INTERVIEWS AND REVIEWS
Debut Contemporary | Interview (March 2012)
Abigail Box's current work forms part of an ongoing exploration into the curiousness about existence and toys with the contradiction involved in feeling both a sense of belonging and feeling displaced. Wild animals are introduced into a series of human environments to provoke a fresh and inquisitive perspective onto something familiar. In attempting to reflect upon everyday surroundings along with conventions and behaviour that in part create a feeling of being an 'outsider', Box questions the parameters of individual space and the associated difficulties with confronting and comprehending our own reality.
We caught up with Abi as she finishes her Exhibition 'Call of the Wild' in Hong Kong and leads on with a new Exhibition entitled 'The Great Escape' at DegreeArt in London.
DC: Congratulations on your solo show in Hong Kong, How did if feel to exhibit internationally?
AB: It's really nice to know that the work is reaching more places and people. And it's encouraging to know that someone thinks enough of the work to fly it half way around the world for an exhibition.
DC: What is the art scene like over there?
AB: "Hong Kong's art scene has exploded". I read that in HK Magazine just before I went over. I only went for a short time but I'd agree that the art scene is shifting, Hong Kong is now engaging the international art scene. White Cube, Ben Brown Fine Arts and Gagosian all now have galleries in Hong Kong, which has encouraged both the local art scene to work with artists from further afield and the local collectors to be more adventurous with the art that they choose to buy and support.
DC: How did you find the whole experience on the opening night? How was the feedback from your work in 'Call of the Wild'?
AB: Identity Art Gallery is a really smart space and Carol did an incredible job curating the exhibition. Lot's of people came to the opening including a few of the gallerists that I had met whilst going about the surrounding galleries in the week leading up to the opening; Hollywood Road is a hot spot for local gallery spaces. Also, I was able to met in person a couple of the people who had bought work and talk to them about it, which is always a nice thing to be able to do, I like to ask what it is about the piece that they like or where they envisage hanging the piece.
Video of the opening night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPlUV9TX9_A&list=PL764E0FF696A07E38&index=10&feature=plpp_video
DC: How long were you in Hong Kong for? Where did you visit?
AB: I arrived in Hong Kong on the Kowloon side at night which meant I was immediately faced with a whole load of massively over the top neon signs - my favorite: http://flic.kr/p/bi3i5V. I went for a week, Hong Kong is... a huge mixture of skyscrapers, street markets, parks, restaurants, shopping - an insane amount of shopping. A very busy and happening atmosphere. I enjoyed taking a day out from all of that to go on one of the Hong Kong walks, you can take a bus to a small town called Shek O and then walk along The Dragons Back, which is very peaceful and has beautiful views of the coast. Whilst on the island, some of the galleries I visited included Contemporary by Angela Li where there was some photography by Chen Kiagang, Connoisseur Contemporary which had interesting work by Zhou Siwei and Cais Gallery which was showing work by Mayuka Yamamoto, paintings of children dressed up as animals and Christmas trees, amazing.
My Hong Kong Blog http://www.abigailbox.com/HK_BLOG.html
Flickr Photos from the trip http://www.flickr.com/photos/abigailbox/sets/72157629015976103/
DC: Tell us about your new upcoming exhibition 'The Great Escape'
AB: The exhibition will run from 5 - 27 April at DegreeArt on Vyner St, London and the opening will fall on the First Thursday monthly event 6 - 9 pm. Also, I've been planning with DegreeArt to have a few events surrounding the show, we we're thinking of making a video interview and perhaps an artist tour of the exhibition. I'm showing ten or so paintings so I've just been looking at the floor plans trying to work out how best to put them in the space. The DegreeArt directors Elinor and Isobel and Gallery Manger Ryan are always very enthusiastic about ideas for exhibition, they're recently launched The Execution Room as a new concept for the gallery being a space for both new ideas surrounding curatorial experimentation. My favorite so far has been 'Forest of Art'; installation artist Sophie Colley filled the room with sixteen Pine trees. Then a selection of artists from DegreeArt made work appropriate for a forest. I took the opportunity to paint an owl, they'll also be some owls in 'The Great Escape' exhibition. They're around life size, so not very big and I don't usually paint small paintings so now I'm considering at some point in the future painting an owl but 6 ft high.
DC: What can we expect from the show?
