Visual Artist studio secrets with A. Mercier and M. Roca Díe: MY ART TOOLS

In My Art Tools (new segment) we look into 2 artists' tool box: what is their fetish instrument? Artists think with their hands. Let's get technical! The artist's hand will guide you through the passion of following one’s vision, the pleasures of trusting an instinct, and the resilience it takes to work creatively. Hosted by Joana P. R. Neves.

The guests: Anouk Mercier (UK + FR) and Marina Roca Díe (SP).

In an endearingly geeky manner, the answers reveal fantastic methods and unimaginable stories. A big plus: hilarious little incidents and big misadventures that lead to a breakthrough, or a new possibility.

What you get from this episode: Have you ever thought about the stuff art is made of? Wondered how artists make what you see in museums and galleries? How they train their hand, eye, body? Artmaking revelations, art techniques, lessons in resilience, art philosophies, ethical questions.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Hello, I'm Joanna Pionnevis, creator and host of Exhibitionistas, and this is the first episode of the segment My Art Tools, where I take you to two artist studios by asking a simple question which unexpectedly reveals quite a few secrets and stories from the creative source itself. And the sources in question are Anouk Mercier, an artist who is now based in France but has lived many years in the UK and still teaches at UE Bristol, and Marina Rocadier, who is based in Madrid and has currently, at the time of recording and release of the episode, so the 3rd of October 2025, an exhibition at the El Chico Gallery in her hometown, which we mention during the episode. Because the artists were interviewed in their studios and show a few things to the camera, this may be an episode you might want to watch on Spotify or YouTube, but the audio experience works too if that's what you prefer. That's not a problem. If you want to know more about the artists, I would recommend going on Instagram and following Exhibitionistas or even better, signing up to the newsletter to learn more about them and also to get the links and little gems that didn't make it to the episode there. For those who may not know, the Exhibitionistas files are part of my page, Joanna Pierre Nevis, on Substack, and I don't send informative newsletters because I really don't enjoy that. And if I fill in your inbox and spend time promoting each episode, it has to be for a better cause. So by signing up, you get to access a different kind of information and also all of my texts and a lot of other posts on Sapstack that are not newsletters. I don't have anything under a paywall, and I'd love to keep it that way. So donations are appreciated either through the website exhibitionnistuspodcast.com or Sapstack or even buy me a coffee. All those links are in the show's notes, or if you go to Sapstack, obviously you have the subscription button function at the top of the screen, I think. You'll find it. Anyway, let's move on to the episode. Allow me to plead my case. What if I told you that the tools used by artists are absolutely fascinating and may hold the key to an understanding of their work from within? We create myths in art, right? Based on the images and documents we have at hand. Pollock with the drip paintings, for instance. But what if we looked closely at other practices and gestures? What if we paid attention? And also what if you had someone who would bring these informations to you? And that's what I'm here for. Artists use unexpected tools or familiar ones in unexpected ways. I'm not looking for the spectacular here, although it might happen, but for the sensible shift that suddenly opens a panoramic view on a work of art or a whole body of work. But another thing that led me to think more intentionally about this topic was an exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford dedicated to Raphael's drawings. When I went there, I expected to see a few sketches, and indeed the exhibition had exquisite works. But there weren't only sketches or projects. There were these sorts of screens or what I now know to be called cartoons with holes on the outline of the figures. And in fact, these cartoons are full-size drawings used to transfer the structure or the composition or the figure carefully tested and defined previously through drawing onto a wall or onto whatever surface the painting is going to be on by pouncing or tracing. So it means that those little holes they were intentional, they were there for a purpose. The purpose was to then apply powdered charcoal or black chalk on the drawing so that the little dots would be marked on the surface to then be painted on. There was a table there with a display of all the tools that Raphael used. So when you think of painting, when you think of drawing, you think of pencil, you think of graphite, and you think of brushes and paints. And what the display included were coloured chalks and charcoal, metal points, which are rods of metal alloys, so gold, silver, copper, or lead and lead that left microscopic particles on paper. And so the color of the line would depend on the composition of the rod. Pen and ink, he used the blind stylus, which was used to sort of try out different shapes without marking the paper, uh, and a compass, so a double-pointed compass. So you can see there was a lot of precision. None of this is in the catalogue, which I promptly bought because I really wanted to study that. And in the picture I took, there's a reed pen and a fine brush. So, of course, this is not to criticize anyone here, but I do feel that we look at art more like historians and less like technologically savvy people with curious minds and who actually know how to handle stuff and can very quickly put ourselves in the minds of the people who are creating. Historians are obsessed with timelines and influences, which is funny to me, knowing how much artists lie about dates. So the Renaissance, after all, when I left that exhibition, I thought associates imagination with science, chemistry with observation. But mostly, how silly the myth of the artist painting from nothing, and also to me at least, how uninspiring. It's you know, it's as if everything came from the inside, as if the artist didn't spend countless times adjusting the material to the imaginations, but also perhaps the imagination to the material. The precision of the transfer and the care in using a double pointed compass shows the importance of the final image, the painting. The Italian Renaissance feels to me more cinema than free representation, it is more seductive than inspirational, and it's closer, bear with me, to the convincing power of deepfakes almost, than the compulsions of surrealism. Especially when you know how the images are made, you look at them in a completely different way. So Anouk and I talked precisely about the playfulness of this dynamic between the tool and the image, the project, the making and the outcome before she told me what her favorite tool was.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Drawing can be anything you have at hand, really. Um and so you know, often that is, you know, just biro and a piece of paper or pencil, but it can be other things. You know, you can be out walking and it might be the soil underfoot that you use with your fingers, a mark of recording, even if your favorite tool is a graphite stick. Is that the best tool for the project that you're working on today? Is it the best tool to translate the you know, the object or the scene that you want to record? So I would say in terms of teaching, actually, my approach is the opposite to having a favorite tool. Sometimes you have an idea, and that is the first foremost, you know, that's the first thing that's the starting point, and then the tool you, you know, is there to support the idea and to make it come to life. Um, but sometimes a tool will inspire an idea or will drive you towards a certain direction, um, which is why, again, if we talk in terms of teaching but also applied to studio practice, playing is so important because if you only rely on ideas and you know, using tools to make those ideas come true, you might actually miss out on something that is experimental that you wouldn't have planned, that really only stems from playing practice.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

