Gerard Sternik

BIO
Gerard Sternik is a draughtsman, sculptor and photographer currently residing in Toronto Canada. He graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1988.

STATEMENT
The 2020 pandemic forced me to abandon all of the larger sculptural projects I was working on, and to find a smaller more compact way to continue working. I turned to digital composite photography, an approach I had started experimenting with in 2015 as a solution to this challenge….a camera, laptop and a room were all I needed to continue the process of art making. I found that the pandemic triggered an enormous range of new psychic and emotional responses, and an array of new and surprising approaches to making work, both thematically and technically. A Forgotten Casualty, Seeds of the Phoenix, and The Risen Phoenix, all started after July 2020, reflect the beginnings of a new body of work, triggered directly by my experiences during the ‘pandemic year’.

Interview with Gerard Sternik

Written by Andreana Donahue

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interested in becoming an artist? What were some early influences?
At the age of nine I started playing the drums. My Mom and Dad made the mistake of giving me a snare drum and a Rolling Stones record for Christmas. They lived to regret this gesture of beneficence for the following 10 years, as I made every effort to assault the “sonic equanimity” of the household through long hours of enthusiastic practicing and rehearsing with various ensembles, in any room that we were allowed to set up in. I started to study the instrument formally at the age of 14, and my interests and tastes in musical idioms expanded beyond the Motown, funk and rock that I was playing along with on the radio, to include pretty much most of what I heard happening in Jazz music, from the big band era onward. It was at this point that I decided that I wanted to be a Jazz drummer, and I rummaged about looking for other like minded teenagers who shared similar musical interests. I found very few, and the musical experiences I did undertake with the teenagers I discovered, sharing a likeminded interest in playing Dave Brubeck tunes with me, were generally fraught with difficulties of the “ego genre.”

After several years of this, I came to realize that I would be far happier, and able to make much more uninterrupted progress in my art form, if I could function in a completely autonomous fashion, free from having to depend upon others to “help me make it happen.” So, in a strange way, I can thank the difficulties I encountered trying to find other musicians to work with, as one of the main catalysts that propelled me towards the visual arts. It seemed perfect to me..I could simply make art in a room, pretty much anywhere, any time, without having to depend on anyone else for assistance in producing it.

So, I started to spend my time pouring over books on painting, in my spare periods in high school, making the natural transpositions from the Debussy and Satie music I was studying and listening to in music theory class, to the visual equivalents I was finding in the paintings of Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Cézanne and Degas. Once I understood that composing, harmony and rhythmic structure all had there correlatives in the visual arts, through composition, colour and drawing, I knew it was possible for me to make a smooth transition from playing music, to making pictures. It was at this point that I turned to the study of observational drawing as my main priority.

I mention all of this, because I still approach everything I do in the visual arts through the mindset and habits I’ve developed early on as a musician. The key thing I took away from those early years, studying and playing music a lot, was that all visual art was fundamentally “a practice” of some sort, and the study and practice of it could be carried out in exactly the same disciplined organized fashion as my work as a musician had been carried out - systematically studied, utilizing what I like to call the “rinse and repeat” method. One practices everything one has to learn to perform ad infinitum, until the material is completely digested and absorbed, so as to become second nature. Then, in the “performance phase” of the art form, one can relax, and let the intuition reign free, secure in the knowledge that one has “done all the homework” thoroughly, in advance.

In these early years, besides all those Impressionist and Post Impressionist paintings I was devouring during my high school spares, I became very interested in the practice of observational drawing and sculpture. This led me to study drawings and sculptures from Giotto right up to artists producing works in the early 20th century. It was only later, while in art college that I commenced a serious study of works produced from the early 20th century onward. I was very fortunate to have been able to study with Roger- François Thépot, Hugh Seaforth Mackenzie, John Howard Gould, Murray Laufer, Ken Rodmell and Michèle White while a student at the Ontario College of Art.

Where are you currently based and what initially attracted you to working in this community? Are there any aspects of this specific place that have surfaced in your work?
I divide my time between working in my studio in Toronto Canada, during the winter months, and then working out of doors in warmer weather on the Bruce Peninsula, near Tobermory Ontario.

