Flash Interview Series - with Ruby Wang

"Flash: From the studios at the CMU School of Art", is a group show presenting work by 10 talented young artists from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art opened on Friday, April 3rd. "Flash" refers to a sudden appearance of inspiration, just like how art is born. Ruby Wang has participated in the "Bountiful" group show last November, and Visual Programming Manager Kate Lin is happy to conduct a second interview with her to know more about her recent work.

Could you give us a brief introduction of who you are and how you became an artist?

Ruby: I am a beauty-driven shy woman in her early twenties, who is using art to express her struggles with food and what it means to be a female artist. As a child, I have always enjoyed making art and known that my future will involve the creative mind.

After the last successful show “Bountiful”, Future Tenant is very excited to show your work again at "Flash". Food is the common theme for both work showcasing at two different shows. Can you talk about how they are different and was there any new inspiration or ideas you have since the “Bountiful” exhibition?

Ruby: Food and desire is a common theme throughout my artistic studies and career. I have been exploring food in the pure visual pleasure and sensations, in which echoes almost a sexual arousal. As more experiments with this theme went on, the artworks have become more personal. In the last show "Bountiful", the paintings of wine and bananas are inspired by an intimate experience of personal conflict. The objects of the paintings are the central emphasis, associating with the play of bodily fluids and sexual organs. The newer pieces in the show "Flash" exhibit my branch to the aesthetics of a female body. I try to bring together the idea food and the female form, and my own concern with body images in my newer works. 

What is your creative process for your newer work (Yogurt series and M&M)? How long does it usually take you to complete a project/artwork?

Ruby: The process involved many messy but fun photo-shoots with models or simply just myself. Then, I made decisions of how to print them and paint these photos in a way that provokes an emotional arousal and response. The work required photo taking, printing, and layering of paints and other media, so this project took around three months to complete. 

Are you working on any new projects at the moment? And where can we follow your work?

Ruby: I have been continuing the idea of female body in balance with sensuous food subjects in new photography and painting series. These new projects can be seen on my website.

We know that you are graduating CMU this summer, what is your plan and where do you see yourself in five years? 

Ruby: After graduation I am hoping to extend my artistic careers in other countries. I may settle in Asia for a year or two, and travel to Europe or come back to the States to further my education in the arts.

Flash Interview Series - with Taylor Preston

"Flash: From the studios at the CMU School of Art", is a group show presenting work by 10 talented young artists from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art opened on Friday, April 3rd. "Flash" refers to a sudden appearance of inspiration, just like how art is born. Taylor Preston has participated in the "Bountiful" group show last November, and Visual Programming Manager Kate Lin is happy to conduct a second interview with her to know more about her recent work.

Could you give us a brief introduction of who you are and how you became an artist?

Taylor: My name is Taylor Preston, and I’m a senior at Carnegie Mellon studying both art and history. I’m not sure if there’s a specific event in my life that I can pinpoint as sparking my interest in art, I think it has always been a large part of my life. I have always excelled cademically, and I think art presented a new and interesting challenge. 

Future Tenant is very excited to show your work again at "Flash". Can you talk about the concepts of your new series, Show Her It’s a Man’s World? Do you feel any differences in your artistic directions since your work Nobody came to my party at the "Bountiful" Exhibition?

Taylor: Definitely. For whatever reason, a lot of people seem to have this idea that history is one gradual progression towards enlightenment. In reality this belief is often used to place more painful moments of our nations history farther in the past. I think that this definitely comes into play when looking at the depiction of women in advertisements. It’s easy when looking at an ad to date it. You can look at the type, or the illustrations, or the images used and fairly confidently say: “oh this ad is definitely from the 50’s, thank god it’s so much better today.” But when you remove the text from the ad, it’s more difficult. 
A significant amount of time has passed since the creation of both pieces, and I think it shows. Nobody Came to My Party is definitely more personal, while Show Her It’s a Man’s World addresses something larger. I think this is a good example of a broader shift in my work. But I do think there’s some overlap between the two. Both are experiments, one with physical materials and another with the interplay between text and image.

