Elliott Hundley in "Secrets" - Season 7 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

- Okay, let's do it again.

Can we try one more thing

before Anne comes out
to see if it works?

We could just leave it
like that.

Don't even turn it.

Can you do it again, Evan,

but then do something
more dynamic

so we get a sense of, like,
a changed gesture?

Like lift your arms up
and put one foot forward.

Three, two, one.

[ laughter ]

Okay, okay, I think we're ready.

Can you put them on?

- Yeah.

- You look very beautiful.

I've never seen
such a beautiful lady.

I was working with the idea

of Anne playing the part of Eurydice
inspired by Cocteau's Orpheus.

That's it.

- That's it?

- We're ready.

[ laughter ]
- Whoa, that's a lot of dress.

- It is a lot of dress.

- Tilt it this way
so you can see it.

so you stand here.

And just make sure
that you're staring

at the camera into the mirror.

Elliott knew that I had modeled
a number of years ago.

It was something
that he asked me to do,

and I thought "Well, why not?

It'll be fun."

- Okay, go.

Ready?

Anne, will you step six inches
forward towards the mirror?

Right after that light goes off,
you turn to look at Teddy.

Three, two, one.

Perfect.

I wanted it to be very mannered,
very artificial,

very posed and theatrical.

Three, two, one.

I wanted the image to be about
her relationship to the mirror

and the mirror as a picture
within a picture.

Three, two, one.

- I'm not afraid of bringing
the character to the image.

I enjoy that,

And I think that Elliott
feels comfortable with that

and maybe inspired by that.

- Great, Anne.

- I also enjoy the fact that I'm
helping create a work of art.

To me, it's wonderful.

- Perfect.

We made it.

Let's do several of those.

And keep changing the way
that you do it.

That's perfect.

- I remember seeing myself
in the museum in San Francisco.

That's quite a feeling.

You're looking at a painting and think,
"Oh, my goodness, that's me."

[ laughs ]

Turning or not turning?

- Not turning, let's try that.

- I believe in him as an artist.

- Three, two, one.

- I feel that I've been a part
of his growth too,

which is amazing.

- The photo shoot is so elaborate
but not because I want a certain effect

but because actually I want
to not control the effects,

so that adds an air
of unexpected results.

- That's amazing.

- Three, two, one.

Good, made it.

- Oh, what just happened?

- What happened?

- The power's out.

- Where are the ice machines
plugged up, y'all?

Uh-huh.

- I think it's that.

- I am laying down arbitrary color and drawings
and compositions,

some of which are taken from photographs
or even still lifes.

That's no good.

I consider them the underpaintings

of all the things
that I'm making for the show.

They're pretty developed,

because I want to start
the painting

with a picture already.

Slide it over there.

The first known collage
that I've read about

was made over a millennium ago.

Collage has been used
in so many different ways

for hundreds of years–

cutouts, silhouettes,
forms of scrapbooking.

Within the last 100 years,
it's become

one of the most relevant forms
of art making.

It is so important

because of the quantity of
images that are in our lives.

Intrinsically, it is our world.

It reflects our reality.

I'm just a natural hoarder
or collector.

Acquiring objects
is learning about objects.

- Elliott and I frequent
swap meets and thrift stores.

I work closely with him
on these large collages,

preparing materials.

- Everything you see here, it's
what we use for the sculpture,

from, like, you know, wood
to metal, plastic.

- Bits of paper that have been cut apart
and will be pinned into the surface

of these collages.

We can get this large collection
of materials like this

that we'll file away until we need it.

- Anyone who's ever put a stamp
on an envelope

or a note on the refrigerator

knows what it's like
to make a collage.

There's no esoteric technique.

I enjoy the transformative
aspect of collage.

You can take something cast off
and give it a new life.

I first went to rome in 1995
to study.

My school had this program
to go to Italy,

and I would have gone anywhere.

I was so ready to see the world
at that point.

Not only did I feel that very
immediate, intimate connection

with historical works of art;

I also found that sense of time
that I'd never encountered before.

I lived In this basement apartment,
but it happened to have a courtyard

with columns that were
over 2,000 years old.

because of that experience,
I'm always trying to layer in

a sense that the picture was built

over an extended period.

I selected several images
when I started working today.

I thought that these shapes
were, like, an effective way

to throw a really simple
patterning into the background.

I used it in a completely
different palette.

It's a very simple shape made with brushstrokes
that references a landscape.

I use these envelopes
as if they're tubes of paint,

like paint chips.

There is no perfect painting,

and there is
no perfect solution.

At any given moment,

there's ten pieces of paper
that I could pick up next,

and they would find their place,
and they would lead me

on a different path
to a different sort of picture.

I just have to trust that process.

In relinquishing some control,
it allows me some distance.

I start to feel like the artwork
is responding to me,

giving me something back,

or becoming something
that I never expected.

I enjoy that moment
of not recognizing my own hand.

- The most exciting aspect of this

was to see the choices
Elliott makes in a piece,

how he'll work on it
for a while

but feel comfortable
putting it aside

and coming back to it.

Things are a bit malleable.

They can change.