I chose my uh fountain pane, uh, and I think it's because it's very difficult to find the right one. Uh there are thousands of them, and it's a pretty expensive material, expensive tool. My husband he gave it to me. Uh from a trip he well, I used to live in Berlin, and then from a trip he did in Madrid, he went to the flea market here. And if you search for it, you you will find these like stunts with like really vintage boxes of thousands of these. And they are pretty pretty cheap for what you can pay in a store. So he he was able to buy, I don't know, five or six for me to try them. And this is my favorite one. So, uh, first of all, the looks, uh, it's like a stilo pen, like black, it's plastic, actually. I I think it's like uh embedded, like it's metal embedded into the plastic, which is a bit strange, you know, but it gives it like this look, like this vintage look. So I I really like this one because of the uh strength of the point, you know, like sometimes you have the tip. Uh sometimes uh pens for calligraphy are too hard for drawing, like you can feel like the paper is scratching, you know, like like this feeling. And that I don't like. I like it to have some flexibility in the tip.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

While ink is not so important for Marina, Anuk's choice is surprising as it is as much a tool as it is a material, but it has another component to it. Raphael could not have used it, as opposed to Marina's fountain pen, which is very, very close to the Renaissance materials. Anuk's choice of tool, which is also in some ways a material, is completely dependent upon 20th century technology of the machine.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

When you when you asked me this question, I thought immediately about toner. I always thought that it was just carbon powder, which is what it is. Uh, but yesterday, because I was like, I'd I'd better double check that I'm right about this, um, I found out that it's actually these tiny particles of plastic coated in carbon powder. So I did not know that. Um so basically, this we're talking about toner. So this is you know the toner cartridges that all of us have in, you know, and used at some point. They're in most photocopiers. If you've been to what really any type of education, they are basically uh these little plastic particles coated in carbon powder that are then um applied to paper using laser technology. Um and uh there's an electric charge involved as well, and then it's burnt onto the paper. So the like the plastic particles melt and literally you know, sort of cement the carbon powder onto the paper. So tona is literally those that carbon dust. Um for many, many years I have used it and I never referenced it. So, you know, when people ask you, you know, uh whatever, to list the materials of an artwork. For years toner did not feature, I would just say, acetone transfer, which is a transfer method that I used with acetone. And basically, what happens in this transfer technique is that uh I use a toner photocopier, I apply the acetone to the back of the photocopy, the acetone repels the carbon powder and reprints it so it transfers it back onto another piece of paper. So essentially, it takes that carbon dust that's all over my initial photocopy, and it repels it and pushes the little particles onto the next piece of paper. Everything started from having an idea uh from you know 18th century landscapes and etchings in particular being my you know predominant source of inspiration, let's say, and wanting to appropriate those references into my work. I remember this does not happen anymore because of health and safety, but when I was an art student on my foundation course, one way of introducing students very quickly to the notions of printmaking was to do acetone transfers. Um, so I remembered that, you know, years ago in foundation, I had tried this technique, I loved how immediate it was. You've got the photocopy, you transfer it, and you know, two seconds later you have your transfers. But it really came from I had an image, I needed to transfer it. Uh, how do I do it? Go to the photocopy machine, photocopy, transfer, and move on. And I think there's also something to do with photocopies are so familiar to all of us. They were very unprecious.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