AB: Paintings which are just absurd enough to inspire curiosity. I'm showing a collection of images in which wild cats have found their way into suburbia, with a few of them making themselves at home on the couch. I like the humor behind a gigantic wild cat having a nap on the sofa in the hallway. Also, I hope the work can be appreciated simply on a technical level, I really enjoy working out how to paint certain parts of each piece, there are usually a lot of different surfaces to each of my paintings, softly painted areas or messy, parts with really obvious brushmarks, bits that have been painted with the edge of a card. Hopefully, that's something people will find as interesting as I find experimenting with.
DC: Where do you find inspiration?
AB: Looking at work by other artists often has me thinking that I'd like to try out similar techniques or ideas. The Makiko Kudo exhibition currently on at Wilkinson gallery has just had me jotting down lots of thoughts for how I would like to give a go at applying paint in a similar way at some point. The surfaces in Kudo's paintings are much rougher than my own, almost to the point of looking like areas of the canvas were filled in a rush. It's a finish that I think you have to be quite brave to be able to not over work. I'd love to think that sometimes that kind of inspiration might happen for someone looking at my own work. That would make me really happy. Sometimes one painting will inspire the next, for instance I took a photo of a painting in progress at one point whilst it had a wooden stepladder standing in front of it. I liked it so much that now I've plans for actually painting a ladder into a future piece of work, again it will be in the foreground and look almost as though it's not apart of the painting. Similarly, sometimes I'll be inspired by an accidental application of paint that works out unexpectedly well and I'll plan to recreate the same effect again in another piece. Also, I'm always finding new pictures that I'd like to work with, photographs that trigger ideas for a new composition or a new idea for how I'd like to render a surface that I haven't worked with before. People who know my work have even started suggesting to me their own ideas for what I could have happening in my paintings, and I get a fair few photos emailed to me, things like bears eating at picnic benches.
CD: How do you like working in London?
AB: London is fantastic for being involved with art; we're spoilt for choice with exhibition, galleries, inspiration, talks and events. I went to a kite making session last weekend, it's been running for a couple of weeks and at the end we're all heading to somewhere like London Fields or Victoria Park to fly them. Then, my studio is in East London and it's nice for people to be able to come and see the space, I think it's interesting to see the place people make their work. Having said all of that, there's a lot online now too, I listen to a lot of artist conversations, talks on the Tate Channel for instance but I'll always appreciate being able to attend certain things in person.
DC: Where's your favourite place to relax in London?
AB: The Aubin Gallery on Redchurch St. has and independent cinema in the basement; it has a bar and extremely comfortable armchairs and sofas. That can all be pretty relaxing so long as you don't go see a thriller.
The Great Escape exhibition runs from 6th April to the 27th. More information on DegreeArt.com
Shocaseme.com | Interview (March 2012)
Abigail Box, born and raised in York is now practicing as an artist in her studio in East London. She has exhibited and sold work internationally in Australia, Bermuda, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein and the UK. Box graduated from the University of the Arts London, Camberwell, in 2008 with a BA in Fine Art Painting after having previously attended Glasgow School of Art for one year in Fine Art Sculpture and Environmental Design.
To View Abigail Box's Artist Techniques: Click Here
SC: Can you tell us about some of your work?
AB: I think being interested in things is a good thing to be and my work tries to encourage that idea of curiosity and fascination. This is especially true in the mundane but also just in general to take things in because so much passes us by and I like to try and slow it down.
SC: How would you describe your style?
AB: I like to work with a lot of colors, painterly gestures and to experiment with mark marking, so my paintings are usually a big mixture of complimentary and clashing colors and textures. I especially like to paint big paintings, and would even paint bigger if I had a bigger studio. I would also like for some of the big animals present in my work to be life size, perhaps just to know that they are as big as they are in life, as that would put a different slant on how the viewer registers the image.
SC: What inspires you to paint?
AB: I like the freedom that comes with painting. That you can make a picture of whatever you'd like to. I also like to invent scenes first by collaging things together but then when it comes to translating the picture into a painting, I'm allowed with paint to develop it however I like past that original photographic assemblage.
SC: Are their any historical or contemporary artists that you specifically admire or who have influenced your work?
AB: I especially like Peter Doig, I can get lost in his paintings. Rebecca Warren for the way she makes sculptures, like a really gestural painting. Also I've recently become a big fan of Wilhelm Sasnal, whose work I saw at Frieze fair. I'm completely in awe of his work and I think I'd honestly be quite star struck if I ever met him. Gosh, I just googled his name to check that I spelt it right and I've found a load of interviews with him. I like watching or listening to artist interviews online, like the Tate site has a lot of them, which I put on when I'm painting late at night.
