An Interview with David Kassan
June 17, 2010 by Larry Groff
http://paintingperceptions.com/contemporary-realism/an-interview-with-david-kassan
David Jon Kassan (Born 1977) is a contemporary realist painter best known for his life-size realist portraits. The paintings combine figurative subjects with abstract background textures he says are inspired by such painters as Franz Kline and Robert Rauschenberg. Kassan says, “my effort to constantly learn to document reality with a naturalistic, representational painting technique allows for pieces to be inherent contradictions; paintings that are both real and abstract.” (from his wiki page)
I met David in person a couple of times a few years ago and we have keep in touch online. He agreed to do an interview with me to talk about his work, his approach to painting, his new drawing DVD and his recently getting to meet with Antonio Lopez Garcia in Madrid. At the end of the article I’ve also embeded a you tube video interview done with him a year ago and another video showing him giving a demo in Portugal. The audio recording that we made of our skype call was of poor quality for technical reasons and I decided to omit posting the audio version of the interview.
David Kassan currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches painting classes and workshops at various institutions around the world. He received his B.F.A. in 1999 from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY where he studied with Jerome Witkin. He continued his studies at The National Academy, and the Art Students League of New York, both in Manhattan. He is currently represented by Gallery Henoch in New York His work has received widespread attention and acclaim and a number of articles and reviews has been written about him, many can be read from this link.
Larry Groff:
David Kassan. Thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview and to share some of your thoughts about your painting and your drawing and your new DVD.
David Kassan:
Thanks.
Larry Groff:
What does working from observation offer you that other sources don’t? I understand that you primarily work from observation, I understand, right?
David Kassan:
Not completely. It all depends on the availability of the models. Actually I’ve been learning how both photography and observation can help a painting, in a lot of aspects. Within photography you can actually see the subtlety that you will tend to exaggerate or miss with observation alone.
What is important about observation is that you get that connection with the model, where you actually can understand who this person in front of you is, With a lot of my sessions I end up talking to the model way too much so that I can learn about them. I really want that interaction, so I try to figure out as much as I can about their life, it’s important to me that the paintings are about that person and not about being a painting.
I strive to make the technique disappear, so you are thinking more about the model’s expression and emotion rather than the movement of a brushstroke… You have the viewer and you have the subject of the piece, and I want nothing in between that connection. I don’t want paint to get in the way of that. I want the paint to prop up this person to be seen, so you can feel their emotion more tangibly and they are in your space.
So, that’s kind of the main goal of my work. And I don’t think I would get that if I just took a photograph of a person and painted it.
Now, I’ll have a lot of sessions, sometimes, if I can’t get a person to pose throughout the entire piece. I would have three hours, six hours to just draw them, understand who they are, and I’ll carry that forward with photography. So it fills in the gaps.
Larry Groff:
The next question leads into that. You sort of beat me to the punch. Many painters working from life tend to show the hand of the artist in their brushstrokes or painterly texture of the surface. Like many photo-realists, you seem to de-emphasize the presence of the artist in your painting. Maybe you can continue on the vein you were just talking about, and we’ll sort of join those two questions together, about the virtues of observation, and why do you de-emphasize it. What’s so bad about expressive brushwork?
David Kassan:
I don’t think there’s anything bad about it. There are actually, really, good contemporary artists that paint in the tradition of Velasquez, Zorn and Sargent. A number of my friends paint very painterly. And they’re about being painters. And they add to that rich tradition. I’m in awe of their work on a daily basis, but its just not where my head is right now.
And I don’t really think of myself as a photo-realist, either. I’m not trying to make my work look like photographs, we’re all artist, we all kinda of take offense to that, in a way, when people tell you that your piece looks like a photograph, and you know that they mean it as a compliment, they are comparing what they know as their example of 2 dimensional reality.
And I don’t really think of myself as a photo-realist, either. I’m not trying to make photographs, we’re all painters, we kind of take offense to that, in a way, when people tell you that your piece looks like a photograph, and you’re like…
And I’ll show people an image of my work, and they’ll be like, “Well, that’s a photograph. It looks like a photograph.”