We're not that far from the intricate processes that Raphael and other artists of the Renaissance used to work on their shapes, to copy them, to transfer them onto drawings from drawings and then to the final piece. We're not that far away from a sort of a mechanic handling of the shape through a very, very trained hand. The artists of the Renaissance used mechanical copy of drawings that they were satisfied with, and why waste time making them over and over again and why not keep them? And perhaps once they're transferred on to the final piece, maybe change them a little bit. And something to note as well is that that technique, you know, the pouncing technique, breaking little holes on an outline, was used for tapestries, for example, to reproduce patterns of tapestries and other crafts. So there is also this tension in a technique that is used to make what we call, perhaps with a sense of grandeur, masterpieces. So in some ways it's really interesting to use 20th century tools in order to look at what was done in the past, play the anachronic game, and try to assess what we try to obtain through these tools that seem so distant and yet kind of produce the same thing, which is to extract images that already exist in order to make new ones. And so that really affects the idea we have of creation and of image making from an artistic point of view, not from an entertainment point of view or from a publicity and advertisement point of view, but really this area, this field of intense creativity, imagination, but also science and research and purpose and intentional experimentation. When looking at the work of both artists, you would not imagine the technical challenges that they both have, nor the physical engagement with the process.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

My first kind of um, you know, uh commission, uh, which was to create an artwork for Bristol Museum. I uh basically, you know, I proposed my whole idea for the commission, um, which would basically be to uh photocopy images from their collections to bring their collection back to life through a new artwork, um, which is, you know, a way of working which I adore, like plunging into history and looking at collections and and and really finding ways for the you know contemporary audiences to re-engage with those um, you know, artworks and artists and narratives. So um, you know, it was really exciting for me to get an opportunity to work with a museum on this. So I pitched my idea, um, and everyone agreed, move forward, was very excited. And at the time, uh, even though I'd graduated, I did all my photocopying at the UI library. Uh, so I would sneak back in, even though I wasn't really allowed to, and I would photocopy, you know, um, and yes, apologies to Yui if they're listening to this. This I guess, you know, it sounds kind of crazy, but to me, an hour and a half of photocopying images is comparable to a painter going to an art shop and buying tubs of painting. It was my primary source material, right? And you can still see behind me, this is how I do it. So I do lots of photocopies, then I put them up on the wall so I see the images, and then I'll select areas of them, cut them out, and then transfer them. And on this occasion, which felt to me like the most important time, you know, I finally had a commission um for a museum. I got to the library, did all my photocopying, got back to the studio, sat down, started to make, and it didn't work. It just didn't work. So the photocopies that I had made, I did everything as usual, used the acetone, and nothing happened. So obviously, utter panic. And then I spent a day going around Bristol in all different shops doing different photocopies to see if it was the photocopier that was different, and all of you know, just tried lots of different things and I I just couldn't make it work anymore. I ended up actually contacting the photocopying uh machine producers, I can't remember who it wasn't, a very helpful person explained to me that it's because the technology was advancing and they were now burning the uh toner and sorry, burning the carbon powder at much higher temperatures onto the paper, which to them was great because I don't know if you remember this from holding photos copiers. You used to have black fingers afterward, and that was the toner powder coming off on your hands. So for them, uh increasing the temperature meant there was no more staining of fingers, but it also more durable, um, you know, just better quality all around. So basically he said to me, you know, we're going around replacing all of the photocopiers so that now they burn at much higher temperature. So your technique isn't going to work anymore. The only way to resolve this is that I then uh did lots of research, spoke to the guys um at um, you know, the various printer companies, printer manufacturers, and uh identified a model that still used toner at the temperature I needed. And I bought the photocopier and it's in my studio, and I still have it today. And they still luckily make those toner cartridges for that for that photocopier. All this to say, I am so not a geeky person. This makes me sound like, you know, I'm really into understanding technology, and actually, I'm really not that kind of person, but the technology I was using has forced me to become a bit of a photocopier geek and a toner geek. Um, and from that day on, I started listing toner as a medium because I was like, it's a very real thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Drawing is a much more complex affair when it comes to tools, but also the body. Or perhaps I should say, when it comes to the relation between the body and whatever is used to make the image or the final artwork.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

