Natalie Fisk
Natalie Fisk is a Mexican American artist living and working in the Hudson Valley. She received her BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2011, has attended the Vermont Studio Center Residency, and has been showing her work nationally for over 15 years. Her curation has been mentioned in the New York Times, Hyperallergic, and Bushwick Daily.
Fisk makes sculptures, drawings, and paintings that utilize the symbol of Papel Picado to draw attention to the experiences that have marked her life. Papel Picado, a decorative craft made by cutting elaborate designs into sheets of tissue paper, are used for joyous celebrations but carry an inherent violence because of the cutting or carving required for their creation. This metaphor allows Fisk to engage in various personal dialogues; about the grief she feels over the self erasure of her culture required to exist within white spaces, the loss of a pregnancy, and loss of identity due to perfection anxiety.
PP: What do you aim to say through your work?
NF: I think a better way to frame this question might be, What moves your art practice forward? I just don’t approach my practice with this sense that there is something in particular I’m trying to communicate. It leaves the door open for one to read your response and then determine for themselves if you’re accomplishing your aims or not - which inherently makes a lot of space for each person’s implicit biases.
All that aside, my process of making work is often an attempt to answer questions I have of and for myself. I’m creating work to make things that I enjoy or to feel one step closer to an answer. Over the last six years I’ve been trying to understand the relationship between grief and joy by utilizing the symbol of Papel Picado. These Mexican banners are used in celebration but it’s necessary to cut shapes out in order for them to be complete. I wonder how this metaphor relates to a human experience of loss, trauma, and prolonged grief and what that means for my own relationship with the idea of joy or happiness.
There’s an iterative process to the work that begins with a loose sketch based on a narrative from my life. That design is then cut out and turned into Papel Picado. The Papel Picado is then staged in a still life fashion and photographed. The photos from these stagings are used to compose a painting. Each stage of the process allows me to compare the emotive qualities of the narrative to the materiality of the work. I’m curious about what overlaps occur, where new emotions grow in the work, and how the creation of the works alter my understanding of their truth.
Stop, Listen, 2022
PP: What does your studio practice look like?
NF: I spend a lot of time each week in my studio while streaming on Twitch. It’s totally changed my understanding of what it means to be in community with others while I’m making art. I do spend some studio nights on my own, but I really enjoy being in conversation while I make decisions about my work. Often, the conversation has nothing to do with art, which can be a great way to disconnect from the seriousness of it all and brings a lot of joy and laughter in my studio. It’s been a great experiment to understand how your practice can grow when you share all the nuanced details with others.
One aspect I think about is the idea of isolation and its relationship to an artist's life. I question what is necessary about isolation in particular, perhaps the quietness is helpful to the thinking part of art making, but I’ve never struggled with having big thoughts in the company of others. Often, it’s my company with others that moves me, and in turn, my practice forward. I’ve never really enjoyed being in my studio alone. A lot of the trauma I experienced as a child left me feeling isolated, so for me, there are no medals to be won for spending copious amounts of studio time alone.
Stop, Listen, 2022
PP: Do you work in collaboration with other artists/ creators and how so?
NF: If I’m being honest I’ve never intentionally made room in my art practice to collaborate with others in terms of making art objects. I get immense joy from talking to artists about what they’re passionate about, generally I love talking to anyone about something they enjoy. I find there’s a lot of space to brainstorm in these conversations, the communication itself is the collaboration, as it often activates an internal agency that leads to various actions in life. Collaborating on a show or project is a bit different though, I’m happy to collaborate on curatorial expectations and that sort of thing.
Authenticities, 2020
PP: What is your process for critiquing your own work?
NF: I think a better way to frame this question would be to ask; How do you determine if a work is successful or not? Using the term critique can imply utilizing western art making ideologies when assessing a work - and I just don’t limit myself that way.
For me a lot of the success is determined in the process of a work’s execution. Did the work feel exciting, motivate, or initiate another idea for a future work? Or, did I force myself through it, feeling resistance the entire way? How did those feelings impact the final work? If the goal of a work is to move closer to an answer to a question, then do I feel like the work is providing some sort of shape of an answer? If a work inspires a new body of work, then perhaps that is success. Or, even better, does the work pose a different question? That is the most successful in my mind.
Other examples might be; Can the work stand alone, yet also fit in with its respective series? Is the color operating in harmony? Does it have a sense of disbelief in its finished state? I like to make art that’s hard to digest or see, because it feels hard for me to create at times, so it should be hard for the viewer also. I like work that is puzzling, I want people to try to pick it apart, or try to solve it by looking at it in some way. All my favorite artists make work that requires a sort of problem solving skill when I see their work in person. Like, how did you get here? What journey were you on that led to this visual aesthetic?
Stop, Listen, 2022