I’m like, “Well, it is a photograph, a photograph of my painting.” You know? So it’s hard to really feel the tactile surface of a real painting. And that’s what I really want in my pieces, I want to make them more real than a photograph, more real than almost even a painting, because I try to build up the surfaces and textures and the background to kind of mimic what is in real life. The unfortunate thing that we deal with today is that everything is viewed on either the internet or in reproduction and few people will really see a painting of mine in real life. And I want these works to be art objects. I see Rauschenberg as a realist artist.
Rauschenberg would actually take things off the street, almost in an Arte Povera kind of sense and just bring it into an art gallery, that was, he was a realist. You know what I mean?
Then think of abstraction. But everyone … How can you get more real than bringing something off the street and putting it into the gallery? And then painting into that? You really can’t.
So I kind of like to take that kind of concept, but actually paint it and create it by hand, so that it feels like that tactile surface that is actually its inspiration; where you could run the finger down the side of a painting and you would have those, little pock marks in the painting and texture and be able to scratch at it. And you see this kind of history of the marks and layers that are involved in the surface. I really want my paintings to have weight to them.
And it just looks like it’s been worked and weathered and kind of destroyed and then brought back to life. I want that same kind of feeling with the figures as well. And it’s just a lot of careful handling, as opposed to something quick. And I want the experience of these people infused into the piece, rather than having a brushstroke that distracts.
I don’t want to be negative towards painterly paintings in any way, shape or form. It’s just like a conceptual thing for what I want in my work.
Larry Groff:
Right.
David Kassan:
And I love to see early Antonio López Garcia works, where it’s just blocking in large masses. It’s real painterly and beautiful. You know, and I love lots of painters, like Jerome Witkin, and how he expresses everything, especially a pieces psychological power from his use of different brush work.
For my work, its a little bit more internalized where I want it to be the psychological power of the figure, as opposed to the medium used to create it. It’s kind of a different approach.
Larry Groff:
That’s one thing, David, about the Internet is that it’s, sometimes, over the computer, it’s difficult to see that subtlety
David Kassan:
Oh, yeah. Definitely.
Larry Groff:
… you know, I think that’s true for many, many painters. And sometimes it seems like it interferes with how people judge the work, sometimes. They judge the work less on it’s objectness, you know, and the various visual qualities that you see the actual painting, and more just on how kind of photo-realistically correct it might seem.
David Kassan:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think it’s just the nature of the beast. I think about what the percentage of people, you think, that actually see our paintings in real life? That’s the thing that kills me. Everyone will give me compliments on my paintings, which is really nice, and I have, I believe, a really good support system of friends and everything, But I don’t know how many of them have actually seen one of my pieces in real life. It’s interesting. Maybe 5 percent of people?
David Kassan:
Maybe less? It’s really kind of interesting, especially with the way today’s media is. I mean, I think seeing pieces before we see them in real life kind of spoils them, before you see them in real life. Imagine only seeing The Raft of the Medusa by Gericault in reproduction, and not being able to see it in real life, that would be so sad. Because when you see that painting in real life, it’s the size of a movie screen. You fall into the piece, it’s so realistic, you know? And so lifelike.
Larry Groff:
That’s interesting. Well, I’ve seen your work, and it does have a really rich surface to it. The texture is really incredible, but it’s difficult to see it as readily online. You really have to see it in person to get the full effect. But, anyway, let’s move onto the next question.
Many of your larger figure paintings have a look of gritty, urban textures and graffiti that suggest abstract paintings, such as those by Robert Rauschenberg or perhaps Franz Kline. Your figures have remarkable level of solidity and weight to their form which contrasts to the flatness of these backgrounds. The shallow space between the figure in the background almost starts to lend the figure a kind of trompe l’oeil illusion from what I’ve seen.
Is there some statement here about the illusion of space and realism versus the celebration of flatness you often see in abstraction? Can you tell us more about what you’re thinking about with your figures against these backgrounds?
David Kassan:
This is a great question.
Really I just want to paint what interests me and I’m very interested in the contrasts of a painting. The flatness and the three-dimensional qualities of things. Abstraction, and realism. And I wanted to find a way to get things together in the same picture plane. And it’s almost limiting in some respects, because I can’t do genre scenes or anything like that. I’m limited in the spatial dimension. And sometimes, as I’m trying to figure out a little bit more, well, I don’t know if I’m making a statement, at all. I don’t think my work is really about statements at all.
