Pinning Human Aliveness To Our Walls
Chatting with Tarantula's artist of July, visual artist Sandra Vérine
Similar to an entomologist who studies how insects contribute to the well beings of humans by observing the animals with a help of a magnifier, New York born visual artist, Sandra Vérine captures the motion and idiosyncrasies of humans exposing their energies which they unconsciously reciprocate into the world around them. Using the scientific method of observation, Sandra approaches her subjects from afar using all her senses to absorb their vibrations, often captivating them with the lens of her camera before using her tools, brushes, fingers and pencils to record them. And exactly like entomologists who pin insects to a piece of paper thus turning them into objects to be admired, Sandra draws her subjects in the middle leaving the whiteness of the paper around them, and in that way enabling the poetics of an everyday human to pour out. Just look at that swag dressed in plaid! (click on link)
Inspired by the chaos of New York City where she grew up in a cramped apartment filled with objects that carried memories of her father who passed away when she was two, the thin line between beauty and ordinary, death and life is hidden in the subtext of her art. Therefore, it's maybe not a coincidence that Sandra, as an artist, finds herself often in the middle of action trying to immortalize her subjects in the moments when they are fully alive with all their magic as well as flaws.
Tarantula caught up with Sandra this July after her first solo show Walk in the gallery En Traits Libres in Montpellier, France, which has also been her home for the last few decades. Following in the footsteps of Freud, she contemporizes the German gothic story in which an archeologist becomes fascinated with a female figure in an antique bas-relief and gives her the name “Gradiva" - the woman who walks.
Tarantula: There were three generations of women living in your childhood apartment in New York City. Can you talk a bit about how your creativity was influenced by your upbringing and by living in such a big city?
Sandra: As a kid it was fine, as a teenager it got more complicated, as an adult it became hell. I took a very long time realizing and admitting that I'm the daughter of a hoarder and what that entails. It wasn’t just three generations of women, it was living with two widows. The apartment sort of became a mausoleum, a collection of relics, materialized embodiments of memories. When I was young, I'd see it as a sort of poetics of objects, I found it touching. With age it makes me sad and I am still trying to break free of my attachment to things.
I loved living in New York. A 20-story building in midtown with views looking over the Empire State Building; I was so lucky. My best friend lived there so as children we'd always go up and down to each others apartments. Huge freedom in such a city like NYC. Both our (single) moms were amazing and always encouraged us to read, to play, to do, to make. We must have been in third grade when we founded the "Imagination and Cooperation Club.” One of my proudest "achievements" to this day! We'd draw and sing songs, dress up and name each of our friendship pins (beads on safety pins). Creativity was our thing! And of course since my mom kept everything, I still have all my childhood drawings and writings which is precious.
You decided to study film first with a focus on Chris Maker who made a film out of still photos. For your first solo show WALK, you first took photographs that later influenced your drawings. What is your connection to photography?
I discovered photography at fifteen and can’t imagine not taking pictures. It's part of my life, even more than drawing. My connection to photography is basic, primal, physical. Having known death at a very young age, photographs took on a special meaning to me. Being able to record the present never fails to mesmerize me.
Chris Marker is someone I admire immensely. I regret not having met him, I'd have loved to just chat about cats with him over coffee!
Can you tell us how did the idea for the exhibition WALK come about?
I’ve always had a thing for strangers, crowds and streets, but I'd say WALK started more specifically in 2018 when I had to go to NYC to move out my childhood apartment. Emptying that house was like unearthing a grave, it felt deeply wrong. I also spend a lot of time walking through the streets, taking photographs of my beloved city. It was like I needed to capture MY own personal NYC in order to be able to say goodbye to it. The movement, the sounds, the colors, the rhythm! After a while I realized my photographs were empty of people. I needed to get out of my comfort zone and start photographing people because they are what make the city. One day in my neighbourhood, I sat down on the sidewalk on 23rd St., and took a series of random people passing by. I've always wanted to do something with low-angle shots of people, like a child’s perspective where people seem larger than life.
When I got back to France, I started drawing them, at first with colored pencils then with oil pastels. Something clicked. Having drawn many concerts live, I learned how to draw quickly, so I used this technique. Using that method with the oil pastels made it clear that this was a great way to convey the impression of movement. I got really into it so I continued and then moved onto bigger formats.
It feels as if you are trying to catch the human spirit with all the movements of the body, colour, idiosyncrasies, as if you are trying to make them immortal.
I see details as love, what makes a person or a moment singular. And strangely enough there is immortality in singularity. I also like the idea of keeping something which is normally ephemeral, like the passersby on the street. On a daily basis they are merely glimpses. It's as if I pressed a pause button on life. It's amazing to me all the information we receive in a city that we don’t even realise.
What´s interesting is that you really captured each individual’s characteristics and individuality.
