Roundtable 2 // Approach

Welcome. Today is January twenty-third, twenty twenty-three. My name is Michael Pierre Price. I'm going to be moderating this first, expressionism round table of two thousand and twenty-three. Actually, the second round table in the series. We had one last year. The round table expands upon the established artist interview series that we've all been a part of, and we've shared, and this really allows us to delve in a little bit deeper upon a subject, and expressionism was initiated by our friend Colin Goldberg, and it's been an ongoing artist worldwide community for the last two and a half years or so, where we get together periodically every couple of weeks on Zoom, and I'm pleased to have with me today. Roz Dimon, Tommy Mintz, and Renata Janiszewska, and we are going to be talking today about one of the most famous artists of our time.

Michael Pierre Price

One of the most famous artists of our time. So not only have we heard about such an artist and their lives, but at the same time we know about how they process their teach and their stories and their values and how they touch us and how they touch our correctness and how they language and how they approach us.

Michael Pierre Price

So they really come up with what we call an audio considered experience and was also one of the most famous artists of our time. So with that we will now turn it over to six years is our special guest on this episode of call me up is another special guest of ours and your favorite topic of our time. We create our art, what we say about our art and beyond. So I'm going to let Renata begin the discussion by presenting her viewpoint on what

Approach means. Renata. Thank you, Michael. And hello, Roz and Tommy. It's a real pleasure to be speaking to you here from Lions Head, Canada. I was reading a book recently and I came across some words by the artist Annie Albers, wife of Joseph Albers, and it related to how I think about my approach when I make digital artworks. She said, limitations may act as directives and may be as suggestive as were both the material itself and end product. Anticipated performance.

Tommy Mintz

Great freedom can be a hindrance because of the bewildering choices. Limitations can spur the imagination to make the best use of them. And that was from a recent book published by the writer Jed Pearl. And the title of the book is Authority and Freedom. And I think that in Techspressionism we have some limitations that are automatic, just in terms of the software that we use and the screen that we're working on. But it's more for me, it's more of a set, making a set of parameters around the work. So host has disabled screen sharing.

I just got on my screen as I attempted to share.

Very good.

It should be good to go now. Okay.

Okay. You see in front of you the detail of one of my paintings. When I showed this to an art historian friend of mine, she said immediately, Bosch. And it's a biomorphic shape that I create using a particular software program. And it's part of a larger work. And here's another, this emerald shape is part of the painting as well. And the title of the painting is Lady Prunella and Fly the Emerald. And this is the emerald ruffian. And coming out of that emerald shape is a purple brush stroke. So in addition to the shapes, I make these custom brushes using various materials. This was made with a photograph of plants.

Tommy Mintz

There's a lot of floral references here. So this, for example, this area down here, these flowers were actually a photograph I took in Paris in a flower shop in 2017. And they then became part of a 2018 larger work where I used a lot of explosions. I exploded and spattered the paint around these photos. But then they ended up being the canvas for this particular shape.

Tommy Mintz

And here's another shape that's So for some things I had to add some details to it. Brush this green here and this one there this one has almost a sensation of fabric you can almost see like little stitches and

Another custom brush here to see the whole work

You get a different perspective on what's going on this one is an illustration of layers and I was just remembering that in the work of Roz Dimon you can see hundreds of layers if you know how to look at them so I'm really happy with how our programs that we use enable us to layer one background and then one brush stroke and then another brush stroke and then there's a shape here it's very liberating in a sense even though I always try to impose a color palette limitation and here's another one where when you zoom in you can see that it's almost flat this 3d shape and it's got a lace like quality to it and then behind it you have the same brush that we saw in the first work

And you have this very special shape and then you have this very spiky shape another

Custom brush here this piece I'm showing you because I feel like this is the most successful piece that I've done you're looking at a detail right now but it's the best piece of the last six months and it's based on an earlier piece and part of my approach is that I cannibalize my work all the time I'm constantly looking at my work and pulling bits out of it so in this case I had a drawing that I really liked with this dark blue background and these shapes these pink shapes in the foreground and what I did was I glitched it and then I painted over top of the glitching with paint with different various brushes like the stripe brush here these all these dots were applied individually they're not a brush they're just drawn I drew them onto the canvas and then these lines are a custom brush so if you look at the bigger picture this was really the beginning this square here and then I just made a border because why not you know I like having things that trail off the end and I'm showing you this because this is a still from one of my animations and I happened to capture this moment and I really liked how the shape was suspended in the air you can really feel the dimensionality of this line and really basically it's just a line that I drew but the software put you know the shapes on top of it and gave it that recession into space kind of feel here's another one in which I use custom brushes that I make out of the work of the belgian illustrator and graphic novelist el jay who did the beloved tantan books so this one here this particular brush is tibetan tantan tibetan it's a it's a monument in the in the himalayas and the brush enables you to change the color of the of it's amazing to me how absolutely crystal clear that every line is and when you think about how we're zooming in here at 300 the resolution is quite remarkable and another thing that's nice about the tantan brushes is that they take on the color of the background of the painting so this is a very recent work I'm just showing it to you because I liked here the kind of antique aged look I achieved the colors are very muted and it kind of looks like something from the 18th century except of course we're also using some sort of victorianemy which is really interesting as well It's made in a very modern, with very modern techniques.