I am a Canadian, so like a lot of other Canadians, as soon as we get the chance to be out of doors in warmer sunnier weather than what we get during the long winter months, we’ll capitalize on the opportunity to get outside.

My surroundings on the Bruce Peninsula have definitely influenced all of the work that I do. While living and working in a remote, natural setting, it follows that Nature becomes the main protagonist in all of the work I make. The breathtaking beauty of the area is a huge drawing card with respect to influencing my decision to move out of doors and make Nature the main subject of the work.

I experience Nature first and foremost as a beautiful, and ultimately for the most part, unfathomable mystery, a force that elicits deep feelings of awe and gratitude whenever I have the opportunity to come into contact with It through art making.The natural world is an endless source of fascination and inspiration for me.

Can you tell us about your studio space? What are some of the most crucial aspects of a studio that make it workable for you?
The studio space in Toronto is a 625 sq.ft. unit that provides enough room for me to work on larger sculptural projects, and drawing projects at the same time. Having enough room to really walk around a larger sculpture and be able to see it and build it from all sides is absolutely essential. I have a number of maquettes and larger pieces all being developed simultaneously, so having enough elbow room to really get back from various pieces of work, and take them all in with a glance is crucial.

What is a typical day like?
Studio days have generally been predominantly about drawing in the first part of the day, anywhere from 3-5 hours worth, and then working on another project, like a sculpture, painting or photo for the remaining 4-6 hours in the afternoon /evening. Depending on deadlines, this routine can change to devoting entire days to one project until it is resolved. I’ve always found that given the amount of physical stamina and mental energy required to draw, my energy level in the morning has generally been most suitable for this kind of activity.

What gets you in a creative groove? What puts a damper on your groove?
This is an interesting question. I have always approached making art in the same way as say, having a job, in the sense that one shows up for work, and then puts in a full day, regardless of whatever else is going on, and most importantly, regardless of whether or not one feels like working. I would say that my work ethic flows out of a conviction that Inspiration shows up when It wants to, and so I’d like to be working when it does make an appearance so I can “seize the day” so to speak.

To quote Tchaikovsky via David Hockney - “Inspiration does not come to the lazy.” I have subscribed to this belief my whole life, so to put it bluntly, with respect to the question, I’ll work regardless - groove, or damper, getting into the studio to work as frequently as possible, for as long as physically possible.

What criteria do you follow for selecting materials? Do you prefer to maintain a narrow focus or work across diverse media? How do you navigate the limitations and possibilities that result from this path?
I basically work in most mediums, so my selection of materials is fairly broad in scope….

My fundamental approach to choosing the materials for sculpting and working with a particular set of processies, initially developed through my contact with the great artist Murray Laufer (b.1929). An accomplished set designer, painter, draughtsman and sculptor, Murray taught me set design in my first year of art college. It was through Murray that I learned how important it was to start a piece of work by first choosing the materials based on a compelling internal motivation, feeling, or thought that could be best reflected by the intrinsic nature of the material itself, before one even embarked on the process of assembly. The other thing that Murray taught me, was to always remain openminded about what material(s) could be used in a piece, and to never rule any material out as being potentially usable. As long as the material was the closest physical correlative to whatever internal motivation(s) one had for making the piece, then it was the right material to use.

In terms of assembly and construction of the materials for sculpture, improvised music, especially the work of Keith Jarret and Pat Metheny / Lyle Mays, really helped to shape my approach to creating entirely improvised sculptural works.

I welcome the intrinsic challenges involved in having to transpose my deepest felt impulses and concepts through a variety of mediums. I tend not to think too much about mediums as imposing limitations in a negative sense. Instead, I like to think that each individual medium offers some unique creative opportunities that may not be available in quite the same way in any other medium. It’s all generally a big, exciting learning curve.

