The ink is still wet on Marci Washington’s degree from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. The artist, who calls Oakland, CA her home, is thrilled to start a new chapter of her life and is promptly getting down to business in finding her own studio.
Washington, who exclusively paints with watercolor and gouache on paper, describes her work as “illustrations for a novel that does not exist.” In terms of technique, she takes cues from Japanese woodblock prints. “I’m interested in making paintings that use the language of these forms – the way they communicate important moments in a narrative very clearly – but to tell my own story, piecing it together slowly through the paintings,” says Washington.
As far as the mood in Washington’s paintings is concerned, her images gravitate towards the eerie and the daunting. “I’ve always had a really strong attraction to that kind of stuff,” says Washington. Resorting to fashion photography for inspiration, Washington is on the look-out for “moments where it seems like something is oozing out around the edges of the picture.” It is the evidence of “symptoms of a sickness that we cannot gloss over no matter how much we try to idealize it,” that will subsequently reappear in one of her paintings. She recasts the characters and pieces the setting together to create something vaguely reminiscent of the original. Adding in her own story, the days when “the sun might come out in my story, even if it’s just a little bit of a pale and foggy dawn,” are yet to come.
Presently admiring the videos of artist Sue de Beer and the drawings of Michael Bilsborough, Washington will soon immerse herself in yet another period of her creative life. With an exciting collaboration with San Francisco-based artist Michelle Blade on the horizon, Washington is looking forward to a fun and, at the same time, strange working experience this summer.
Link:
www.marciwashington.com