Tommy Mintz

And then finally, again, showing you some of these Tantan brushes, you see here how it takes on the background of the work. That's the monument. And then this is a sequence where he's trying to save a pot, a very expensive pot from crashing to the ground. And you see the brush here on the other side of the work as well, our hero.

Tommy Mintz

So, oh, now I'll just zoom out on this for you. That's that. Now I have a lot of issues with my animation being very choppy when shown over Zoom. So what I did for today is instead of showing you an animation, I'm going to show you a film I made using the music from the animation. I will put the address of the high resolution version of this into the chat as soon as I finish showing you this one minute video.

Tommy Mintz

What I did was I just took stills from the video and you hear the original music that I always

Add to my animations in the background. Oh, wow. There we are. Okay. If you want to make your own audio video, You can find me on YouTube and close for now. You can find me on Facebook and YouTube and YouTube and YouTube. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and YouTube.

Thank you, Renata. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. I wanted to talk a little bit about my animations because it's really something I'm delving into more deeply. I want to make five-minute long ones now instead of one minute. So that's where it's going. But it's just really hard to share them with people. There's a tremendous amount of work that goes into a one-minute piece. I work with very high-resolution files. My files are always in 4K with stereo sound. But the only time people get to see it is when I'm working with a lot of people. The only time people get to see them that way is if they can go to my Vimeo page channel and look at my Vimeo things that I put there or on my website. It's disappointing.

Tommy Mintz

I think we've all...

We're having issues with Lion's Head connection here. The resolution just isn't what it was. All right. So let's... Let's spend a couple minutes here. The sense of our focus on approach looks like a lot of it has been the ability to create brushes that are very interesting but help you create something that's not as interesting as it is. We want to talk about your works.

Michael Pierre Price

You work with different kinds of expert schools. What do you want to talk about? What do you want to talk about? What do you want to talk about? What do you want to talk about? What do you want to talk about? What do you want to talk about? Can help you understand kind of your approach or where you're coming from. And I was just kind of curious about that and whatever Roz

And Tommy Mintz be thinking as well. Renata, do you want to respond to that first before we jump in?

You're muted.

Yes, please go ahead, Roz. A few things. I loved when you explained that your custom-made brushes, I just kind of wondered how those evolved, but they really are quite beautiful and interesting, the high resolution when you get into them, how high they are when you're up close. And I also noticed how you're, something I've been noticing in other people, I think it's Sue Beyer and a few others and things that I've thought about where you're using a lot of you're breaking through the square a little bit with that new feathery, beautiful piece you just did. You know, we're all in this box. We're in a box right now, four boxes and a box and a box and a box. And I look out my window and, you know, it's not like that, but we're in the pixelated world and it is kind of like that. So I think it's kind of brave and I'm thinking about it too.

Roz Dimon

How do I break out of that square? And I think it'd be a great topic for our future of expressionism, breaking the square or something like that, you know, but I appreciate it that you're... You're pushing, you know, you're pushing, you might like framers, but you take them

And you're going past them. So I was reaching behind me to pull out this picture. I'm not sure if you can see it. I love how Roz was talking about breaking the squares or embracing the square, setting up rules. Renata, I'm not sure if this is a picture by Gary Bedler, B-E-Y-D-L-E-R from 1976. It's called 20 Minutes in April. And it's him holding a mirror.

Michael Pierre Price

It's what we call the hospital room in particular. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. So it's like theini at the top in the picture. You're talking about layers too. I feel like you're layering these edges, right? So increasing the amount of edge that an image can contain is another compelling, exciting thing to see, Renata.

Michael Pierre Price

Yeah, so one of the questions that I had coming to this roundtable today, Michael, and I didn't prepare as much as Renata, but I'm happy to sort of propose a question that I was thinking about, and maybe Renata could respond to. It's like, we're working with our digital tools in a specific way as artists, and we have been for a couple of years now. And at this moment, we're experiencing AI coming in, right? And we have this...

Michael Pierre Price

Moment of reckoning of, oh, here's a new set of tools, right? I'm not asking, are you incorporating the tools or not? But how do you think it's changed your understanding of what we could put in the square or visually? I mean, I recognize AI art as sort of like a new aesthetic in a way, a new set of visual images that I see repeated. They're almost tropes. I look a lot on the NFT marketplace, and there's a lot of recognizable forms.

Michael Pierre Price

And the... AI takes regularly. So, and I'm thinking about that, Renata, in relation to your repeated use, and that's why I was holding this mirror picture up, your repeated use of, you know, Tintin in, you know, catching the vase, you know, in repeated fashion over and over in this. I feel like it's quoting back to our, and I don't want to talk generationally here, but, you know, this sort of paper experience of, you know, reading a comic and maybe reading it again. And reading it again, because that's the one book you have on, you know, on the shelf that you're interested in as a kid kind of thing. I don't know if this is a rambling question. I should stop. I'm going to turn off my mic in a moment. But I'm wondering if you think, you know, in this moment where, like, we're shifting from maybe digital to AI, is there, like, a relation between, like, the shift from analog to digital that's comparative that we've experienced in our lives that you think you've incorporated into your work already in these digital brushes?