Can you walk us through your overall process? How would you describe your approach to manipulating materials? What about decision-making and editing?
My overall process will vary depending on the type of work that I am engaged in producing. When I am drawing, painting or taking photos, I am primarily interested in creating depictions of Reality through direct observation. For me, this approach automatically means that I will be trying to organize the sensations that I receive from looking at Nature. Images are set up with an underlying rhythmic underpinning of some sort, that binds the various compositional elements together into a unified whole. The depiction of the 3-dimensional space that I am looking at, on the 2-dimensional surface that I am working on, is also of paramount importance.

If I am sculpting, I will work primarily from my imagination and memory. The pieces will be completely improvised, constructed without any preplanning, accept in regard to the choice of materials. Once again, all the elements will be organized within an underlying rhythmic structure that unifies them, and an awareness of maintaining both contrast and balance between mass, space, and the character of volumes. Telling a story and creating drama through the interrelationship of the various forms of the sculpture is an essential element ever in the forefront of my mind while I’m working.

Letting intuition guide the direction that all of the pieces take, regardless of medium, is the common element to everything that I do art-wise.

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?
This is a tough one to answer, not because the question itself is difficult or complex, but because like most artists, the range of interests, imagery and concepts that have informed my work over the years has been so vast. Where does one begin?

To narrow things down somewhat, I’d have to say that, music, meditation, visual art from the prehistoric era onward, and of course Reality itself, have all been areas that I have been keenly interested in from a very early age. All of these elements tend to be interwoven and play a part in various combinations in everything that I make. Having said that, I’d say that Reality itself is really the fountainhead from which all of these interests spring forth. So basically, my interest in what Reality is, how It all works, and of course, the life that I have been given to live on planet earth, unfolding on a day to day basis, would have to be the single most important source that feeds all of the art that I make, regardless of whatever medium(s) I happen to be working with.

As I mentioned earlier, I began my life as an artist very early on through music - studying it, playing it and most importantly, listening to as much of it as possible. I see all of the things I’ve learned through my contact with Music as being directly transferable, or for lack of a better phrase, ‘transposable’ into all of the work I make as a visual artist. I try to think and feel things out as musically as possible, especially when I am working on improvised sculptures. There is a very interesting combination of elements that coalesce when one is working this way. It is basically like composing music; weaving a melodic / rhythmic line that gives unity to the piece (line and gesture), combined with elements like dynamics (contrast), transpositions of keys and phrases (re-stating elements in different materials or formal combinations), compositional structure (editing and constantly reformulating the relationships between form and space, so as to maintain a semblance of order and cohesion to the piece), and harmony (creating relationships between various materials, colours, textures and tones). I like to marry these approaches with the basic underpinning of coming upon ideas in real time, entirely through intuition, without the safety net of pre- planning, and commencing work by simply ‘jumping in and starting to swim’ so to speak. I will literally walk into the studio, stand in front of whatever materials I’ve assembled to work with, and then just wait to see what the materials start to tell me to do with them. With this approach, there is a real back and forth internally between paying careful attention to how intuitive promptings direct me to proceed, and then, periods of reflection and contemplation on what has occurred as a result of following through with those intuitive based actions. This ‘procedural dialogue’ helps to give me the sense of where exactly things need to go next motif-wise. I enjoy the challenges of creating a balance between the interplay of the analytical nature of the intellect, and the open hearted awareness of the intuition, in a back and forth sort of interaction. This

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?
In the past, I have collaborated on both musical and visual arts based projects, the most memorable being a show of improvised sculptural pieces that were presented one by one, in sequence, before a live audience. Each sculpture was accompanied by a corresponding piece of improvised music, provided by myself and two other musicians. This show - overFlow, was the first show of this type that I had done. I had conceived of the show as a direct result of being actively involved in working as a musician and visual artist simultaneously at the time.

In terms of parallel careers, I worked as an instructor in observational life drawing and human anatomy in the Sheridan College Classical Animation Program, in Oakville Ontario. Along with my friend and fellow artist / musician / instructor, Vincent Peets, we left Sheridan animation, and went on to found the Animation Portfolio Workshop, a unique drawing / portfolio preparation program that we have been directing for the last 22 years in Toronto Canada.