SC: Where do your ideas come from?
AB: Sometimes ideas come to me while I'm making one piece, so one painting will inspire the next. Other times, looking at work by other artists often inspires me to try out a similar technique or idea.
SC: Are your paintings of actual locations/people or are they painted from your imagination?
AB: They're mostly painted from photographs.
SC: Can you tell us what your process and method is when you are creating?
AB: I have a big collection of imagery... both on my computer in the form of Internet searches or scans and just drawers, folders and shelves of cutouts.
SC: Please tell us about your technique, what your preference in materials is and why?
AB: I use oils, tubes of paint including colors I don't expect to use, bits of card, brushes... I've lately started using the edge of cards to paint surfaces that require less control over where different colors end up on the canvas like bricks for instance.
SC: Do you choose your subjects or do they choose you?
AB: bit of both because the first bear I used in my work definitely found me. I saw him in the Metro and took a fancy to him, so I ripped him out and put him in my pocket for later. I had no idea he was going to be the first of many massive and wild animals that would go into my work. I have increasingly specific ideas for what I'm looking for in the imagery I use but every so often I come across something that I wouldn't have thought to consider using and I'll add it to the image collection.
SC: How does your location or environment affect your work?
AB: Lots of light is good and a bit of a balance. I like to work by myself or at least with minimal talking and so I enjoy being in my studio. But getting out of the studio is good too, walks and going out and doing something at the weekend.
SC: What is your thought process when you are about to approach a new design?
AB: I usually have an idea in my head for my next piece for a while, so when I finally get around to it I'm completely ready for it.
SC: What are you feeling when you are working on a project?
AB: I sometimes think about how crazy it is that my job includes coloring in.
SC: What is it that inspires you to paint a particular subject?
I like to paint things that have an element of curiosity or light humor. The piece 'You Can't Leave That Lion There' is about lots of things but I like that there's a gigantic wild cat having a nap on the sofa in the hallway.
SC: How have you handled the business side of being an artist?
AB: I don't always know what I'm doing but meeting other people and talking about what you're thinking always seems like a good place to find out.
SC: What's next? What are your latest works about and where are you going with them?
AB: I currently have an exhibition on at IdentityArtGallery.com in Hong Kong until March 5th. Then I have a show at DegreeArt.com in London on Vyner Street which, will be on from the 5 - 27 April. I'm also doing some work with TheFabelist.com a group that celebrates the thinking behind and process of creating work as well as the finished piece.
SC: What is your greatest ambition as an artist?
AB: "How can painting reflect the experience of being alive today?" - Wilhelm Sasnal. I'd like to make work, which achieves that. Or maybe slightly rephrased, how can painting reflect how being alive today can be experienced.
SC: What advice would you give a young artist just starting and wondering where to begin?
AB: Not to assume anything!
DegreeArt | Review (March 2011)
Over one thousand visitors poured into DegreeArt.com this First Thursday
'A REALITY OF THEIR OWN'
To say that the opening night of 'A reality of Their Own' by up and coming artist Abigail Box was well received is an understatement. Guests were treated to drinks as well as an atmosphere that surrounded the street.
Over a thousand art lovers flocked through the doors of the Degree Art.com gallery, to view the large canvases themed with indoor-outdoor imagery. Paintings that clearly Box has poured her heart into for her first solo show, producing work of substance over quantity (although the latter is not lacked).
The portrayals of animal's wandering into human environments 'feeling a sense of belonging and displacement' which makes the audience question how true that statement is. Such is the urban environment that Box has translated through all of her work, she questions who is invading who? The colourful and accomplished 'Sofa So Good' (2011) featuring two polar bears seated majestically on a red floral sofa does this greatly, the painting offset by a block off light florescent pink show a signature that Box is not afraid to play with.
Box quotes "There is a point where in the mystery of existence contradictions meet." Through this quote Box has tied together an evening of both visually and mentally stimulating imagery as seen in her signature piece below, she is not afraid to toy with such matters of existence.
Much of her series could be seen hanging on many walls soon, a successful night of true appreciation, which has already started murmurs for an encore.
DegreeArt | One to Watch (March 2011)
DegreeArt.com proudly supports Abigail Box and congratulates her on her recent exhibition ' A Reality Of Their Own'. Abigail has an undoubtedly captivating aesthetic, and is the perfect candidate for our March 2011's One To Watch!