Yeah. I think that the word that jumps out at me is the word tension. When you spoke about the tension, I feel that we live in this age of tremendous anxiety that, you know, kids, all of them are complaining about it. Adults are complaining about it. And that is something that an artist can work with and shape it and make their work more dynamic more. And that is something that an artist can work with and shape it and make their work more dynamic more. And that is something that an artist can work with and shape it and make their work more dynamic more. You know, you want people to get involved in your image. You want them to look deep into it. And sometimes it's soothing, you know. Art can soothe. That's what Matisse was always on about.

Tommy Mintz

So I don't know if I answered exactly what you were talking about with AI. I mean, I stopped using AI after six months because I was just so unhappy with how poor the resolution sizes are. And they still are. Are. But I did do a lot of work with it and I mostly layered my own work over top of what the AI produced so that it wouldn't look that I had been using mid-journey or another engine.

Tommy Mintz

Because I like that. I like the subversive quality of that. Being able to disguise an AI work.

I'll still do it. I'm still trying to get back on now. So it's interesting because you're using the AI to create an aesthetic that you have preconceived and you're not looking. It's interesting in the sort of structure of creating work. Do we think of what we're making first or do we start scribbling and then see what shows up and what we're picturing in our scribbles? And it sounds like you really have something pre-pictured then you try to get something from AI that would work with that you can... Put into that analog aesthetic if you will. I don't know. So I think that's a good segue, Tommy, for you to share your sense of approach and what that means.

Michael Pierre Price

So just to keep things moving along here, you have the floor now, Tommy. Or the screen. Thank you, Michael. As I said, I didn't prefer... I didn't prefer to be the one who's talking about the screen. I thought I was just going to share a newest work and talk about what I'm working on right now. And let me see if I need to change the size of what I'm sharing or if that's possible.

Michael Pierre Price

One second. Speaking of details and layers, I think Renata and I have a lot of the same language that we talk about in our work and come to very different images that have some of the same, I think, energy, and tension. So I really like seeing Renata's work and seeing that sort of freshly in my memory of these different spiky forms that Renata was presenting in, especially the latest works. And that was sort of against the dark background.

Michael Pierre Price

And looking at the forms that I'm picking up in my work. So I guess this is recorded, so I should explain what's going on for anybody who's watching this in the future. I take a sequence of pictures and run them through an algorithm that I wrote that detects areas of difference, creating time lapse collages.

Michael Pierre Price

And it's not AI. It's really pixel by pixel. What's different? If a pixel is lighter or darker or a different color, it gets added on. So there is no sort of edge detection or object recognition occurring. And that actually creates, I think, these interesting striking forms that don't make sense on first glance. But if you spend a little time letting sort of pattern recognition click through a couple layers of visual information there, things show up in a way that I think is a playful way that digital presentation and language sort of interacts with our sort of understanding, of what we sort of recognize as a thing in a place, in a specific time.

Michael Pierre Price

So there's a lot of detail in the images that I'm working with as well. It's another similarity that I love with Renata's work, where you sort of zoom in and you get a level of interaction and detail and information that if you zoom out, you have a very different maybe sort of sense of space, of place, of time, of movement.

Michael Pierre Price

So yeah, I think I'm just going to scroll through a few and zoom in and out of just a couple of recent images. So this is a picture that is photographed on one of the streets that I spent a lot of time on as a kid, 8th Street and 6th Avenue. Right here used to be one of the great hot dog places, Graze Papaya. And down the street was one of the great poster stores that I used to go to as a kid and still sort of think of as the great place to go. This used to be B. Dalton Booksellers forever, you know, independent bookstore. I love the leaning broom in this moment here, where the person who's... I forgot to start my timer. Michael, you need to wave to me when I start going over time, because I didn't start a timer. I see my timer over here. It's like 10 minutes. I didn't start it.

Michael Pierre Price

So, I mean, these are elements that I look at. I look at the colors and stuff that I'm... I'm passing cars. I'll wait for a certain car to pass, like a yellow taxi, in order to add those colors on both sides of the image. But also, I'm very interested in the edge of the frame and the way that images are sort of moving beyond these little boundaries, visual boundaries that we set up. There's a quote that I saw recently. I'm going to totally misquote and paraphrase, and I don't know who to cite, but it's something like, future.

Michael Pierre Price

But it's really important to start by thinking about what we get out of this world. It's just like the image that we see in all of our adult images. It's like the image that we see in our tapestry. It's like the image that we see in ourlanguage. The image that we see in ourlanguage. The image that we see in our users. It's image that we see in ourlanguage. It's that we see in our users. It's like that we see in our users. It's like the image that we see in our users. It's like the image that we see in our users. It's like that we see in our early 1900s, there was a lot of construction going on in Sydney, he wanted to document these old places that were going to be you know, gentrified, I guess is what we call it now. But I find myself drawn to these old buildings that are about to come down as well, these vistas that are temporary in nature, and spend time with them.

