It is related to the paintings that I am working on in my studio. I’m interested in painting because in a way because it is a traditional historical art form. This installation is related to the experience of making a painting.
MG: One of the interesting aspects of one of your paintings, and probably several of them, was the source of the color palette, which you talked about in the Brooklyn Rail video. The color you selected came from tile samples from a construction site you were working on. The interpretation of the tiles in your abstract painting was an interesting transformation.
WF: Yes, that’s similar to this piece. I like to look what’s around and use it as material. The tiles were at a desk at a job site, and I really liked the color.
MG: The color was a beige, peachy color.
WF: Yes, an ochre, and I liked the color and the fact that it was a blend of many colors. I liked the experience of looking at the tile composition in the moment. What I was trying to do was transfer that experience into the painting.
Similarly, I wanted to create an experience in this room. I originally thought that I was going to present paintings, but I came into the room in the evening one day, and I just kind of stood around the room and looked at the space and noticed how nice the natural light was without anything in the space. There was this tape layout on the floor from someone else’s work. I liked that proportion and the location of it in the room.
One of the things that leads to this piece is the fact that I am struggling to make paintings that I am satisfied with. Painting is new to me, and I don’t have much experience with the medium.
The installation is not meant to be something of substance. The material is fairly temporary. It’s an object to experience. I was thinking I could photograph it in black and white and color, but it isn’t really meant to be a permanent object.
MG: Before your residency at Art Cake you were doing more conceptual photography work. The connection between conceptual photography and this work is probably closely aligned?
WF: Painting in a way drifts off to the physical because you wind up with an actual painting. I kind of see making a painting as an exercise, a biproduct, of trying to work. I am not necessarily trying to end up with a painting. I am learning. Some of them I like, but I’m not attached to all of them. It’s more trying to work with the material. It steers me away from what I am comfortable working with which is photography. Ideas, is what I like. I am struggling with painting but enjoying it at the same time. I like using ideas, that’s where I am comfortable.
MG: What are the ideas that you came to fabricate in this installation?
WF: The installation is based on a billboard or a painting stretcher. It’s the scaffolding behind an idea of a painting. There is no painting.
MG: You have oriented it about three or four feet away from the window, which makes natural light is an important factor here.
WF: Yes, it’s one of the things that I like about this room. It’s adding something to the physical that isn’t necessarily there all the time. It’s variable. It’s like the idea content you are adding into a medium painting.
MG: Do you have a title for the installation?
WF: I do not. I like the idea that it doesn’t have a title.
MG: Right, as soon as you name something it becomes something else.
WF: Exactly. It’s very temporary. I even thought about before this whole process I am basically going to make something that is basically going to go away aside from the photos.
MG: When is the optical viewing of the work?
WF: The daytime. Midday. Without the lights on. The light’s variable and it moves around a bit.
What I like about this space and architecture in general, you can enjoy the space, the room, without anything specific or in it. My favorite things are volumetric – the proportions of the room are very nice.
MG: Do the proportions of the installation correspond with the proportions of the room?
WF: Originally, I was going to make it lengthwise and larger, but you wouldn’t have been able to back up from it enough to see it. The other thing about this room is the daylight. The proportion works nicely.
MG: Yes, the surface of the installation seems directly proportionate to the back wall. You plan to photograph it as well. Would this be at different orientations or with different amounts of light? Or an attempt to illustrate the experience of being in the room?
WF: A photograph is a nice medium to a reflect an idea. A snapshot out of stream of consciousness, which is what I like. It’s like a memory. It shares your experience of taking the photo and being in the space with someone else if they are open to picking up that idea. For this installation, I plan to photograph it and then hang the print opposite of the installation so that they mirror each other.
MG: What are some of your past photography works? Some of them are sort of meta in the same sense as you’ve described for this installation.
WF: Most of the photography is introspection. It’s understanding, the intangible content of myself. I am looking at myself in one of the images –– there is a mirror, there’s a reflection of me in it, and I’m kind of taking the glass out of the frame. I am trying to understand not the physical person that I am, but how my mind works and why it wants to explore and investigate things. That’s what a lot of my past photography work is about. It’s also about kind of understanding what’s happening in the world around.
MG: Especially during the last year and a half.
WF: Yes, and the day-to-day experiences and things that you do that have a common thread. It’s weird to think that you’re a living organism and you’re temporary in nature. You are not here forever. And I think everyone forgets that all the time. There’s a sense of ephemerality. The paintings are a step away from that in a way. What I really like is the experience of making them as an exercise and an experimentation.
MG: It sounds like painting is a more fluid process. Whereas something like this installation is more of a conceptual construction – do you do any renderings, models, or studies for these works?
WF: Almost all of the photography I’ve done in the past, I’ve been mentally digesting the idea before taking any action. The piece is actually mentally together in my head, and then I go through the motions of taking pictures. With painting I find that you walk up in front of the canvas, and it’s more of the moment: seeing what’s happening while you’re painting and continuously responding to the activity as it occurs. I find it more of a meditative process where you mind is witnessing or experiencing the colors blend.
MG: Do you have other projects or site-specific installations indoors or outdoors on the horizon?
WF: Not at the moment. I recently painted on this curved wall of a building. This presentation has reengaged me with old ideas that I would like to continue exploring. I have made temporary works in the past.