I understand that most of your recent work relates to history. What was your creative process for those work and how was it different than your past work?

Taylor: I’m not sure if my creative process is really entirely all that different. I still enjoy taking on larger projects, and do a lot of research when working on a piece. I have always loved storytelling, and in the past I have made a lot of work about my own family history, but when I developed more of an interest in history, my interests broadened a bit more. I began to see what it really was that I liked about my own family’s history, and focus more on other obscure and forgotten histories. I began to think more critically about these, and the problems with how they are addressed within the realm of history. 

Are you working on any new projects at the moment? And where can we follow your work?

Taylor: I’m currently working on a piece about my unwavering and abiding love of Dolly Parton. I also just started working on a more straightforward documentary photography project about the debate surrounding abortion clinic buffer zones, more specifically at the Planned Parenthood located down town. You can see more of my work at taylorpreston.net. I just changed the header font, and I’m pretty pumped about it. 

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Taylor: In a dream world, I’ll have started an artist residency at Dollywood - which I will complete every year because no one else will probably be interested. I always hear people say that you have to set yourself up for success, so I have decided to give it a try. Are you there, Dolly? It’s me, Taylor. In reality, I see myself living somewhere new – with an average temperature of 68 degrees and fairly consistent overcasts. Maybe I’ll have a dog. If I’m doing well, a full breed Powderpuff Chinese Crested. I want to still be making work, and hopefully be in graduate school studying photography. Sometimes I have a difficult time distinguishing between dreams and reality, so I would not entirely rule out the Dollywood artist residency.

Flash Interview Series - with Tyler Porten

"Flash: From the studios at the CMU School of Art", is a group show presenting work by 10 talented young artists from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art opened on Friday, April 3rd. "Flash" refers to a sudden appearance of inspiration, just like how art is born. During the exhibition period of Flash, Visual Programming Manager Kate Lin will be interviewing the artists to know the stories behind their work.

Could you give us a brief introduction of who you are and how you became an artist? 

Tyler: I’m a senior at the School of Art of Carnegie Mellon University. I spent my childhood in Japan and the rest of my life in the US, so I have developed a cross-cultural perspective that is integrated into my work. Since around middle school, I began drawing comics, and kept it as a hobby throughout my life. Animation was a natural transition for my work, after I realized that I wanted to turn my hobby into my profession.

Can you briefly talk about each of the five video works and the concepts behind those works? 

Tyler: I made, My Ex-Girlfriend Never Farted, after returning from a study abroad program in Japan. It had been the first time revisiting Japan since I was a child, and I noticed some aspects of Japanese culture with which I was no longer aligned. Specifically, this piece comments on the lack of farting female characters in anime, as if there is a taboo on the subject matter; this looks at the contrast between ideals and reality as depicted in the media.
OREMO is a continuation of observing anime culture in Japan. Another look at the differences between ideals and reality, the work portrays how a protagonist of an anime would realistically live his life in Japan. The protagonist also represents the isolation many people experiences in the cities of Japan. 
With the piece Memory, I expressed my believe that sound is just as important as visuals for an animation. From time to time, I make animations based on a soundtrack, to help myself understand the synchronization of sight and hearing. This piece also features my interest in motion graphics, something I find I want to incorporate with my hand drawn animations.
I made Lullaby just for fun. Sometimes the most entertaining works are those of which you had no reason to make. 
Midterm was a collaborative piece, using my story about how CMU students can feel during midterms and final exams. I enjoy working in worlds linking dream and reality, as well as exploring natural character interactions.

What is your creative process? How long does it usually take you to complete a project or artwork? 

Tyler: I’m a sporadic worker. I usually wait until the right idea comes rather than trying to actively find it. My creativity comes from observing the fiction and reality, then discovering what’s between them. I believe that your work is only as good as how much you have put into it, so I end up spending a lot of time on mine. Producing animation is a complicated process, going from an idea to the final film; making a two to three minute animation has taken up to 300 hours. To be honest, what really determines how long it takes to finish an animation is the date you start working on it and the date it’s due.

Do you admire any other artists? 