I think it's pretty brave

to be able
to change something up midway

and feel very comfortable
and fluid.

Elliott's a great teacher.

I think he does
a really good job

of finding people's strengths.

It's almost like working
with a choreographer.

I get notes from Elliott.

- Connect these two forms.

- Okay.

- Basically, build this...

- A lot of it is trying
to enhance or bring out

a lot of what's happening
on the surface.

We collage an image down
onto the carved piece

and then glue it down,

but a lot of color and detail
gets lost in that process,

oo we use a photograph
as a reference.

I was dazzled
by the amount of labor

that was put into a piece.

My family's lived
in North Carolina and Virginia

for as long as we know.

I was the first grandchild
and the first great-grandchild,

one young person
spending a lot of time

with about 20 people
who were much older than I was.

I'm sure that that affected me
from a young age.

The pieces of paper

that are just hanging
on the surface right now

are almost like sketches,
and they change constantly,

But I'm blocking out
potential compositions,

seeing what it would look like

if the color
of a certain section

went in a certain direction.

- I am gluing it, and by using
this little thing,

I'm just, like,
applying pressure,

making sure that it's,
you know, flat

and really well glued on
to the surface.

- The compositional structure
for this picture

is directly based on japanese
prints from the late 1800s–

the scale of the figure
within the picture,

the repetition of panels.

In Japanese triptychs,
the figures are distinct,

but because the composition
is divided in that way,

there is a feeling
of a sequence of events

unfolding frame to frame.

And another influence
of Japanese prints

is in the intricacy
of conflicting pattern

and the vibrancy of the color.

I first became interested
in Japanese prints

when I discovered the work
of kunisada, sort of mid-1800s.

When woodblock printing started,

there were fewer colors,
fainter and more simple.

As the form progressed,

the complexity of the images increased.

Very intricate patterns.

Often conflicting, brilliant colors.

They're so energetic, they're almost noisy.

Seeing a work in its ripest
point in development.

I think that it would be impossible

For some of those Kunisada triptychs

To get any more information in them.

I keep every photograph and
every material I've ever made.

I keep all of the pieces
that I remove from works of art.

When a work's complete,
I sweep the floor underneath

and put all the contents in a box
and put away in storage.

All of that material is ready to become
the beginning of new works in the future.

Ooh, that's good.

- Okay.

- I'll use both.

I grew up in a culture of saving.

I've come from a family
where every object has a story

and the object becomes meaningful.

Probably every attic and every
basement in my family

is full of all that junk.

My mother made costumes
for all of her kids,

but she also did it for a job,

for a local
costume rental place,

costumes for Halloween
or for the theater.

I was thinking about
all of the things

my mother and I
used to make together,

all sorts of crafts or ceramics
or dried flower arrangements

and definitely drawings.

She was teaching me
the joy of making things.

Maybe it kind of starts
right under that.

- Okay.

- But then remove this.

See her arm?

And then that and that
and this and this

and maybe some of that,
this, this.

It might go down that far.

Yeah, it will.

- Okay.

- I've always looked at
Rauschenberg and Twombly's work.

I have an intuitive relationship
to those artists.

The formal connection of my work
to Rauschenberg is apparent.

I think of the materials that
I use as being on a spectrum

from the identifiable found object
to the fictive illusion.

The fiction of a picture
is its transformation,

But to make that transformation compelling,
it still needs to be tethered to reality,

which is the found object.

- After the collage process,

Elliott will choose an image
to be carved into the collage.

In this case,
it was a broken window.

The piece will get carved,
things sort of change and alter,

and then Elliott will choose an image
to be embroidered onto the carved surface.

The collage is placed on foam,
and then that allows us to carve into the surface.

It looks very much like a canvas.

- I call it embroidery.

It's just pinning one string with one pin
to a painting,

almost like the surface of a tapestry.

You follow that train of thought
until the entire surface is covered.

A lot of the embroideries
are actually my own paintings

translated into a new material.

- I'd read a book about Bernini.

He was a sculptor.

He was an architect.

He also had a large studio, and
he worked with other artisans.

It was interesting
to come in here soon afterwards

and work with Elliott

and see that there's sort of a
continuation of that tradition.

- I'm trying to keep
the embroidery in the middle

for most of these pieces,

'cause it's such a concentrated
sense of activity,

almost a metaphor
for a sense of focus.

As you move towards
the perimeter of the picture,

things are moving
into your peripheral vision.

I am really thinking of them
not only as pictures within pictures

but almost like setting a stage.

You can pan out further away

and have a sense
of the wings of the theatre

or the table
that the piece was made on.

Initially, I was just working in painting.

That led me to work in collage.

The ideas that I had about collage
led me to incorporate straight pins,

which meant that I stepped
into sculpture.

As those ideas grew, I followed
my train of thought

and disregarded
making a distinction

about what's a painting
or a sculpture.

Everything that I make,

I really try to take the attitude

that they could be finished
at any moment.

You have to think that way,

because at some point,
you have to stop.

I put the work in the gallery
to show evidence

of the entirety of the life
of its making.

No mystery is lost.

It's all here.

Every technique is self-evident.

There's no secrets.