DA: What's your favorite song at the moment?
AB: All I Want for Christmas by Mariah Carey. All year long
DA: What's your favorite color?
AB: Right now gold.. especially next to neon yellow.
DA: Do you have any phobias or fears?
AB: I'm not sure that I do.. I get anxious about losing things, which is often
DA: Any favorite places in London?
AB: I love London - it would take me forever to explain how much - and I still can't quite believe that I moved here a bit by accident. I like walking places and especially walking over the bridges and looking over the Thames, Tower Bridge is stunning. I also really love London parks, as a kid we had our own garden which I used to think must be the best thing but I much prefer going to public parks and people watching. London Fields is my current favourite
DA: Tell us a fun anecdote!
AB: Gosh... my answer to 'how has your day been?' often involves me explaining how I have attempted to carry back to my studio work materials that are too massive for me - I'm convinced that I'm the size of He-man and that I can lift anything - Whittens Timber have been at a loss watching me walk out of their yard with a sheds worth of wood over my shoulder in an attempt to walk back to my studio with it. I need to start investing in delivery..
DA: What is your favorite era of art?
AB: I'm very inspired by colourfield painting, when Jules Olitski's painting 'Instant Loveland' was hanging at Tate Modern it was something I really enjoyed being in front of - it's massive, three by six meters, with colours cascading across of it - I think it's really exciting.
DA: What realms other than art inspire you? Anyone or anything specifically?
AB: So many things...! everything. specifically, I'm pretty certain the neon element in my paintings came from at one point wearing an excessive amount of day glow, I have a love for high-vis work vests, also I appreciate that I live in an area with a lot of amazing street graffiti. I keep a log of everything that I'd like to remember: interesting window displays, bright skies, quotes, links to music videos or blogs, dreams or conversations I've had: I've got something written down somewhere regarding a conversation on art that I had with my doctor..
DA: When is your earliest memory of realizing your ambition to become an artist?
AB: I've always been told to do what enjoy doing and I've always, since I can remember, enjoyed being creative. I like that art is not limited by a need for function or sense - it can be a complete break from reality - realising this I remember feeling that it was exciting and something I wanted to be apart of.
DA: How difficult did you find the transitional struggle of studying and creating art compared to graduating and having to pursue it on your own outside of the institutional confines and in the real world.
AB: I felt like I had only just started to get to grips with what my own work was about in my last year or so of college, at the time I felt that I needed longer but looking back it was a great time to leave because I had realised a direction for my painting and there was so much that I wanted to create and so I didn't find myself in a creative lull. Since leaving Camberwell College, there has been a difference in the way I feel about practising as an artist. In college the work produced is seen constantly by tutors and the other students whereas now that's not the case there is a bigger incentive to get work out of the studio and into exhibitions so that it can be seen by the public and I've become more aware of how the work is experienced from it being seen by a wider range of people. It's especially nice to hear that people with no art background appreciate my work and have opinions about it.
I've been lucky to have found a nice place to work, my studio is next door to another 40 or so other spaces so I'm never far away from other creative people. I find working from home difficult, my studio is very much the space where I think, experiment and make work.
DA: Are there any mediums you struggle to work with? Anything you aspire to work with?
AB: I'm a catastrophe with charcoal.. a mess, with no resounding results. I'm just starting to work with introducing large areas of gold into my compositions... so I might have a go with some gold leaf.
DA: What's your most nerve-racking moment as an artist?
AB: Delivering paintings - I am the worst at driving vans!
DA: Do you have anything to say to art collectors who are taking the time to invest in graduate art?
AB: It is so important - this sort of investment and encouragement means emerging artists can continue to make work and make it available to a wider and a bigger range of audiences, which means we can help influence the direction of contemporary art, new artists means more movement and progression. I'm inspired as much by other emerging artists as I am by already established artists and the history of art.
DA: Where would you like to see yourself in the foreseeable future? 5 years, 10 years?
AB: I've got some places I'd like to go to - I'd like to do a residency in Berlin as it has an interesting art scene. I'd also really love to go on safari at some point, to be able to experience first hand some of the animals that I work with in my paintings.
Let'sMotiv | Interview on La Braderie de l'art (Dec 2010)
By Judith Oliver | Friday, November 26, 2010
Indemodart Indemodart | translated from French
So Sabine, what to expect for those 20 years?