Tyler: James Kochalka’s work encouraged me to begin writing my own comics, as well as numerous other autobiographical cartoonists, such as Ryan Pequin and John Campbell. Since my move towards Japanese animation, I found that I really enjoy directors Akiyuki Shinbo and Hiroyuki Imaishi for their art direction in animation.

Are you working on any new projects at the moment? And where can we follow your work? 

Tyler: I’ve been working on my current project, Otaku, for a year now, but it’s still far from completion. Otaku is a combination of manga and anime elements in a video game form, about otaku culture in Japan and differences in Japanese and American culture. Visually, the game reads like a manga, but the viewer can choose what the protagonist will say when he interacts with other characters, and ultimately controls his fate as an otaku. The team I’m leading to produce this game is aiming to push the game onto the PlayStation Store sometime next year, but it’ll also be available to play on Mac/PC. Updates can be found on tylerporten.com.

I know that you are graduating soon, what are you next steps and where do you see yourself in five years?  

Tyler: I’m currently enrolled in CMU’s Accelerated Masters of Human-Computer Interaction program, where I’m applying my animation skills on interaction design for things like smart phone UIs. I’m graduating from my undergrad this May and then I’ll be graduating from my masters in December. I’m not sure which direction I’m heading, but hopefully I can pursue a profession in both animation and design. I’ll continue to work on Otaku in the meantime, which will most likely lead me to work on more projects bridging Japanese and American cultures. In five years, I’m hoping to be back in Japan creating progressive animations and games for a universal audience.

Flash Interview Series - with Nicholas Sardo

"Flash: From the studios at the CMU School of Art", is a group show presenting work by 10 talented young artists from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art opened on Friday, April 3rd. "Flash" refers to a sudden appearance of inspiration, just like how art is born. During the exhibition period of Flash, Visual Programming Manager Kate Lin will be interviewing the artists to know the stories behind their work.

Could you give us a brief introduction of who you are and how you became an artist

Nicholas: I’m from Santa Monica, California, born 1994, currently studying fine arts at Carnegie Mellon University. To be honest I don’t think I ever haven’t been an artist, I was always that kid making weird stuff in my backyard. I can’t remember ever not being in the process of making something or thinking about making something form my own imaginary world. As for doing art on a more serious level, I was in a studio art class in high school and dabbled in a lot of things, but didn’t start spending the majority of my time on my practice until college.

Future Tenant is very excited to have you creating an on-site work especially for this exhibit. Can you talk about the concept of this piece Not Yet My Child? What is the story behind this character that you have created?

Nicholas: My paintings thus far are all about individual characters. For this piece, I wanted to create a being that would exist in its own little world defined by the unique space I was given to paint. I enjoy making work that has a contained narrative. My pieces are often strangely humorous and have relatable human characteristics while also staying mysterious and alien; the being in Not Yet My Child is also in the same vein. It depicts a humanoid creature interacting with a tentacle-like limb holding the white flag of surrender. I believe that there is enough content in the work that the audience knows they are getting a glimpse of a larger story, but can’t quite grasp what that story is. That simultaneous understanding and confusion is what I strive to achieve in my work.

For most of your other work, what is your creative process? How long does it usually take you to complete a project/artwork?  And was there any differences compared to your experience working at Future Tenant’s space this time?

Nicholas: My process is probably the least efficient you can imagine. It involves many hours spent alone working on a single sketch, obsessing over whether or not this or that line looks right, or whether the aspects of the painting make sense in their own nonsensical way. Banging my head against a wall essentially. I have to be able to almost completely picture a final product in my head before I can start working on the piece.
As for time, it completely varies based on the size and complexity of the piece. I’d say the average is around 12-16 hours, not including preparation. I spend way too much time on little things people probably don’t even notice. The experience wasn’t any different in Future Tenant’s space, aside from the fact that I had to spend a lot more time making sure I didn’t mess up the surrounding area!

When and how did you start getting into spray painting?

Nicholas: Pretty early. I got super into street art, particularly stencils, when I was about 12 or 13. Being from LA area, you see graffiti and street art everywhere, and I thought it was the coolest shit ever, wanted to try it, and did.