Michael Pierre Price

You know, it's obvious this is, you know, this beautiful old, at this point, building, the Empire State Building, which isn't, you know, the tallest building around anymore, there's buildings looming up above it. And, and, yeah, I think it's kind of representative of this moment of precarity that we do have, that we're all sensing, you know, whether it's global ecologically, or economically, there's, there is a sense of precarity, in this moment, this tension, I think, you know, staying within the boundaries might be a good metaphor for that tension.

Michael Pierre Price

How am I on time? I keep showing pictures. Okay. So yeah, I, I'm very interested in also the persistence of nature in the urban space I am. I'm Manhattanite. I've spent my whole life on this small island seeing things change. So I'm aware of both the temporary quality of the people in space, but also the buildings. And, and also the kind of increasing presence of animals, both in the air and in the waters, plants that I think provide habitat for those animals. And I like to document that maybe in a fantastical way, sometimes, you know, we're sort of imagining, maybe this is a nightmarish, you know, sort of world with, with, you know, less of a presence of, of the human, and more of other species.

Michael Pierre Price

I think I have, see what I have here. I have a lot of Manhattan stuff here, but I do have along the water here. This is a foggy day on a pier with a boat passing by multiple times, and then New Jersey, the shoreline of New Jersey, which has now been built up. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea.

The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea.

The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. The sea is probably zoned out in and out of the sea. Density that I'm finding in the middle of the island. Yeah, here's some color. I saw a photograph recently somebody took from a rooftop posted to Mastodon saying, New York is just a sea of gray rooftops and buildings. And, you know, it's true from certain angles. People who spend their time on rooftops often have criticism of others, but I won't go there, will I? Maybe I can stop on this picture. This is a nice blue picture. I do like the different colors of graphic designs that move through the visual space of the streets. I'm very interested in text showing up in different places, both planned and maybe unplanned. You know, we're talking about graffiti in relation to signage that, you know, serves a very similar element, has a similar element in the images that, you know, will be used in the future.

Michael Pierre Price

The wall was taken from thelanguage of the sea of caso la vaca. We don't know if it was cut out of that sort oflanguage of that sort of allow access to go any further. You know, we're talking about hand motion of queues and may well not be able to show up in it. You know, we're talking about hand motion of queues and may well not be able to show up in it. You know, we're talking about hand motion of queues and may well not be able to show up in it.

Michael Pierre Price

You know, we're talking about hand motion of queues and may well not be able to show up in it. You know, we're talking about hand motion of queues and may well not be able to show up in it. You know, we're talking about hand motion of queues and may well not be able to show up in it. Myself is, you know, if we are thinking about the medium as an integral component of our methods, of our processes, you know, what is digital?

Michael Pierre Price

What does that add to our, you know, what is it, how is it different than past processes? I'm thinking analog photography in relation to digital photography. In my own work, I bridge that, you know, in my practice, I used to shoot film, now I shoot digital. And what's changed is, you know, I can certainly shoot many more pictures and do things very quickly to them and repeatedly. This sort of iterative process, I think, is a natural one. I'm thinking also, again, about how a brush that Renata's using, Renata, to loop back to that, is, you know, repeating this pattern, this iterative thing. It's a very digital native visual language that you've, you know, that you're using there to stitch an image. So I like that. Do you see your approach as maybe on a continuum, say, to like the futurists when they were trying to figure out how to express motion, how to express, you know, but I mean, obviously, that's, you know, 100 years ago or so when the camera came out and the movie came out.

Michael Pierre Price

And so now, I mean, you know, where does this go down the road? I mean, what if your photography could include, you know, the data that's being given off by people and, you know, like their cell phone, and, you know, all of a sudden, you could create images that have data that links to other things. I mean, you know, it's just really kind of fascinating where all this can kind of head.

Michael Pierre Price

Absolutely. And, you know, it doesn't even have to be pictures that I'm taking, or that I'm making, you know, that there's all sorts of images that you could impress. Yeah. With that kind of data quality. I think it's fascinating. And, you know, the prevalence of video cameras in our lives right now is another thing that I'm highly aware of, you know, but I don't think that we as artists are going to get access to them anytime soon. So I think we're just like talking about them in the abstract. But yeah, it'd be really cool if I could get like, you know, access to all the surveillance footage of, you know, the images that are in the video, and then I could just take them and put them in a certain place and run, you know, all this data through, you know, some abstracting

Kind of form that creates an image out of it, right? Or some sort of I loved your presentation. It was, I'm so drawn to your work. I often talk about the in between. And I will talk about that in my work. But I see that in yours. Yeah, you're capturing some kind of the in between. I mean, it's just so beautiful. So for me, it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful.

