Gelah Penn's art transcends traditional categorizations, merging installation, sculpture, drawing, and painting. She describes her process as “drawing in sculptural space,” and her unconventional materials include polyester mesh screens, plastic bags, translucent sheeting, and fishing line. The constituent parts are altered in various ways – sliced, torn, draped, stapled – then attached to a wall in loose, transparent layers. Penn’s sculptures are seductive, cinematic, and enigmatic, but attempts to assign meaning or context are thwarted by both the art and the artist. Indeed, the work is riddled with a sphinxlike quality that resists interpretation: we want to know more, but its mysteries are concealed behind gauzy layers of mylar and mesh. These visual disturbances could be seen as invitations to a deeper understanding of her work, but instead we stay on the surface, distracted by dazzling moiré patterns and shimmering veils of reflected light. This obfuscation heightens the intrigue, and the viewer is reluctantly drawn into the shadowy realm of dualism, the psychological space that pervades all her work. This is the artist’s home turf, where her installations come alive and transform from delphic contradiction to zen-like paradox. From this median perspective, we begin to comprehend Penn’s work: her lifelong interest in film noir, her preference for open-ended novels and films, even her aversion to using declarative sentences when talking about her work. Penn’s intriguing visual language reflects her fascination with dualities: materiality and ephemerality, gravity and transcendence, cognition and obscurity. The formal elegance of Penn’s sculptures is seen in her dramatic compositions and masterful use of materials, but its impact is felt most powerfully when we grasp and assimilate its many contradictions.
MH: You went to art school and probably started out like all artists, with figure drawing, painting, sculpture, and all the traditional stuff. What are your current materials, and how did you come to them?
GP: It’s been a long and winding road. I started as a painter and painted for many years, but there was something missing; I needed the materiality and physicality. So I started putting things on the paintings like wood chips, synthetic hair, and my own hair, and that became more satisfying than painting. Gradually that moved into sculpture, and there was always a relationship to drawing. I became interested in using materials that would give me a linear quality, so I started using fishing line. And I didn’t like building things, so I used found objects, and eventually I stopped working in the round and worked directly on the wall. That was the best fit for me. The relationship between drawing and physical space made a lot of sense, and that’s when I started coming into what I was most comfortable with.
MH: So you think of the fishing line as a way to draw in space?
GP: Yes, then when fishing line became not enough, I explored other mark-making materials. I wanted a more geometric mark rather than the expressionistic mark I was getting with the fishing line, so I started using mosquito netting. It worked great, and I was able to stretch pieces of the netting into corners and create interesting incidents in space.
MH: Your work is not easily categorized. Is it sculpture? Installation? How do you refer to it?
GP: I call it drawing in sculptural space, or a combination of drawing and sculpture, but I don’t find these distinctions useful. The best description is that my work is at the intersection of drawing and painting and installation, or drawing and painting and sculpture and installation (haha). Like many artists, I’m fine in those interstices.
MH: The layering of mesh generates moiré patterns that create a visual buzz. I know they’re unavoidable when layering screens, but do they play a role in your work?
GP: Yes, definitely. I’m interested in creating visual disturbances or irritants, and I use the moiré to create drama. In my new pieces there are layers of polyester mesh, so there are a lot of visual incidents happening. I think of my work in terms of dualities: materiality and ephemerality, cohesion and fragmentation, object and image – all these are interesting to me. I’m drawn to work that’s a bit jarring in one way or another.
MH: The layers of fabric and mesh may be read as veils which evoke a sense of mystery and a desire to know who or what is behind the curtain. Is there an element to your work where you’re either concealing or revealing something?
GP: I like the mysterious quality that I get from the translucent layers, so you don’t know what’s happening where. There’s the interaction between major gestures and forms, and then there’s a background noise that comes to the surface and sometimes recedes. I’m more interested in a phenomenological approach or presentation to the work, so mystery is important to me, and it’s what I’m drawn to in other peoples’ work.
MH: Your work seems to embrace ambiguity in all its forms, from the material to the conceptual.
GP: Yes, if something is a declarative sentence, it’s less interesting to me than a sentence that has many meanings. I think of all these materials as a way for me to investigate and figure out what I’m doing. But the main objective for me in the studio is to try to get out of my way, to just make the work and not think about it too much.
MH: Your work is very personal, but it also seems to have a universal quality. Is there a particular place where you feel that it crosses over from your experience and connects with the viewer?
GP: I hope so! You want the viewer to connect with the work in some way, but it’s not a didactic or depictive process for me. It’s all about transformation, right? So, for instance, my ideas about gravity – physical, metaphorical, or emotional – can be conveyed through the materials and mark-making. I'm keen on the way manipulating simple materials like polyester mesh and plastic garbage bags can be incredibly evocative. And the dualities I'm interested in function in the same way. Ideally, the "incidents" that I develop in the work can be seen as forensic, theatrical, cinematic, or almost anything, depending on the viewer.
