•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
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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. Belmont
St., through June 30.
is a Portland writer, graphic designer
and radio producer.
JODI D a r b y
it's ME!
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