Roz Dimon

So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. So it's just so beautiful. About you know parameters this might turn into a question but my questions usually aren't they're just observations but you know the whole thing about having the freedom the possibilities that we're talking about here are just so incredible I mean I don't know about you but I sometimes I used to think wow this is incredible now I feel god I'm such a clunker I cannot do I can't do all the things I want to do so it's you know the grand magician I mean we have there's just so much out there and with AI you know it's the questions we bring to it more than I think the answers is bringing back I'm starting to give my own presentation as part of these questions but you know what that's I just I don't know the question I don't I don't know that I have a question I like your work very much I'd have a million questions I'd like to watch you in

In process you know but thank you thanks I do have process videos up on YouTube it's not as easy as it sounds but I do have process videos up on YouTube it's not as easy as it sounds exciting as it seems I mean typing

In a lot of code and watching you know iterations go by maybe keep the secrets like whoa look at this yeah right I'll

Check them out okay let's

Keep things moving along here and if you're ready roz have at it okay I'm just gonna preface quickly I'm gonna talk fast because I my presentation may be too long but you know I'm a storyteller and it's all about stories within one still image has been the whole thing so I started from the beginning and did 15 minutes of my life so it's going to be fast but it's all about approach and art and

Life intersections so let

Me go to share screen are you guys seeing my screen yes sure okay great and it should be full screen I suppose okay I've been thinking lately my mantra is to bring touch to the digital age and I'm going to show you how to do that in just a second so I'm going to show you how to do that in just a second so I'm going to show you how to do that in just a second so I'm going to and maybe all of us are but it's something I use to describe my work and I don't know if we can go forward without going backwards so I like that my two predecessor panelists have talked about everything from contemporary artist drawings like jed pearl to you've mentioned influences and photography well this goes back when we know this it's michelangelo and these two hands on the sistine chapel and right in between you know god and man is this little gap there and I think I've been trying to figure out what's in between those two fingers that's part of my approach all the way and I sort of define this as approach state one through six or seven and I have a little equation touch digit finger heart touch a friend of mine paul trackman who's a really great painter and was with smithsonian magazine and art science music everything he's a real renaissance man said well ross when you think of a digit is finger digit is touch and I've always loved that it brings that humanness to this feel which is something I've always been trying to do beginnings it's about finding your own self in the world I'm starting early where I when I was born I could draw now I didn't do this drawing when I was born but I got that from my grandmothers but our skills are one thing but what we do with them is another and I'm showing this piece because teachers matter so much and my teacher at lamar said well this woman can draw very well but what is she saying and out of that came what I call my first really important drawing I looked right past the model and this was at the lamar dodd school of art at the university of georgia and he had said look what is she touching and I looked at this woman's face and I went after it and then I knew what art was about and I took off so that approach however a few years later I was finding my first show I did a series of portraits and I'm on oil on canvas here this is like a three foot by two foot portrait of my mother along with several others through connections in atlanta I did people's portraits you know for what like five dollars and things not quite that cheap but you know how it is when you're starting off but it wasn't enough to just paint the person and even touch them I never thought of myself as a technologist but I found myself taping my subjects so when you came to the into the show which that I titled art all your pictures were talking and all of the paintings were talking and it got a lot of attention and I'm moving forward quickly we're going on to approach state two touch digit finger heart touch my little little diagram up there you're starting to touch the world things are happening your art life takes you into this curveball into this whole new space digital and you take on the world a little bit it's not only you know it's about you but it's also about you bringing something to it and you're being put out there in the world it's all about you when you your expression.

Roz Dimon

Well, I moved to Manhattan away from Atlanta and my paintings took on, this is an oil painting about three feet by two and a half. And, you know, even Picasso's woman, it's not enough for her, the blue woman period for her to be, just be ironing. I had to give her a plug in her iron, had to give her a television set. And she's got all this myriad stuff going on. I mean, those, that space between Michelangelo's fingers of, of the divine and the human is, is I'm feeling in that space. We can't see between each other and these squares and stories were coming up. And honestly, I didn't know what the hell was happening. I mean, my approach has been, I was seriously just responding to a world. And I mean, people who know me know that I can't, I can't operate any much, very much technology. So it's hard for me still.

Roz Dimon

Another thing about time was changing. I mean, I did quite a few, I mean, I've got a whole series of these pieces called information paintings. So as I was painting information, working in offices during the day to support my habit, you know, and this is called June and December because honestly, with our new technology, I'd be working in an office and just imagining walking in New York city, all of this stuff going on in between, in between that you can't see or feel spiritual and mathematical. And I thought, wow, you can have June and December, just turn on your TV and watch, you know, well Baywatch, I never watched that, but you know what? I mean, watch something in summer, right in the middle of February. I mean, I was like, what happened? So I was starting to tape things in my canvases.

Roz Dimon

This is a big piece. And they were getting tighter and tighter. I'm going, okay, I'm moving quickly, but I was also starting to express myself. I was feeling more confident. You know, I learned how to say bleep, bleep. I guess we're on Techspressionism. We know that means fuck you anyway. So you can exit out later, but you know, I was so liberated as a, as a Southern belle coming to New York and saying that word to people and they didn't even give a damn, you know, I was just feeling so free and I came home and painted. My husband, my husband, who's been a wonderful, supportive and very tech techie guy. He's really is a techie guy. And I did a new version of the old lease and the city buses used to stop outside our home in Soho and stop. We were on like the second floor of Charlton and sixth Avenue and it was backlit and they go, now here's that new that we all keep wondering what it's about.