I could do the same painting a hundred times, the same format, with different models and be completely happy because it’s really about researching the model. And the backgrounds are more based on the environment where I live and the stuff that interests me about finding these found abstractions in nature and documenting them in paint.
Kind of like the found objects concept from Marcel Duchamp with ready made objects but finding things in nature that I find, or not in nature. There’s not much nature where I live in Brooklyn, but there are signs and typography that is worn down and there is design in all of this, formal elements. Combining that within a painting of the figure is really interesting and challenging to me. And then the level of painting that realistically and giving a tangible realness to these formalistic elements, really interests me as well.
So it’s got a lot of different little strata to it. But the figures, I do want that trompe l’oeil feel. I really strive for that, because I want the figures to be life size. All my paintings are life size. I want them to occupy the same space as the viewer, so that they seem more real.
So that again, with that tactile quality of the abstraction, it’s almost making the abstraction kind of real, because of the tactile feel that people can actually feel it. And they kind of can have a sense of place, even though they don’t know what or where it is. And it’s completely broken up typography, drips, stains, and graffiti.
So everything, the background is being rigid with the typography that’s broken up versus the roundness of the figure, with flatness versus the dimension of the figure. Its really an almost jarring kind of contrast that brings the figure forward. And I think that having that space is helpful to that. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue with this or if I’m going to evolve away from it…
…but I used to be a graphic designer, and I used to do everything in two dimensions. And when I would design websites, I would think about them as being abstract paintings, except with text in them.
When I started designing I would do designs for designers, using cool abstractions and compositions that had nothing to do with the information that I was supposed to be presenting, I was horrible, but it was a lot of fun. I quickly learned how to make the design subordinate to the information and have the sites more balances between the info and design. So all the designs are getting a lot simpler.
I mean, it’s very interesting. The more I learn about the Internet, the more simplified and sophisticated my site gets with the design and everything. I just want people to get easy access to all of the information. And I kind of feel that way with my paintings, too. It’s almost like a less is more kind of quality … that I kind of grew up with when I worked full-time. And I feel like all of this is just kind of, finally becoming like the sum of these crazy experiences that I’ve had of being a designer for a while, and then learning how to paint, then going through the wringer of the Art Student’s League, and the National Academy. And then being a follower of all these amazing painters and trying to digest how awesome they are at what they do, and how each one has an individual voice. And how does one get that voice? So it’s kind of like I guess it’s just by doing it now. I don’t know.
See, I always get off-topic towards the end of the answer.
Larry Groff:
It’s good. It leads into the next question very well. I read in your blog where you got to spend a couple of hours personally meeting Antonio López Garcia when you were visiting in Madrid recently. Can you tell us more about this meeting? Did you get to show him your work? Please tell us everything.
David Kassan:
Oh, man. That was a really strange moment in my life. I had friend from Madrid who studied with me for three months here in New York. So when he first told me that he was from Madrid, I was like, “Oh, Madrid. Do you know Antonio López?” as if it was a small town.
He’s like, “No, I don’t know him. but my girlfriend’s family lived next to a couple that posed for him,” and everything. And he’s super famous in Madrid, and everybody knows who he is. And they talk about him on TV shows, and everything. And he’s kind of like a celebrity over there.
So I was like, “Oh, that’s awesome.” So I quizzed him about everything that he knew about Garcia, because the guy’s paintings are just unbelievable, and I’ve got tremendous respect for how long he spends on the pieces, as well as his sense of observation of the areas, and his sense of not doing a painting half-assed. Even if he’s not going to finish it, he’s going to put everything into it, you know? And that is just mind-blowingly honest and truthful and just the epitome of everything I would like to be some day as an artist.
But anyway, my friend said if you ever come to Madrid, he would try to put me in contact with Garcia. He said that he would figure out a way. You know, we’ll make it happen he would say. And you know, we’re just friends, and he’s one of my students. So I was like, “That’s cool, man. Right on. That will never happen, but thanks” You know?
And so, I decided to go to Spain last summer, and visit Madrid for the first time. I had been to Portugal the year before and couldn’t make it up to Madrid but was able to visit Seville.
