OURSPACE

Fig. 1: Vanessa Casal-Dominguez, Untitled, 2009. Painting on carved MDF. CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Graham Coulter-Smith: Vanessa could you tell us the background to the works we are illustrating here?

Vanessa Casal-Dominguez: They stem from my experience of climbing mountains. The very first time that I started climbing we went walking up Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England. It was a hard climb and when we were getting halfway up the mountain it became steeper almost vertical, and I tripped a few times, then we had to begin climbing rather than walking.

GCS: Did you have climbing gear?

VCD: No, because we didn’t know it would be so steep. So we went to one behind the other, some of us had experienced climbing and so there was some help. When we got to the top we had a rest. It was a cloudy day and was still cloudy when we reached the top which was a shame because from that high view we could have seen everything around us. But when we started coming down the sky opened up and we could see the lake, the mountains and the greenery.

GCS: You told me last semester that climbing Scafell you had a sense of impending death, was that through fear?

VCD: It was joy and fear and adrenaline all in one. It was a mixture of emotions I had never experienced before. I felt more alive than ever before when I was up there.

GCS: So could you tell us about the work illustrated here (Fig. 1)?

VCD: Before that painting (Fig. 1), which is on carved MDF, I produced some paintings on canvas about the experience of climbing and when I did that I felt like I was in the painting. I felt like the painting was part of me. So from that experience I decided to develop the painting process further by carving on MDF in order to convey the brutal lines of what I was climbing up, and tripping over stones. I was just trying to express what I felt because it was hard, it was exciting, and it was an overwhelming sense of achievement when we got up to the top.  And so all the paintings in this series have a great significance to me.

GCS: Why is it painted in greyscale?

VCD: Because of the day, it was cloudy. It probably looks quite depressing but for me it is not. The whiteness brings it out of that.

GCS: What about the next version (Fig. 2)?

Fig. 2: Vanessa Casal-Dominguez, Untitled, 2009. Painting on vacuum formed plastic panels.

VCD: This shows the long landscape approach I am taking now in my paintings. It is painted vacuum formed plastic moulded onto a carving I made in balsa wood. It is more of an experiment because I didn’t like the effect of the plastic. But in my next work I am going back to using carved and painted MDF which will be in a very long line intended to be a large, “life-sized” experience. It will be so large, 8 x 4 foot, that it is going to be intimidating when the viewer comes in to the room.

GCS: So the viewer can either look at it from a distance or walk along it?

VCD: I want to exhibited in a way so that the viewer begins by seeing it from a distance. If they came in closer I don’t think it would have the same impact. I have tested the effect a number of times and I think this is the best way to present it. From a distance it is quite intimidating because you can see that it’s bigger than you and as you go up to it you will see it is a carving, so it will look like a physical landscape. I also find the process of carving quite therapeutic so everything about this artwork is a source of enjoyment for me.

GCS: How are you doing the carving?

VCD: I am using a small sander so some of the edges are rough and some of them are smooth like a landscape.

 
Fig. 3: Vanessa Casal-Dominguez, Untitled, 2009. Oil on canvas. Fig. 4: angled detail of Fig. 3 
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

GCS: What about the completely grey painting (Figs. 3 and 4) is that about Scafell too?

VCD: No it’s referring to a big hill outside of Stoke-on-Trent called Cloud. It goes so high that you can walk up into the clouds if you get to the top. When I went the day was so miserable that I was sitting in the clouds and so this work is my way of expressing that experience. I also think the painting looks almost like water and when you get close you can see the fine white line blends at the end with the grey. I quite like that effect. My inspiration came from Monet’s Waterlilies. Another influence was Michal Rovner who took a photograph of the dead Sea with people floating in it. She altered the image and it almost looks as if they are dead but there is a entirely different story behind it: the people are simply enjoying themselves.

GCS So the monochrome may seem depressing but it is really a joyful experience?