Roz Dimon

Okay. Gotta run. I'm going fast. Approach state three. What happens when the world takes us down? You know, we're, we're flying high. We all have these moments and no matter how rich or famous or anything you are, the world will take you down. If you're out there feeling it. It sends us curve balls of destruction. We cannot imagine how do we keep touching? What's our approach when that happens? Looking back, I mean, look at this plane, how close it is to these towers. I mean, working, I worked in the world trade center for 10 years in digital media and the commercial side, fascinating as well as working outside of it. And you have this incredible technology. Flying into these huge towers of might and power in the world with four guys with little, you know, box knife cutters or whatever. And what happened in that space?

Roz Dimon

I mean, what a terrible day for the world and a reckoning that I still don't think we've talked about enough, but they're the offices where I used to work a week later. I mean, in 15 minutes, things can change. My world was falling apart and I took the digital media to try to understand it. It had come upside down. I don't think I've ever shared this piece with our group. This is called Windows on the World. Wow. And I was on my little Mac laptop and I kept flipping the world back and forth between the towers. And it's kind of going between Islam and Christian Judaic culture and symbols like Barbie is a doll where, you know, a woman's supposed to be 36, 24, 36. Well, that's a straitjacket, just like a burqa, if you ask me. So I was making a lot of comparisons. And, you know, I couldn't paint this many layers in my art.

Roz Dimon

I've been trying to. And so I think I skipped that. I went into digital media here, but we're going pretty fast. I definitely was in digital media now. I'm on a Mac. Oil paintings are, I don't know, I love them, but they may come back. And this dark period led me to a different approach where I went, what's the point of doing an art show and showing how great I am? Me, me, me, me, me. And I went and painted several icons after going to an iconography show that said art was a spirit of comfort to a nation besieged. And I was truly on my knees at that point and couldn't see the meaningfulness. So I went and wrote a few icons. It's an extraordinary experience. This is one of my pieces called the Sinai Christ Panda Prodder. And as I was doing it, I was thinking of these layers and layers and what they all meant.

Roz Dimon

I mean, they were symbolic. They meant something. And then I came back and did this piece. It just erupted out of me. It's like a prayer. This is called Pale Male. Many of you have heard about it. It's still a piece that mystifies me. And in the center of it are the words love one another. But all the layers, all the things are coming in. Some of you know, I created out of that, I started doing paintings where you enter into the layers of the painting and go inside them. So this is one of those pieces you can do that with, but we don't have time. But in the chat, diamondscapes.com.

Roz Dimon

Yes, I did name it after me, Diamondscapes. I thought it was a pretty good name. And people use it and they like it because they know, oh, it's an interactive painting and you can do this and that. And they go, Roz, I have to use your name. Watch me. Hello. And you know what? Men have taken credit for the things they've named. And I'm taking credit. And I want anyone here to do a diamondscape or not. I'd love to work with you on one. And if you call it that, I'm fine with that. I just want recognition, you know, for what I'm bringing to the table.

Roz Dimon

Approach State 4, we're getting there. As we get going, I'm getting older now. It goes beyond me and it goes further into us. And I think I must say what was interesting as I regained traction again after Pale Male and was doing interactive works, the diamondscapes. The last one of the recent pieces I did was not, I loaded my brush with other people's art, children, Latinos. And it was during COVID. And it was an incredible opportunity with funding by the NEA and local chapters. And these kids just, oh, they blew my mind and my heart. Talk about approach. I still was using that amazing brush that can do all this layering, all the stuff we've been talking about. And I put all their artwork on my brush. People who've never met me go, Roz, you have such a child like style. And I go, no, you're not getting it.

Roz Dimon

Look at my other work. But they are getting it. It is about that in between. And it's always a growth process. And there's a little QR code on the wall where you can go inside this piece and hear all their voices and all the pieces come up. So they're kind of like a transparent collage is what I'm kind of, I'm the seamstress. And they are the voices. And they were so excited to be in this piece. Look at this little kid. He's seen himself out to sea and they have little voices saying things like, oh, I wanted a boat, but we could not get one, you know, and in Spanish and, and, you know, but they're, they're getting them now. I think a lot of Latinos have more, more boats than some of us do out here in Long Island. I'm all for it. But it was wonderful working with them, reaching further alone and together collaboration.

Roz Dimon

Well, here we are. It's expressionism. Thank you, Colin Goldberg. Helen Harrison, but Colin, it was your baby. And it has really turned into something. I love that it's documented like this. This is a whole chapter in history that we're giving to the next generation. Don't forget about wonder, touch, digit, finger, heart touch.

Roz Dimon

I'm working on a new piece. It's I'm about to end here. It's about a young girl who gets, you know, a message from an angel that you're going to have a baby. Now that's a real loaded question right now, especially with a feminist like me and someone who's also religious, but it's going to have, it's just being an advent calendar. You've never seen before. I doubt I can get funding anywhere, but if you want to be on my board of directors or help me, please do. But it's going to be her looking back. This is Mary with her helmet on and everything. And she's a very contemporary young teenager. And she's thinking about how she says yes and how she says no, and how she owns her own body and, and also how she doesn't, and it'll be full of questions. So that's exciting. And in our new AI, it's a lot of work.

Roz Dimon

And I think that's a really good way to tie. I just wanted to say ChatGPT landscape. What could be more important than the human touch? I mean, let's bring our questions to it. Let's bring our questions and make them good. I still think there's a heck of a lot going on in between those fingers and you can see the ones and zeros of the ASCII code.