Do you admire any other artists?

Nicholas: Of course. Funny enough, not that many aerosol artists. My big influences would probably be Tim Hawkinson (mainly in my sculptural work), Andy Goldsworthy, ARYZ, and my all time favorite street artist, BLU. Although I am not a street artist, that kind of work has always hit me in a way few other things do.

Are you working on any new projects at the moment? And where can we follow your work?

Nicholas: Definitely, I make work as often as I can. Nothing specific, but I’m always looking for new places to paint. My website is nicholassardo.weebly.com, and I am god awful at keeping it updated. Just finally made an instagram account and hopefully will be putting stuff up on that more consistently! It’s @nicksardoart. Right now I’m trying to find as many walls and galleries as I can to paint. If you own a building and want a painting on it, please let me know! Send me an email at [email protected].

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Nicholas: I’ll hopefully be doing 200ft high paintings on buildings all over Pittsburgh, and any other city that will have me.

Flash Interview Series - with Hannah Gaskill

"Flash: From the studios at the CMU School of Art", is a group show presenting work by 10 talented young artists from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art opened on Friday, April 3rd. "Flash" refers to a sudden appearance of inspiration, just like how art is born. During the exhibition period of Flash, Visual Programming Manager Kate Lin will be interviewing the artists to know the stories behind their work.

Can you talk a little about each of the video works showing at the space now? What messages are you trying to address to the audience?

Hannah: I grew up in a small beach town in Maryland, where I attended an even smaller private school from the time I was four. Being in that environment made me feel very captive and a little restricted (no angst intended), but art has always been a method of release for me ever since I was small. I initially thought that art was a hobby, or something that I would concern myself with when I wasn’t busy being a “real person” like all of my other friends from where I grew up, but I’ve always been in love with it, and deciding to proceed with my BFA was the smartest thing that I have ever done for myself.

Can you talk a little about each of the video works showing at the space now? What messages are you trying to address to the audience?

Hannah: I am very interested in voyeurism, which is a topic that I address in Self-portrait as a voyeur, Milk, and Down-skirt Shot. I mostly want to explore everyday situations such as walking, bathing, etc., from new and semi-sexual angles. I am also interested in the business of sadness, which I address in my other pieces Death I can’t explain and Smother. To me, those pieces are about feelings of depression, isolation and mourning, but I think they are more pieces that I made for my own purpose rather than to express anything to the audience.

In most of your videos, you used yourself as the main performer. Was there a specific reason for that decision, and do you also participate in other artistic productions as performers?

Hannah: I often use myself in my pieces mostly because I’m the most accessible person that I know, but in the pieces in question I used myself because I felt that it was the best and most interesting fit. I think that there is something odd and intriguing in acting as my own Peeping Tom, and something even more compelling in sharing it with others. As far as the other pieces go, I was feeling those particular emotions, so it just felt right to express them myself. I am involved in other performances through Activating Animorphs, which is a class at Carnegie Mellon that has essentially formed its own performance troupe for the semester. We have performed on Carnegie Mellon’s campus, in the WatsOn festival in Nick Cave’s famous Sound Suits, and at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.

What is your creative process? How long does it usually take you to complete a project or artwork?

Hannah: My creative process is to think up an idea, begin to flesh it out, and then (as soon as the deadline approaches) scrap it, come up with an even better idea, and execute it as quickly as possible. The whole process generally takes me about a month to two months, but the actualization of the real project takes about two to three weeks.

Do you admire any other artists?

Hannah: I’ll always love Marina Abramovic’s early work. That’s what has inspired me explore performance art in the first place. However, I’ve really begun to admire Eva Hesse, Janine Antoni, Robert Gober, and Angela Washko. There’s also a rising artist named Molly Soda that I think does some interesting and weird things.

Are you working on any new projects at the moment? And where can we follow your work?