"Already, we have explored a record number of candidates. I can tell you that the selection is more excellent than ever. Thank you Sabine. Remember, these volunteers are applying for a unique experience to say the least: 24 shut themselves in the Condition Publique with the sole objective of achieving a the best works of art from junk objects (thank you Emmaus) and selling them, for between 1 and 250 euros. But what caused this escalation of aspiring artists? "Between the event which scatters in Nantes, Lyon, Montpellier, Barcelona and Cork, and operations as Nainportekoi success, we start by having a pro and amateur monster. It has generated huge flows. But we must also say modestly that the flea market of art is a hy-per trend, "says Sabine behind her large glasses.
All this does not tell us what to expect. Saatchi Gallery requires, at the 20th edition there will be a slight English accent. Among the 150 lucky winners selected from projects (a project ad-hoc), there were 14 Londoners. "We chose sharp, painters, graphic artists and designers from the best schools in the City." How not to be struck by the plant typography of the genial Anna Garforth. For the Braderie De L'Art, this reputed eco-designer transforms natural materials, as does the painter-collagist Abigail Box and the two collective Regis R. All the artists will pick from a 3000 square metre warehouse full of junk, a "supermarket of Recycling", from which to make art. To ensure that the phlegmatic English does not make any fire sales, Sabine and her cronies have thrown on this issue a rain of wacky animations they have the secret workshop of customization, a parade of drum majorettes, DJ sets, a mega-raffle hosted by Disco Toilet ... For sure, we will not get bored. It remains for us to find the rare pearl.
August-Us | Interview by Rae-Leen Herrera (Nov 2010) ...broken link
Before we start, can you give us a history lesson on yourself? Where and when did you go to art school?
I spent one year at the Glasgow School of Art in 2003, which is a fantastic college but I wanted to move nearer to the London art scene so applied to University of the Arts London Camberwell, where I spent one year studying sculpture and three more years studying painting. Since graduating in 2008 I spend most of my time in a studio in Bromley-by-Bow.
I love the "Square Headed Cow" Why the cow instead of your usual wild animals?
Yeah, I usually work from the collages I make but this image of the cow and the yellow tip I found on an old postcard... I liked the composition of the picture, the two strong shapes and the contrast of the yellow and black. But I especially liked that the outline of the cow's head was difficult to define in the darkness of the bin. I've emphasised this in the painting, the whole cow and head area is block painted in black, and the cow looks to have a square head. The black space is very two dimensional, completely out of place in the context of the rest of the image. As is the cow on the rubbish tip with it's head in a bin. I like that sense of displacement running through the piece.
I heard your paintings are really large, how large, and what would be the creative process involved in this?
On average my work is around 135 by 150 (cm). I struggle to make the pieces I paint to work on a smaller scale. I wish I could, it would make moving them around much easier! The original collages I make are all around A4 size but then I go on to make drawing from these which I then project up on a much bigger scale onto a canvas. I like for the animals involved in the image to be as large as possible, they are meant to be confrontational, either with the viewer or with the other element in the piece itself, their large size helps to emphasis that. I also like for the edges of the work to be as far away from you as possible, almost so that you're surrounded by the work. This is sort of an impossibility but there are a few things I can do with the composition that can help give the illusion and draw the edges of the painting into the periphery vision. And it's so fun to paint big! Big canvas and brushes, plastering on paint, big expanses of bright colour, I love it.
Why do you think I fell in love with your art?
Thank you! I hope because I have such a good time painting it all. The colour and the big energetic painting is part of it but also although there are underlying more serious concepts to the work there's also a lot of nonsense. I've always liked that in painting there's no need to paint something that makes complete, or any, sense. We live with a certain amount of responsibility and seriousness that I don't feel I should have to continue that into my work, not in something that offers an opportunity to have a break from reality.
Also, what is an exhibition you are most famous for?
Shedworks, twelve garden sheds in Regents park. It was a great exhibition for being in such a public domain. I still can't believe that the park organisers were so approachable and let us do it. The sheds that we'd ordered didn't arrive and so we had to get a hold of a different twelve shed that in the end had to be assembled within roughly three hours before the opening of the show, we had to get everyone we knew from college to come over to the park with power tools to help out. Then after the opening had finished the park organisers had us stay with the work overnight, there were maybe six or seven of us, a lack of blankets, one guitar and several domino's pizzas that we'd managed to order to one of the park gates via a very sceptical pizza delivery boy.
The night we met, you discussed with my sleepy scientist husband what you found to be your most creative time? When is that and why do think that is?