There have been smaller stints as well: as an assistant painter on a large public art commission, a contract with the National Ballet of Canada as a scenic painter, paid work as a drawing/ anatomy instructor in a variety of post secondary art programs, in and around the Toronto area, paid gigs performing live with various musical ensembles, and recording studio work playing on a Toronto musicians CD.

I would have to say that in effect, every project I do, whether it is of the musical or visual art variety, and fortunately for me, every job that I’ve had since entering art college many years ago, have all really been interrelated and enriching experience-wise in a creative sense. Observational drawing practices influence musical practice, sculpture and drawing practices influence teaching practices etc, etc.… I’ve come to expect that each practice will inform and enrich all of the other endeavours. I have been very fortunate in this sense, to have not led a boring life to date. I’m very grateful for that.

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 would have to say that yes, there was a significant shift in my studio practice due to the pandemic.

I had a number of sculptural pieces on the go that I was not able to work on, due to changes in the configuration of the studio. Due to the pandemic, I wound up sharing my studio with another artist, (my wife) who was unable to access her studio space in the collective studio building that she belongs to. In effect, I couldn’t really use the space in the way that I have to when I’m sculpting, so I immediately switched to a medium that would be completely transportable, small in terms of equipment requirements, and easy to work with regardless of where the pandemic would end up taking me logistically.

In 2015, I had started to experiment with a form of composite photography that the British artist David Hockney had developed some years earlier. I was on a trip to Italy at that time with my family, and I did not have my sketchbook with me, but I did have my iPad. I ended up quickly shooting multiple sets of photos on location each day, and then doing the assembly process at night, back in the hotel after our long days of sight seeing. I treated this very much in the same way that I draw in my sketchbook on location - work with whatever is of interest, wherever you happen to find yourself, working rapidly in fluid situations, and work as much as possible everyday. I shot so many sets of photos on that trip that I still haven’t finished with the process of assembling all of them…suffice it to say, I knew that the medium had worked perfectly for on the spot, totally improvised working / studio situations. The approach, space requirements, and tools required to execute work in this medium, were very adaptable to any situation. So remembering this, I realized immediately that this would work beautifully as the “pandemic medium solution” so to speak, given my ever changing studio configuration. I began to shoot much more ambitious sets of photos, sometimes two to three hundred images for each piece, and of course, this time I was using a digital camera, Photoshop, the latest 16” MacBook Pro, and a photo collage app, for the capturing and assembly of the images. Seeds of the Phoenix (2020), The Risen Phoenix (2020), and, A Forgotten Casualty (2020), were all the result of my first foray into the digital composite photo medium, in the early to mid part of the pandemic.

In hindsight, I think that all the years of maintaining a regular meditation practice, really helped me to adapt and cope with the challenges that the pandemic presented, not only in terms of my art practice, but in every facet of my life. The biggest insight that I gained throughout those months, ( especially early on, when a lot of us were really kind of in shock and somewhat bewildered, having never really given a thought to what kind of “road map” would be required in order to navigate living through a worldwide pandemic) was to drop my opinions, and maintain what my meditation teachers taught me to cultivate - a beginners mind. In spite of the fact that there was the full range of emotions cycling through me,

( everything from fear and shock to anger and dread) I maintained the practice of simply sitting with all of these emotions and not getting overly attached to them. Most importantly, meditation practice facilitated the quieting of the mind, so that the incessant, overly dramatic thinking about what was happening, that was generating a lot of “this is the worst’ or conversely “this is the best” kind of thinking about situations, could be managed more effectively. I adapted as things were unfolding in the moment, and attempted to maintain an open, non-judgemental kind of awareness. This helped immensely, especially in terms of anchoring me in a kind of resilience, so that I could continue and enjoy a creative practice of some sort, regardless of feeling like throwing in the towel, and sinking down into a kind of vacuous despondency from time to time.