VCD: That’s definitely part of it. Another inspiration came from Gerhard Richter who did a mass of paintings that were black and white. In one he just painted lines going down and liked that painting. Another influence is Mark Rothko’s black series. They look like they are black but they are not. it’s actually different shades of black, you have to look closely to see the difference. I went to his survey exhibition at Tate modern [in 2008], I actually went there twice. Looking at the work in reproduction and looking at these paintings in the flesh is completely different. He had a lot of problems and think he was trying to put them in his paintings to try and express himself. So the whole idea of me trying to express my climbing experience seems to have a link with that

GCS: You mean that you identified with Rothko’s monochrome paintings in a way that goes beyond the formal?

VCD: Yes I see beyond just the painting. The background to Rothko’s black series is that he was comissioned to produce works for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York. This is probably because his work was seen as decorative at the time. But he did not like being seen that way. So he wanted to annoy the people who went to the restaurant, which is why he did this really morbid series. I found that quite funny

GCS: Do you think that Richter also puts feelings into his work?

VCD: I saw a documentary on Richter they say that he said that he just liked to paint, that is the meaning behind it, he just enjoys doing it.

GCS: So it’s just pure process, does that relate to your work?

VCD: I like to think that my work has process as well: going from painting and developing into different types of material and scales. Yes, so my work is about process too.

GCS: But you are also trying to get over this idea of the experiences of climbing that you had.

VCD: Definitely, as well as being a process it also has much more meaning to me.

GCS: It is also related to a particular environment which you are trying to convey to the viewer, but you are also transposing it into something else. So the question arises if it stems from the experience of mountain climbing why have you begun using a long landscape format?

VCD: The long striped paintings are abstract landscapes about climbing Scafell and the reason why they are horizontal like landscape is because if these carved paintings were vertical they would look like a tree trunk and lose significance. So it’s important that it is horizontal like a landscape. I changed the concept of the original experience in order to convey that experience.

GCS. Returning to the theme of death which you touched upon in your experience on Scafell and references to Rovner and Rothko one can note that there is a certain melancholy inherent in the monochrome and greyscale which also relates to Richter who has treated some pretty melancholy themes such as Baader-Meinhof and the serial murder of nurses. Then the other reference of black and white is to photography which also relates to Richter. That seems to refer to another transposition in your work which takes the form of the angled photographs you take of your paintings. Why do you take those angled photographs?

  
Fig. 5 and 6: Vanessa Casal-Dominguez, photographs of carved paintings taken at angles
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

VCD: I wanted to give a sense of scale and perspective.

GCS: So you are trying to get the idea of being up on the mountain

VCD: Yes

GCS: These perspectival photographs of your paintings become works of art in themselves and they can give a sense of vertigo that relates to your climbing. Would you also consider making a painting using that kind of perspective?

 
Fig. 7 Vanessa Casal-Dominguez, painting-in-progress, 2009. Fig. 8 angled photograph of Fig. 7.

VCD: If I had time I would but have got to think about the degree show, but it would be interesting to make a painting like the photographs. I also took other photographs like that of the grey woodcarving painting I am working on now (Fig. 7).  I found one photograph (Fig. 8) quite interesting because it looks like a long road. It reminded me of American films in which you see people driving in the desert and it just goes on forever. And there are so many directions and shades it looks mountain-like. It reminds me of the Alps or wind-blown snow.

GCS: Have you thought of combining the paintings with the photographs?

VCD: I am trying to do that now because I spent ages looking at the paintings and the photographs, comparing them and thinking about that.

GCS: The photography is especially effective on your MDF paintings because you do not get the canvas texture which gives the game away. The MDF paintings are more like a model which makes the photographs look as if you are photographing some kind of landscape. Do you prefer the photographs to the paintings?

VCD: I like the paintings best, but the photographs say something else.

GCS: You mentioned process, and what is interesting is that these paintings are also sculptural, and so you dealing with quite a few different forms: photography, painting and sculpture: lots of different transpositions of the same concept.

VCD: Absolutely because using these different medias can tell you something completely different about the same work.

Faculty of Arts, Media and Design; Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, 26 March 2009.