Last night is a classic example, I stayed up until six in the morning painting a tiger. We were discussing how it is that I do some of my best work whilst I'm half asleep. I feel most focused at that time and most able to paint. I think my brain switches off somewhat and what's left is happy to work away creatively. I've heard a few people say similar things. It's not useful mind, it means there's a small window of time where I'm getting tired... then I'm too tired. So this leads to chain drinking coffee/wine and perservering through a whole night of enjoying what I'm doing but also really wanting to go to bed. Similar to staying up and writing an essay on Proplus.
Tell me more about your style and color palette choices.
I work a lot of with contrasts, with colour and painting styles. The different painting style I use, moving between realism and something more abstract, originate partly from the original collages but also works to emphasis further that one part doesn't naturally belong with the other. Colour I have fun with, it's all a 'why not' approach. A large canvas can be broken up with contrasting sections of colour, and space can be transformed, with different colour arrangements the foreground and background can be manipulated to give the illusion of different depths throughout the canvas. I'm not always even that great at achieving those effects but it's great to experiment with. I like for there to be a lot of areas in my work that give enough space for experimenting and making accidental discoveries, I learn how to paint everyday.
What is your favorite painting? It does not have to be your own.
Peter Doig, any of his paintings, I love the way he handles paint and translates space on to the canvas, the way he must see it in real life and they way he conveys it in his paintings, when I talk about manipulating space with colour this is what I mean! Although I just saw a Godfried Donkor exhibition at Fred Gallery on Vyner street which I got really excited over. In the paintings of men fighting/boxing, his subjects have a weight about them that make them seem very 'placed', amidst what I find to be an interestingly sectioned up canvas. oh and he's blocked out areas in gold leaf, contradictorily this both flattens areas whilst giving depth to the overall picture.
What do you dabble in when you are not painting?
playing with the microwave
Do you have any show's coming up soon? If so what can we expect to see? Anything new and inviting?
Q-art end of year show opens on the 18th November at the APT Gallery, Deptford Bridge, London. Q-art holds open convenors throughout London at which six people bring work to present and discuss/critique with the group. This exhibition will involve everyone that presented over the last year, so it will be a highly varied assortment of work. Then I'm really excited about having my first solo show at DegreeArt.com in March 2011.
Little London Observationist | Interview by Stephanie Sadler (July 2010)
While I stood in front of Abi's giant polar bears on canvas at Jotta's Trafalgar Hotel exhibition, "Into the Wilde" a few weeks ago, I wondered: cute and cuddly or about to attack? The answer is whatever you want it to be. Abi likes a bit of mystery in her work and leaves us to make up the story.
After she obtained her BA in Fine Art from Camberwell College of Art, Abi's been involved in exhibitions all over London including this year's Affordable Art Fair and an upcoming Art for Youth exhibition at Royal College of Art this Autumn.
Her portraits have been commissioned by BBC2 and Art House, but Abi's turned to brighter ideas now, experimenting with neon paint and massive (cuddly/dangerous) wild animals that are now on show.
For this week's London Art Spot, Abi talks about her infatuation with neon colours, shares her favourite unusual London hot spot for buying art supplies and shows off her latest work-in-progress of a savage little girl on the hunt holding her kill.
LLO: Which aspects of London life most influence your creativity?
AB: I love London. There's such a lot happening and I really appreciate the opportunities available. Jotta gave me the opportunity to participate in the Trafalgar Hotel exhibition "Into the Wilde". Jotta is a great London-based organisation that works with both established and emerging artists. I'm influenced also by the enthusiasm people have here and the way that people interact with the city and each other. I enjoy the variety in lifestyles, which leads me to the questioning of social convention that has a subtle influence on my work.
LLO: Tell us about the two main styles of work in your portfolio - these surreal other-worldly neon paintings of animals in sometimes bizarre locations and a collection of detailed portraits that feel very realistic.
AB: I've always enjoyed painting portraits, they're stimulating skilfully and it's very satisfying when I feel I've captured a person just right. The rest of my work is separate from my portraits although it was sort of born out of a need to break away from such a naturalistic and disciplined style of painting. The non portrait based work I make leans much more towards having complete control over what picture I make, and that with paint I'm not limited by sensibility.
LLO: Where does your fascination with wild animals stem from?
AB: It's their presence. Big animals in particular embody the paintings in an almost protective way. And within the concepts that my paintings explore the animals are partly used as a representation for our basic instincts, our inner savage.
LLO: And what is the significance of the fun neon paint that characterizes most of your paintings?
