Meredith Sellers

BIO

Meredith Sellers is an artist, and writer based in Philadelphia. Her paintings utilize images from art history, stock photography, advertisements, and the media to examine systems of power and violence. She has exhibited at ICA Philadelphia, Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery at UArts, Young Space, Lord Ludd, Vox Populi, Icebox Project Space, Pilot Projects, Pressure Club, and Fleisher Art Memorial. Her curatorial projects include exhibitions at Crane Arts, Pilot Projects, and Esther Klein Gallery. She is an editor for Philadelphia-based art publication Title Magazine; her writing has appeared in Hyperallergic, ArtsJournal, Pelican Bomb, and American Craft Magazine, among others.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work considers the mediated image and its relationship to power, history, and cycles of consumerism, desire, and apathy, through the frame of the window as both an architectural and digital space. Painting has been discussed as a window since the Quattrocento, illusionistically offering a view into another realm outside our own. In more recent times, another window has become a pervasive presence in our daily lives—the screen. The window as a phenomenological space allows us to look out into the world, yet simultaneously acts as a barrier, isolating us from it.

My paintings depict windows that are obfuscated, curtains drawn, streaked with grime, providing only glimpses into stock photos and borrowed images. Recently, I have employed symbols and tropes of memento mori in historical Dutch still life painting, reframing them next to contemporary images of consumption and violence to explore the seeds of globalized capitalism. Forced into conversation, these seemingly unrelated images form their own enigmatic languages.

Interview with Meredith Sellers

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interested in becoming an artist? Who or what were some of your most important early influences?

I wanted to be an artist as early as I can remember. The goal was always to figure out how to live my life, pay my rent, and make the work; I guess I’m still figuring it out. I had many years of relatively academic training and I remember what a revelation it was to encounter R.B. Kitaj. Kitaj clearly also had academic training, he drew like Degas! But he also crammed images together, flattened space, and created monumental narratives in ways I had never seen before. He remains an artist I’m still awed by.

Where are you currently based and what initially attracted you to working in this place? Are there any aspects of this specific location or community that have inspired aspects of your work?

I currently live in Philadelphia. I love Philly for its grit and weirdness. I sometimes refer to weird things I see in Philly as “Lynchian moments” after director David Lynch, who was inspired in his early years by Philadelphia for the same reason. I work in education at the Mütter, an historical medical history museum—which is itself a pretty weird place—where I’m constantly learning new things about the body, medicine, pathologies, and 19th century cultural beliefs. I used to say that my job there didn’t influence my artwork, but my deep dive into Dutch memento mori painting came out of a memento mori drawing workshop I taught there, and that certainly influenced the imagery I was working with for several years.

Can you describe your studio space? What are some of the most crucial aspects of a studio that make it functional? Do any of these specific aspects directly affect your work?

My studio is located in North Philadelphia. It’s a classroom in an old school building, so it has a sort of nostalgic comfort for me. It also has heat, which my previous studio didn’t, and I don’t think I can ever go back! I always have a desk in my studio and above it I keep postcards and exhibition cards of artworks that inspire me and exhibitions I enjoyed. I think it’s really important to have a space in the studio to ground you, draw you back to the things that excite you as an artist.

What is a typical day like? If you don't have a typical day, what is an ideal day?

I try to go to my studio one day per week and every weekend. I love settling in there, spending a few moments stepping back from my painting, looking at the progress I’ve made and the work that remains to be done. For a while I was really into listening to ambient music in the studio—when I was in school, one of my professors used to say listening to music without words allowed for full immersion in your creative process. Recently, though, I’ve been listening to podcasts. I find that podcast episodes help me break up my time in useful ways: when to break for lunch, when to take a break, when to pack up. It also feels really good to learn something while you’re doing something else with your hands, it’s just satisfying!

What gets you in a creative mindset?

More than anything, I feel inspired when I’m looking at art. My entire Instagram feed is basically just art—artists I follow, galleries with great programming, friends posting things they’re working on. I refuse to follow any influencers, models, or celebrities, I only follow creative people who get me excited about making. Seeing art in person is often more rewarding, but I love that I can open my phone at any time and get a glimpse into so many artists’ creative processes. It’s cool to be connected to people in that way.

What criteria do you follow for selecting materials? How long have you worked with this particular media or method?

My most particular thing is probably that I only paint on panel. I never liked the surface of canvas and it was a big hangup for a long time. It always felt like my brush was getting stuck on all the bumps in the canvas weave, so I painted on masonite or paper to allow a smoother flow in brushwork, but without framing, those surfaces can get ratty really quickly. I stopped painting for several years and just made drawings because I felt like I couldn’t figure out how to make painting feel right for me. My partner Jonathan Santoro is a sculptor, and when we got a studio together 7 years ago, he started making beautiful panels for me. In return, I act as an extra set of hands for him when he’s doing mold making and casting projects.

Can you walk us through your overall process? How long has this approach been a part of your practice?

