LVL3

Danielle Campbell (left) and Anna Mort (right) have been LVL3’s amazing gallery assistants since August of 2011.  

Danielle is in her third year at SAIC pursuing her BFA.  Born and raised in Texas, she works mainly in film and performance with experimental documentaries of physical places and past relationships.  Danielle also works as a Peer Advisor in SAIC’s Cooperative Education office.  

Anna is in her second year at SAIC, also working on her BFA.  Originally from Connecticut, she is studying printmedia and visual communications, as well as working on some collage and 3D work.  In addition, Anna is co-captain of SAIC’s very own Kickball Klub.

How did your interest in art begin?
Danielle:  My mom’s side of the family back in Texas is full of artistic people. My mom does mainly interior design but also paints on the side, so being a creative person has always felt natural.  
Anna:  It was either latte art or the fact that I was my high school art teacher’s favorite.

What artists are you interested in right now?
Danielle:  I’ve been looking closely at Tracey Emin, Sophie Calle and Lucrecia Martel.
Anna:  Recently I’ve been interested in Ruth Van Beek and Jason Polan. Dana Schutz is also nice to look at.

What was the last exhibition you saw that stuck out to you?
Danielle:  The Precession at the Hyde Park Art Center by Mark Jeffery and Judd Morrissey.
Anna:  Probably the current show at The Suburban. Last weekend was my first time visiting, and I got to see Michelle Grabner’s work on display in Shane Campbell’s project space. I like the idea of being welcomed into someone’s home to enjoy some good art and food. I definitely plan on going back.

What’s you favorite thing about Chicago?
Danielle:  The large amount of apartment galleries and how much good music is being created all over the city. 
Anna:  I guess it depends on the day, but I love going to the Logan Square Farmer’s Market in the summer.

What are you really excited about right now?
Danielle:  Getting my hands on sync sound equipment in my film classes next semester.
Anna:  The first volume of a zine I’m collaborating on with my sister was just accepted to be distributed at a show in the spring, so that’s pretty cool! Also, this interview.

Daniel Shea is an artist living and working in Chicago.  He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and is currently pursuing his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago.  Daniel showed with LVL3 at MDW Fair in April 2011.

If you had to explain your work to a stranger, what would you say?  I try to make things as bleak as reality. 

What materials do you use in your work and what is your process like?  For my sculptural and installation-based work I tend to use a lot of found materials that suggest a complicated, often mythologized past. I combine these with their available, industrial counter parts, literal or metaphoric. I’m interested in objects that exist between past and present or project dread.

What kinds of things are influencing your work right now?  Lately, Appalachian folklore, Walter Benjamin, Robert Gober, and Malevich. 

What are some recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on?  I’ve been working on a project, tentatively titled Anamnemon, that examines the mythology construction of post-industrial ruin. I’ve been traveling to two locations in Illinois, which are interesting both in their specificity (their relative industrial/historical lineages) in addition to their ability to function as anonymous sites. The work has thus far taken on a reconfiguring of found materials from these sites, collages that deal with the exterior/interior dialectic that ruins produce, and a series of straight photographs made at these sites. The work is really new, so I’m excited about it, but I also have no idea where it’s going. 

What is one of the bigger challenges you’re struggling with these days, and how do you see it developing?  I’ve been getting stuck a lot. I have many ideas, they just aren’t rooting themselves in interesting forms. I’ve been staring at the wall, reading books, thinking, etc. It’s fine, but not great. 

What was the last exhibition you saw that stuck out to you?  I saw Christian Patterson’s new work, Redheaded Peckerwood, and his handling of various documents combined with original photographs was depressingly good. 

What’s your favorite thing about Chicago?  Because there is no substantial art market, there are slew of interesting curatorial and gallery projects run by artists with ambitions outside of the market. Shout outs to LVL3, Acre Residency, Document, Peregrine Programs, Hornswaggler, Harold Arts, Jettison Quarterly, and MDW art fair. Anthony Elms wrote this amazing thing about Chicago. 

What do you do when you’re not working on art?  I work out at a Crossfit gym which is a cool cult I belong to. I play in a punk band which is part of another great cult worth checking out. I read a lot of books, watch Netflix and smoke weed with my roommate, shit like that. 

Top 3 favorite or most visited websites and why?  Facebook.com, Gmail.com, and Tumblr.com, because I’m a 21st century idiot. 

Favorite music?  Lately I’ve been make playlists in my studio of early Juicy J/Triple Six Mafia and French black metal. They are both primitive and raw and sound like murder, so it takes me places. I never stop listening to Cro-Mags and Death in June.

What were you like in high school?  Punk, man. 

Can you share one of the best or worst reactions you have gotten as a result of your work?  I’m in grad school, and we recently had open studios. A guy came into my studio and saw some photos on my wall and asked if I was a photographer, and I said yes. He then spent a moment looking at a sculpture on the floor before pointing to it and saying “that’s not a photograph.” This is a “best reaction” story.