Hannah: I am currently working on an installation/performance show called Mirror of Venus that opens (and, unfortunately, closes) at Carnegie Mellon’s Frame Gallery on April 24th. More of my work can be viewed at http://www.cargocollective.com/hannahgaskill

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Hannah: It depends on what I end up doing after I graduate. In five years I could be in grad school, living abroad, or teaching. To be honest, I’m not even quite sure what I’m doing next week!

Flash Interview Series - with Jamie Earnest

"Flash: From the studios at the CMU School of Art", is a group show presenting work by 10 talented young artists from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art opened on Friday, April 3rd. "Flash" refers to a sudden appearance of inspiration, just like how art is born. During the exhibition period of Flash, Visual Programming Manager Kate Lin will be interviewing the artists to know the stories behind their work.

Could you give us a brief introduction of who you are and how you became an artist?

Jamie: I attended an arts high school, The Alabama School of Fine Arts, with a concentration in visual art. I did not want to be an artist in high school, in fact, I wanted to be an ophthalmologist. Most of my family is in the science field, including my twin sister. I just auditioned for the high school because I enjoyed making art and knew it was an interesting background to have on my resume for applications to medical schools. Upon continuing my track at this high school I realized that there is nothing more than I want to do with my life than to make art. I am able to answer and ask questions about the world around me through art making, I have to please no one. I get to work on my own account. From there I began to really challenge myself in my work and I am proud of where I have gotten to so far. I will never stop making art. 

Can you talk about the concepts behind those three pieces that are showcasing at the space?

Jamie: The three pieces in the show are from three different years, thus I feel that my work is hard to explain as a single concept for all three. All three works derive from my impressions of interior space. Dante in my Basement is my most recent work and is an example of a way that my work is headed. I am interested in how one perceives domestic space that they encounter daily or have encountered daily in the past. What aspects of those spaces live on through memory? My work tackles these questions. 

What is your creative process? How long does it usually take you to complete a project or artwork?  

Jamie: My creative process is somewhat flawed compared to that of other artists. I tend to start working on a piece once I have about 40% of an idea of what I would like to do. This kind of process creates bumps along the way, but I enjoy working like this because once I complete that 40% I am familiar with, I am able to challenge myself to finish the other 60%. I like the challenge of problem solving while working as opposed to planning a painting out color by color and line by line, then translating to a large canvas. I like to make mistakes, sometimes my mistakes become a part of the piece itself.
It normally takes me a 3-5 weeks to complete one painting, though I am often working on at least 2 at once. 

Do you admire any other artists?

Jamie: I admire student artists, that is the most challenging of all. I admire so many artists I cannot begin to list them all, but here are a few: Olafur Eliasson, Henry Taylor, Robert Motherwell, Do Ho Suh, Iman Issa, Vito Acconci, James Turrell, Robert Irwin, David Hockney, Sinta Werner, and Uta Barth and John Divola. Some architects and writers I admire are: Peter Eisenmann, Luis Barragan, Rudolf Arnheim, Victor Burgin, and Rem Koolhaus. 

Are you working on any new projects at the moment? And where can we follow your work?

Jamie: I am working on several new paintings right now as well as a photo/installation project, my website is where I put up photos of finished works as they come along. 

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Jamie: I see myself finishing graduate school and earning my MFA.

Flash Interview Series - with Nicole Anderson

"Flash: From the studios at the CMU School of Art", is a group show presenting work by 10 talented young artists from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art opened on Friday, April 3rd. "Flash" refers to a sudden appearance of inspiration, just like how art is born. During the exhibition period of Flash, Visual Programming Manager Kate Lin will be interviewing the artists to know the stories behind their work.

Could you give us a brief introduction of who you are and how you became an artist?

Nicole: I am an artist currently finishing up my undergrad at Carnegie Mellon, but I am originally from Seattle. I took art classes throughout middle school and high school, but never really considered art school or being an artist until my junior year of high school; when I discovered conceptual art and realized that all of the things floating around my brain could be used somehow. At some point, I realized how strange it would be to stop making art after high school, so I just...didn’t.

What is your creative process? How long does it usually take you to complete a project or artwork?