At a time that seems to be marked by uncertainty, collective anxiety, and increasing social unrest, why do you think the perspectives and contributions of artists remain meaningful? Do you feel a natural relationship exists between your work (or the role artists play more broadly) and confronting established systems—of power, cultural institutions, or otherwise?
I believe that the deeper question at the root of what you are asking here is - “why do people make art,” and then, one can follow up with - “does the life of a person who decides to make art, affect the larger society and world that we live in?”

I think that perhaps it is more fruitful to remove the word ‘art’ and ‘artist’ from this equation, and just ask - “do individuals have any intrinsic connection with what is ‘outside of them,’ and if so, are the effects of that connection caused by conscious decisions on the part of the individual to create change, or are the effects simply a result of the intrinsic connection that already underlies everything”…what Thich Nhat Hanh identifies as the state of “inter-being” or “implicate order” (to borrow a term from physics) that already exists between everything, seen and unseen.

I think the answer is that artists affect the ‘world’ through both states, and in both ways. There are artists who set out to make change the subject and end game of the art that they make, and there are artists who affect the ‘world at large’ simply by sheer dint of the fact that the intrinsic connection that is already present, ensures that the activity and byproduct of their creative lives as artists always has an affect, in a variety of ways, both ‘seen and unseen,’ that even the artist is not necessarily consciously aware of. This tends to happen more quietly, on a person to person level. Regardless of the artists approach to all this, I think that it is impossible for artists, and the art that we make, not to have an effect on everything that’s going on, in the very same way that all phenomenon is fundamentally interconnected and in an ongoing relationship in the present moment.

To speak to the question of meaning, I would have to say that, as an artist, I have learned that it is a mistake to seek confirmation that my work is ‘meaningful’ from sources ‘outside of myself.’ I think one ‘second guesses oneself’ as an artist, when you start believing that the confirmation of the value of your work comes from anyplace or anyone other than you. Really, when I find myself asking “does it have meaning,” with respect to making something, upon closer inspection, I realize that what I am really asking is - “do I have value?” I propose that if one is looking for anything even remotely resembling an answer to that question, ‘outside of oneself,’ one has entered into dangerous waters creatively. I believe that art making is primarily a tool or vehicle for the artist practitioner to foster a greater understanding of Reality, and most importantly, to provide countless opportunities to experience transcendence of the smaller self on a deeply personal level. Everything that grows from that motivation proves to be ‘of meaning’ to the ‘world’ in the larger sense of the word.

Can you share some of your recent influences? Are there specific works—from visual art, literature, film, or music—that are important to you?
With respect to influences, I think that what I tend to do is to constantly revisit and augment the number of pieces of art, music, film, etc that are of interest to me, and pertinent to something that I’m working on or thinking about doing. So really, ‘recent influences’ tend to be a revival of perennial favourites coupled with new work I’ve just discovered.

If I was to give a list, currently it would have to be anything and everything by : Corot, Giacometti, Hockney, Euan Uglow, Frank Auerbach, Richard Diebenkorn, Constable, Turner, Cezanne, Fred H.Varley, Hopper, Fairfield Porter, Murray Laufer, Hugh Seaforth Mackenzie, John Howard Gould.…and I could go on and on.

Musically, there’s so much that I listen to on a regular basis. While I’m drawing… it would have to be anything and everything from; Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Ralph Towner, Bill Frisell, and Keith Jarrett. These musicians have been important influences on my work for as long as I can remember.

With respect to reading, I’ve been kind of all over the map more recently…and I am a big fan of audio books as well. I very much like to hear any material read aloud. In the recent past I’ve re-read Walden by Thoreau several times, Leaves of Grass by Whitman, Pablo Neruda poems, Rumi poetry, T.S. Eliot poetry, Henry the IV, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Brothers Dostoevsky, a lot of material from Thich Nhat Hanh, Suzuki’s Zen Mind Beginners Mind, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa, Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, and Utopia For Realists by Rutger Bregman.

Who are some contemporary artists you’re excited about? What are the best exhibitions you’ve seen in recent memory?
David Hockney, Rackstraw Downes, Frank Auerbach, Paula Rego, David Altmejd, Gerhard Richter, Hugh Seaforth Mackenzie, Murray Laufer, Berndnaut Smilde.