I believe everyone has something fascinating about them, some intriguing characteristic that makes them unique and which evokes a precise living soul behind their appearance. It is in their individuality that lies their beauty. As an observational drawer, I try to keep an open eye and it takes time to really see. My goal is to convey emotion, not judgement or criticism. I always try to draw people as though I am in love with them.
Your art seems to be about life energy and movement! From the doodles to the musicians that you drew while they were performing live? What’s the drive behind that?
I definitely have a thing! It's all about vibrations, I feel that they connect us with each other and with the world. Life is movement, being in motion. I try to convey that energy in different ways. In portraits, it's often about a certain presence; in the doodles, it's more about musicality, finding a certain visual rhythm. My photographs maybe differ, even if they are often about quick "glimpses" of beauty taken by a city stroller, they are quite immobile, the life is conveyed more through light, color, composition than by the subjects themselves. I'm also fascinated by harmony versus chaos, creating a certain order from disorder.
That’s certainly understood in your drawings of musicians performing live. Drawing live also demand speed on your part. There is no time for control or perfectionism. Is that part of the excitement?
Yes, it definitely is. DRAWING LIVE is a project I started when I started going to a lot of alternative and underground rock concerts in small venues. It started out as fun and it became a drug. Musicians give so much energy, it's also a way of giving back. At first, I wanted to learn how to sketch instead of going into details but somehow that didn’t work - I just started drawing faster and faster and I loved it! Drawing is often difficult: starting with a white page can be intimidating. So having a setting with a subject and a time limit gave me a set of loose rules to go by, all the while making it playful. I also do love mistakes and accidents, instead of considering them nuisances, I've learned to work with them, to integrate and welcome them. Life isn’t perfect, it’s messy and so is my art.
What does art mean to you?
It is a way of recording the love of life.
It is a gift to the world, generous and selfless.
It is a way of rendering beauty, giving meaning.
It is emotion that takes an outer form.
It is consolation towards death and a fragile display of the immortality of spirit.
Being able to imagine and make things that did not exist become real is one of life’s true gifts. I think that is what makes us human, the capacity of invention and creativity in many forms, and not just Art.
How important is play for you? (I ask because when I watch videos of you, it makes me happy to see the child in you … something a lot of grown ups lost, and the new generation seems to want to get rid of very early in their lives)
It makes me happy you say this.
Play helps me balance life’s many difficulties that unfortunately cannot be avoided. Play is lightness but it is also heaviness of being. Children's play isn't just fun and light it can often be quite intense. It's another way of interacting with oneself, the world and others, a way of transforming reality. I am an observational drawer but I constantly seek some kind of shift, lag, "decalage", in order to see reality differently and play can help in finding that. I hope to never lose the wonderment I have in front of the world, its inexhaustable "newness.” As an artist and human I need this, a constant fresh look on things. I would hate to be blasé, that would be the worst.
You mentioned that you are an active member of an artistic collective in Montpellier. What does the collective mean to you?
When I started seriously making art twelve years ago, it was immediately linked to a way of life and to the idea of exchanging with other people on many different levels. Since 2009, I am part of En Traits Libres, a collective space located in the old center of Montpellier. It is open to the public and houses an artist’s workshop, library and gallery focused on drawing in all forms (contemporary art, illustration, comics, etc). We are four artists and an alternative comics publishing house. Together, we all participated in making what it is today so our relations are strong. People can come in and see us at work, discover an exhibition, buy books and our art. We also regularly organise events : book signings, art openings and workshops. I am proud to be part of such an unique artistic and human adventure. More than my workspace it is my second home and a place where creativity can find a form and projects can come to life. Even if some of my projects require solitude (writing and painting), most days I am in contact with my colleagues and visitors, and these exchanges to me are precious. I love interacting with a variety of persons, whether by participating in many collective drawings, zines, and shows, welcoming the public, giving workshops to kids and adolescents or in my personal projects. Be it DRAWING LIVE where spectators can see me drawing and afterwards I show the groups my drawing and then share on social media, my portraits in which I have my models sit, or #idrawyoudrawme where the model draws me while I draw them, a big part of my art is linked to people.
When we were getting ready to collaborate you said that you were happy that you waited so long to have your first solo exhibition? Can you explain why?
Yes! It is a question of being ready and knowing who I am as an artist. I’ve always judged myself for being slow to action, but had I done it before I'd have certainly shown too much. Having waited so long, I gave it a lot of thought. Today, I am much calmer and confident in what I want to show and why. In these recent years, I've also had a lot of barriers keeping me from doing as much as I would have wanted to. This constant fighting to find the time and energy to create has made my hesitations and doubts disappear, I feel stronger in my vision, and I have learned to listen to my gut.
To find out more about Sandra’s art, visit https://traitsnoirspageblanche.ultra-book.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/sandraverineart or follow her on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sandraverineart/
This chat was a piece of art by itself. It gave us to get into the soul of the two true artists. Both girls showed so much love for a human being. Interviewer for the artist, artist for the people.