Raymie Iadevaia

Raymie Iadevaia was born in Newport Beach, California. In 2013 Raymie received an MFA at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA. Recent exhibitions include: Savage Sentimentality at the Wignall Museum, Rancho Cucamonga, CA; Here! at Durden & Ray, Los Angeles, CA; Another Cats Show at Ooga Twooga, Los Angeles, CA; and forthcoming, From the Barricades at the Kreuzberg Pavilion, Berlin, Germany. In 2014, Raymie became a member of the group Durden & Ray.

The Chrome Contortionist, or, a cauldron of gleaming moments
The main thing is to know how to set about it, to be able to concentrate your attention on a single detail, to forget yourself sufficiently to bring about the desired hallucination and so substitute the vision of a reality for the reality itself.¹

The Chrome Contortionist is holding still, taut–– Saturated.
A sinuous crumpled space of variegation animating sustained intensities splayed out in slapstick: accelerated paper-cuts, slowed down curvy monochromatic bursts, attenuated color-strips anchored to the poise of fuzzed verticality shuddering–– clowning––an emaciated Leigh Bowery––but retaining all the force.Bonnard’s Hairball a ruffled mopping of cuts, clips, slices, shreds––the chuckle of the bulbous contrasted to sharply incised jankily-pinked fragments.
The Chrome Contortionist is a meshing of the body-made-elastic through warped spaces––
Jerked. 
Twitched.
Frayed. 
Frazzled.
––Straddling carpet seams a blue sea tabled feline frenzy aplomb in the possibilities of stacking, like a game of Jenga, or of dirty dishes––waiting for the crash or just the meowy-melodies of catcophony. Taking to all fours, mirroring both table and cat, a fluff patch of silvered streaks doubles the reflectivity––fur to carpet facings.
The tensility of aquarium walls counterposed to the ethereal density of the cartoon collides and oscillates the compounded crest of color. Seeing wetness. Maintaining the glisten from tube to dab. A cataract of frenetic sustainment vibrating to reach a threshold of impossible exponential rapidity––or in reverse––to reach the holistic instantaneity of the peeled eye.
Blinking.
 

Interview with Raymie Iadevaia

Can you describe your working routine? Do you have a daily studio practice? What is the most important part of maintaining a successful studio practice?
I split my time between the studio and teaching. I try my best to get to the studio as often as I can, at least a few times during the week. More if I have a show coming up. My studio day usually consists of me walking in with a large coffee, then I sit down and look at what's going on. I try my best not to take pictures of the work in progress so I can feel surprised or otherwise act on my instincts as I see the work fresh in the studio, rather than on my phone. Once I've pondered at the state of things, I change my clothes and start to make as big of a mess as I can. The rest of the day is spent cleaning up that mess.  

Can you give us some insight into your process? How do you begin? Do you keep a sketchbook/does drawing play a part in your work?
I have a sketchbook that I try to use daily, notes on color, ideas for pieces in progress, small drawings that can be blown up and further developed, that sort of thing. Drawing acts a kind of binder between modes for me. The book is where drawing becomes the most activated, while the work in the studio drawing's presence is slightly diminished, or rather extended to an idea of collage. Collage for me is a kind of nexus of my practice, putting disparate entities together in order to make them clash, reverberate, resonate, scream, shout, sing, laugh, chuckle, or otherwise create a cacophony of materiality. 

Do you ever experience the equivalent to “writers block” for artists? If so, how do you get in the creative mindset and flow?
Not really, I've never been one to feel like I have a lack of ideas or otherwise am stuck in one place. The real frustration is the amount of obstacles that impede my ability to get to the studio each week. When I'm separated from longer periods of time from my work, it becomes that much harder to get back into the routine, to develop the inertia that drives the momentum of my process. Things take time to culminate in the studio, like a stew that simmers and thickens for hours, my work happens slowly, trying to explore and extract each flavor of material in its totality. So if there is any gap in time for that slow consistency to take shape, it makes it harder to re-invest the energy to rev the cauldron back up to a boil again.

How does your artist statement function for you? Do you think it is an important element in the practice of being an artist?
I've always enjoyed writing and the artist statement acts as an opportunity to shift gears from a purely visual space to a space of imagination through the word: imagination and the sonic elements of words. I try to envision and make the statement as a piece in itself, not for exposition, but to engender an ancillary experience, or rather as a tacit relationship between the elements of my practice.

Are there a few artists that you are looking at currently?
Right now I'm shuffling between Elizabeth Murray, Joan Mitchell, and Stanley Whitney. Others like Bonnard and Matisse have always been close to my reach.

What has the transition from graduate school to working artist been like?
It's been difficult. In the last year and a half I've shuffled through a number of jobs and its been very difficult to maintain the same consistency in the studio that I took for granted in school. The ability to just show up to the studio every day was an invaluable experience, and that memory has kept me going, because I want to re-claim that experience, or rather re-immerse myself in that daily continuum. However, that all being said, almost two years out and I've managed to start adjunct teaching both online and on-campus, and I've been in several exhibitions, so all in all the transition feels like it's moving steadily in the right direction.

You have shown internationally quite a bit. Can you tell us more about how you became involved with exhibition opportunities overseas?
Last year I was invited to the artist collective, Durden & Ray, which amongst other things, creates curatorial opportunities both nationally and internationally. There are about twenty members who all are heavily active within the community, allowing for a variety of exchange exhibitions in other galleries or exhibition spaces worldwide. One in particular was at the Kreuzberg Pavilion in Berlin.  

What do you listen to while you work? Is boredom something you have to contend with in the studio?
 I flip through a bunch of things on any given day: NPR, Hairband power ballads, Poison, Katy Perry, The New Pornographers, Steely Dan. Lately I've been really into the new album by Jenny Lewis, The Voyager. However some days silence is the best recipe for momentum, feeling the drive of my body as I fling around paper, pulp, paint, and debris. Boredom is something that I'm constantly trying to repel, to keep things fresh, lively, excited, entranced, and enchanted. There's a quote by Frank Stella that I've always found helpful, "I tried to keep the paint as good as it was in the can." 

Do you have any shows coming up? Anything else you would like to share?
 I'll have my first outdoor sculpture featured in the upcoming exhibition, The Arroyo Seco Garden Golf Classic in Los Angeles. Check out www.arroyosecoggclassic.org for more information.

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your work and talk with us!

To find out more about Raymie and his work, check out his website!