I have a lot of uh anxiety with my with my hands. You know, like uh I'm all the time like needing to do something. Like if I'm in a bar, I'm like squeezing a little napkin or like a piece of paper or like doing something while I talk. And yeah, and it's very common that I am touching the lid while I'm drawing. Uh so for me drawing is something of uh like it's an activity related with this, right? Drawing, in a way there are no mistakes, but at the beginning when you start learning, there's a lot of mistakes, you know. So you learn to spot them and to really realize if you want to keep them or not, you know, and in a ways like beforehand. So I would say a mistake in a drawing done now for me would be uh that is like out of composition. Like for me, composition is like is my is my problem, you know, because I tend yeah, I I tend to be very expansive. Um and so I I approach too much to the borders. Uh sometimes I I don't leave space to continue, you know. Like I just like I expand and expand. I I would need more paper, but then like but the paper is limited. That's like what constitutes a frame. Like you have to assume the frame before you start. It's a rule, it's a rule from the substance of the material you're using. It's like like you cannot assume an infinite frame, like an infinite paper. Like you have to assume the borders of the paper because at some point you get out of the paper, you know, like you're painting on the table at some point. So it's like it's a given, I think. And but it's it's more like the relationship with the thing I'm drawing. Like, for example, if I'm planning to draw a figure in a landscape, and then I start to with the fountain pane, I start from I don't know, the head of the figure. Normally I do it too big, then the landscape is not fitting in. So that's it. That's my problem. I would need more paper around, and then I would expand the drawing, and then I would add more paper around and span the drawing and more paper, and then it's like it's impossible. Like, no, no, you have to contain it. Like it's important, the frame is the most important, you know. And with drawing, I think it's more uh this fact is very obvious in the sense that for me a drawing is something um like the paper is just a support, but you could actually remove that support and put a black one or a yellow one on another any other color, any other cutting of paper, and you could still raise up the drawing like as if it was like a wire, you know? In on a void, but it's also like it's a it's a way of seeing, you know, like with your eyes, it's a way of using your eyes while you're drawing. I think it's uh yeah, yeah, like drawing has that, like this flattening of reality, and then you uh the paper is assumed, but it could be any other paper or any other material, or it could be a a wall, or it could be directly the frame, and then you draw on a board of the frame. I'm a painter, I'm a flat earther, you know, like the frame is the paint, is the painting.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Damn it! No, of course. I'm joking, but you know, it's for me the painting is a frame, actually.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

That's like the frame of reference, like and the format. That's also why my exhibition now that is like an installation instead of just white cube and paintings on top, because in a way I think uh every painter or every draft man needs to assume the frame, but there's also a desire to get out of the frame. And so for me, like the effect of the white cube on on paintings in a painting exhibition is the same as the effect of the paper on a drawing. It's just a support, and you assume it, you don't think about it, and it could be another one. You could change exchange it for another one, you know? Um so yeah, so what I'm doing is like covering the whole all walls and like breaking on the white cue. Yeah, and then I'm putting the paintings on top of them.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

It felt constrained and smothering, this need to conform to a size of a paper and the shape of the canvas until I understood that it is part of the game. It's like a game of cards whose combinations are incredibly vast but contained by the rules of a game, which reduces the possibilities but makes it far more enjoyable because it allows you to have an effect on the outcome and also to let the outcome affect you. Marina's exhibition at the El Chico Gallery in Madrid is an all over installation where the walls are completely covered with a painting, with brown tree trunks and a deep dark blue sky on one side and on the other a brown red crepuscular atmosphere as if going from the beginning to the end of the day. The floor is also painted in a deep but sort of luminous blue, with darker lines like rings in a body of water, and there are also paintings on the floor. Marina mentioned the reference to the history and fictional narratives that we carry, but working from prints and somehow stealing them, what impact does her technique, Anuke's technique, have on the past, how we see it, and current stories. What is drawing then if it is so vast a field that it extends to engraving, photocopying, performing a sort of discipline to actually see through the hand?