I am afraid to say that I work a lot, and I really don’t get out much to exhibitions very often…In recent memory, I think that the best show I’ve seen was probably the David Hockney retrospective at the Met in NYC. That was back in 2017.

Do you have any tips or advice that someone has shared with you that you have found particularly helpful?
Actually I do, and it is very ‘unglamorous’ advice at that. However, for a younger artist starting out, I think it will prove to be particularly helpful.

While I was in a life drawing class during my art college days, I overheard my drawing instructor John Howard Gould (1929-2010) giving advice to a student who was going to be graduating that year and going off into the world to make herself a career full of fame and fortune.

She recounted all of her big plans to John, everything from solo shows working up to retrospectives in major museums, (all achieved by a certain age) sales, catalogues, traveling exhibitions, the works really…and of course, being a more impressionable junior student, I was amazed at what appeared to be her unshakeable confidence in the assured success of all of her carefully crafted plans.

I watched as John sat quietly, listening intently to everything that this ambitious student said, and then without missing a beat, as soon as she had finished speaking, he paused and asked - “would you like to know the key to success as a visual artist?” The student answered enthusiastically in the affirmative. So John continued; “find yourself a good part-time job.”

I was shocked really, and so was the graduate student. I was expecting John to give her some piece of advice with some hidden gem of studio wisdom in it, mined after years of sweat and toil, or better yet, the name of some contact or person ‘high up in the art world’ that this student could reach out to, someone who would magically ‘launch her career’ ten steps ahead of where everyone else had to start out.

At the time that John gave this advice, he was 57 years old. He had managed to maintain an immensely productive and successful career as a draughtsman, musician and filmmaker for over 30 years, by this point in his life. I had seen some of his exhibitions and films, heard him perform live on his instrument as well, and it was all stunningly accomplished and beautiful. Sales of work, solo shows, catalogues, interviews, articles, performances, and even a stint one year in the Venice Biennale, John had achieved a lot as an artist up to that point in his life, and these achievements were pretty much all on the to-do list of the graduate students ‘checklist of future accomplishments.’ I instantly realized that John’s advice to find well paid part-time work, that did not eclipse ones creative endeavours time-wise, or sap ones creative energy to the point of exhaustion, was the key to maintaining a consistency in studio practice for the long haul and living a productive creative life, full of longevity.

If one is wealthy and can devote all of ones time exclusively to studio work - wonderful, great, your time will be your own. But for most artists, it’s money that causes most of the problems, and it’s the time and energy that has to be devoted to earning it that really interferes with ones ability to work consistently at ones art, especially if you are following your creative muse regardless of the financial outcome sales- wise, come ‘rain or shine’ as the saying goes.

Some years later, I even read the exact same advice to young artists penned by none other than Henri Matisse.

As the saying goes “expect the best, and prepare for the worst.” John’s advice was by far some of the best ‘art advice’ I’d ever heard.

What are you working on in the studio right now? What’s coming up next for you?
I divide my time between working out of doors, up on the beautiful Bruce Peninsula, making drawings and shooting photographs for as long as the weather permits, and then moving indoors to the studio in Toronto as things cool off, to continue this work, but with the added addition of working on sculptural pieces as well. All of this is basically going on year round in a cycle, unless there is a serious interruption to the flow of this pattern, as happened early in 2020 right through to May of 2021 with the pandemic.

The experiments that I began with composite photography in the summer of 2020, look like they are shaping up to be enough pieces for a solo show in the not too distant future. I am also now in the process of looking at experimenting with a series of very large portraits, that would be shot in a similar fashion to the composite landscape photos, only with some newly added twists, thanks to Photoshop, and, having a lot more experience under my belt working in this medium…and of course there is drawing…draw, draw, draw! Stay tuned!

Anything else you would like to share?
Thanks very much for including me in this edition of the magazine. It’s been a pleasure answering your questions, and I hope that what I’ve said may prove to be of some value to your readers.

To find out more check out Gerard Sternik’s Instagram.