An Interview with Shelton Walsmith (Issue 8)

ZM: Are there a number of running themes that often appear in your work?
SW: Death usually creeps in (as it will). It’s paradoxical to be making work you hope will live on with wet eyes, looking like it was born yesterday to then have it be about dying, disappearing, dissolving, dehydrating like fruit leather without the tangy sweetness. I say death but I mean mortality. Picture a pool in the woods, its backed up by hills and surrounded by trees. Bathers wade in the shallows and bob in the depths. People still unashamed of their bodies lay in various states between dressed and not. (There would be music playing if this wasn’t a picture.) It all seems on track with living it up until you see there’s a head about the size of a Volkswagen Bug floating face up on the glittering green lake. You now realise not only is she dead(the big head’s a lady) everyone pictured is long gone. The endless summer always ends. The picture is a relic of souls, once present, spirited away. 

ZM: Do you have mixed feelings when you sell a painting and it disappears from your studio?
SW: For several years I had an event series in my studio called YardMeter wherein poetry was read and someone else’s art was installed. They were wonderful events at a time (the Great Recession) when people needed gatherings centered around culture rather than excuses to moan and wonder if they’d ever make money again. As the event series grew more strangers came. I had quite a lot of paintings stored and stacked and some were stolen. That produced mixed feelings... Its an odd compliment couched in violation. Poets?! Am I right? Just kidding I love poets, really I do... 

ZM: What does a typical day look like when you are working on a new piece?
SW: Unfortunately my typical day starts by reading the news which seems to go from bad to worse since half of this country elected a megalomaniac who insists on taking up all of the oxygen while careening toward authoritarianism. Typically I read until one one of my dogs suggests walking them might be healthier than my pressing my face against the computer like I’m in a Munch painting or Bergman film. Lately I’ve used insomnia and loitering in bed as a time to ruminate over problems and potential solutions for paintings. Walking the dogs brings these latent bedhead inspirations back to the foreground. I like to work on several things at once so I start by looking at everything in progress and decide where to jump in. Queuing up the music is key and as soon as it starts the news disappears and I am immersed in making things better than how I found them. 

ZM: Are there any particular artists that have influenced your work?
SW: Again music is a palpable companion to my process. I carry an ancient laptop between my 2 studios because it has one hundred years of my favourite music burned into its clamshell. At one time the laptop was white but now it looks like a filthy tie dye shirt from years of being handled by painty hands. I think the so called Muse is in the music but also she exists in my cells. While I'm painting the chorus of cells sing, Oh look he’s doing what helps him survive! Let's toss him some dopamine tainted ideas so he’ll die later than sooner. But that’s the interiority at work being an influencer you asked about external influence. Currently I feel the influence of Jenny Saville and Cecily Brown. Imagine if they had a child together! I love the mysterious paintings of Wendelin Wohlgemuth. I paint ghosts but Wendelin resuscitates them. Titus Kaphar and Njideka Akunyili Crosby should be household names for their innovations in collage based work. Martin Mull is a huge influence he charts a long path between childlike and cinematic. Fellow Texan Vernon Fisher is a marvel. Underrated Pop Artist Pauline Boty inspires as do the 3 Amy’s of Brooklyn contemporary painting. If you don’t know them keep an eye out Sillman, Bennet and Mahnick. They rock and back to music I am influenced by (often deploying their lyrics or song titles as painting titles) Thelonious Monk, Beck, Destroyer, Earl ‘Fatha' Himes, The Modern Airline, Red Garland, Lucinda Williams, Okkervill River, Yo La Tengo, Notnauts, Tribe Called Quest, Joni Mitchell, Coughdrop Exhange,The Breeders, Bob Dylan and The Beatles.