Nicole Etienne Powell's work the subject of "The Artpoint" blog in June, 2009.
 "I always wanted to be a writer. So, I married one," laughs Nicole Etienne Powell in a moment of complete honesty and good humor -- two things this artist has plenty of. But the jest belies a strong component of her visual focus: storytelling -- and along with it all the rich imagination, perception, and character that such visual narrative involves as well as invites. And the idea of invitation -- to the viewer as well as the listener, is also why Powell's works mesmerize, provoke, and challenge.
These canvases explore self-identity as a mirror, yet welcome a questioning of this identity. They exist in a visual arena which poses tantalizing questions as well as resolutions of meaning, and context. Her juxtapositions of narrative ideas embellish the canvas much like a good book. Language here has become color and depiction of compositional elements; words have been transformed into stunning applications of paint; surfaces have become conversations.
This vocal imagery is active storytelling at its best. And the inspiration for many of Powell's canvasses are indeed founded in the great literatures of myth and imagination. However, the artist -- and the art -- sustain a unique presence that is all about painting and its singular acts of passion.
Powell's figures reside in their worlds with total confidence of place and relationship to each other. Her erotic scenes balance sexual connection that is open and honest, with execution that is at once delicate, yet strong. It is the surface which becomes the point of focus for the viewer -- because the paint is applied with such delicacy and layering that one can't quite keep one's eyes from roaming over it. The subjects in such paintings as "Wrestling With The Angel" (top right), or "The Three Graces" (above) explore moments of deeply private passion, yet the relationships involved have much more meaning because of the way they are painted. The erotic act is that of painting itself, and it is a proud and beautiful act.
Women and men share joy here; journeys are traveled in which people come away with new knowledge about themselves. The subjects in these images have great presence of mind and are never less than happy to defy categorization. In "Escaping Eden" (above), a self-portrait in spirit rather than likeness, Powell's extraordinary woman seemingly runs with full conviction to her own, different Eden. She has enjoyed and reveled in the world, but there are gardens of knowledge she will create herself. Even the landscape, rich with symbols of fruition, opens the way for her.
The landscape too, is a force for the painter; Powell's are dense studies of atmospheres that at the same time are filled with transparent depictions of light and sensory color -- they are abstract only in the sense that they are recreated from memory, and provide again that invitation to the viewer that makes all of Powell's works a gesture of welcome. In an interview at The New York Academy of Art, I discussed with Nicole Etienne Powell her inspirations, beginnings, and futures.
Eroticism is an important component of themes that you explore in your current figure paintings. Although it is prominent, it never has a sense of being flagrant – though it is blatantly joyous – the canvases are instilled with a sensory element that is much more than just the mechanical acts of passion between figures. How do you accomplish this?
Painting is just like love making. Sometimes slow, sensuous strokes of the brush and prolonged drags of charcoal are right. And other times quick splatters and fast lush swipes of color are the 'technical narrative' a painting asks for in order to reveal the story. One of my favorite artists, Eric Fischl, told me that if I am not feeling what I am painting, nobody else will either. I actualize joy while I am painting, sort of rev up the engine and materialize sex, love, lust... whatever it is I am trying to evoke. Sex is a great focus for any painting. In a landscape I still concentrate on sexy lines. Hills water and sky can be the most evocative elements.
What is the most difficult/easiest thing about painting figures in the act of passion (as different from the "act" of sex)?
Difficult -- starting to paint them without worrying about what people would think. It was something I had to do. Showing them to my dad for the first time was a bit awkward, but he took it in stride. Also, becoming too "nostalgic". A popular word used in place of "corny" in art schools all over the world. I have no problems with nostalgia and I revel in antiquity and thoughts of the past. But sometimes adoration of former times can clog new experience. I am thinking of any act of passion or love. An act of passion can be nonsexual. Eve handing Adam the apple is an act of passion. Her desire for knowledge outweighing her love of the garden. Perhaps the easiest thing about painting sex would be that conjuring up the feelings, or actualizing the emotions to emit on the canvas is exciting. I live for it.
There is a transparency in your paint surfaces – especially on the figures – that makes it seem as if air is running through their bodies. This luminous quality creates a delicacy that is in contrast to the very monumental aspects of the women – angelic amazons in a way – how do you achieve this technical aspect of the applied surfaces?
