Artist of the Week: Ryan Fenchel
Ryan Fenchel lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. He is currently showing at Gallery Yasashii Yokan in Tokyo and his work is up at Roots and Culture through February 5th.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. My name’s Ryan Fenchel, I’ve been living in Chicago for 5 years, I’ve been a diabetic since I was 14, and I’ve been married for the last 3 years. I went to the Kansas City Art Inst. from 1999 to 2003 and Northwestern University from 2005 to 2007. When I’m not in the studio I build the highest quality crates for artworks in the Midwest.
What are some recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on? I will have work in the Volta fair in NYC with Imperfect Articles, and I’m really excited to be part of the Kabinet Series at Dan Devening Projects this March.
When and where did your interest in art begin? I’ve thought of this before and kinda struggled to pin down one thing, but my parents were definitely part of it. When I was way little they gave me a large chalkboard and I would draw elaborate scenes of dinosaurs and planets on it. My parents also commissioned these two artists to paint various geometric shapes on the walls and ceiling of the kitchen of the house I grew up in. The same artists designed a bar and coffee table in the house; so I was surrounded by a variety of art stuffs in my everyday life as a kid. My dad would also paint acrylic copies of ab-ex paintings that my mom would cut out of magazines and these would decorate our house. Art was always encouraged and not something to be scared of.
What kinds of things are influencing your work right now? Some of my influences are less visually obvious than others, but I’m way into Curren$y, Kai Althoff, RadioLab, the play between free will and universal truths, interior design, some buddies of mine, Tokyo street fashion, and this cassette tape of a lecture about Plato’s Symposium. I also work in a cumulative way, so previous projects always influence decisions I make.
What materials do you use in your work and what is your process like? I grew up making mixtapes for myself and friends; I’ve been making a lot more recently and thinking about how similar it is to my studio practice: I accumulate stuff (ideas, materials) and they get arranged in various ways and the larger sum of the actions create a rich experience for the viewer. I also work on many projects simultaneously and I chief heavy.
What artists are you interested in right now? Curren$y and CJ Matherne, seriously, dudes kill it. I also like the Center for Cosmic Wonder, Carson Fisk-Vittori, and Aline Cautis.
How has your work developed within the past year? I’ve been painting and it’s become more of a training exercise….kinda in a similar way that in a kung fu movie it’s actually the cook who the student learns the most from… I’m not trying to make paintings as much as I’m trying to understand color, sculpture, patients and other elements of my practice through painting.
What’s your favorite thing about Chicago? Chicago apartment galleries are straight slammin!
What do you want a viewer to walk away with after seeing your work? The specific ideas I want a person to pick up are constantly changing, but I usually want to confuse a viewer. By this I mean give them something that they feel comfortable with at first, but as they investigate the work, or larger sum of many works, the viewer is asking his or herself more/different questions than they might have been att their first glance. Look with your mind, not your eyes.
What’s your absolute favorite place in the world to be? I haven’t traveled to a wide variety of places, but I have spent quite a bit of time in Japan. Off the coast of Okayama, there is a series of 7 very small islands that are dotted with art museums and art installations. It’s a beautiful experience walking down a tiny residential street full of old wooden homes and — SURPRISE – you walk up on a James Turrell installation or a Tadao Ando designed museum.
Favorite music? Jamaican!
Artist of the Week: Erin Zona
Erin Zona received her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2009. She currently lives, works and teaches in Owensboro, Kentucky. Her work is on display at Roots and Culture, along with Carmen Price, until May 31st and we highly encourage you to take a closer look at the detail that goes into Erin’s work.
If you had to explain your work to a stranger, what would you say? Explaining my work always comes out like generalized analysis of a great poem. I might say, “This drawing is about shadows, desire, windows, death and dying.” That’s a real turn off to a stranger, right?
What kinds of things are influencing your work right now? I am teaching a film class this summer for the first time. In preparing for the class, I noticed the relationships that my drawings have to silent film. I am currently obsessed with F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu. At the end of the film the character Ellen Hutter dramatically and sacrificially opens a window in her bedroom to allow Nosferatu into her home to satisfy her (and kill her). Right now, for me, images of women opening windows are like a bikini carwash. My work, although seemingly minimal, is about desire and dissatisfaction. As a series, my most recent work relies heavily on visual subtext, just like in a film, subtext can be easily overlooked and most often I don’t even see it until the work is in frames and hanging on a wall. 
What materials do you use in your work and what is your process like? For my drawings I exclusively use 500 Series plate-finish bristol and Rapidograph india ink. I have a studio down the street from my house, but I sit at my dining room table to really “work”. You know that feeling when you are completely engrossed in a task and time seems to stop for you on one level and fly by on another? This feeling is what drives me as an artist. I reject the romanticized studio artist – one that drinks, socializes, and works and has women and draws them and retires in the morning. It’s a class issue for me, but it is important that my work feel like labor.
What’s your favorite thing about Owensboro and what are your thoughts about its art scene? I moved to Owensboro, KY last summer for a teaching position. There are several benefits to living in a city like this for me. The cost of living is really low. I live in a huge four bedroom house. It’s kind of a dump and haunted, but we have so much space to work with. In our house we have a music studio, two offices, two studios, a library, and the basement is still completely empty! The downfall, I guess, is that Owensboro is the kind of place that people typically leave for something better, but I think that’s kind of interesting. The trend now supposedly is to make your own city, right? To move into the heartland, but I don’t really buy that. I went to grad school at RISD and after that everyone just moves to Brooklyn – same story. If just five more young artists lived in Owensboro, we could own this place, write a book about it, make a record about it, and then move to Brooklyn. Most young people aren’t really willing to sacrifice their social network - even for just a little while. I am pretty anti-social and I am lucky because I function well in solitude. My work kind of requires it. I can’t get a thing done otherwise.
What do you do when you’re not working on art? I am taking the summer off from the studio. One important perk to living in Kentucky is that I am very close to Nashville. My grandparents live there and are very important to me. Also, Nashville is a great city with lots of grocery stores. I love to go grocery shopping.
What are you really excited about right now? I am really excited about turning 30 this summer and I am not being facetious.
Top 3 favorite or most visited websites and why? My morning coffee/web time is a ritual. I am pretty boring though. Mainly I use the Internet for news and research. #1 Gmail. #2 News. #3 Public Library. I recently quit my online social network addiction, it was bringing me down.
What are your plans for the next year? Any current or upcoming shows we should know about? My plans for the next year are pretty square. Right now, I am focused on my career, getting a better job, I have some shows coming up, etc. More importantly, in my fantasy future, I would move back to Kansas City, start a band with my friend and hero Natalie Myers, have huge sums of money in the bank, AND I get to eat cake everyday without getting fat.
*Portrait of Erin Zona is an Aura Painting by Mark Dal Pra.
Buttons and other multiples from Erin’s portfolio are always available for free. Interested parties email erinzona@gmail.com
