SAMM COHEN interview with John LeKay

Awakenings © Samm Cohen

Also, as I am a photographer too (as you can see on the site), I believe that if I use a photograph, the photographer needs to get some of the credit. If I create a photograph that I like, I probably wouldn't paint it, because that is my art already. I occasionally use a magazine or photo for a reference, but much more often than that, I use a mirror. Most of it is from my mind, with referencing to reality like that. If I want to mix the photography and the painting, sometimes I paint on photographs or use a photo in a small part of my painting or do things like what I call mixed media, in which I digitally combine painting, photography and anything else I find interesting to make a new for of art.

JL: Do you see most painting as self portraiture?

SC: I believe that all artwork is somewhat of a self-portrait, maybe mine more obvious or conscious than some. This is backed up by my art therapy training, though I was painting long before I did any kind of psychology. I preferred painting without thinking about it so much, or being so aware of what people could read into it. Too often in classes we are taught to break people down into simplified representations of what we think things might mean. I know these may show much, but the representation of it is complexly aesthetic not verbal, and although I think it is interesting to attempt to verbalize it, it looses much in translation. So much is missing.

JL: Has your work as a psycho art therapist enabled you to tap into and address some of these more difficult human conditions?

SC: Some people are quick to diagnose or pathologize others by a piece of art. I think those people are often anxious to try to justify themselves by showing the differences between themselves and the one to be picked apart on display. I think its interesting to suppose what someone else is going through, some sense of voyeurism or vicarious catharsis. Nobody can know completely what anyone else was thinking or feeling though. I think we all have some commonality and to those my work speaks to, maybe they have found it. Some people prefer not to think about things too much and just live, but unfortunately I have never been that way. With my therapy background, I analyze life deeply all day long, even more so then before. The art therapy has hindered my work because now I am so self-conscious and over analyzing, but I am sure with time, that will fade. Unlike Dali, the connecting of intellectualized cognition and displayed emotion don't fill me with amorous feelings for Freud, though I do retain great interest in the psychodynamic view of myself and the world. I am myself much much more into a self-psychology, mutual symmetric experiencing and sublimative power of art itself; I'm am much more of an existentialist.

I use poetry a lot in my work, sometimes for inspiration, sometimes for titles, sometimes actually in the piece. I try to incorporate all that I have gotten in my years in my art, so that my loss of naive poise and naked faith become a conscious rawness, a state of conviction, sometimes acceptance sometimes revulsion, of the complex emotions and ambiguity in life.

JL: Can you please tell me about Inner Ravings, Black Hole and Full Moon. They all seem to address very intense psychological states and frames of mind?

SC: Inner Ravings and Black Hole are both painted on mirrors (I think Black Hole has a poem). Inner Ravings, See Through and this other one called Maternal I did in roughly the same time. I was playing with full length and actual size objects, and the relationship between reality and perception (as you look into the reflective glass). I think in the title I was mocking myself. Black Hole is actually a piece I'm very connected to, but I looked on my website and couldn't locate it, so I'm not sure where you found it. It is about a horrible break up I had a few years ago, and a feeling of immeasurable emptiness in the damage and disappointment, sitting in my stomach, growing in its collections. This painting represents despair but also hope and resilience, the strength to both show emotion as well as the continue on. As I said it was a bad break up with a guy who treated me quite poorly in the end.

Full Moon is the piece I chose to make a postcard out of, because that and maybe Moon Pouted Glory and The Kiss are what I've been told people remember the most. I cant tell you what was going though my head when I painted that, especially cause there is a half moon in a painting called full moon, but I really like that blue and the way the night pulls me into those eyeless sockets and makes me feel mysterious and ominous of the dark evening.

I always try to paint out of the emotional side of myself; which is more difficult when I am doing something specific, because its cognitive, so I try to immerse myself in it, and its different and interesting to do because of that.

JL: Do you work from a modal or from photographs?

SC: I rarely use models because it is so hard to get someone to sit for you and to stay still, and then sometimes there are expectations or vanities that get in the way or strain the relationship. A few pieces had models though; for Awakenings I used a friend of mine Anna who is just a little bigger then me for half of it (then she got tired of posing after a while, so I used my reflection and my mind to finish it). I never use photos (unless someone is paying me or something) because I think it lacks three dimensionality and life. I'm not saying that you cant make a vivid picture from a photo, but the lack of energy and chemistry makes it no fun for me, and why paint in a way that is no fun.

JL: Is there a method you use to tap into this emotional side of yourself in order to bypass the cognitive side of your self?

SC: I think one can only express in the deepest way emotions one has felt. Therefore when I write or I paint, the closer it is to my experience of life, the more vigor I feel the art has. Though it doesn't have to be extremely representational; many of my painting contain self-portraits, but in a amorphous manner that could be a portrait of the viewer too. I don't like to paint too representational (if I want a photograph, Ill take one) but I like to see some clue of what is going represented figuratively, so that each I can create my own stories and feeling about it, or remember how I was then. I like to leave that open space for one to place their own feelings at the time of viewing. I appreciate many other forms of art, and I the differences between my work and others, and certainly don't mean to criticize anyone for artistic choices made. Mostly, I don't paint in any way for anyone else, though I can give a rational explanation for it that seems to make sense, I painted the way I do because that's how it flows out of me.

JL: Do you see yourself more as a painter than a photographer, poet or do those distinctions not really matter to you?
SC: Id like to say in theory everything is equal, but that might not be truly how I feel. I think I'm closest to painting in certain ways, because: its what I learned first, It was an important element in my one of my dearest relationships, with my grandmother, it allows so many raw expressions without any delay of result; I smear paint along the canvas with my brush, my fingers, my face, I see the colors, mix them as if nature compels me, and it appears in front of me as I feel it.

That being said, the merits for other forms are plentiful and distinct from painting for me. My photographs that I show are quite emotional and not very technical, even though I am quite aware of technique. There a sense, a cognition and intellectual stimulation I think involved in photography, a planning and formed symbolization that I do appreciate about photography, as well as a finished look that resonates a distinct and flavorful emotion. The anxiety and delay of development is both terrifying and magical, in such an anticipation of glory.

Photography also has a special place in my soul, and I have been shooting ever since I was 5 or so (my mother likes to tell a story of how my camera broke at Cape Kennedy when I was 3 I think, and that was the only focus of my attention for the whole trip). Mixing my media is newer for me, sometimes adding bits of photos to paintings, painting over photos, or combining them digitally. Digital work seemed cold at first, but I worked to make not a lesser but a unique and skilled media in its own, and I am passionate about this work too. It also gives me a chance to distance myself more, to be more objective.

Working with metal, like my jewelry, allows me to make something worn, which I think has a very different flavor, and to make something that is not a shimmery commercially valued piece, but another expression of art, which is challenging and rewarding.

Poetry allows me to express myself verbally, to use other part of my brain, to derive metaphors and clarify meanings, and I not only like to write, but need to sometimes. I think what I value most is when I can combine these elements, because that allows me to express different parts of myself. I guess the distinctions are simple descriptions to explain to others, but to really know me or my work, you'd have to see it all.