AB: I partly like that it literally highlights the issues that revolve around looking at a situation without preconceptions. Also such unnatural colours are another way of emphasising that painting doesn't stand in the way of imagination. This is something that took me a while to realise my interest in, and it's now one of the biggest reasons that I paint and make art. And I love bright colour, I like hearing that people find my paintings fun and visually exciting; I think that the bright neon adds to that.
LLO: There is definitely a hint of a story in all of your paintings, almost like freeze-frames from a film. Is this something you consciously consider before planning a piece of work?
AB: Yes, I like for the work to be suggestive of an ambiguous narrative because it encourages curiosity, and I like to be left guessing. I sometimes feel that even I don't know what my subjects are up to. Everyone forms their own rough opinion which is usually influenced by personal experiences.
LLO: How do you come up with your titles and are they usually decided before or after the painting is finished?
AB: A bit of both. All of the titles are appropriated from other sources, book titles, or quotes from interviews or parts of articles, radio documentaries, all sorts. Although they're not random, the borrowed text will always refer to a similar theme to the painting. With the narratives and subject matter being ambiguous as they are, I find the titles help to anchor the concepts slightly. It also seems fitting that seeing that the paintings are painted from collages I make from found imagery that the the titles can also be an extension of that collage.
LLO: Favourite place in London to pick up art supplies?
AB: I love Whittens Timber Yard in Peckham. The staff are so patient with me. I go in and start asking for wood to cut this way and that and always forget all the angles I need... and then return to book a delivery having failed in my attempt to board the number 78 (the small kind of bus) with a whole tree's worth of wood.
LLO: Which other London-based artists do you admire?
AB: I'm a big fan of David A Smith (He is also exhibiting at the Trafalgar Hotel at the moment.) He uses neon lights in his work along with sculptured animal forms. I like that his work has an instant impact and that they treads the line between unsettling and seductive. That, and I'm jealous of the neon lights.
LLO: Tell us about your Art for Youth show coming up in October. What can we expect?
AB: I've now seen some of the work by the other artists and there are a few others that are interested in animal forms, so I'm excited to see all the pieces set up in the space working along side each other. It's great that 35% of all the sales goes to the Art for Youth charity.
LLO: What are you working on now?
AB: There's a piece I've been working on recently that features a little girl who's been hunting. Here she has replaced the bear; she's the savage one. Although she's very young and looks harmless and actually quite serene considering she is standing holding her kill. It made me smile the other day when someone said that the all-in-one ski suit she's wearing gave her a bulky shape, so she still sort of looks like one of the bears in my other works.
Thanks Abi!
Into the Wilde, Jotta | One to Watch Interview by Catherine Hewett (May 2010)
Into the Wilde: Abigail Box
Camberwell College of Art graduate Abigail Box talks to jotta about showcasing her work in the upcoming jotta exhibition Into the Wilde. Her vivid paintings use neon hues, accentuating the bizarre placement of wild animals among modern interior settings, "a conscious decision for my paintings to be an escape from real life rather than be about it."
CH: Do you believe your art work reflects the chosen themes of the Into the Wilde exhibition?
AB: Into the Wilde is an exciting name and I think all of the artists who work on the show are suitably adventurous. A lot of my own work explores our own 'under the surface' animal instinct and a and sense of the unknown.
CH: Your use of neon colours and animals in your paintings gives a graphic, almost street art quality to your work. Is this an intentional departure from traditional painterly techniques?
AB: I do like the neon and bright experimental colours in street art and fashion. My use of neon started almost by accident, having gone to buy paints with a friend and being insanely jealous that she had a need for neon paint. I ended up buying every colour of neon they had. This coincided with a time where I had been painting such real and serious things and I had made a conscious decision to change direction for my paintings to be an escape from real life rather than be about it.
CH: Many of your pieces feature animals juxtaposed with modern man-made backgrounds. Where did this conceptual framework stem from and develop?
AB: The animals, especially the bears, are something about which I imagine most people have a mixture of associations with. Think of wild bears and then the soft bears from childhood; I like the contradictions in that. I like the play between the traditional man-made interior that is so familiar and the unpredictable wild beast in this setting. It raises questions about civilisation versus nature, the vulnerability of the boundary between the two, which leads me to consider the validity of some of our social norms and conventions.
CH: Do your paintings ever feature narrative?
AB: I'd like to think that my paintings have the vocabulary for a narrative, as if they were stills from a film or animation, but that you couldn't be sure what has just happened or what will come next. I hope that ambiguity evokes curiosity.
