MADELEINE GRAY

 Madeleine Gray is a multi-disciplinary artist based in New York City.

Hi Madeleine! Thanks for joining me at Mint Tea. To begin, what’s your favorite tea?

Herbal tea in the evening, with some honey. And, controversial: lukewarm.

Could you tell me about your background ?

I grew up in Indonesia for 10 years, and then went to boarding school in England for eight. I came to the States for college, took a rather scenic route, dropped out a couple of times, eventually graduated with a visual arts degree. I ended up at a print shop, and ever since I've been trying to juggle working, making art all day that isn't mine, and trying to make my own.

Tell me about your practice. What kind of art do you make?

Well, I do a lot of different things. Printmaking is what I have access to, for the most part. Photogravure is kind of my background, or what I focused on, but it's both antiquated and a dying art form, so I have to progress and do other things. I’m doing silk screen now, and during COVID I started oil painting and then doing some collage stuff and sculpture stuff. Basically just a bit of everything, because I start a lot of things and then don't have time to finish them, but I know that eventually at one point, I will finish it.

What projects are you working on right now?

I have got quite a few to finish. I'm finishing up the oil painting portraits that I started last year, which incorporated different tactile elements. I’ve got a silk screen one where I'm trying to use silk screen to mimic the effect of an aquatint. As opposed to like a digital, mechanical look that silk screen typically has, aquatint gives a continuous tone, but it’s actually just made up of tiny little dots layering over the top of each other. Because of the randomness, it looks analog, rather than digital. It's just a matter of adding way too much information, which is what analog is, it's like everything in between the one and the zero. I'm going to try and wrap up my contact print series with the last couple kind of sculptural pieces. And then by working in the materials that I was working on, I came up with other projects I wanted to do on a completely different subject. I wanted to do more of a classical thing, looking at art history. So I've got a screen I'm doing, with latex and silk screen stretched between this cast iron three piece screen, and I'm doing the Muses. Once I finished the embroidery part of my portrait of my little sister, I didn't know what to do with my evenings when I was too tired to actually be creative, but wanted to do stuff. Which is what embroidery is perfect for, but now I’m like, “what next?” So I've got some kind of sewing collage in the works as well. I don't really have any official deadlines, which means I can just take my sweet time.

I am the most familiar with your prints and photographs, but I know that you also work with many different media. Can you talk about how and why you choose to work with the media that you do?

I don't really know. That just kind of like evolves from one to another, and if I'm doing multiple projects, the material from one project might crossover into another one. I think that's why I like to work on a lot of different things at the same time. So the experience like learning a different material can influence a different one. I mean, it's not any one specific one that I'm like, I live and die for. I think that all forms have value. Like, why did you do that piece in that material? Because it felt right, but then maybe I'm not sure that's the case, so I'm going to try it in a different one. Then you need like a few different ones to try, and like it's almost like you're trying to connect them somewhere in the middle.  I guess I'm just curious to learn as many different possible forms, so I meld together projects that I'm working on with mediums that I want to try. I think that part of the reason I like analog photography and not digital is that I just can't take a decent photo with digital. Just the fact of knowing that I have innumerable shots just kills it. But if you know you only have so many, you unconsciously choose the right moments. And that's interesting to me, like there's choices that I'm not necessarily fully conscious about that can be informative from a future perspective.

I love your series of cyanotypes, “a drop of ink”. Can you talk about your process for those?

When I was teaching photogravure, I had to do a demonstration for what a direct gravure is. It's where you put any pencil, or ink, or charcoal on mylar. And then you can get that same look in an etching. So to be quick about it, I just kind of put a single ink drop. And it was quite funny, and I think it's because it was funny that I felt like doing more of it. I thought it looked like a ladybug, and my mom thought it looked like a torso. When I realized what she was talking about was a rather graphic image of a lady's torso, I wondered how many people in the class like saw a ladybug and how many people saw the rather crude image. I was like, this is kind of fun, obviously. So then I started kind of doing more of them, to see what one can produce. Like when I made the crab one, I was like, “Oh, look at that, it looks like a crab!”

