"I began to think of time as having a shape, something you could see, like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another. You don't look back along time but down through it like water. Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away." -Margaret Atwood
"The Franklin Wall" (48" x 60") Oil on Canvas, Todd Lanam, 2010.
I watched as he greeted those in the room with a hand shake and a quick heartwarming hug. Sporting a white button down and a loosely fastened tie around his neck, a wash of splendor and pride showed across his face. The unveiling of his newest pieces of art, show casing oil on canvas, hung on the walls around us. I could feel the excitement buzzing overhead, as the crowd took in and marveled at his work.
Todd Lanam, a local artist from the bay area, held this unveiling at the Rowan Morrison Gallery in Oakland on Saturday.Richie and I, along with my younger brother, went to have a look. The pieces are seemingly ordinary at first glance, but with his process of covering and erasing, omitting and revealing the layers upon layers, with closer scrutiny, tell a whole different story. The lower layers clamor to be seen, like a memory wafting to the forefront of the mind; the upper layers hold all the heat of one’s gaze but does not disappoint with the shadows cast and flickers of light in between.
I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to interview Todd (Thanks Todd!), and get more insight into the world he has created on canvas.
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1.Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Like many artists I am inspired by nature, specifically light. I like the way light can create an emotional reaction. I also like the medium of the paint itself.
In the end the malleability of the paint and the plethora of things that can be done with it excites me the most. With photographic work people often get attached to the image and forget that the reason that painting is so exciting is because the medium itself is so beautiful. Someone asked Pollock once what his paintings mean.
I don't remember his exact wording but he alluded to the idea that his paintings are about just that, paint. He said looking at a painting should be looking at a bed of flowers, you don't tear your hair out over what it means you just appreciate its natural beauty. That is what excites me the most. The beauty of paint itself is often what gets me fired up and excited to work.
2.How did you get started?
I started taking painting lessons with my dad when I was about twelve. My dad talked about going for a long time and finally he agreed to take me.
Throughout the classes I always felt comfortable and engaged. In high school I continued to take classes and was sure that it was something I wanted to do for a living. I had learned some technical stuff but wasn't until I got to California College of the Arts when I started painting everyday and getting a strong grasp of what was going on in the contemporary art world.
3.Are you influenced by other artists, if so who?
There have been many artists who have inspired me. Right now I am looking a lot at an artist named Peter Doig who, like me, paints about personal memories and experiences. But I am not only interested in artists whose work shares strong similarities with mine. Most of the painters I look at have little or nothing to do with my my work. Jan Vermeer, Jackson Pollock, Tim Gardner, Ad Rheinhardt, Daniel Richter to name a few. They all used the medium in vastly different ways but all the paintings (have) a strong sense of materiality, showcasing the beauty of the medium itself.
4.Tell me about the Franklin bench painting...(Pictured Above) (My favorite, because it evokes a feeling of calm. I can visualize the leaves rustling, and it sort of has that "calm before the storm" feel. Being outside of a classroom full of eager elementary school kids and all)
Light seems to always have an evocative quality. I wanted to relay the warm endearing feelings and memories I have of elementary school to the viewer. In the evening the light hits the walls of that school and casts really cool shadows onto the walls. My favorite part of that painting is not necessarily the wall itself though. The background of the painting is
an intersection that my friend and I used to play around. It is obscured by the wall and hard to discern. I like that tension of struggling to understand or put together an image.
In some areas indicators pop up and it becomes readable and then it melts back into abstraction.That tension becomes what the painting is really about. Memory and our struggle to recollect.
5.I read your quote by Margaret Atwood (on your website) and can now see how relevant it is. Can you tell me more about your thought process when choosing photographs as the focal point for your work?
That Atwood quote seemed to nail it so much for me. I had been spending months trying to find the right words to explain how my painting process is a metaphor for the experience of retaining and unearthing memories, Eventually I just realized that sometimes others just find the right words. Shes a poet and definitely has a much better voice for explaining things like that. I think about it too when I am choosing a photograph to work with. I like pictures that have a lot of depth. Not just a foreground, middle and background but many layers in between. Those are the pictures that usually give the depth that is alluded to in Atwood's quote.
I have been struggling finding photos lately though. For a long time I was working with found photographs. There was something exciting about taking someones simple image and turning into something great. Eventually though I wanted more specificity from the pictures and it was just impossible to get that from random pictures.
6. Is there definite significance?
Good question. There is a significance of each place in the paintings. Because the work is so much about memory it seems appropriate that I work with images of significant places from my past. In the show that I have up right now. I have a picture of my middle school, the house I grew up in, the neighborhood I grew up in and various landmarks from my hometown. Some people think that because the work is so personal it prevents a connection that everyone can make.
But the work is not just about those places.The work is about our relationship to the past and the way time distorts our recollection. That is something that is much more collective than personal.
7.How do you feel about having to let something so outstanding and momentous go? (once it's sold)
Sometimes its hard. A lot of time these paintings get worked on everyday for months. Painting is a record of time and looking at a painting can sometimes be like looking at the rings of a tree. I can remember when certain marks were made and what was going on in my life that day or around that time. In that way they become a record or calendar. Leaving them takes away that record and in a certain sense many recollections attributed to it.
I like talking to people who have owned my pieces for a while. They always have interesting insights and discoveries about the work and in the end I want the work to be enjoyed by other people. It really doesn't have much of a function or purpose sitting in my studio.
8. And finally, just for fun... If you could trade places with anyone for a
week, anyone in the world, living or from history, real or fictional; with whom would you trade places?
I like this question. I would be Tim Lincecum. Hands down. Maybe its just me but getting paid millions of dollars to play a game seems like a good gig.
He is so far from the everyday jock you see playing. There are few guys his size(my size) that dominate the way he does. You gotta root for that right?
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-Yes! Yes, you DO! Go Giants!!!
Thank you again, Todd, for allowing to be interviewed on such short notice. I very much enjoyed your work and company and hope to see you real soon!
Todd’s work is showing at The Rowan Morrison Gallery in Oakland, from Sept. 4th through October 2nd.
Please visit Todd’s webpage to see more of his paintings at http://www.toddlanam.com/
Until next time!
xoxo,
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