Melissa Steckbauer was born in Tucson Arizona.  She earned her BFA from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2008.  Steckbauer has an upcoming solo exhibition at Western Exhibitions in Chicago.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.  I studied fine art in Wisconsin, Utrecht, and Florence and moved to Berlin in 2008.  Currently I work in photography and collage and my source images are from family albums or photo shoots that I arrange with friends.  Sessions with friends are done with the intention of experiencing greater intimacy and communication.  The objects that I make from the photos are heavy on ornamentation and structural/formal issues.  

What kinds of things are influencing your work right now?  It’s absolutely about the people in my circle and the ways that they inspire me and express.  I have a lot of healers and creators around, e.g., artists, actors, surgeons, Grinberg practitioners, teachers, architects, and folks working in PR.  What they ask of me in terms of a level of connection, responsibility, and vulnerability teaches me how to trust on a regular basis.

How has living in Berlin affected your art practice?  It has definitely cooled it down in terms of content and materials.  The Berlin art aesthetic—in terms of institutional and gallery representation—is more aligned with geometry, minimalism, theory, and trash art aesthetics.  It definitely runs counter to my former practice and I appreciate and slowly absorb the contrast.   

What’s your favorite thing about Berlin?  The grounded freedom.  In the summer it is totally possible to find folks—the whole wild and/or bourgeoisie family—naked within the city’s parks and lakes (FKK) in a most humane and non-sexual way.  It’s also possible to express yourself in every conceivable manner on a street level, from dress to political affiliation.  It’s a very grounded and played-down city; it’s smart, bohemian in all the right ways, and savvy as hell.  

What are some recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on?  I will show with Anne Wölk at Re:Rotterdam this February; in April la maestra, Ana Sánchez De Vivar will curate a group show in Berlin that I’ll participate in; and notably I have a solo show opening January 27th (through March 10th) at Western Exhibitions in Chicago.  

If you hadn’t become an artist, what do you think you’d be doing?  Assuredly something with mental health as it potentially leads people, i.e., citizens, i.e., nations to less harmful conflict resolution.  

What are you really excited about right now?  Learning to listen to my body.  It’s been exceptionally challenging for me, I pretty much resist it with everything I’ve got but it’s an area of complete and perfect inner power.  

If you had one wish what would it be?  To be a far more honest communicator: to hide and pretend less, to be more authentic in the expression of my will, my needs, and to assert a good, clear “no” when called for. 

Peter Shear is a painter living and working in Bloomington, Indiana.  He was born in Beverly Farms, MA in 1980.  

Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.  I’m an artist living in Bloomington, Indiana. I cook at a restaurant, walk around…

If you had to explain your work to a stranger, what would you say?  It depends on the stranger. To my ideal stranger I might say that I’m involved with getting an image down that’s both arresting (easy to do) and surprising (hard to do). It’s low-tech, small and without much finish.  It’s a mostly honest artifact and it’s unimportant that I made it. What is important is that the works contain a problem—maybe one with no solution but still rewarding to spend time with. I like an image that quickly enters into viewers’ awareness, then migrates to the subconscious for more serious mind control. Art isn’t for everyone but I think those not normally receptive to or living near high concentrations of the stuff can still be affected. I like the idea of a hostile or indifferent audience.

What materials do you use in your work and what is your process like?  I paint (most often with acrylics or gouache) sitting at a table. The small canvases (8” x 10” is a favorite format) make painting feel a little like writing and the finished products are starting to look like book covers or small signs. Like the painting is an advertisement for itself.

What kinds of things are influencing your work right now?  I take many permissions from the poetry world. I’m not a great reader but I’m interested. Tumblr is a sign of the times. Folk art textiles turn me on. Images that hold a collective memory, that are worn down to an essential are so instructive.

How did your interest in art begin?  When I was 12 and 13 I wanted to be a political cartoonist. A few years later I saw Cindy Sherman’s retrospective at the MCA in Chicago—a big, weird moment.

How has your work developed within the past year?  Becoming a little more disciplined about killing off the B+/A- stuff has been a disgusting experience and now I’m addicted. As the work has grown less precious it’s gotten stronger.

How has living in Bloomington affected your art practice?  Bloomington is great if you’re into space and time. A slight job is enough to live on. One can be still be poor and live well in Bloomington and there’s no shortage of interesting poor people marinating here. The obvious downside is that the communities of visual artists I’m most in sympathy with are elsewhere, off in some city. So I miss the art party but can still enjoy pictures of it online. A mostly happy compromise.

What is one of the bigger challenges you and/or other artists are struggling with these days and how do you see it developing?  I struggle to understand the current function and functionality of art education in this country. The pressure on young artists to finance at enormous risk an MFA from a blue-chip school is insane. We have alternatives worth rediscovering. Maybe more artists of my generation will skip the pedigree and practice without a license—kicking against the Academy is always the right thing to do (see history). Strange to gush about the Internet in 2012 but its leveling effect is an art-historical development just beginning to be felt.

