Studio visit - Minna Gilligan April 2020

DS: How are you coping with the pandemic? How has it affected you and your work?

MG: I am coping reasonably well with the pandemic. I’m lucky to be doing so. As I have a number of part time jobs, they’ve carried on in work from home/online capacities. My routine is continuing similarly, I just leave the house way less! As my studio is at home, I have found I’ve had more time to spend in there. That is wonderful for maintaining my mental health. If I couldn’t make art throughout all of this, I would definitely be struggling. I’ve definitely been making art more as a form of meditation and of processing the current situation. I am drawn to drawing at the moment as it’s so immediate and relaxing for me.

You have a close knit and supportive family (as you know I’m a big fan of the Gilligans!), how is the family all going with the isolation?

I’ve been missing my family a lot, I spend a lot of time with them when things are normal. As pretty much everyone in my family have their own small business, they’re all feeling the effects of lockdown. My family however are very resilient and are finding ways to partially and safely continue to tick along. We are texting a lot and chatting on the phone. I’m delivering all sorts of care packages to my Nannas (I think they actually might be sick of me sending things to their homes…)

Tell us about your studio/ working from home?

My partner and I rent a two bedroom apartment. The second bedroom is my studio. It’s fairly small (cosy!) and the more I make, the more I go op shopping… the more the walls seem to be closing in on me! Maybe one good thing about lockdown is I haven’t been able to go and buy more second hand books or knick knacks. I think the thing that takes up the most space in my practice are the books I buy to cut pictures out from. They are piled in every spare square inch of space. I set up my work computer on my desk and I just push it out of the way when I want to work on art stuff. Generally my set up is pretty low fi. But I stick to a routine, Mondays teaching online, Tuesdays in the studio, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays working for Art Guide Australia (from home!) and then weekends in the studio too plus any spare time, often after I finish work at Art Guide now that I don’t commute I can have an extra couple of hours in the studio which I am really enjoying.

How do you think you will respond to the pandemic as an artist, and will it affect the work you make?

I have gravitated to drawing, I think as it’s always my first port of call when it comes to making work, I love the immediacy of mark making with textas. I am feeling like I need to process the current situation, 24 hour news cycle, always feeling overwhelmed. Drawing is calming and grounding for me. I just scribble for the most part. I think it’s just about getting pen to paper. I have made a few text based drawings recently with phrases I’ve found swirling around my head. The first one, an OutKast lyric ‘You can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather’ seemed to be poignant in these times.

Could you tell us about your project for Tarrawarra, which was due to open last month and had to be postponed?

My commission for TarraWarra is a series of flags titled Six Flags. The flags are collages that have been blown up and digitally printed on fabric. They are very large in scale, about 2m high by 1.5m width. They were going to inhabit the grounds of TarraWarra for their Open Weekend scheduled for March (but obviously now postponed!). While traditionally flags have roots in war, conquest and masculinity, each flag is representative not of a colonialised country or a masculine, bloody victory, but of the opposite, a quiet, self-reflective moment in the life of a woman. Six Flags is accompanied by a zine publication that puts the visual narratives featured on each flag into words – that is, I wrote a poem that accompanies each flag. I was disappointed to have the public outcome of this series of work cancel at the last minute, but it was unavoidable. The work will be shown at TarraWarra at some stage in the future on a yet to be determined date. It’s so strange how long ago it feels that I got the call saying it would be cancelled, but it was only just four weeks ago. Insane how time is stretched at the moment.

Could you tell us about the works you're developing for your exhibition here later this year? 

I am working on a series of paintings as well as fabric prints. So far the paintings I’ve begun to make are large scale and made from dyed and bleached fabric with little patches and pockets sewn on. I am experimenting with being a little less rigid and not traditionally stretching the fabric to stretchers as if it were canvas. I want to be a little looser with that this time around. I want to focus a little more on the immediacy of my making again, my last exhibition had a lot of detailed embellishments (sequined sections on my paintings) and this was very time consuming and maybe took away a bit of the energy from my work. I want to focus on that again.

American art critic Alicia Eler said of your work “Gilligan’s paintings stand on their own as Internet objects, but they would be just as comfortable lining the background of a teen-girl’s Tumblr page, or on the walls of a bricks-and-mortar art gallery”. How do you feel about digital alternatives to physical exhibitions? You work so much with the digital realm already that I’m guessing you will be more open to the possibilities than most, but what would we be missing if there was no IRL exhibition?

I love existing online. I love that a lot of people who know my work haven’t necessarily seen it in real life. There is power in that scope that I am always drawn to. I am super open to online exhibitions because of this. Accessibility has always been one of my main goals in making art. To view art you shouldn’t need to be invited, to have an education, or need a ‘password’ which is sometimes what I feel like a lot of exhibitions can be like. Anyway, what I’d miss about not having IRL exhibitions I suppose would be the scale of my works not being communicated properly, I’d also miss that moment of realisation or ‘coming together’ that you get when you’ve hung an exhibition in real life.

