Jane Dickson

Interview by Guillaume Smets

This interview is part of our collaboration with Future Fair to present conversations between international gallerists and artists from the Fair’s inaugural online exhibition. Here, gallerist Guillaume Smets, Co-Founder and Director of Stems Gallery, Brussels, speaks with New York-based artist Jane Dickson. The two talk about Dickson’s experience as a New York painter in the 70’s and 80’s, the punk and underground cultures that inspired her moody renditions of urban nightlife and Americana, the importance of materials in the artist’s early mixed-media paintings, and more. You can read the interview below, and visit Future Fair’s website to see more of Dickson’s work with Stems.

Guillaume Smets (GS): Where did you grow up originally and was art a part of your household early on? How soon did you begin painting?

Jane Dickson (JD): I was born in Chicago and lived in the suburbs there until I was 14. My parents took us to all the museums including the Art Institute. My mother saved all my drawings from my first scribbles age 3.

GS: How was Times Square at the time you arrived in New York? Why did you find so much inspiration there?

JD: In the late 1970s Times Square was a run down hodge podge of beat up buildings from the 1940s and 50s, scrambling with desperation and flickers of joy. I was excited to be part of all the things the suburbs protected us from to understand and engage the challenges so I began to document with photos, drawings and paintings to try to understand what was going on.

GS: Why do you like so much to work on astroturf and other “non-traditional” support materials? When did you first start experimenting beyond more conventional formats like canvas?

JD: I felt liberated by the Punk/East Village make-do aesthetic to use any cheap thing at hand. I reject the idea that to make Art you have to go to the Art store and buy Art materials. That’s sleepwalking. Imagining what materials can best support a particular subject is an essential part of the creative process. I painted portraits of my Punk friends on black garbage bags in 1979. I painted Times Square at night on grey textured vinyl someone gave me in 1980-81. I painted strippers with oil stick on sandpaper and landscapes of highways & suburbs on astroturf in the 1990s. Each material brought the resonance of its particular associations and surface qualities to that subject. It’s not a random matchup.

Adonis, 2017

Acrylic and gouache on Tyvek laid to canvas

10 x 14 in.

GS: Your painting seems to be very much about the depicted image and literal matter in addition to the physical characteristics of the painting as an object? Can you speak to the interplay between materiality and image in the work?

JD: In 1970's the dominance of Minimalism brought an obsession with exploring materiality coupled in painting with a continuing emphasis on the picture plane from AbEx. I could not relinquish my interest in narrative but I found it useful to consider materials and how they can disrupt the viewers expectations and force them to take a second look which leads to a deeper consideration of the content and why this image is on this material. I leave parts of the material uncovered so the painting oscillates from a convincing illusion to marks on astroturf.

GS: Why do you think the Times Square Show is seen today as one of the most important shows from the 80’s?

JD: The Times Square Show marked the launch of a new decade and a new anarchic zeitgeist which has reverberated far beyond anything we imagined. Collaborative Projects was created by an international group of young artists, as many women as men, American, European and Australian who were all exploring new ways to convey social issues through new mediums and new modes of presentation. We were influenced by Euro art theory and the wild energy of the Afro, Latino, gay/straight Punk Rock club scene. (Diego Cortez, one of the founders of Colab was also one of the visionary founders of the Mudd Club.) The art world of that moment was all refined minimalism and not interested in our scrappy experiments so we decided to stage our own shows which was possible because NYC was bankrupt and space was very cheap then. Everyone came and the brave added their work and it was a chaotic non-stop party for a month where many important creative friendships and a new aesthetic were forged.

"I painted portraits of my Punk friends on black garbage bags in 1979. I painted Times Square at night on grey textured vinyl someone gave me in 1980-81. I painted strippers with oil stick on sandpaper and landscapes of highways & suburbs on astroturf in the 1990s. Each material brought the resonance of its particular associations and surface qualities to that subject."

GS: Do you think a similar energy could happen today in New York or somewhere else?

JD: Could it happen again? The Times Square Show captured and reflected the raucous cultural paradigm shift into the brass 1980s. We embodied a new urban energy and a new set of priorities. Colab had done at least 10 shows before this so we were a well oiled collective. We had plenty of arguments but we knew how to work together and mostly trusted each other. We were a very big challenging group. No I’m OK you’re OK. We questioned everything and demanded serious ideas and effort from each other. Damien Hirst did a consciously similar show with the first show of the YBAs in London. It launched them and focused the British on contemporary art but that show did not have the same historical impact because it did not reflect such a broad cultural shift beyond the art world.

GS: What has marked you most and that you will never forget about this show?

JD: For me the major impact of the Times Square Show was that’s where I began to be taken seriously as an artist and forged lasting friendships with David Hammons, Keith Haring, Fab 5 Freddy, Lee Quinones, Walter Robinson, Tom Otterness and Ann Turyn of Top Stories.

1 in Wins, 2005

Oil stick on linen

24 x 28 in.

GS: What is according to you so attractive about the nightlife as a subject that you don't find during the day?

JD: I am attracted to explore fear, often places which are taboo, where women don’t feel safe or welcome. I was working the night shift at the billboard in Times Square so I documented what I saw. Night everywhere is dangerous but nightlife is glittering and promising. That gap between promise and reality is where I look.

GS: In 2008 you executed a mosaic project in the 42nd street subway station commissioned by the New York MTA. Did it feel like a big leap from your usual studio practice to work on a public project? Has public art been part of your practice at other times as well?

JD: My beginning with public art was designing animation for the first computer billboard at 1 Times Square from 1979-1982, including running the countdown to the ball drop on New Year's Eve. I have done other independent public projects but the MTA mosaics was by far the biggest. It brought new opportunities, new issues to consider, lots of new people to work with and I loved it.

GS: You’ve also worked quite a bit in the past in photography and video. Are you still using these media in your present practice or are you currently more focused on painting?

JD: I continue to take photos of life as it unfolds but I am primarily painting now.

GS: What’s been keeping you busy lately in the studio? What projects are you excited about right now?

JD: I have scanned many 1980's negatives that I never really looked at and am working on large paintings from them for several museum projects for next year.

Guillaume Smets

Guillaume Smets is the co-founder and co-director of Stems Gallery, Brussels, which he runs with his sister, Pascaline. Opened in 2015, the gallery represents and collaborates with emerging and mid-career artists working in a variety of media. The gallery work with artists internationally and has participated in art fairs including Future Fair, Indepenent (New York and Brussels), NADA, Sunday, and ALAC, among others.