Anyway, the next year I was like, Well, I’m definitely going to Madrid, because I was going back to Portugal. This time I flew into Madrid for five days and then filtered my way down to Portugal for a teaching job that I was doing down there. And my friend said, “Oh, you know…” Right before I flew in, he had told me that, “Garcia’s not in town. I thought we had contact with him and stuff, but he’s not going to be around, so I’m sorry, but maybe he’ll be back the week after and then we could meet him.” I was going to be in Portugal at that time and was bummed.
And I was like, “Well, you know what? If you could get something set up, I will actually get on a train and figure out a way up there. I’ll take a donkey. I mean, I’ll do anything to go to see this guy.”You know, even just a little bit of time, being just in his presence, you know, just to pick his brain. And so, my friend said, “Well, he’s not going to be in town.” I was like, “Okay cool, thanks for helping out anyway”
So anyways, I made the most of my trip in Madrid. Got to see all the paintings that Garcia had at the Reina Sofia. The sculptures and the drawings that he has there, in that room. And then I was actually able to study at the Prado a lot. And I was drawing in the Prado one day, feeling really exhausted and kind of sweaty. It was really hot summer.
And my friend called me up on the phone and said, “Listen. There’s a woman that we know who is an art dealer/art collector and she loves your work, and would love to meet you.” And I’m like, “That’s kind of cool.”
He’s like, “Can you be out front of the Prado. We’ll pick you up at seven and we’ll go over there.” I’m like “Okay.” And I asked if I, “Should wear a button-up shirt?” because I was like all sweaty, in a t-shirt and everything. He said, “Oh, no. Don’t worry about it.” I’m like, “Really? I wanted to be dressed halfway decently, you know, instead of like total ugly American, whatever, being out in Europe.
He goes, “No, no. It’s really important that we’re there on time as opposed to what you look like.” So I was like that’s cool.
So we are in a neighborhood part of Madrid and my buddy says “Oh, remember where I told you Garcia lived the other day?” And I went, “Oh, yeah.”
“Oh, he lives three blocks that way,” and as we’re going past this one road I’m like, “Oh, okay, that’s crazy. Can you stop?: It’s kind of what I wanted, just to be in front of his house. And my friend’s like, “No, no. We’re running really late for our appointment.”
So we get to this hacienda. I think that’s what they call it in Spain’s real Spanish. And he’s buzzing on the outside of the gate. And he gets this women’s voice. And he’s kind of getting upset, after he gets on the intercom. We finally get buzzed through, and we walk into this garden. And there’s actually Garcia sculpture studies in the garden and everything looks very familiar to me.
Larry Groff:
Oh, right, right.
David Kassan:
I’m think that she is a collector and that she has a few of Garcia’s pieces. I mean, she lives in Madrid. She lived only ten blocks away from Garcia. Of course, she’s got his work. You know?
So we walk in. We go up the steps of the modest house and there’s a woman waiting at a door who’s wearing a simple, gray dress, house dress. I thought that this must be the woman’s housekeeper or something? But Something looks really familiar about that woman.
So we walk in and my friend Borja who had set this whole thing up starts talking to her, kind of passionately and he’s kind of a little worried. He’s scratching his head, and he’s like what’s going on. And then the woman calls over to some place. She talks on the phone with someone. And then she comes back to Borja and then he’s like, “Ah, ah, ah. okay. That makes sense. That makes perfect sense.”
And then he turns to me and he says, “We’ve got it.” I’m like, “We’ve got what?” He’s says, “We’re here.” I’m like, “I’m where?” He said, “You’re in Antonio’s house.”, “I am?” And then I start looking around at all the artwork and there’s actually like one of the bronze busts that’s in his book on the table in front of me. And a couple of the paintings of his wife are actually on the wall. And his wife is the one in the simple dress. And she comes like right into focus, because I’m like, Wow. She looks just like the paintings. And I had this weird feeling when I walked into the house like I had actually been there before… based on just seeing his art, which is really amazing. You know how you get that when you go to people’s studios …
Larry Groff:
Sure.
David Kassan:
… where you kind of know the space based on the work that is made there? I kind of felt that way about just being in his house, which is incredible.
Larry Groff:
Well, you saw the movie, right, ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnTQHf1E74c”>El Sol Del Membrillo )
David Kassan:
Anyway, so what I’m trying to say is that … Yeah, I saw the movie, but it’s a different house.