You and your career have been closely entwined with the internet and the development of social media. How has your relationship to social media changed over that period?

I used to be so trusting and naïve about social media (and the world for that matter) I hate to admit this but I’ve totally gotten more bitter and guarded when it comes to sharing things online. I guess there’s bound to be a period of self-censoring after a period of such openness, I think that comes with age and experience and exposure to not so nice things in the world. I look back at my old blog, things I used to put out there, I was actually super brave to share so much, and at the time I didn’t see it in that way. I still use social media a lot, but I’m far more considered with it, and I am a bit more distant than I used to be. If anyone who follows me even mildly creeps me out I block and delete. I used to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. That kindness has completely gone lol. Probably a good thing to have mild boundaries now!

You’ve previously made gif art works, that were initially for use online and outside of an art context, but were also exhibited at Heide Museum of Modern Art. Do you think you will revisit digital art making?

I’ve been making a lot of online DIY videos for galleries in this period of lockdown. I’ve enjoyed it, pointing the video camera at myself to produce something productive and communicative not just to take selfies in cute dresses. I really loved the work I showed at Heide that incorporated all those digital gifs of myself on loop. I would perhaps like to revisit but maybe with updated technology – ie. not Mac Photobooth! Or maybe that was all part of the charm..! I liked the idea of ‘set building’ with these videos, and of me being a part of the artwork just as a cut out women in one of my collages would be.

Could you tell us about your drawing practice? And how this sits alongside your collage and painting practices?

I haven’t shut up recently about how much I love drawing! I’ve filled two sketchbooks in a matter of months. I’m obsessed. My drawing practice sits alongside my painting and collage practice very closely, but not in a way in which I would like draw a painting or collage before beginning it or anything. All my works just form as I go, there is little to no planning. Drawing is where I plan the least, I just begin and it takes shape. I am a very unthinking drawer, I like to think sometimes I am a medium between my unconscious thoughts and the paper, my drawings are abstract representations of my psyche. But you may think that’s taking things a little far..! I am drawn to drawing, I need to do it or I go a little bit mad. It is a warm up as well as the main event. Drawing is communicating. I think I can most effectively communicate with drawing.

Many of your works use found/ sourced fabrics. What materials do you seek out, and why?

I am drawn to materials that have been loved and used, that have emotional weight to them that I can riff off when I am working with them. With my paintings I like to use old curtains and bedsheets that I’ll then dye and bleach and add paint on top of. I like to see it as adding to the life of something, contributing to the narrative of an object.

Fashion, fantasy and costume are a part of your work, persona and public presentation, and I can’t see you adopting a tracksuit WFH look anytime soon! Has isolation changed your relationship to fashion? 

It actually has, I hardly wear any of my nice dresses and I have exposed a huge hole in my wardrobe in that I have no comfortable/cosy ‘house clothes’. None. I get dressed normally when I have to teach online or when I have a zoom scheduled for work. Otherwise I’ve been donning the most random combinations of things for comfort and warmth, layering in the strangest possible ways, socks with sandals, that sort of thing. It’s grim. I need to schedule more zoom meetings so I get dressed properly more often!

Your work is incredibly vibrant and colour saturated. Could you describe your use of colour and favourite colours? 

Obsessed with colour since I was a kid, don’t know why, my brain just never grew up from being attracted to shiny candy coloured things and being obsessed with The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy walks out into Munchkin Land and everything turns from sepia to technicolor. The impact of that scene will never leave me. I don’t have a favourite colour, I like them all. I do go through phases though and at the moment I’m into mint green, burnt orange, and light purple. I use colour like it’s going out of style, more is always more.

Your previous work has often been about nostalgia tinged with a sense of longing for an imagined past, which is filtered through a contemporary, digital sensibility. Is fantasy all the more alluring in dark days such as these? Your use of a nostalgic aesthetic is about fantasy but also has a central absence/longing, and occasionally a sense of melancholy. Could you talk about your approach to nostalgia?

Escapism to fantasy realms is a big part of my practice and of my life in normal circumstances, so now more than ever. My fantasy realms are built or rather cobbled together from online documentation of the past, as well as music, films, and found imagery. I am nostalgic for these realms. Nostalgia is about longing. It’s sighing and wishing and daydreaming. Nostalgia is always distorted, no matter if you’re remembering something that really happened to you or something you’ve pieced together into a vignette. I use nostalgia to evoke a familiarity in my work that can never be pinned down, a swirling memory of something that maybe never was. I love the power of triggering someone to remember something when they see my work, to take them back to a time or place in their life past, maybe one that over time they’ve exaggerated or misplaced or that their brain has made up entirely.

While you sample imagery from the 60s and 70s, would it be accurate to say that each of your exhibitions seem to respond to and evoke a particular feeling more than a moment in actual time? 