CH: How do you plan the paintings that you create? Do you do preliminary sketches and samples or do you just improvise?
AB: I keep a lot of cut-outs and old books with imagery I find compelling in one way or another, and then I collage it all together with a intuitive approach. I make line drawings from the collages and project them onto large canvases. I'm essentially creating a giant colouring book, which is something I never really intended, but now, come to think of it, I like this comparison. I can't tell you how much I love filling a white space with a riot of colour.
CH: What are you working on at present?
AB: I'm working with some images I have of young hunters. For ages I've had this photograph of a little girl wearing an all-in-one neon snowsuit holding a dead bird that she's just shot whilst hunting. There's something compelling about her expression, she looks unfazed by the kill, dealing with death in a very matter-of-fact way. She's more awkward about having her photo taken if anything - similar to the old paintings of young royalty dressed in armour, more awkward for being painted than for the idea of going to battle. It's an odd jump going from painting bears to painting hunting scenes, but again it's where those two worlds collide.
Blog Entry by Krystal Rodriguez | 5pixel rags (Jan 2010)
I feel that this year has started off in the right direction. Inspiration and ideas are generating some exciting prospects for the months to come. It also helps to spend some time with my housemate, the lovely and talented Abigail Box. I decided to camp out at her studio during the snow days. We have always managed to work well in close proximity of each other and sure enough I found myself rather inspired by my surroundings.
You Made It | Mike Guppy (27 Aug 2009)
not much of a paint fan but...
Stumbled across the work of recent Camberwell graduate Abi Box, who has some really nice work. I'm not often drawn to paint on canvas work but this girl does something special.
Camberwell BA Degree show review | Imogen Welch (24 Jun 2008)
Camberwell Degree Show BA Fine Art - commentart.com, 24.Jun.08
Author Imogen Welch
Degree Show BA (Hons) Show - Camberwell College of Arts
Getting to Camberwell was bad enough - but finding my way around the show was a nightmare as the Fine Art work is distributed over five different floors in all three of the blocks on this site and even armed with a map I can't be entirely sure I covered it all. The first piece of work however was easy enough to find as it was sitting on the pavement outside. It was a cross between a giant hamster wheel and a tricycle rickshaw! Inside the reception area there were photos and a video documenting the piece by Francis Thorburn on a live road trial. The power was provided by boys, attired only in trunks, being the hamsters. This must have turned a lot of heads during the performance, I was enthralled with just the video!
Somewhere upstairs, there is a large room with lots more sculpture, including other ambitious constructions (an undulating hinged floor and a pipe organ among others) but the labelling lets the work down as it's hard to see who the artist is. There is serious making here albeit a bit dated in some instances.
A brilliantly amusing installation by Rebecca Liddert is her schizophrenic wardrobe. Initially you see an immaculate arrangement of clothes and shoes (with everything colour sorted) beloved of glossy magazine picture editors, but seen from behind it is total disorder! Not only are the items higgledy-piggledy but there are all sorts of inappropriate items of junk too. Another highlight for me is a plaster floor piece by Shanie Mor which looks like it's inspired by 'arts and crafts' floor tiles. Some of the pieces in this mosaic are 3D instead of 2D turning the outsized floor into a Lilliputian city. In a reverse move, Mark Worrall's obsessive, giant doodle drawing on a wall cleverly curves into the shape of a nautilus.
Abigail Box's paintings have something of graffiti about them, partly because of the fluorescent colours used but also because of the architectural details and stencil style she uses. The strongest is titled "Brave New World" which surreally has bears in an urban environment. I was less impressed with most of the rest of the painting with the exception of a colour installation by Nina Rodan, or is it 923 paintings? She has hung those little old fashioned white card price tags on a wall, but each one could be seen as a miniature painting. From a distance the pattern that the colour blobs make looks like a representation of a world map from the statistical section of the atlas.
As always, when I'm at a large show it is difficult to get the gist of any film or video piece as the time the work demands is almost always greater than the time available... However I didn't need long to see enough of the controversial work by Paulo Pereira where a tattooed man alternated between caressing a TV and his own bum while curled up in an almost foetal position. I'm sure that it's a very serious work but definitely not for the feint hearted.
AUDIO
Listen again on my YouTube channel to my interview with Karla Williams from Colourful Radio.
Aired AM 24th Feb 2011
[2:11] abridged
[10:52] full version