SPEAKER_01 28:28

It's like a slow thinking. Drawing is like thinking very slow, you know? Like you wander around a page. Um sometimes like for the kind of drawing that I do, which is like expressionist uh expressionist material, expressionist drawing. Uh sometimes people tend to believe that it's like because it's gestural, it means it's fast. But it it's not fast necessarily, you know. Why fountain pain actually? Yeah, maybe it has to do with some kind of tradition where you learn. I don't know, but uh you know what I mean? Yeah, so the thing is that when I learned how to draw, uh it was important that you couldn't correct the drones with this. Like you cannot erase it and make it back r right again, you know what I mean? So you could learn what was wrong about the drawing. And so it has something very emancipatory for me. In this sense of like once the line is done, it's done, that's it, there's no correction. And it's very beautiful in the sense of um a practice as a kind of performative aspect, you know, like once it's done, it's done, so that's it. So you commit to the line. Um and that's beautiful. And then sometimes they are shitty drawings, you know. That's also fine. Like you don't need to share them all, you don't need like you can destroy them, that's fine. Just calmly destroy them. I destroyed many drawings, I had many, many bad ideas, you know, that didn't work.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

I'm curious about the situations where the tools used come to us unexpectedly and enter the studio or a particular project, and this at the most unexpected of times.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

My this is before we had children, and Max was not my husband, he was my partner. But he said to me, You're working too much, I have to take you away for a weekend to Wales. And honestly, it was a very busy time, and I was like very reluctant to go, and I was like, Oh, I just want to be in my studio. So he took me to this tiny village in Wales, can't remember what it's called, there was nothing there, and I was I entered this holiday cell in post-holiday quite reluctantly, to be honest with you. But anyway, when we were there, walking in this tiny town, there was this tiny shop cafe thing, and they had this tiny section with like two shelves, and on there was some art materials. And you know, I looked, of course, and I found this um this pen, which was really like a felt tip brush felt it, but this beautiful pen that came from Japan. I have no idea why this tiny shop in Wales was selling this pen. No idea. Anyway, I picked it up and spent this little weekend drawing in my sketchbook, and that went on to me starting drawing with ink and experimenting with different brushes. And I guess that's an example of a time where it was really an object of material that led you know to ideas within my practice and in a completely unexpected, unlooked-for kind of way. Um, and I think the lesson I learned from that holiday was that it's actually good to get out because sometimes you know you're exposed to influences you would never have expected, or you encounter material you've never, you know, encountered before.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Well, the thing is, I did still end up drawing all weekends. The joy of finding a new thing to work with is also the joy of developing a new project, which is precisely what happened with Marina.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

You can think about a drawing that then you can exhibit or sell or just put it hanging somewhere or like a drawing as an object, and you can think of drawing as a as a a thought to arrive to something else. So like uh I've been I've I've done thousands and thousands of drawings in my life. Bible is called a Bible for Lilith. I can show you, but I have to I have to go for it. Just give me a second. It's very exciting to show the Bible because I it's a very difficult object to show, actually, to exhibit. Because you're like how can you exhibit this? But the the thing with this object that is it started as a mistake, as a failure, in a way like uh my boyfriend said, ah, it would be great to have uh a sketchbook that pages are too thin, so I can trace, like I can see the next page. You know. So I thought, ah, for his birthday, I'm gonna find like this Bible paper that is so thin. I'm gonna find this a book that is blank paper, but it's like this Bible paper so he can see what he has drawn on the the prior drawing, you know, so you can see through. And so I bought it for him as a present, and then it was like super long because it came from China, and by the time he received the present, he didn't remember this idea anymore. So when he got it, he was like, a Bible? What the fuck are you giving? Like, why? You know, it's like and then he was like so stupid because it was coming from China, it got stopped in at customs. So then I had we had to like cross the whole Berlin to pick this shit up, and then when he opened it, like, oh my president finally, like I don't know, like two months late, delay of his birthday or whatever. Then he was like, why, why? You know? So I was just like, okay, forget about it like stupid. So stupid, stupid, very stupid, like it turned completely ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

This that was for you, it was not for you, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