Definitely. It’s all about the ‘vibe’ (said with a grain of salt!). The 1960s and 1970s happen to have amazingly technicolor imagery the lends itself to the vibrancy of my practice. I love how I can communicate the feeling of a moment through the imagery I collect from this time period. I love how I can encompass a period of time in my life in the entirety of an exhibition. My exhibitions are ‘eras’ in the same way as Taylor Swift has different aesthetics and themes for her albums. Mine are just on a more abstract and far more modest (small!) scale.

Your exhibitions have each been heavily influenced by music, and your works are often titled for songs. Could you tell us about these influences? And tell us about the playlist you’ve selected?

I’m always searching for new old songs, that is – songs from the past that are new to me! I used to ask Mum if the DJs on Gold 104FM would run out of old songs to play, and she said “new songs become old every day” this was huge for me. Anyway I love music. A generic statement for you. I am a big sing-alonger much to the annoyance of whoever happens to be tasked with driving me around in their car. The playlist I made to accompany this interview is my most recent working from home singing along playlist. A little mellow as always, with some songs that could encourage you to get up out of your creaky desk chair and move your body. Maybe. It’s all about the *vibe* anyway, I can’t say too much, you have to listen!

You have a kind of ‘world building’ approach created by sampling widely from numerous sources. Could you tell us about the sources you are drawn to and the influences on your practice, not only from art but also from other cultural spheres such as literature and cinema?  

I draw upon ideas from music, film, books, Instagram profiles, blogs, everything. I love being able to use everything as inspiration. These sources enable me to cobble together the fantasy realms that my works become, I take a little from everywhere. Recently I read for the first time In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I became obsessed with Nancy Clutter and the works I made in that time I wanted them to have a presence of her as a kind of tribute. I love female characters, particularly those who get left by the wayside a bit or exist on the perimeters. Like Peg in Edward Scissorhands, I was obsessed with her for a while too. And Elena in The Ice Storm who had a shoplifting problem. These women were my loose inspirations for the women I showcase on the flags in Six Flags.

Your collages frequently have female protagonists floating in space. Could you tell us about this? 

I suppose in some ways the women in my work are autobiographical, they are my own female presence in my works, staring back at the viewer. As I discuss above, they are also cobbled together a bit from characters (or in Nancy Clutter’s case, real life women). I like to assert a female presence in my work, for a woman to have dominance and power on a ‘stage’ while still showcasing and not apologising for her emotions.

Your work emerged at a cultural moment in the early-mid noughties that gave rise to artists working with the internet trope of the ‘sad girl’, I’m thinking of artists such as Audrey Wollen, Kate Durbin, Petra Collins, Amalia Ulman. Do you see your previous work in relation to this trope and any of these artists? 

I definitely see my previous work in relation to this trope. I was making in a time where Instagram was new, blogging was king and it was only early days of the new era where everyone newly had a voice and an accessible space to share their lives online. As most of the women making art online in this time were in their teens and early 20s, there was a lot of genuine sad girls present there, ie. a lot of isolation, introverts, mental illness. I ticked all those boxes as a teenager. I think the ‘sad girl’ trope formed really organically and from a place of actual experience. The only difference with my work is that I’ve always used way too many colours to be taken entirely seriously as a sad girl, lol.

Much of your work has been preoccupied with the space of youth - something of the aesthetic of the teen girl’s bedroom. How is this changing as you grow older (NB you are still very young!)  

Definitely! My work was largely riffing of youth, teenage girls’ spaces, and even headspaces of young women, and I got a lot of attention for being young myself. I’ve been slowly recalibrating in regards to growing older and what that means for my practice. I think I’ve been dealing with this transition for a year or two now. As I approach 30 I’ve been really feeling the pressure of the age I’m at, to make decisions, to dress more conservatively, to do practical things. I know that all of these feelings are just societal pressure but I never knew how hard it was to shut out and ignore. I want my practice to continue having a vibrancy, a shiny quality, my *signature aesthetic*, and I’m coming to terms with the fact that my youth did not define these things, it was coincidental. My personality is shiny and vibrant (not to brag! But also like, maybe to brag? Because women should be able to say nice things about themselves?) but like it wasn’t just that I was young in age. My work doesn’t need to get all minimal and slick just because I’m getting older. I can still be me and make my work at any age. My idols are people like Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson, who have maintained shiny and vibrant practices their whole lives.

Reflecting on you work so far, and thinking to the future, how do you think your work will evolve from here? 

I don’t know. I used to think I knew my trajectory so clearly but as I live it I realise that being an artist is such a long journey and you think there aren’t, but there are so many external factors to your practice too. I know that I want to be resilient as an artist, to always be making and never stop, and to develop thicker skin (working on that one still). 

A brief list…

reading: Come by Rita Therese
watching: Law and Order SVU
listening: My own intensely curated playlists
missing: My family
enjoying: Being in my studio