I was like, okay, what can we do next? How do we progress this, and make this more something? There was the Anna Atkins cyanotype exhibit up at the New York Public Library that I went to see. I thought that was quite cool and was like, oh, perfect, I can try this new medium with something I already have, which is the ink drop mylars. And so then after I did that, it was kind of like, now I have these two things, what can I do next? I know I sound very curmudgeonly, but do I actually have an opposition to digital? I think it's like a fantastic tool for many a thing. So I scanned it, and then I created a topographic map of it. What would this ink drop be if it was more physical? I 3D printed that, and then I was like, how do I represent that and show it? So I did it with an embossment, I got the hydraulic press. And then after that came the final and only copper and gold plated one, as a sculptural piece I put it in a shadowbox and gave it to my mentor, who is also a collector of bugs, and who was the one who had done the initial squishing of the ink drop. But that was kind of just like the end of the journey, like an ink drop goes for a walk, the end.

What do you like to take photos of?

I like to make little still life things, and I like to take pictures of people making them. I like to camera on holiday, but I don't have access to a darkroom, so it's not the same. I mean, I could do it and then hold on to it and be like, what's going to be on it? But there are so many other things that I'm working on that it’s not high on the priority list.

What’s more important to you? The act of taking the photograph, or developing it?

They're both important. The act of taking the picture, knowing that you only have so many frames, allows you to kind of unconsciously find the moment. Or at least you can tell yourself that if you like the image. If you miss it, you don't even know. Then developing, there's something just really meditative about being forced into a different time. You can't rush it, it won’t let you, it will resist, and you'll be miserable. But if you just accept it, and go with it, it's really very nice to just step out of everything and just kind of get into the groove. You're just in really soft, lovely red light. I mean, it's a wonderful experience. I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to do that.

What is your favorite color?

When I was little I used to think it was green, but then I fell in love with the color blue. And then sometimes it becomes red. I think it depends on my state of mind, and the day that I’m having.

Is there a new medium that you would like to try, or to work in more?

All of the ones that I've just started doing: oil painting, collage. I want to do more ceramic stuff and sculptural things.

How do you stay connected to your community?

I mostly exist in a solitary mode. But I mean, I spend my day around professional artists and other artists doing the same thing I'm doing, so inevitably, there's a lot of talk that goes on, there's a lot of creativity that's happening. It's really interesting to observe people just doing their practice. Then when I go home, it's like, I just want to do my thing.

What’s your favorite tool?

The one that is appropriate for the task at hand. Like I said, I don't work in a singular thing, so whatever is most interesting to me at that time, there's at least a few tools that are perfect for it. I can't consolidate it beyond that, to be honest. It's like the color; any given day could be a different tool.

What is the space where you do your work?

My living room slash studio. I have a loft apartment, so my downstairs has become the space, and because of COVID nobody has been over. So, I haven't had to make it function as a proper living room.

Do you listen to anything while you work? What music do you like to listen to?

I listen to lots of things. Sometimes music, sometimes audio tapes, sometimes I throw meaningless television on in the background. Classic jazz, I guess would be one of them. I have so many Pandora stations, because yes, I still listen to Pandora. So it decides for me, like sometimes I'll just shuffle the stations. It helps me keep connected to time because I'm like, okay, I've like definitely not moved from doing my singular task for the last five episodes. Maybe I should take a break. When it's like, “Do you wish to continue?” I need to stand up and do something other than what I've been like tunnel vision on.

What's your favorite film?

La Jetée. It's like a time traveling kind of thing. It's just really beautiful. The whole thing is shot in still images. Everything about it is just great. It was obviously made in its time period, which is quite charming.

How do you know when you're finished with your artwork?

I'm never finished. Like, I work on projects, and within the projects there are series, and each one kind of comes to a logical conclusion, and then eventually I'm done gnawing on an idea. I think the ink drop one is the only one I’ve actually finished. The rest of them are still constantly going, mostly because I'm like, this is what I'm going to do, and then I do other things first because it’s more exciting at the time. I still want to finish up because it's important.

Who are your favorite practicing artists?

Some of my favorites are Stephen Bron, Cary Hulbert, Raphaela Melsohn, Randy Armas, Jeffery Meris, Lauren Roche, Billie Zangewa, and Rachel Kneebone.

What gives you the feeling of butterflies in your stomach?

The only thing I can think of is when you have like severe anxiety and your stomach is just like all aflutter. That's a much more common feeling to me than an elated butterflies experience. That’s not really my style.

What excites you?

Learning new things, it's exciting. Having new challenges thrown to you at work it’s like “How am I going to solve this?” Because I actually like what I'm doing.

madeleinegray.studio | @mgray.studio