WEBVTT

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A lot of times in my paintings

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you might see a shape that looks like a vagina,

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but upon closer inspection, it might also be

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a penis with balls.

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You know, I don't know how much of 
this you're going to want to put in.

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My work is an expression of my core sensuality.

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I'm a body experiencing desire,

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experiencing pleasure.

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It is sensual and needy

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and dirty and expressive.

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I'm a body that is pregnant,

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but isn't necessarily

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the woman or the pregnant body 
that society may put onto me.

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I'm experiencing pleasure and 
pain that anyone can experience,

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and that's what I'm putting into the work.

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["Loie Hollowell's Transcendent Bodies"]

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It's nine months later.

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I've had my baby at home, Juniper.

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She's now six months old.

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I gave birth in the pandemic.

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And I'm back in the studio.

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And some things have changed in the world.

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I think around the age of seven or eight

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my dad gave me my own studio.

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It was a closet.

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He set me all up in there with a little easel

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and a fresh canvas.

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I can remember the space so clearly.

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To have my own room next to my dad's

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and next to my mom's was pretty transformative.

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I've always centered myself 
back into painting and drawing

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because of him giving me that space so early on.

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Color and light are central 
characters in my painting practice.

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When I look at my work over the years,

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there's just this real 
strong sense of chiaroscuro--

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light to dark forming space.

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I grew up in California surrounded 
by Light and Space artists.

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Robert Irwin and his beautiful discs,

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with this line in between.

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Experiencing pure light,

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pure space,

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pure emotion.

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There's always that hunting,

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that searching for a light-filled experience,

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even if it's a dark subject matter,

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or an undescribable subject matter.

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Around my late twenties, I got pregnant

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and I did not want to keep the baby.

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I had an abortion.

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Planned Parenthood was amazing and wonderful.

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The emotional experience

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and the fallout of the relationship 
was pretty emotionally intense.

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I wanted to figure out how 
to make paintings about it.

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I started making, basically, 
portraits of my vagina and ovaries,

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trying to depict the experience 
of having the abortion.

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I realized the abstraction can hold within it

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that sensation or that emotion

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by its color, its composition,

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its texture.

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When I started diving deep into

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creating three-dimensional spaces on my paintings,

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I was now having to deal with

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illusory space and real space--

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constructed shadow and constructed light

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versus real light and real shadow.

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--Issues we've had with this milling 
before is they haven't had enough layers on

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--and you've seen the mill lines come through.

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--So recently, Alicia has 
been putting more layers on.

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--That's what I'm feeling right now,

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--when you close your eyes 
and you feel that consistent,

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--smooth texture.

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--That's it!

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--Yup, this one is good!

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What I've found that I love 
about having a painting

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that in reality is a sculpture

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is that it changes within each context,

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within each space that it's hung.

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A transition really happened for me when

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the governor put the stay-at-home order in place.

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I was about to give birth also,

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so I brought a bunch of 
pastels and pastel paper home

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and just started drawing at home.

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I was trying to visualize my second birth,

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of my daughter,

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and move into that space somehow

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to start accepting the pain.

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Like, the insane place that your brain goes.

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So I was making drawings of my brain space

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and my belly space

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and the opening of my cervix.

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Those drawings are leading me into this new path.

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I'm beginning to actually take casts

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that I made of myself when I was pregnant,

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and friends of mine when they've been pregnant,

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and putting them onto the surface of the painting.

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When I start feeling really stuck in one place,

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I need to change,

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and that's where I'm seeing 
and demanding the shift

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of geometric, simple shapes

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into the reality of my body.

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After my mom had given birth to my second sister,

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we were at a gas station

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and I was in the back seat of the car.

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I remember watching her fill up the gas tank.

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Her shirt started being covered with water.

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I was like, "What is going on?"

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And she was leaking--

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she was letting-down--

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because my sister was crying next to me.

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Her shirt was being covered in milk.

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There's these little things that we 
can buy to prevent that from happening.

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But that was such a beautiful experience

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and it's something that I want to make art about.

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Really having the space to question 
what it is I'm making and why

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has really put all of these things

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I felt that I had language for

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into question.

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"Why bright colors?"

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"Why high contrast?"

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"Why geometric forms?"

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I think these are all questions,

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as artists, we have to continue to ask ourselves.

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"Why are we doing what we're doing?"

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"What is beauty?"

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"And why is it beautiful?"

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"And what makes beauty?"