Larry Groff:
Oh, that was a different house.
David Kassan:
It’s a completely …. Studio.
Larry Groff:
Oh, I see.
David Kassan:
Yes. It’s a different house and different studio that he’s got. It might be the same home. I think that’s actually in his hometown where he’s from Tomolsoso or something. I don’t know the Spanish.
David Kassan:
But anyway, it’s like a small town outside of Madrid. So, it was like weird. It was as if I had this fog lifted from my head and this was the biggest surprise ever in my life.
David Kassan:
And they started saying, “Antonio’s not here. He’s actually in the studio, and so that’s why my friend was kind of bummed out. I mean he was afraid that they didn’t know about the appointment and that I would have heard what she had said on the intercom, because she had said about Antonio not being there, but I wasn’t paying attention at all. And that the surprise would have been ruined as well as out meeting. And so he said, “Antonio’s at the studio, but it’s right up the street, and we’re going to go hang out with him.” And I was amazed. So I ran to the car and got my video camera out and just started filming, which, when we went to the studio, he actually let me film two hours of our conversation while we were hanging out there.
David Kassan:
Unfortunately, I didn’t see much of the artwork in the studio. We were mostly in the kitchen. And he’s been doing a painting for the Royal Family, actually in the palace. Which I guess means they’re sitting for him, because he doesn’t do anything that’s not from life. So that’s pretty unbelievable.
Yeah, so we talked about two hours. Now the problem is, I don’t speak Spanish. I can only pick up like some of the words, so I’m going to basically take the video and translate it and still haven’t had time to do so. My friends are still over there and haven’t translated it yet for me. It’s been like eight or nine months.
Yeah, so we talked about two hours. Now the problem is, I don’t speak Spanish. I can only pick up like some of the words, so I’m going to basically take the video and translate it and still haven’t had… My friends are still over there and haven’t translated it yet for me. It’s been like eight or nine months.
David Kassan:
So I’m still working on that. But I got a lot out of it because my friend would basically translate and tell me what was going on. In some cases, Antonio just wants figurative art to become more in fashion. And actually, he wants to be more of a figurative painter now that’s what he was saying as opposed to doing landscapes, which I thought was interesting.
He also mentioned how… He knows he’s not going to finish his paintings at all, and that he has started so many of them that he just wants to start now … I don’t want to totally misquote him because I didn’t know the exact gist of everything. But he said the Spanish don’t tend to appreciate figurative painting as much and that the U.S. is actually really farther ahead now, because of all the schools that are opening up for studying perceptual painting and observational painting.
So that was interesting. And I showed him paintings that I had done just (looking at them) on my iPhone, and he seemed to like them, and he was very complimentary.
And yeah. I was blown away, I guess. I mean, I’ve been very lucky in being able to meet all my favorite painters, like Israel Hershberg. I’m trying to go study with him. once I find time to do it. And also, I studied with Jerome Witkin when I was in college, which was definitely a treat, and definitely an interesting experience. And I love like how different each of these artists are with their individual personalities and approaches. I’ve learned so much from them. I also want to study with Vincent Desiderio. I haven’t met him yet. I’d love to talk with him.
Yes. I’ve been very, very lucky. Because Garcia is like a myth, to me. This guy didn’t exist, because who else can actually spend that long on a painting, you know? Who can be that patient with how he works, and that, it’s like legend.
Larry Groff:
Your recent DVD Drawing Closer to Life (link to his DVD website) documenting an approach to drawing is a terrific production. I found it very informative and engaging throughout. Your eclectic approach to materials, the intensity of observation, and making it all seem like great fun has inspired me to do more drawing.
One thing that particularly stood out for me was your continually reinforcing the need to keep the drawing open, to change, and that the drawing itself is mainly a process of constant revision and correction as you gradually move from the larger forms to the smallest details.
Can you say more about your approach to drawing and tell us more about why we would want to get your DVD? Or anything about your DVD?
David Kassan:
Oh, no, I don’t want this to be like an ad for the DVD.
Larry Groff:
No, no.
David Kassan:
My idea for the DVD was, to conceptualize the process and I named it Drawing Closer to Life because I feel like—and I don’t think I describe this, actually, in the video, in what got, it might be on the cutting room floor actually, which I should have totally included—was this concept of getting to know somebody within a drawing for me. I idea that you don’t know very much about this person, really, if it’s not a family member or someone you are close to, that you’re drawing. It’s somebody that you’ve just met for the first time.