And aware of it, I I bought it for myself, but anyways, I kept it. In any case, like anyways, that doesn't matter. What matters is that I kept it, um it's like uh almost 500 drawings, yeah. So I spent a couple of years doing this, you know. It has like a golden spine, you know, all these little thingies as a real Bible, you know. And then I started, okay, I'm gonna do some erotic drawings here because like haha, I'm very radical, whatever. And then at some point you realize that you have to commit or you don't continue, you know. But like at some point you decide if you are gonna really do 500 drawings or really no, and then you stop now. But you know, but like to leave it half is a shit. So just like what you whether you commit it or not, and I did, I committed. Um yeah, and so yeah. So the thing is that like it started, you know, you can see a bit of development. Okay, so Lilith is like the first uh woman of the Bible. So in the Bible, like there is a sentence at the beginning of the Genesis saying, uh God grabbed, I I don't know, I'm paraphrasing, of course, but God grabbed a piece of lamp, a lump of clay, and then uh cut it in half, and then he was like creating woman and a man. Because this is like pre-biblical text, like Lilith is prebiblical text. Um so, in like these like versions like Jewish versions of the Genesis. Some versions of the Bible kept this sentence, this is like very mysterious sentence, but it's like God created the human by its uh image and look, or something like that. Female and male, he created them. And then yeah, so that that was the first idea was like grab a lamp of clay, you cut it in half, you have woman, and you have man. And then this man was Adam, this woman was Lilith. Um and Lilith was a rebel, and she wanted to uh fuck on top. You know, it's that's what it says in the studies to lead sex activity, and Adam wanted to have a missionary position, like a regular he wanted to be on top, she wanted to be on top too. So they they have a fight of power because Adam wants her to be a bit minor, and then she wants to be equal. So she runs away from heaven, you know, from paradise, which is very funny, it's a funny thing, like she runs away from paradise, wasn't it the the best place to be? It was like the best place to be. No, she didn't want to be there exactly uh-huh, and so she runs away and she goes to the Red Sea, and then she she starts to live there, and there's like a bunch of demons, and she fucks them all, and then she has tons of babies. They say like she has hundred babies a day. That's what it says in the story, you know. Yeah, she was something, and so so Adam gets bored, and he tries to confraternize with animals. That's what it says. Really? I'm I'm I'm not with animals, with the animals around to see if he can like get along. And he of course he cannot find the comfort. And so he asks God to bring her back. Um God sends four angels, I think, to bring her back, and the angels go to the Red Sea to bring Lilith back. She's super busy, she moved on, she doesn't give a fuck about Adam anymore. And then the angels come to pick her up, and she's like, fuck you, I'm not going, you know, I'm staying here. So the story says that uh the angels uh they as a revenge they kill all her kids. And then because God cannot find a solution for Lily to come back to the paradise, then she like he thinks that okay, then let's make a woman but out of your body, so it's a bit of a minor from the birth. And then he creates Eva.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Time and dedication to a project come with the type of final outcome one ends up creating. But if we invert this logic, it may as well be that Marina found a state of completion which could apply to such a no-mistake kind of work. On the other hand, her interest in the erotic, the body, and sex also found a place where it could exist.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

I feel the responsibility of uh yeah, I think it I think uh art can be very ethical or unethical praxis. Because uh sex is a very, very delicate subject indeed, because it's also like it can be very aggressive for many many people, and you are making it visible, and it's something that is supposed to be in the intimate sphere, right? And so uh but then at the same time, because it's in the intimate sphere, like for many decades it hasn't been talked about, and then that has led many people to dangerous situations because of lack of sex education. But then at the same time, if you're drawing it, you are like making it visible for everyone to see, and that's very it's also yeah, I'm responsible for that. Um and I understand too, you know, like it can be highly pleasurable and highly dangerous for many people, and at the same time, also, you know, like some like there's some connection between pleasure and pain. I think that's interesting, but then at the same time, I also understand that there are some channels where you shouldn't be able to show sex because you you know, I don't wanna be scrolling down Instagram and then all of a sudden find an erection like boom on like a porno image. I don't want that either, you know, like it has to be in it's very aggressive, you know, like I'm not in the mood, like why you are not asking about it.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Time for a short break to let you into the exhibitionist studio. Look around you. There is a computer, a good mic, the software in the computer, which is a sort of virtual space through which you and I meet with a time and space delay. Then there are my books, and two perfectly round flintstones. All the magic happens here. I've been talking to a university whose students need placements, and I could use some assistance with production and research while also mentoring the future professionals of the field. But for that I have to pay them. And that's where you come in. Do you know how much a membership costs? A mere twenty-five pounds a year, which means that you pay two pounds a month. Twenty-five pounds for a whole year. When you buy a catalogue, that's the average price for one single book with two texts. If you become a member of Exhibitionists through a platform called Substack, you not only get to support exhibitionists, but you also receive on average about eighteen more texts minimum that I will have written about many, many, many fascinating topics of contemporary arts, philosophy of art, and many other subjects. There's a little bonus that I added, which is getting to ask me questions. I'm very, very happy to do the research for you or to dig into my little well of knowledge and put the information out there for you. I can name you or you can be anonymous, so you get to put me to work as long as the questions and the prompts you give me are within my abilities and the research material available to me. Otherwise, you can go to DonorBox in the description notes. You can just donate one time very, very small amounts. That's what I do with Wikipedia. Once in a while, I put some money in there because I use it almost daily. And I want to reward people who nourish me. Thank you for spending some time with me here in my studio. Thank you for considering this decent proposal. On with the episode. This question of control, controlling the space where images are, who sees them and where, reverts back also to the freedom of creating and the discipline of release and tension in creative processes. Imagination must flow, but technique must shape it. Although not too much. Ideas must preside, but perhaps not on a conscious level. Stories are present, but are they at the start or at the end of the final outcome?