What are some recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on?  I have an ongoing series of pop-up shows titled FEELINGS with photographer Justin Clifford Rhody.  FEELINGS 3 is a go for Spring 2012. Our bodies of work are really contained but there’s a slight overlapping of visual data I enjoy seeing.

What artists are you interested in right now?  Artists get stuck in my head. Some working today: Charline von Heyl, Andrew Masullo, John Wesley, Nicole Eisenman, Keith Mayerson, Robert Gober. They’ve all made work I’ve looked hard at repeatedly and which is folded into my own. There is a tautness they share which is something I’m always pursuing—insistent, alien signs.

What was the last exhibition you saw that stuck out to you?  Jasper Johns’s ‘Gray’ was the last time I felt an exhibition all over; the scary ambition, focus and seriousness of his project made it a daunting show. I saw it at just the right moment.

What are you really excited about right now?  I love that Gober is curating Forrest Bess in the upcoming Whitney Biennial, especially after his involvement with Charles Burchfield’s work. All three are darlings of mine.

Saint Paul-based artist Ruben Nusz was born in South Dakota and raised by cowboys.  He graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Minnesota.  He’ll be featured in the upcoming exhibition Lifelike at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.  It’s funny, when people ask what I do I typically say that I’m a painter.  For non-artists, they assume I paint houses.  I usually don’t correct this assumption.  It sets people at ease.  

 If you had to explain your work to a stranger, what would you say?  I often wonder what it would be like to explain what I do to an alien from another planet.  I think I would say that I’m an explorer of minutiae.  Subtle nuances of the universe that I can document via the language of painting.  I’ve been thinking about rocks lately.  The old masters (pre 19th century) all ground their own pigments before mixing with linseed oil.  Well, pigments are rocks, really.  So, all the old paintings are rocks on the wall.  Literally cave paintings.  That’s what I do.  I make marks on the walls of caves; from Lascaux to today, it hasn’t changed.  It’s like we’re carving into picnic tables saying things like: “Kilroy was here.”

How has your work developed within the past year?  I’m a late bloomer.  My work has recently matured.  I’m more confident in my process and in creating objects without preconceived ideas.  I trust the world to inform my practice rather than vice versa. 

What are some recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on?  My publishing project Location Books (with Scott Nedrelow) just released our first book for the ipad titled As It Is Again by internationally renowned photographer JoAnn Verburg.  The free app chronicles the slow shift of seasons in Italy from winter to spring. 

Location will also be releasing books by artists Eric Carlson, Aaron Anderson, and Crystal Quinn as well as a Location Volume featuring John Opera, Ann Woo, Adam Schreiber and Stevie Rexroth.  

Scott and I are also starting a digital publishing company that specializes in ebooks for children with illustrations by artists.  

As for my own work, I have a solo painting show at Saint Cloud State University in March.  And I have some sculptures from 2008 that will be featured in the exhibition Lifelike at the Walker Art Center.  That show opens in Minneapolis in February and travels to San Diego, New Orleans and Austin.  

Finally, I’m putting the finishing touches on a feature-length Western screenplay titled “Through the Red Haze of Blood, Blood, Blood.”  

What is one of the bigger challenges you and/or other artists are struggling with these days, and how do you see it developing?  Why do anything, let alone anything that is ostensibly superfluous like art?  I believe that artists make work to answer this question.  I create a system to justify every action as an artist, specifically as a painter.  That process acts as the conceptual subtext for the recent paintings, the geometric ones in particular. For example, the Untitled “stick” paintings came from a personal algorithm (a simple algorithm is like a recipe for cooking).  Here’s one example: 
1) Make a painting that justifies the validity of painting as a medium.
2) Justify the process by specifically highlighting the attributes only possible in painting.
3) Those attributes are the ability to distort perception by playing with illusory and tactile space.
4) Execute this by first creating a basic illusion (the frame).
5) Using the language of the frame, undermine the illusion of the frame.
6) Finish the painting when a composition is established that pulls the primary visual emphasis away from the frame so that the frame appears to be a secondary element (even if it is, in fact, a primary element).  

What do you do when you’re not working on art?  Nothing. 

What artists are you interested in right now?  In Minneapolis I’m interested in all of the artists we work with at Location (John Fleischer, Scott Stulen, Isa Gagarin, Allen Brewer, etc…).  In addition, locally I enjoy the work of  Jay Heikes, Andrea Carlson, Katelyn Farstad, Greg Fitz, the guys at ro/lu and too many others to name.  Outside of Minnesota I’m in love with Gedi Sibony, Jessica Eaton, Jo Baer and Richard Nonas.

What was the last exhibition you saw that stuck out to you?  Howard Hodgkin at Gagosian.   

If you hadn’t become an artist, what do you think you’d be doing?  I don’t know, but here are some jobs that I’ve done (and learned from) but didn’t enjoy as much as making art:
-garbage man
-garbage man (yeah, I did it twice)
-price management at a retail store
-camera operator
-construction worker
-Subway sandwich artist