So you see them from a mile away. And they’re all blurry. And you get that kind of cerebral haze… Everything’s atmospheric and everything’s a haze because you don’t actually know them… I’m trying to think, intellectually you don’t know anything about this person. You don’t know anything about their life. And that’s the stuff I feel is really important within just trying to catch them in a drawing… their personality, expression and emotion.
So intellectually and also visually, you don’t really know much about them. So this concept of drawing for me is almost like researching and trying to find out about the person. So, the idea is that they’re a mile away, they’re completely blurry, and that if it takes fifteen hours for that person to walk that mile, closer to you, each time they take a step closer, they come more into focus, and you learn more about that person and about their life, and that kind of filters into what you’re doing on the paper.
And drawing for me is, and painting, actually … I don’t know. I mean, I’m concerned a little bit about with the product, I guess, or how the drawing comes out, but for me, in life in general, is I just want to be observant of my time here, you know? Of just being around and having a record of everything I see and observe and what I find interesting.
And having this person in the studio that you’re learning about, when I draw, I want it to be started out very hazy, very broad, very blurry and then it starts coming into focus again as they walk closer and as I learn more about the person. So it’s always kept open. You kind of have to have that time period with the person to understand them and to research things.
And even if that’s just learning the shapes… of how mundane things like the angles of how the mouth go or … That’s why I use the binoculars, to zoom in on these large masses to find out where they actually meet, how the angles are, and how to actually see things correctly and clearly. Because the seeing is the most important part to developing an understanding of this person in front of us, and kind of understanding how we see is real interesting to me… being awake and constantly engaging with the world around us.
About the DVD though is it’s … I didn’t … It was really hard to keep it down to three hours and I really tried to make a resource for people where they could understand exactly what I’m thinking about, no matter how dumb stupid and funny and goofy the thoughts are while I’m drawing.
So I’m always constantly engaged with the person when I’m drawing and within the drawing, to be where I’m asking myself, really, just simple questions, such as… is this longer or shorter? Is this lighter or darker? and while I’m looking for the answers to these questions that the model has, usually the person in the studio is talking back with me.
So this is kind of weird, is to actually have him be quiet while I draw him, which is … it was kind of odd, actually. I don’t think I did the best drawing because of that. I think I would have liked to learn more about him as I was drawing. Since then, I’ve drawn Henry a lot of more times and I’ve learned a lot more about him …
Larry Groff:
He seemed like a great model.
David Kassan:
He’s really awesome.
Larry Groff:
He sat so still, and it was so interesting.
David Kassan:
Yeah. No. I think in the credits, I guess, or the DVD, it’s thanking him for his stillness. No, he was really an awesome model, and he has that like kind of Rembrandt look to him. Like he could have stepped out of a Rembrandt painting. And his facial features and expressions were intriguing to me. He really wears the experience of his life on his face. And that’s really something that just makes you like want to learn more about that person.
Larry Groff:
I was curious to hear what he might have said about the drawing when he saw it, when it was finished.
David Kassan:
I don’t know. I didn’t even think to even ask, actually. I don’t know. I think he liked it, I hope he liked it.
I’m always really worried about locking anything in within a drawing, because I feel like if you lock in something too early, it kind of gets static and less organic, and it almost turns into like a formula. And I mean, I don’t want this DVD to be a formula for anybody. I want people to kind of learn from the DVD a la carte, like just take parts that you can grow from, areas of it that speak to you. I don’t want people copying this method exactly. I’m definitely not dogmatic in anyway with my teaching and my philosophy on art, I want to leave things open, open for growth and evolution.
Larry Groff:
Good.
David Kassan:
So, when I first came up with the title, my approach to drawing the figure or something like that. I had to change it to an approach instead of my approach, because I thought, this is not my approach. There’s tons of people who can draw way better than I do and I have had teachers of mine that have imparted so many different philosophies to me that I follow. Such as the Drawing Closer to Life philosophy of seeing something far away is really adapted from what Sharon Sprung http://sharonsprung.com who teaches at the Art Student’s League and I’ve really learned so much from and how she thought about painting, as well. So, she’s probably been one of my strongest teachers. And it’s that I owe her for this idea and concept. So it’s an approach, not my approach.