I always start by making mockups in Photoshop. I have folders and folders of images I meticulously save on my desktop: “Rotten Fruit,” “Car Crashes,” “Windows,” “Teeth,” etc. I’ll play around with different combinations of images for a few weeks and when it feels right, I bring it to the studio. I prime my panels using a scraping method. I get about two layers of coverage with gesso using a roller, then I glop it on really thick with a brush and gently scrape off the top layer with a squeegee to get the smoothest, creamiest surface possible. I usually repeat this process around 4 times and then I use a palm sander to finish it off. Then, I’ll establish a background and mark off where I need to paint into it. Then I spend a few months torturing myself trying to replicate photographic details by hand!

Can you talk about some of the ongoing interests, imagery, and concepts that have informed your process and body of work over time? How do you anticipate your work progressing in the future?

I borrow frequently from stock images, advertising, and art historical paintings, as a way of exploring systems of wealth and power that underpin image-making in the Western world. That said, there also is a real pleasure in the copy for me. You can learn so much from mimicking another artist’s movements, colors, strokes. I feel like it forces me to always be learning. It’s a constant challenge to myself, which I love.

Another theme I’ve been working with for several years is the window. I’ve been interested in the Quattrocento concept of the space inside a painting being so illusionistically rendered that it becomes a window of sorts. I like the idea of each painting being a “window” or portal into another space. Of course, we constantly interact with other “windows” as we navigate through digital space, and many of the arrangements of the images in my paintings reference banner ads, pop-ups, and embedded images.

As a phenomenological space, the window allows us to look out into the world, yet simultaneously acts as a barrier, isolating us from it. I would argue that the digital window operates in the same manner, so the windows in my works become metaphors for engagement and apathy—the sense of constant awareness of news and events, and a simultaneous helplessness to do anything about it; the feeling of seeing so much suffering in the world while you scroll on your device from a comfortable space, and the disconnect that represents.

Do you pursue any collaborations, projects, or careers in addition to your studio practice? If so, can you tell us more about those projects, and are there connections between your studio practice and these endeavors?

I do arts writing in addition to my studio practice, and I’m an editor for Title Magazine, an online art publication focused around Philadelphia. I feel like writing about something, and thinking critically through an issue, is always helpful in analyzing your own studio practice. My favorite pieces to write are the ones that examine artworks that I feel conflicted about, where I have to tease out my discomfort, my aesthetic preferences, and my biases to try to understand how the work really operates. I’ve also done some curatorial projects and I feel that those operate similarly in terms of taking apart your aesthetic preferences and trying to get at what they mean and how everything can sit together.

As a result of the pandemic, many artists have experienced limited access to their studios or loss of exhibitions, income, or other opportunities. Has your way of working (or not working) shifted significantly during this time? Are there unexpected insights or particular challenges you’ve experienced?

I was really fortunate in that the pandemic didn’t change much for me except that I think it made me more excited to get out of my house and go to my studio! When everything closed and nothing was happening and I was spending way too many hours sitting at my kitchen table on zoom, it really felt like a huge reprieve to have somewhere else to go and something to work on.

Can you share some of your recent influences? Are there specific works—from visual art, literature, film, or music—that are important to you?

Recently I’ve been looking a lot at Robert Overby’s paintings and Bill Beckley’s photographs. They’re both artists who I think are severely underrated and really amazing post-minimalist, proto-Pictures Generation thinkers. I’ve also been weirdly drawn to Ingres, an artist I used to hate. But as someone who thinks a lot about images and image production, I think Ingres is really interesting to consider, especially through the lens of David Hockney’s theory of Ingres’ use of a camera lucida. There is something photographic about his paintings, almost preternaturally perfect, that I find fascinating and his distortions of the female form are more than a little disturbing.

Who are some contemporary artists you’re excited about? What are the best exhibitions you’ve seen in recent memory and why do they stand out?

There are so many young artists I’m excited about right now! I love Ian Tweedy, Anna Plesset, Mia Middleton, Milano Chow, and Cynthia Daignault. They’re all artists who share a deep exploration into the nature of the image. I’ve also been really excited about work some of my friends are making now: Caitlin MacBride makes these stunning paintings around objects and labor, Catherine Mulligan’s paintings deal with the way online images sell sex, and Cate Porter makes beautiful, gauzy interiors with a disquieting quietude.

Do you have any tips or advice that someone has shared with you that you have found particularly helpful?

Don’t leave your brushes in your gamsol overnight. Seriously. Don’t do it!

What are you working on in the studio right now? What’s coming up next for you?

I’m currently working on a body of paintings featuring car crashes. I’m interested in the visceral nature of the car crash, the way the car and the violence enacted on it become a stand-in for the body itself, where the image of the crash gives a feeling of panic and almost pain, creating a hyperawareness of the fragility of our own bodies. I think a lot about how systems of power enact passive forms of violence, this imagery makes the violence literal. I guess I also think the world just feels like a car crash right now in so many ways!

I’m in an upcoming show at a new space in Atlanta called Take It Easy that’s scheduled to open in March, and I’m also excited about a show I’m doing later in the spring with Caitlin MacBride at a space called Squat Soiree!

To find out more about Meredith Sellers check out her Instagram and website.