SPEAKER_03 45:04

If you put some acetone onto a photocop here and you push it around, you start seeing the pigments moving like dust. So you can make little piles of dust or move it around. And what I love about that is that it meets at that point graphite, which is the other thing that I use, uh the other tool that I use. And it means, especially now, um uh recently Faber Castell has I've got them here, has uh created these uh pit graphite mats. So that they're making graphite pencils now that don't reflect. So if you color with them, they're very, very matte. My pencil of choice, but these so this is very reflective, this is not. And basically, these new pencils with toner carbon powder, it's it looks and feels like the same thing, and now I can blend them seamlessly. It's kind of like taking my work in a slightly different, well, a little bit of a different direction because I can now rework photocopies and images, and you can't tell that I've reworked them because the graphite, this graphite is very much like the carbon powder. Part of why I find this process interesting because I am actually taking um, you know, prints mainly etchings, really. Uh so repro so basically reproduction on so many levels. There is the original etching that has been reproduced itself several times, usually, to you know, to make additions, and then they have been reproduced in art books. I have the art books, I then reproduce the reproductions of the reproductions through a photocopier. And what I'm interested in as well is the dilution of the image through that process of reproduction. Um, and when you reproduce images uh, you know, in the final stages at my stage on a photocopier, it is further diluted because actually, you know, the photocopies transfer more or less well. So some of them get distressed or you know, slightly um damaged. But also, this is where the acetone part is interesting uh because depending on many factors, the acetone moves uh like transfers the toner more or less. So I had another moment of like, oh my goodness, it's not working. Why? Um, because so I I you know I have moved to France partly because I have now a house with a big barn that's going to be a great studio, uh, and we're working on it, but for now, it's very much an empty barn with no heating. Um, and last winter, you know, me, I was like out there with my you know duffel coat making, and uh my transfers were not working. And I was like, no, why are they not working? Yeah, and I was like, not this, not this again. Um, and in the end, I realized I came to the conclusion after trying lots of different things, that it was actually that it was the acetone that at a lower temperature, basically under 10 degrees, acetone doesn't really work as well for the toner to transfer. The acetone needs to work, be strong, and it needs to be more than 10 degrees. So um so all this to say that you know, when I am transferring the photocopies, the image gets altered. And factors like the temperature on the day, the you know, um how how diluted or not the acetone is, what brush I use as well, how hard I press, all of these things influence the transfer of the image. And to an extent over many years now, I control this. So I know if I use this type of pressure on this type of image, photocopied at this uh, because you know, on a photocopier you can alter how light or dark the photocopy comes out. So I also play with this. I've also always done very, very nearly hyper-realistic graphite drawings. So that's all about control, all about control. This aspect, in contrast, the fact that I can never fully control, even though I've tried for years, I never have control over the final transfer, is actually a huge, nearly like a relief to me. It makes the making exciting because I I'm going to respond to the transfer. Sometimes it does something I'd never anticipated before. And then those marks, the transfers, which I then draw over, they will inform the drawing to an extent. So I'm responding to the unpredictability of the transfer. And um, I love that way of working. It's for me, it feels very liberating. I would say, you know, that half of my practice is is too tight. And I think, like, you know, when drawings are too stiff or too in inverticum is perfect, or trying, you know, hyper-realism. I mean, this is not a criticism of hyper-realism. Um, you know, I need to work that way because it's partly how I learn to draw. When I observe something really, really intensely, I understand it. So for me, it's a necessary exercise that I really enjoy, the the drawing, you know, really realistically. Um, but it's extremely tight. And I always, when I went that way, I'm always thinking, you know, that's great, but actually you need to loosen up. You need to let, you know, art, I always think of art in a scientific way. You need space for experimentation because it's when you experiment or you play that things you hadn't thought about occur, or you know, where you kind of get into that flow state, sort of like, you know, things come to you, etc. So all this to say that if tomorrow uh my photocopier breaks down and that's it, I know that I would be already, and I have already started looking for another technique, method that brings that element of unpredictability in in the transfer or in the way it works. I think an important part of the process for me is thinking about how you know that whole precious uh side of art making, especially in Europe, that the etchings, you know, they're they're like really laborious uh art making techniques. And people thought I should try etching and I might like it, but I actually didn't because it's so like tight and and laborious. And I think um, you know, there was this whole thing about these like um master printmakers, you know, of the 18th century and this kind of reverence to print. And I adore those artists, I adore their prints, but a big part of the way I'm working now and with the photocopier is being able to be playful about those references, those images and those techniques. And uh, I think one of the main things, and I've no answer to this, but that always kind of results from from this relationship that I have is uh whether people think my work is print or not, because it's not print in the sense there isn't this, you know, people will say, but there's not that labor-intensive side of it, because I'm just transferring an image. I started uh referencing the artist whose work I'm appropriating so that people know it's a deliberate, wanted collaboration, not that I'm trying to kind of, you know, and also to bring that artist, you know, to new audiences, I suppose. I've realized that all the reference material that I have it's all male artists, and so I've been wanting to use female printmakers.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