Roz Dimon

We've only started to explore it. And I love this quote by Bertolt Brecht. One can find a new beginning, even with your last dying breath. Amen. Let me stop sharing here.

Thanks, Roz. Awesome presentation. Thank you. I love the idea of that space between the

Two fingers between God and man. I just got in woman, you know.

It seems like

That's where I feel like we're all there. I love that. That's a great concept. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. You know, I like the parameter thing, like all of a sudden approach and then what's that going to be? Well, it's huge, you know, so thank

You for bringing this presentation opportunity. Oh, yeah. Well, I think, again, not to be not to try to rush things along here, but if you all allow me

The opportunity to share my screen just for a couple minutes here, it would be great. Yeah, because that's what you want to get out of this getting there. Now, we're going to start with that big dog this big dog in the middle of the match. It's going to be like that little baby after that little baby and then we're going to start with that little baby on the left. It's going to be like that little baby on the left. It's going to be like that little baby on the left. It's going to be like that little baby

On the left. It's going to be like that little baby on the back. It's going to be like that little baby on the right. I'm going to use a little alliteration here, but for me, from my standpoint, it's all about exploring. And it's about experimentation. That's kind of my sense of how my artwork comes about. And then in the sharing part, for me, there's the idea of enigma and enlightenment, what I'm hoping people might take from my artwork, because I like to challenge people. I like to come at them from different points of view and maybe hopefully cause them a moment or two to think about something. And maybe find... Find a new perspective or some sense of enlightenment.

Michael Pierre Price

So from this one, this is a very recent piece that I did that I'm actually doing a small series about, and it's entitled Black Holes, Boltzmann Brains, and the Heat Death of the Universe. And yeah, these are very, very... Thought-driven, experimental, conceptual ideas that cosmologists and physicists think about when they're looking at what theories about the universe we currently hold and what the implications are. And in some circles, there's this really weird concept called Boltzmann. And in some circles, there's this really weird concept called Boltzmann. That says if the universe lasts a long time, like trillions of years, I mean, it puts to rest the thought of just billions, but trillions of years, it is possible that from quantum mechanics, fully formed brains, the molecules or the atoms can come together and create fully formed brains.

Michael Pierre Price

The molecules or the atoms can come together and create fully formed brains. With.... Thoughts of... A life lived. This is technically possible within quantum mechanics. And so... If the universe lasts long enough, there could be more Boltzmann brains in the universe that are imagining a reality that doesn't really exist, that's fully formed within these brains. And... Okay, I know that sounds like a very weird concept, but it also ties in with what's going on in a lot of neuroscience research, Buddhism, about what's reality, etc., etc. So this was one from that series again. And here's a third one. I like to focus on abstract algorithms and surrealism.

Michael Pierre Price

And this was another recent work that I did that looked at the solemnity of perplexity. And by that, I was thinking about how could I work with an AI where I'm dealing with very weird or very... Very abstract or high thought processes and what would come from it. And here I wanted to really focus on human connections.

Michael Pierre Price

How do you view this? If you were to see this, what's your reaction? Do you see interaction there? Does it feel dark? Does it feel inviting or not? And so I did a number of these that... Could be viewed maybe in a number of different ways. But where's the complexity? Where, you know, what story could you write to these individuals?

So I'm going to stop sharing. And I wanted to really focus on...

What does this approach, this idea of artistic approach... And Colin has made in past salon meetings that we've had, he's made a very big point that initially, until Helen Harrison made a suggestion to use approach versus style. Why is that important? What's fundamental? What's fundamental about that from your perspective, what you've shared today?

Michael Pierre Price

That brings us all together, because if you look at each one of our works and we're just a small microcosm of the greater sum of international artists in this community. How has approach been a good, you

Know, word to use versus technique? Yeah, Roz. Well, I feel we have a whole new, faster moving and informational universe at our fingertips. You know, our brush. I mean, you know, I have a little coffee cup that says, why does Picasso get eight periods and a woman only gets one? I mean, that's a funny kind of joke I'm making as a feminist. But I mean, you can have... I think that Gerhard Richter sort of started us on this. You know, he did a ton of different styles and yet his art is his and it has a story. And the curators, I challenge them right now. To find all these different stories and different styles we're doing rather than... I mean, I love Sean Scully. I used to paint right next to him and he does stripes and they're wonderful. But, you know, I do think we're in a more sped up universe in a way and where our access is immediate.

Roz Dimon

Even kids in kindergarten get art all over the world and they're just in their little iPhones in one day. And it is just very disruptive, but it's also pretty fantastic. So your whole concept of the ubermoons or whatever. So. It's just so fascinating. And I think that's what's coming next. You know, that combines everything is fascinating to me.

Roz Dimon

But I think that approach, it gets more back into the person themselves and what they're trying to say throughout all their styles. You know, which is kind of what I just... My presentation was kind of like they're different styles, but they're always... They're evolving and going backwards and forwards. I mean, even with all the work that I have, I feel like I'm... And I feel your work slows... It slowed me down the way a great painting does. You know, I don't even want to make a story it's just or maybe but it's like a great painting slows you down, so you look at it, you know. I mean a diamond scape if the technology's out you can still it should still be a really great painting, if possible, that makes people interested. So I think I guess I've mixed up a lot of things, but I always do that.