I start my drawings with pan pastels, which are amazing because it’s almost like painting. I want painting and drawing actually to be as similar as possible. And a lot of my students kind of notice that when I paint and draw, it’s the same kind of hatch mark and it’s the same kind of small tools and everything. It’s just what I’m comfortable with. And the idea of having that hatch in my painting and when I draw, is about having just these multi levels of layers and strata, kind of stacked on top of each other, being transparent with one another. Kind of like when you look at your hand, you have millions of broken color in there, warms and cools intermixed. It’s not just like a fleshy hand, or just flesh-colored. You know what I mean? Like there are greens and blues and pinks and all these interactions of colors going on and I build that up in a lot hatch and foundation when I paint, so that I can attempt to get luminously in my skin tones.
So I’ll get to that in the painting DVD.
Larry Groff:
Wow.
David Kassan:
If I have enough energy to get to it.
Larry Groff:
I’ll be looking forward to it. So let me just ask the last question, David, if I may. What are you currently working on? And when is your next big show?
David Kassan:
My next big show? Well, I’m thinking that my show is in the Fall of 2011, in New York. I’m excited about it … At Gallery Henoch in Chelsea. I think we’re shooting for September. That date could change, though.
David Kassan:
The paintings I’m currently working on are very varied right now. I think it’s just … People ask me if I’m coming up with a body of work for the show. And I don’t think about painting for shows, I guess. I kind of just go with the wind, I have of things I want to paint and explore.
And I don’t know if that comes out as a cohesive body of work or not … Like I don’t think about planning out all of my piece in advance for a show and then just produce them over the next year. For me, that almost gets to a point of like, well they’re only paintings for the gallery and not paintings that I can evolve and learn from. And I think just for myself, it’s kind of just similar to the last show. Maybe just different subjects. And I mean, different paintings, hopefully.
Larry Groff:
Okay.
David Kassan:
So I don’t know if this is going to be very interesting or not. I hope so, because I hope that I’ve learned a lot in the last year, since my last show. It will be two … It will be like a year-and-a-half, two years, Two-and-a-half years, actually, wow, since my last show.
So I think that the technique will probably be stronger. The emotion, hopefully, will be stronger. The figures will hopefully speak to the people better. My understanding of everything will hopefully be better.
David Kassan:
Oh, okay. Okay. Yes, so what I am I trying to work on? Specifically I’m starting a couple of big pieces. I really want to start doing bigger pieces. Multi-figure. But these are probably going to be more singular figure pieces because I’m not at a place, right now, in my income level where I can kind of just say, I’m just going to paint on one painting for a whole year. I would love to do that.
But these are still kind of, a bigger pieces for me is for me around 4 feet by 8 feet, I’m planning out two pieces around that size. 60 x 80 inch. Eighty inches wide. So it’s in wide screen format and a full standing figure piece that is more vertical 8 feet high.
Larry Groff:
Wow.
David Kassan:
So you can kind of fall into the pieces that way. I think that the bigger pieces tend to kind of enwrap the viewer a little bit more. Like engross them, I guess, so that you kind of feel, you feel a little bit more in the space with the model and subject.
I’m also doing some smaller studies. More intimate pieces. So I can understand myself and my family a little better.
Yeah, so that’s specifically … I’ve been trying to study drawing a little bit more. I’m getting away from that so I can paint a little bit more. I go and like sometimes I’ll just study drawing for like six months and won’t touch painting.
Larry Groff:
Really.
David Kassan:
And that’s just bad, because my gallery doesn’t like that, because then I don’t have anything to show.
Yeah, and I’m trying to stay away from drawing, but I’m in this constant search for the right medium for me. You know, the right kind of, I guess, vehicle to understand things better. Something that comes a little bit more naturally for me than other mediums. I don’t know. I’m just constantly always struggling with them. So Hopefully, that’ll get easier eventually. The magic medium. The magic bullet. You know? I don’t know.
So that’s it, I guess.
Larry Groff:
David, it was awesome. Thank you again.
[End of interview]
http://paintingperceptions.com/contemporary-realism/an-interview-with-david-kassan