Um when you are a female painter, because it's like you are like carrying the weight of all the tradition made by male.

SPEAKER_03 52:44

I try and draw every day, even after my kids are in bed or or you know, and having those two ways of working has allowed me to keep making at all times. But it was already something I did anyway, but it's been reinforced by you know having to keep making in that sense. I think drawing teaches you to really see. It's hard to explain to people what seeing really truly is, but you know, for example, you know, go and draw water, and then when you look at water, you will never see it the same way. You see it in kind of areas of light and dark, broken up movement, and it just adds a, I don't know. I feel like I see the world more intensely. If you study something and you draw it, you then you know, it's like on a daily basis, even if I'm not drawing from observation, when I look at things, I feel like you know, you're you're always sort of deconstructing and trying to understand what you're actually like seeing.

SPEAKER_02 53:38

It was fascinating listening to such different artists with different experiences of drawing, art making, and exhibition spaces. I'm surprised to see how observational drawing for them is linked with seeing and how it pervades their day-to-day life. What I mean by that is obviously if you observe and you draw, it has to do with seeing. But there is a real dynamic between having drawn and then seeing the world in a completely different way. I connected a lot with Anuk saying that even when she's going about her life, she is indeed seeing the world through potential drawings. I'm always writing a story in my head, taking mental notes and recording little segments. Recently I spoke with a multimedia artist who told me that his drawings didn't translate his music, or vice versa, his notations. They came with it. The more we expand our experiences and the art, the more we're carried and carry a wider and richer form of engagement, which we take to our lives and our actions, perhaps. It doesn't make us better people, probably, but it certainly seems to make us more disposed to engage with the world, to wonder and to be curious. As for the characteristics of 21st century art as opposed to Raphael's time, I hope I brought some proximity between them rather than radically separating them. If you think about it, nothing has changed much since the caves, in who we are and what we take from our technologies. As ever, it's a game of push and pull, with perhaps now a more acute awareness of the danger in the use of certain materials and the overpowering presence that they have on the planet. Would this be the reason why Marina and Anuk focus on the landscape and stories of the past while subtly making them hybrid, energy, and ambivalent? What I don't know what to make of is the writing spectre that in a sense haunts their work. It's probably just me projecting my own language onto their art, but it did seem that the photocopier and the fountain pen have that memory of the written and the distributed words. What do you think? This is it. I hope you enjoyed this new segment as much as I enjoyed editing it, preparing it, researching it, and particularly talking to the two artists, Anouk Mercier and Marina Roca Dier, who were so so generous with their time. And you out there, I hope you took something from it. I'm really curious to know what you thought of this episode. So leave a comment, send an email, sign up for the newsletter, follow us on Instagram. There's so many ways to reach us and to make suggestions, tell us what you thought, and perhaps also share a few ideas that you may have had while listening to the episode. Take care, have a good one. I'll see you in a couple of weeks with another brand new episode. Take care.