Nicole: Ideas come to me, randomly, quickly and basically completely developed. Sometimes I’ll read something or see something I don’t like, or just think about a phrase, and then suddenly I have all these crazy fast-paced thoughts unraveling in front of me and I go sort of catatonic and suddenly, I know what I want to make. Honestly, it’s a great natural high, coming up with an idea is easily my favorite part of the artistic process. Everything else is just a slow tedious process of executing that original idea.
A project can take me anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months. I have a project that I’ve been slowly working on for years. Ideally I like finishing projects over the span of about a month, that’s about my limit before I start getting bored.

Can you talk a little more about your work,  All Views Are the Same View? What messages are you trying to address to the viewer?

Nicole: With All Views Are the Same View, I was thinking about the way people interact with place. We see so many photos of these famous sites before we ever get to them, so when we finally see them, we still see it as an image. Especially with scenic viewpoints, the overlook frames the ideal way to see the landscape in front of it. Place becomes the equivalent of a painting hanging on the wall of a museum. At these viewpoints, tourists all end up taking the same photo, subconsciously recreating the image they already saw.
So for this project I collected a bunch of these tourist photographs of three iconic national parks and stacked them on top of each other so that the landscapes matched up, all of the views culminating into a single view.

Do you admire any other artists?

Nicole: Of course! In particular I feel I owe a lot to Janine Antoni. I also really love Simon Starling, Yoko Ono, and Lenka Clayton’s work.

Are you working on any new projects at the moment? And where can we follow your work?

Nicole: Currently I’m wrapping up a piece for CMU’s senior thesis show, "Some Preservatives", which will be opening on May 1st at the Miller gallery. I’m finishing a sweater that my mother started knitting for me 15 years ago. I’m also working on a video piece where I’m playing duets with old recital videos of myself as a child. This summer I’m working on a community gardening and art project with the Neu Kirche Art Center and Food City.
You can follow my work at my website.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Nicole: There is a quote from "Great Expectations" that pretty much sums up how I feel: “As to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have formed an elephant.” What will I be doing in five years? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Flash Interview Series - with Melissa Bryan

"Flash: From the studios at the CMU School of Art", is a group show presenting work by 10 talented young artists from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art opened on Friday, April 3rd. "Flash" refers to a sudden appearance of inspiration, just like how art is born. During the exhibition period of Flash, Visual Programming Manager Kate Lin will be interviewing the artists to know the stories behind their work.

Could you give us a brief introduction of who you are and how you became an artist?

Melissa: I’m not sure what people would want to know about who I am. I’m an art student at Carnegie Mellon University. I’m from Michigan. Half of my family is Belgian. I have a cat who acts like a dog. I find slow walking pedestrians to be incredibly frustrating. I enjoy running during thunderstorms in the summer. 
But none of that helps anyone with my art. I have an annoyingly high sensitivity to the spaces around me. I became an artist by making things constantly throughout my life and unquestionably calling it art. The rest is just how I perceive and translate things. Making art is like scratching an itch. It’s vaguely satisfying when you scratch one itch, but then a bunch of other spots start itching; if you don’t scratch any of the itches it drives you crazy.

Future Tenant is very excited to have you bringing your 3D installation into the space. Can you talk about the concept for this piece Outlier? What is the message behind this piece of artwork?

Melissa: I don’t think there’s a clear message behind Outlier. It came from a personal dilemma that is more of a jumping off point than a take away for the viewer. Otherwise it feels like I’m just regurgitating a bunch of emotional garbage. The piece is presented more as a guide than as a concrete statement. I only hope the viewers spend time with the piece, asks themselves a lot of strange questions, and finds their own meaning in the work.

I know that you spent a long time installing “Outlier”, what was the biggest challenge or most enjoyable thing during the installation for this piece? Where did you find all those leaves!?

Melissa: Fitting a piece into its space and deciding what elements are necessary are always the hardest parts. Planning for a smaller space and bringing half of my studio with me to install eased the problems I had both with finding the “essentials” of the piece and adapting those to the space. It was less stress and more enjoyment than usual. The leaves came from Schenley Park, where there are a lot of leaves.

