Page 20 - the NOISE February 2016

ABOVE, Dancer by Suzanne Stebila is one of a pair storY BY a paiRing OF COMpaniOnS from her upcoming show with Mitch Tarr at the Artists’ Loft. ClaiR anna ROSe
this February a collection of photographs by Mitch Tarr and oil paintings by Suzanne Stebila — “Companions: Pairing Photography and Paint” — will be displayed side by side in Studio 12.12 and in the Hall of the Artists’ Loft on Aspen Avenue. The two artists have been working
together on this show since January of last year.
I meet Ms. stebila in her studio in downtown Flagstaff to talk about the upcoming show.
The painter grew up in Connecticut in a family full of artists. she describes her mother as a renaissance woman — she painted, created reliefs on copper, sewed, wove rugs and baked. Her aunt was a painter and all her sisters were artists as well. “I’ve been raised around art my whole life and I started taking art classes at night when my children were small,” she tells me.
As an adult, Ms. stebila lived in Lake Havasu, Arizona, where she raised her family. It was there she began to study art. At the community college there, Ms. stebila first learned how to silversmith, and soon began to study design, painting and drawing. During the summers she would have the opportunity to study art history abroad as she traveled europe with her professor.
The artist paints exclusively in oil. “I was taught in the traditional style of oil painting,” Ms. stebila tells me. “I even used to make my own medium, but that’s not necessary anymore. They have much less dangerous products you can use. Twenty years ago you’d blend linseed oil and white lead to make a medium.”
she moved to Flagstaff three years ago, opened 12.12 studio and began to paint full time. Though she has been studying art for years, and has been painting prolifically of recent, Ms. stebila hasn’t shown her work regularly anywhere outside her own studio. After years of cultivating her skills, she now hopes to emerge as an exhibiting artist.
For a little under 39 years, Mr. Tarr has been living the creative life of a photographer. Originally from Canada, he moved to washington before arriving in Lake Havasu, where he currently resides.
“Photography has always been in our family,” Mr. Tarr says, and recalls there were many 35mm slides around his home growing up. He bought a 35mm Pentax with the money he earned working at the first job he held while attending high school. He has been a photographer ever since.
He describes his evolution as a photographer as “casual to intentional.” “Only in the last ten years have I come to learn in photography: light is everything,”he tells me. “Almost all decisions are based on light. where from? How much? what kind? Controlled or not?”
To find inspiration, Mr. Tarr explores new ideas and concepts, and sees how far he can take them. “when you think you have explored all sides of a concept, that’s when the magic happens,” he shares.
For Mr. Tarr, the photos in this show are a continuation of an abstract theme. “For me, if they (the viewers) give an image more than a passing glance, I think the image has done its work,” he says. “The images deserve a second look and longer looks.”
The two tell me how the idea for the show was formed, and of their experiences during the past year as their ideas were brought into fruition. Another artist introduced them years ago when both were living in Lake Havasu. After Ms. stebila moved to Flagstaff Mr. Tarr would come visit to see the Flagstaff First Friday Artwalk, and the idea to work together on a series of nudes formed a little over a year ago.
“The collaboration really just came from conversations about the art sue was working on and the photo shoots I was working on,” Mr. Tarr recalls. “I think initially I shared some of my images, and sue wanted to do some work from them and use them as raw material for different things she was practicing. The conversation to work together started from that.”
The theme for the show began with the artists looking at figures as abstract “things,” looking at figures from a different perspective than would normally be viewed. “That was the genesis of the whole idea,” Mr. Tarr says. “A figure could be an abstract. what could we do with it? we decided we could do our own thing with the same raw material, with the same model doing the same pose — we could both do our interpretation of it.”
It was during a blizzard last January when the collaborative work of “Companions,” began. working with a live model, the painter and photographer were present for the photo shoot.
During the two hours, hundreds of photos were taken. The concept for the upcoming project was already formed in their minds as they began to gather the images they would both be creating works from.
Togetherthetwosatdowntogothroughthecollectionofphotographs. “Aswewereflipping, we were basically making some notes on certain images we liked and different perspectives we liked. we both gravitated towards the same images pretty quickly, so there was a pretty big overlap in how we saw the project. That was a bonus because we didn’t really know how it would turn out until we sat down with the raw material,” Mr. Tarr explains.
After narrowing the images down to a set of 30, the artists began to crop this set, and changed them to black and white images, seeing which images best fit into the theme of the show. From the 30, Ms. stebila began to see how the images looked as she painted them on canvas and copper. Her studies helped the two to decide what their pairings for the show would be.
“That’s why the show’s called ‘Companions,’” Ms. stebila explains. “You’re going to see the photograph and the painting of the model and interpretations through line and color (in the paintings), and color choice and contrast on Mitch’s side. I have better opportunity to edit. They’re not exactly mirror images, but they’re a statement to how two people can see the same figure and express it in different ways.”
The artists agree the process was collaborative the whole way through, and from the beginning their ideas seemed to be synchronized. “I think the collaboration is the key theme for this show,” Mr. Tarr says. “we worked well together to bring the raw material to life.”
Four of Ms. stebila’s pieces in the show were painted on copper — specifically, cast-off circuitboard. Ms. stebila’s assemblage artist husband, John Stebila, discovered several discarded computer components when searching for odds and ends for a project, and one of his suppliers had a trove of circuitboards just sitting in his backyard.
“You can paint on copper just like canvas — it has no tooth like canvas does, but it has a weave to it,” Ms. stebila describes. “You can treat the copper with alcohol, or even garlic will help rough up the edges so that it will adhere the paint. But once the paint is on there it will stay. The difference with copper is, for the negative space I didn’t want paint to be on, I had to be very careful to select where my image was going to be, because once you wipe it off, you wipe off forty years of it being in the backyard. The patina of the copper had turned a little green, gray or black. A lot of painters during the renaissance painted on copper. The only problem with metal is it can dent. But this won’t dent because it has the plastic backing.”
For Ms. stebila an important part of the creative process for this series was being able to work closely with the photographer and model. “A lot of painters don’t have the luxury of having a live model to start and finish a whole painting, and we do work from photographs,” Ms. stebila says. “I think photography is so important for the painting artist, especially since you can get any image now and create anything from it through your painter’s eye. I like the differences of how it expresses through the camera lens and the artist’s eye, and how we see things differently.”
Both artists thought it important to note the photographs haven’t been “Photoshopped.” The only changes from the originals are adjustments in contrast and color range. “nothing is moved, nothing is changed dramatically that’s not from the original image,” shares Ms. stebila.
“Companions: Pairing Photography & Paint,” opens Friday, February 12 from 6PM-9PM at studio 12.12, 7 e. Aspen. The artists encourage would-be attendees to reserve space online (via CompanionsRSVP.com) and be entered to win a print of one of Ms. stebila’s paintings.
| Clair anna rose’s favorite companion often has four legs. clair@thenoise.us
20 • february 2016 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us