WEBVTT

00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:12.220
[Ellen Gallagher: Cutting]

00:00:15.140 --> 00:00:16.700
I grew up in New England

00:00:16.700 --> 00:00:19.680
and I live now between Rotterdam and New York.

00:00:22.130 --> 00:00:26.500
I'm actually a big bird watcher in Rotterdam
now

00:00:26.500 --> 00:00:29.320
because it's a great migratory space

00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:30.910
and I'm there with my binoculars,

00:00:30.910 --> 00:00:33.090
and hiking around there.

00:00:33.090 --> 00:00:34.730
And I'm looking very precisely

00:00:34.730 --> 00:00:38.550
at these fleeting glimpses of birds.

00:00:40.559 --> 00:00:42.550
You try to remember what you've seen,

00:00:42.550 --> 00:00:46.270
it's gone, and then you try to find it again.

00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:52.820
In the bird paintings,

00:00:52.829 --> 00:00:56.850
I start with a more precise drawing,

00:00:56.850 --> 00:00:58.129
and then from that drawing,

00:00:58.129 --> 00:01:00.339
I abstract the form.

00:01:00.339 --> 00:01:01.449
And it has to be abstract.

00:01:01.449 --> 00:01:03.600
It wouldn't work if it was really like

00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:06.280
a completely believable, detailed,

00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:08.580
precise rendering of the bird.

00:01:10.980 --> 00:01:13.880
I like radically cutting into the painting,

00:01:13.880 --> 00:01:17.050
inserting these paper birds,

00:01:17.050 --> 00:01:19.670
and then trying to figure out how to believe
in it.

00:01:19.670 --> 00:01:21.550
I'd have to somehow, then,

00:01:21.550 --> 00:01:24.310
weave them back into the paintings.

00:01:28.090 --> 00:01:29.950
The things that separates the planes

00:01:29.950 --> 00:01:34.570
are the incisions and the edges of the matter.

00:01:35.750 --> 00:01:39.130
Each separate layer of cutting or painting

00:01:39.130 --> 00:01:40.420
is visible

00:01:40.420 --> 00:01:43.180
and readable as an edge.

00:01:51.800 --> 00:01:54.020
It is interesting to see

00:01:54.030 --> 00:01:57.000
the way content surfaces over time,

00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:00.520
both in my mind and in the skin of the work.

00:02:00.520 --> 00:02:04.520
["Watery Ecstatic Series" (2001--2009)]

00:02:04.800 --> 00:02:08.119
The "Watery Ecstatic" works were more kind
of

00:02:08.119 --> 00:02:11.519
narrative--literary--relationship to the sea.

00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:15.129
The cut drawings were about

00:02:15.129 --> 00:02:18.140
bringing that biological surface

00:02:18.140 --> 00:02:21.240
into the form of the drawing.

00:02:25.480 --> 00:02:28.290
I used to get these air bubbles that annoyed
me.

00:02:28.290 --> 00:02:30.310
The slice I made when the paper was wet,

00:02:30.310 --> 00:02:31.790
just to release air bubbles,

00:02:31.790 --> 00:02:36.240
opened up and became this sort of

00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:39.090
cut that was fleshy.

00:02:39.090 --> 00:02:39.930
And it's funny, then,

00:02:39.930 --> 00:02:41.980
as you move into the "Watery Ecstatic" works

00:02:41.980 --> 00:02:44.959
to see that cut become so conscious.

00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:49.080
For me, I found that to be a surprise.

00:02:50.660 --> 00:02:53.420
Cutting a graphic edge from the earlier works

00:02:53.430 --> 00:02:54.560
into the newer works

00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:57.080
has been, I think, consistent.