What is your creative process? How long does it usually take you to complete a project/artwork?  

Melissa: My process involves a lot of in progress decision-making. I typically start with a rough conceptual direction and form for a project that evolves and adapts as I work through problems and find new opportunities. I choose materials more for their function than their inherent meaning, but end up using a lot of found and non-art materials.
The time a project takes is largely irrelevant to me. Everything takes twice as long as I think it’s going to. My projects become something that I live with either non-stop for a couple of weeks or consistently over a longer period.

Do you admire any other artists?

Melissa: I look at a variety of artists. There’s something extremely pleasing about formal arrangements. People who can tie a pear to a cinderblock, put it in the right lighting, and make it feel perfect. I hate them a little, too. I like weird and well-composed photography and paintings. Things you have to spend a lot of time with but never really make sense. Lee Jin Ju’s paintings, for instance. I look to David Altmejd more consistently than anyone else. 

Are you working on any new projects at the moment? And where can we follow your work?

Melissa: I’m working on two projects right now. One is for CMU’s Miller Gallery in May and consists of a table with a tablecloth that becomes a mountain with clay buildings on it. The other is largely unresolved but has to do with structures and how memory can confuse time and will potentially have a performative aspect that activates sculptures. My work can be found on my website.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Melissa: I have a perception of time that generally fails to incorporate both the past and the future into the present, so I can’t conceptualize a future self very well. If nothing else I hope to not be paralyzed from the neck down or have a desk job.

Flash Interview Series - with Kathy Lee

"Flash: From the studios at the CMU School of Art", is a group show presenting work by 10 talented young artists from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art opened on Friday, April 3rd. "Flash" refers to a sudden appearance of inspiration, just like how art is born. 
During the exhibition period of Flash, Visual Programming Manager Kate Lin will be interviewing the artists to know the stories behind their work.

Kathy Lee, Fake Jake, 2014, digital print on paper

 Could you give us a brief introduction of who you are and how you became an artist?

Kathy: I’m Kathy Lee, born in New York and raised in South Korea. I was first introduced to art when I was 4 - my mother made me work closely with an art tutor in New York. Ever since then I knew that my path would lie in the creative field, if not specifically art. I only came to call myself an ‘artist’ recently though, through my constant urge to create.

Can you talk a little bit about each of the three pieces that are showcased in this exhibition? What music were you listening to while creating those pieces?

Kathy: Each piece is titled the same as the song I was listening to while creating them. The first one is “Addiction(Howie Lee Remix)-Phazz”, the second one is “FAKE JAKE-BAMBOUNOU”, and the last exhibited piece is “Dream Cycle-Fear Club”. You can listen to all of the songs to my series through my Soundcloud*.

What is your creative process? How long does it usually take you to complete a project/artwork?

Kathy: My creative process is very fluid and varied, which makes it difficult for me to illustrate exactly how I work. Usually, I start by listening to the track I know I want to make a visual for over and over. Once I get a good grasp of the mood or color that the song conveys, I lay a gradient of the colors I want and then try to conjure up a list of imageries/elements that I might use in my work. When I know exactly what visual imagery it is I want to manipulate, I go on Google images or creativecommons to search for it. This process ranges from 1 hour to even a week.

Do you admire any other artists?

Kathy: I used to be very obsessed with David Hockney and Basquiat’s paintings and drawings. To a certain extent I still think I am; even though my work has diverged from adapting their styles. Conceptually, I admire Do Ho Suh’s work about home.

Are you working on any new projects at the moment? And where can we follow your work?

I am constantly working on this series of “eye x ear”, which is exemplified by the pieces I exhibited at Future Tenant. On the side, I am working with a partner on this project called "With". "With" is a conceptual art duo that tries to convey the emotion of intimacy and solitude through various performances and exhibitions that involve our five senses. You can find my most recent work on my website.

Where do you see yourself in five years? 

Kathy: I don’t think I’ll stop creating, but I know that my professional passion currently lies in design. Hopefully in five years, I will be in the design field somewhere in New York, working on my music and constantly creating cross-sensual artwork.