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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 20, 2003)
•lune 20,2003 ART ....... ¥ ....... S uzanne Shifflett is a hot topic in the Port land art community (and beyond). Stop by the Aalto Lounge anytime before June 30, and you’ll know why. The combo tattoo artist (she owns down town’s Medusa Tattoo and Gallery) and oil painter’s most recent paintings are on display at the Aalto, and you won’t soon forget the inti mate details of sexually explicit subject matter. It’s a collection that culminates years of creative growth, hut Shifflett (popularly known as Fish) composes her pieces in such a way as to draw the viewer toward, not away from, her work. The new exhibit illustrates, of course, Shifflett’s talent but also her flexibility. Paint ings range in subject matter from “Fetish,” which depicts an amazing sensual rendering of hand, feet and penis, to “Teresa,” an almost abstract image of physical form (in the chiaroscuro style of old Italian master Caravag gio) wrapped in warm, ardent light. The photo-realistic triptych Trio is an excel lent example of the queer artist’s shift in sub ject matter from human forms to molded plas tic toys. There are also smaller pieces in the display that take her paintings to a new abstract level. On all counts, Shifflett’s pieces ooze a love and mastery of painting and look completely at home on the walls of the Aalto. Jodi Darby: The fine artwork of tattoo artists tends to be more design-based. Your work definitely stands out as being more fluid and “painterly.” Suzanne Shifflett: It’s true. It’s what comes natural to me. 1 enjoy concentrating on the detail of an image as opposed to the suggestion of it. My work is very different than a lot of tat too artists working in Portland. The painting came first. I’ve been painting for as long as 1 can remember. 1 went to school at Parson’s in New York for foundations and studied sculpture at the Portland School of Art in Portland, Maine. My concentration was sculpture, but I was painting the whole time. JD : Your paintings at the Aalto have been described as “crossing the line from art into pornography” and have stirred up discussions. SS: If I’m honest with myself about why I often paint such sexually explicit pictures, the answer would sound like a kind of artistic masturbation. It can be hard to sit down and just paint, so I choose a subject that is visual ly stimulating to me. This allows me to sit down long enough to get through the tediousness of getting those first marks on the canvas. Soon after, the act of painting becomes the stimulant. A far as the references to pornography, that’s up to the viewer. Personally I think the Safe and Confidential Alcohol and Drug Treatment ... \ / The Triangle Project V Portland s only program designed specifically fo r the GLBT community All services are provided by experienced GLBT counselors If you have problems in your life related to your alcohol or drug use, call before the problems get bigger. We can help. @$AP U 'r t i M '»• 503.224.0075 2130 SW Filiti A ve., 0100 Portland, OR 97201 Fish tale Suzanne Shifflett knows the difference between pom and art by J o d i D arby difference between my figurative paintings and pornography is that there is a lot of beauty in the paint ings. I’ve yet to see any pom that I would call beautiful. I also think the paintings are much more erotic than pom because they are more sincere. Generally speaking, people do pom because they’re getting paid to do it. Several years ago I hung a series of paintings of male and female genitals at a show at Good Vibrations in San Francisco. The show went well, and I sold quite a few pieces. When I hung the same work at a group show in Portland, it caused a lot of controver sy to the point that the “inappropri ateness” of the subject matter Portland artist Suzanne Shifflett and friend hangin’ out at received more attention than the I also really love Louise Bourgeois. Not so quality of the work itself. Compared to most much for her work itself as for her perspective other West Coast cities, Portland is definitely on art. A lot of her sculptures are taken from still the Mayberry of the art world. images and textures that she remembers from her childhood and talks a lot about the impor JD : Why do people feel so uncomfortable tance of that childlike perspective that all about sexually explicit images? artists tend to keep alive. SS: Because it causes them to think or feel things that they might not want to. Instead of JD : So where do the toys fit in? exploring the reaction, they blame the image. I SS: [Laughs] I started using toys as a subject have always wanted to make art that affects for my paintings after I broke up with my girl people [at] a very deep, visceral level. When friend who I had been using as a model. I kind the viewer looks at a painting, I want it them of realized that when I was painting this person to feel it at a gut level. who I was excited by physically, I paid more attention to that aspect— the person who I was JD : You’ve mentioned Robert Mapplethor painting— than the act of painting itself. Only pe as someone who has inspired your work. when I was forced to work on different inani Anyone else? mate objects did I really begin to fall in love SS: I really love contemporary figurative with the act of painting. It became a more painters like Odd Nerdrum and Lucian Freud. complete meditative activity for me. Nerdrum’s paintings are beautiful...his work I started painting toys because I’ve always doesn’t try to make the subjects look beautiful. loved those little 1960s sculpted plastic Army He includes sags and marks of age that make men and GI Joes. I began photographing them his paintings incredible. close up and painting them really large, sort of In my paintings, I do the opposite. I try to like the way a little kid would see them. The push the subject right up to the edge of the whole thing excited me enough that I wanted canvas so that they are right there for the view to keep doing them. er to deal with. I think it makes the viewer’s perspective seem less voyeuristic because they JD : What would you like the viewer to are not looking in at the subject from a dis take away from your work? tance. It seems more “user friendly.” the Aalto Lounge S S: I’d like people to expand their ideas of what art is or isn’t. It’s also important to me, especially through doing shows at Medusa, for folks to see that there are artists everywhere and to support them. Everyone knows an artist. Everyone, for the most part, can have other artists’ work hanging above their couch. It’s important for the person making the art to feel supported in their work, and it’s good to get the average per son thinking about buying art. It’s also very important to me for people to be more open-minded and accepting of ideas and lifestyles. Not just tolerance— acceptance. The two are very different. I think that sexuality needs to be out in the open for all of us to function as a healthy soci ety. It’s something we all do; it touches all of humanity, and maybe th^k commonality is something that we as a society fear most. Maybe if people had sexual freedom, they would have more opportunity to be artistically free, jm Recent paintings by SUZANNE “F ish ” SHIFFLETT hang at the Aalto Lounge, 3356 S.E. 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