Roz Dimon

But I'm sorry it's just who I am but I love the questions you're posing, and I think approach was a brilliant stroke by Helen. Absolutely for that reason you know we're telling stories in a different way. I mean, I sometimes go to gallery shows even my own like oh, it's a little gallery show pictures on the wall. I think we're beyond I think we're I think we're going somewhere else, you know, and I don't even want to. I mean it took me forever to get in the New York gallery, and you know. And but I think. I think that they're there that the gallery it's out somewhere else, and through this space we're talking about, and an approach and finding about the people behind them, and what their stories are and why they did that tommy lived here, and who was he? What was he doing?

Roz Dimon

And you know I think that kind of thing. Curators can come in and tell the story and put all those you know different styles together, and a certain approach that makes the artist come through to people.

There's the challenge. How about you, Renata? Yeah.

Oh, you're muted. You're still muted.

It's an interesting question that you pose. I think you know we are in a moment where the walls have come down, and people are constantly bombarded with visual stimuli constantly. So for us as makers of visuals. I think

Editing is very important, and I think the slow long process is important as well.

We have a couple of minutes to kind of wrap things up. So, Tommy, what about you? I mean approach seems to be so fundamental to this technology. You've kind of created using the

Pie. Raspberry Pi.

Yeah, the raspberry pi sorry I forgot the fruit. I've hardly unwrapped mine, but Tommy's been an influence. But it's not I mean, but it's not confining and that's to me what's really interesting about this idea of approach. It maybe helps define you in some way, but it's not confining. And I think it's interesting. Renata and Roz are talking about this duration of time that you spend with something, and I think that actually is the difference. I think if you're swiping fast through images it's confining actually when you spend time with one, then it's actually kind of liberating, because your mind is then free to make associations. That's a good or whatever.

Michael Pierre Price

So yeah, I mean I've been working. Gosh, the raspberry pi is it's over 10 years old right? I mean it's been I want to say 2,009 or something like that. It's been right. Maybe it's 2,013 so maybe it's about 10 years old. You know, and I feel like I spent a lot of time just playing with it, you know, and without even doing my work in a way, you know. It's sort of there. There's a there's a. There's a lot of process that happens you know that's sort of tossed off. That's you know the left on the studio floor and cutting says we're not, I said, like edited, and that's really the huge part of, I think, my process in a way is that is the human touch the viewing and touching the button of yes, or thumbs up at this point. I mean or and then, if it is, you know, why do we make those choices?

Michael Pierre Price

And what's informing that? You know, I think it's that decision to choose something over something else. You know what? Where is that tension of that moment of you know the fingers about to touch showing up? Maybe as a surprise even and that's something that I think is really interesting as a photographer. Are these moments of surprise when I find something that I didn't expect? So maybe that's what I'm looking for as you know something to you know. Stand out when you know choosing between other pictures, or as I'm going through sketches and designs. You know what surprised me and I mean I really think that rosin or not at my work, too, and your work. Michael has that element of like you have a level of surprise within it. There's an un layering as you know we're talking about like.

Michael Pierre Price

But within that layering are these unexpected interactions that take time to visually

Perceive. So great. Yeah. Right, and I do want to mention I've said it so many times, but I feel all of us are part of what I would call. I mean a whole visual language, new language that is arising that we are part of, and it's hard work, you know, like to your point, Tommy, and I guess we're not or maybe I don't remember who said the editing maybe it was Michael. But there's so much editing you know it's like you don't just build a diamond scape willy nilly. It's like, Oh, my God, I mean it's just ah, you know what? This can go forward in that. I mean all the. I mean, freedom does bring you a lot of tension. So if you don't have a strong vision of where you want to go, and I'm not sure where that comes from. Tommy, we maybe childhood I didn't wear glasses and affected me in a weird way.

Roz Dimon

But you know it's your guy I'm always going for something but it's arduous work, you know, and we've had doors close on us. It hasn't been easy and it's been fun but it's been an arduous path, and yeah, and an exciting one. But I agree there that surprises that we're going snowballing. And now going into AI it's moving fast. So I feel in some ways art artists like it could make one picture of many can slow it down, and we can access that speed. But slow it down and bring some

Kind of meaningfulness to the space, you know, like the new cave wall. Well, we're about time to wrap things up here. I really appreciate. Roz and Tommy and Renata for doing this. I have to say that you all were chosen because I had interviewed you before in the artist interview series, and Roz had interviewed me as well. So this feels like a good way to kind of start off 2023.

Michael Pierre Price

I'm hoping to do several more of these throughout the year. And I really appreciate it. I feel that the idea of artistic approach versus artistic technique allows us to be part of this group, because if it was all just narrowly kind of focused on one way of doing things I don't think we'd all be in this grand experiment together and I've learned so much from each of you and I've gained so much as an artist from each of you that I think it's a great way to start this new era. And I think that's what I'm really grateful for this. So many thanks, and we'll be seeing each other soon enough, I'm sure. So thank you, Michael. Yes,

Thanks, Michael. This is really all right awesome.