I started as an acrylic painter. Acrylic paint dries fast. You have to really use the color in a transparent way in order to create a harmony or resonance on the surface. When you paint a transparent layer on white you get a glow that you never can achieve through opaque paint. I know some painters feel you can but I don't really believe it. Maybe with a few more years under my belt....I try and stay close to that original glow. When I switched to oil paint, as it paints flesh like nothing else, I had to adjust to the slow dry... It is sort of a complicated dance. A struggle with not wanting to lose the original marks of the charcoal and the glow, and the desire to smear on thick marks of paint until it melts.
Although women are a large subject matter in your figuration, they do not have an aspect of being“feminist” subjects. You present your women, rather than explain them. Has feminism as a visual or political idea ever been a basis for some of your work?
I was fortunate enough to grow up with a very artistic and loving mother. She herself paints and has instilled in me a self confidence to go out and do whatever it is I would like to do. I also grew up in an unusual multi-religion called the "The New Religion of the Third Age" or what we called "Creative Initiative". It was started by feminist visionary Emilia Rathbun. Emilia wanted people to understand what it meant to be feminine with power. To understand your greatest self, you must balance your yin and yang, your masculine and feminine, synthesize the opposites within the self. Feminism was never a basis for my work but I have always felt women to be incredibly strong people. I like to think of women in my paintings as romantic heroes.
Your imagery has a basis in mythology as a narrative of stories. Why are these stories so rich for you as subjects?
I love a good story. I think that is why I love traveling to and painting in Ireland. When I was young my dad would read to my brother and I every night. We would always be in some far away place, as I drifted off to sleep. A story can make the unbelievable true, the impossible possible. Paintings are like a page out of the book. You have no beginning or ending. You are thrust right into the center of a world. I love to jumble old fables with new imagery, coming up with new myths.
The women who inhabit the worlds of your paintings are strong — they head out on journeys, engage confidently with their surroundings, or otherwise seem completely able to fend for themselves. What are the stories of these women?
They are romantic heroes on a journey. The painting "Into the Woods" is about starting a journey. In the painting "Tiptoe" the same girls are now older, coming out of those woods, less virginal and more womanly. They are the Three Graces, Europa and her maidens, and you and I.
In “Escaping Eden”, your Eve is abundantly full of what I see as “fruition” – and the elements of the pomegranate imagery is rich with meaning that is a strong play on the trite apple of knowledge. She is jubilantly Adam-less as she seems to run towards some imminent happiness that has nothing to do with sin or expulsion. What does she represent for you?
This Eve is a self-portrait even though I do not have red hair. It is a painting about choice.
Your landscapes are very close to abstraction, but they have a core in a sure understanding of atmosphere, climate, and geological veracity. Do you paint them in the open? How did you come to develop the landscape works?
Most of my paintings are of Ireland. I have been going to a residency for about ten years on the wild bluffs of county Kerry. I stay in an old, abandoned famine village where the presence of the people's struggle continues to be felt. Voices from the past and intense dreams disturb nights, which can leave you wondering if it were not my hand alone painting the canvas. Ancient standing stones and fairy rings are all around and the sea constantly crashes loudly on the cliffs. The ever-changing sky and magnificent glimmer on the water draws me back year after year. It is such a powerful and magical place. I paint some paintings in the open, and some in the studio. Battling the elements can be tricky when you paint on huge canvases. The winds can sail you over the cliff!
I love traditional landscapes but my impatience and my desire for mood over realism keeps me sane. I start with a semi-realistic painting then use a gigantic palette knife to scrape pigment over the surface, creating distance between the land and sky. This done over and over creates the image.
Though bare of actual human presences, your landscapes imply their presence. Is this part of your thinking in painting them?
I never thought of that, but I love how you said it. I think because I emote different human emotions while painting the residue of how I was feeling sticks to the surface.
We tend to apply the connotation of “figure” to many depictions of landscape – think of all the rolling hills that signify hips and thighs, ad infinitum. However, yours do not do this at all. They are invested with sensory aspects rather than formal ground. How do you achieve this?
I think it is the huge swipes across the surface which destroys any fine details. The details that emerge are survivors of a long and intense battle. Maybe battle is not the right word because it invokes death. But every painting does die many deaths. With each brushstroke you change what was already there.
You’ve recently achieved many levels of accomplishment – successful commercial sales, your Masters, new study abroad this summer – what do you want to do next? What is the most important goal for you right now as an artist?
I want to continue painting from the depths of my soul and I would like to write a long overdue (true) ghost story. I have a show of my landscapes at the Urban Retreat Gallery in Dublin Ireland June 25th this year and a residency at the Eden Rock hotel in St. Bart's in July. And as most of my graduating class this year, I would like to find representation in a gallery in New York City that feels like I am coming home. |
