Who: Selene Simcox
What: Artist and editor / designer / one-woman team behind Gallery36, a not-for-profit quarterly online magazine
Where: Manthel van Reijn Studio in Mt Eden
Why: To broaden our minds
"So it started with objects, and standing on them."
Okay. Selene Simcox likes to stand on stuff. Being similarly vertically challenged, I feel fellowship here. But how does this behavioral quirk parlay into exhibiting big, red, wobbly squeegee stripes of paint down a wall?
"It's about setting rules and boundaries for my painting, because I'm really expressive... so it was trying to tame the energy into a language that could be communicated a lot stronger than say an erratic abstract.
"A lot of my work was Abstract Expressionist and you could see movement in the work so I chose to emphasise the movement by, well, I'm actually going to move, so I'm going be standing on a chair then get off the chair, standing on a stool and then get off the stool, and stand on a ladder and go down the ladder, so I was actually performing. I was emphasising the performance aspect of it."
For her graduate BFA show at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design in 2009 she seriously contemplated hiring a cherry-picker.
Instead, Selene eventually settled on the the school corridor - working horizontally this time.
"The rules on this one was [the squeegee] was at waist height, and I didn't go off the duraseal on the final pieces whereas here here I have." She shows a photo of one of her test pieces on her laptop - of which she's almost childishly proud - and I clock a clinically organised filing system. Expressive she might be; chaotic she is not.
The painter would probably disagree with this last, if only because of a tendency to talk herself down: she disparages in passing her inability to keep anything she owns paint-free.
She does laughingly acknowledge an art-school acquired emphasis on theory has led her to her an artificial, even exaggerated formality.
"Everything's put in a box and encased and reasoned, then the actual act of painting is very expressive and uncontrolled. Yeah, as long as it fits in with those boundaries though."
Yet there's another, sadder prequel to these paint-on-vinyl - she likes "the lustre" - permutations. Selene's beloved Nana passed away just as Selene entered her final undergraduate year.
"I just fell over. I wasn't producing artwork." Her lecturers, she suspects, thought she would fail. But in the last few months that changed. "This work really came out... the rules made it easier to deal with, so I wasn't worried about my emotions getting too caught up.
"I think that was coming out in my artwork too much. So this allowed me to - instead of worrying about the whole thing - I was worried about what rule I should make next, or 'what else can I stand on?'."
Coincidentally - or not - 2009 was also the year she first began Gallery36, a quarterly e-zine showcasing emerging New Zealand artists and photographers.
This appears a wholly altruistic endeavor. "I think I naturally have a thing for supporting emerging artists - or any artist really - because I relate to them."
The design and labour is hers, as are most of the day-to-day costs, though she did receive some Creative Communities funding for postcards. "They paid for a year's internet hosting as well and that was, really cool." Alas, the funding has long gone.
There's a plan to bring on advertisers. "But executing the plan is something else entirely ... time and energy is so limited." Um, yes, I can only agree. Especially when the publisher is juggling both an emerging artist practice and the 'crunchier' second year of an arts management degree.
"I need to bring more people in though - to find someone as passionate - and bring them on board. I mean there were 36 pages this time, it's just mad." She could have gone up four more pages with the amount of material she has.
Consider this a shout-out: Seline Simcox needs help.
"I mean, who am I to decide what's good artwork or not good artwork, whether it can go in Gallery36?" She'd prefer a panel to operate on decision-making, but that hasn't happened yet.
"I get really shy about it, this [2011] is the first edition I'm in." But for a valid reason, to promote her Manthel van Reijn residency, which she is also funding herself. "I can't afford it but it's what I was looking for ... to help get me 'out there' as well as really intensify my work progress."
I'll admit a rising interest as to what turn these eccentric experiments will take next. But confession time: I paint too and I'm a part, then, of the art in-crowd. Our more hard-bitten Editor will ask: what's in this gig for the average Auckland Joe, or Joanna, without a bucketload of art experience?
What should the local office workers think as they glance curiously through the big floor-to ceiling windows at this diminutive, bespattered figure hunched as a cat over a keyboard, (as I'd earlier discovered her) or, perhaps, feverishly squeegeeing at height?
Well, for those brave enough, a chance at least to sate curiosity or "interrogate" (her word) the artist. If they can can find a way in. I'd strolled across the Edwin St Carpark off Normanby Rd, or there is an entrance through the Banklink House foyer. We agree there's a need for signage.
The Open Studio days are on Monday, March 7 to Thursday, March 10. Selene is pragmatic: "I don't think, because I'm a newbie, there'll be hundreds of people going to come talk to me."
She'd love you to, though. For passersby and people who see this story to take an interest. Otherwise, she guesses: "It'll be people I know, and that really grinds... I mean, I love their support, but how do you open up a conversation with the public?
"I like people to make their own assumptions. If they happen to see a flower in it, great. If they don't, cool."
With, rarely these days, no pressure to buy. "It's paint on vinyl, or Duraseal, you can't lift it up [off the surface] ... or take it away, or sell it, its so friggin' sticky you can't do anything but scrunch it in a ball - so it's non-permanent.
"I would rather be remembered as, oh you know, that artist who breaks the rules or challenges the viewer than 'Oh, it was a nice show'."
Prepare to be challenged. In a thoroughly approachable kind of a way.
- Amy Mackinnon is the editorial graphic artist at The Aucklander.
See for yourself
Selene Simcox in Residence at Manthel van Reijn Studio, Banklink House, 12 Normanby Rd, Mt Eden. Until March 11. Entrance through Normanby Road Foyer or the Edwin St Carpark.
Open studio: March 7-10, 10am-6pm
One night only exhibition: Friday, March 11, 5.30-7.30pm
More info, see www.selenesimcox.wordpress.com or www.gallery36.co.nz
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