7/30/2016 Interview with Artist Wendy KlempererAHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations? Wendy: As far as I know I was always interested in animals; I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t. The first drawing I made was of (some kind of) an animal. The horse was my major obsession, but anything else in the animal world was of interest as well. I spent most of my time looking at animals, in books, TV, and in real life. I drew them constantly. I played with them, and spent a lot of time trying to be one. I acquired as many real live animals as I could. I rode horses at every opportunity, but was never able to own one. Animals, even more than humans, express themselves through body language. My sculptures use the body language of animals to express a feeling or state of being, with motion conveying emotion. I think the inspiration and the idea of the work is simply about what it is to be a living being, what it feels like. Though I work with images of animals, I believe the feeling and emotion of the work is shared by humans- we are ultimately all animals on this planet together. In art school I tried to be an abstract painter, like the people I admired. But I kept making small sculptures of animals on the side; first in clay, then in wax to cast in bronze in a foundry class at Pratt, and later out of tree branches tied together with wire. At a residency in Ucross, Wyoming, and later at the McDowell Colony in Peterborough NH, I struggled with painting and turned to the animal sculptures as something physically real that I could dive into. I made a whole body of work this way in the late 1980’s and early 90’s, but they all fell apart and decayed. Frustrated, I decided to learn how to weld. Since then I have been able to make work that survives the outdoors. As a kid I spent time in New Hampshire, where we had a summer house. This was my favorite place in the world. I returned to it as an adult and built a studio there. I now spend 4-5 months of the year there, ride a friend’s horses, and thus get my necessary dose of nature and animals. Back in Brooklyn, I get inspiration from the energy of the city, from my artist and musician friends, from the endless stream of art to see. I found a great live/work situation in Bushwick in 2002 and it has been fun to be a part of the growing art scene there. And to live in a place where I can get delivery! But I will be losing the space soon; my landlord is tearing it down to put up a development. So it goes! AHC: What first drew you to art? Wendy: Again, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love to draw. I was the youngest in an academic and scientific family. Hanging out in the evenings, discussions were challengingly articulate and intellectual. I participated extremely peripherally. I relied on drawing as a way to be present, but have my own world and not feel at a loss. My mother and her father, my grandfather (a printer by trade) were both pretty skilled at drawing and painting. My mother bought us oil paints and that was one of the family activities we did. I took to it very naturally; the paintings and drawings I did then are scarily similar to what I do now! AHC: There is quite an involved physical aspect that comes along with creating these sculptures, could you describe what that process is like? Wendy: To make the sculptures I scavenge scrap yards and construction sites for evocatively shaped pieces of metal, looking for pre-existing lines and shapes with which to draw. Most of the metal is rebar, the reinforcement rod used in buildings, bridges, and highways. Pulled from the concrete for recycling it is tortuously twisted, with fantastic curves and shapes, and comes in a great variety of texture and thickness. Bent and twisted, the pieces contain energy and a potential new life. I collect loads in my pickup truck and drag it all back to my studio. (A large sculpture of 1000 lbs requires about 2,000 lbs of raw material). To begin a sculpture I have an idea of the type of animal it’s going to be, and a rough mental image of the gesture. I look for photos in books and on the web, and more and more take them myself. I draw from photos and from life to understand the motion. I put all those images up around me for reference as I work. I weld a few pieces of rebar together to make a simple tripod that I can build off of. It’s very free form- I don’t measure, or draw it out exactly first. I work out a backbone, which helps determine the gesture, and then sketch freely, welding steel line to line in the air. For the most part I choose pre-existing curved lines from my pile, and cut them free with the oxy-acetylene torch. If I need to adjust the curve I can heat and bend with the torch. Because the arc welder is immediate, I can tack-weld a steel line in place, step back and look, and if I don’t like it can twist it off easily. I refer to drawings and photos to refine the image. Usually the whole piece gets tack-welded in this fashion, and it’s only when I’m pretty sure about everything that each section gets welded thoroughly. Because it’s not a solid form all the connections have to be strong, so I spend days on the final welding to make the piece able to survive transportation and installation. AHC: You write that the landscape & the environment becomes a crucial part of the work (fills out the spaces) what is the process of picking that environment or location like for each piece? Wendy: Ever since I started working on a large scale, the work seemed to ask to be shown outdoors, so I focused on outdoor sculpture exhibitions. Many of these type of shows ask for site specific proposals, and one has a chance to view the grounds. I look for a space that calls to me in some way. I showed in the Berkshires a lot in the early 2000’s and had the opportunity to work with varied and beautiful landscapes. In 2005 I started working with a curator in Maine, June LaCombe. Her familiarity with the nuances of certain landscapes and the moods different places evoke allows her to envision pieces in their sites, sometimes before they even exist. We were both interested in how the viewer encountered each piece, and how the environment it was placed in revealed meaning and character. The use of industrial scrap added new forms and another layer of meaning to the work; I’m re-imagining animals, often endangered or extirpated, using the remnants of industry. Pieces of bridges, buildings, and machinery form seemingly living creatures. Presence and absence play back and forth in the sculptures: a network of steel lines builds the form, drawing and re-drawing the animal, creating tension like the sudden sighting of a wild animal. The surrounding environment penetrates the negative spaces between the lines of metal; the landscape itself is embedded in the work. Sometimes it completes the piece, as in River Elk, 2004, the group of elk swimming in the water. The water provides an environment, and by truncating the body also abstracts it, integrating the landscape and leaving something to the imagination. The site transforms the piece by having the animal merge/emerge with and from it. AHC : Do you have any upcoming exhibits or projects you'd like to tell people about? Wendy: My installation Shadow Migrations at Court Square Park in Queens (https://www.nycgovparks.org/art-and-antiquities/clare-weiss-award ) is on exhibit until November 2016. It’s a nice little park, right across from PS!, and a few blocks from the Sculpture Ctr. After that it will travel in an expanded version (up to 20 pieces) to Summit NJ until Nov 2017 (https://www.cityofsummit.org/271/Summit-Public-Art) - I’m participating in Satellite Art Fair at Art Miami in December with the Berlin Collective (http://satellite-show.com/miami-exhibition) - I’m having a solo show at Studio 10 in Bushwick, Brooklyn (http://www.studio10bogart.com/) Feb 2017. I’m planning to make all new work, but don’t know what it will be yet Photo of the artist taken by Rachel Elkind, www.rachelphoto.com Two silhouette photos in the snow taken by Steven Speliotis. To see more of Wendy's work and for further information visit her website at wendyklemperer.com/
Lumina Greenway
7/30/2016 12:10:02 pm
A wonderful article! Loved learning about your process and seeing so many of your pieces. Sorry you are having to move. Comments are closed.
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