MH: Your installations have a cinematic quality, but they’re not exactly rom coms. They’re more like film noir, with layers of intrigue and elusive narratives that beguile the viewer. You mentioned that you’ve been interested in film since you were a child, and I’m wondering how that shows up in your work.
GP: It’s always there because I’m always watching movies and thinking about them. I’m especially interested in shadow and psychological unease, and that’s a large part of noir. But I don’t feel that my work is about anything in particular; it’s not a one-to-one relationship with any movie. There’s a type of infusion of that feeling that you get in noir, that uncertainty, mystery, anxiety, where you don’t really know what’s going on, people aren’t what they seem, and all that is part of what I’m trying to get at in the work. In addition to humor and other things! There’s a little bit of everything in there.
MH: Your work embodies an exquisite, timeless beauty, but it needs time to reveal itself. Like a film or novel, it unfolds slowly, so one needs to be present and engaged to fully appreciate it. How do you think about the levels of engagement that you present to the viewer? Are you attached to how the work is received and/or interpreted?
GP: My work is a slow read. It’s not immediately accessible, but it works on you for a while, and the longer you look at it, the more it presents itself. As far as how it’s interpreted, that’s out of my hands. I once had a studio visit with an established artist who said I needed to decide on one thing my work was about before it would be any good. I was devastated! Fortunately, I was never able to do that.
MH: Everyone has a past, and we have family histories that, for better or worse, come through in our work. Does your personal narrative inform your work in a significant way? Or do you regard it more as a thread that weaves in and out of your larger body of work?
GP: I’d say that it’s an undercurrent. My family history and my personal history are present in the work, but it’s nothing explicit. Like so much of my work, there are things beneath the surface that are working on the viewer in some way, but I’m not trying to reveal anything about myself to anyone. It’s there in the mark-making and the materials, slicing, cutting, and tearing things, and these are all very personal ways of working so one could find reasons for this kind of approach, but it’s just what I do.
MH: As you move close to the finishing stages of a piece, what does the home stretch look like? What kind of decisions, aesthetic or otherwise, go into your process?
GP: The hardest part for me is to start. I have to throw something on the fabric, put some staples in it or something, and once I get to a certain stage in the piece, I’m also taking things away. It’s this big, confusing collage and I’m constantly rethinking and reconfiguring – that’s my process. It's about the confluence of gesture and the elements relating to each other. I think of the work as being very active, one element working on another, and when they’re all working together the piece is close to being done. Someone once said that you know when a piece is done when you can’t do anything to make it better, and that’s the operative strategy that I use as I finish a piece.
MH: Most artists I talk to have the vague sense that as they work on something in the studio, they’re also working on themselves. Not just a superficial scratching at the surface, but a deep, committed dive into their personal narrative and how it connects them with the great mystery. What does your studio practice give back to you?
GP: In the best of moments, it helps clarify or at least makes it easier to make the work. It allows me more freedom to work without worrying about how I’m doing or how it’s being received. I don’t think of it in terms of a personal or revelatory thing; making the work helps me make the work. That’s what I’m going for. Making is thinking and thinking is making; they’re completely intertwined.
“Making is thinking and thinking is making;
they’re completely intertwined.”
MH: That’s interesting. I know you don’t think of your work as therapy, but do you ever feel like you’re unconsciously working out something in your psyche as you’re making these aesthetic decisions? Does one’s studio practice at some point become an agent of self-improvement or self-awareness?
GP: No, I don’t really like that idea. My family was interested in psychology and my brother was a psychoanalyst, so there’s the tendency to see things in that way. But I’m not expecting the work to make me a more well-adjusted person. Does self-doubt make the work more interesting? Maybe. I want to make compelling work, and whatever helps me do that is fine with me.
MH: So what do you get out of your studio practice? You’ve been doing it for a long time, and I assume that you see your work as more than a product. The process must be giving you something.
GP: Well, don’t you think that most of us have found that we either can’t or don’t want to do anything else? (haha) It’s kind of a process of elimination!
MH: Ouch!
GP: It’s not a bad thing! It’s just as important to figure out what you don’t want to do as what you want to do. Making art is a very particular thing and I don’t know that any of us would get the same satisfaction from another field. Besides, there are a lot of "ifs" in this kind of question. Maybe if I had bigger hands, a better memory, and no stage fright, I'd have become a pianist!
MH: Given that artmaking is such a personal, soulful process, how do you regard the commercial aspect of art? Is the creative process affected negatively when we start thinking about our work as “product”, or when we refer to a new series as “inventory”?
GP: I stopped worrying about that some years ago because whenever I tried to make something more commercial, I couldn’t do it. For example, I had been making these large, ephemeral installations, and I thought I’d make smaller pieces that might be more marketable. So I made these long, vertical pieces that became my Phantom Series, and the bottom of each piece came out from the wall and rested on the floor. (haha) I couldn’t help myself! That’s how it had to be. What could be worse for a commercial gallery or sales than a piece that came out onto the floor? And honestly, I don’t care anymore. I’m not a particularly commercially minded artist.
MH: Do you think that if a person starts thinking in that way it affects their work? Like, if you were serious about selling, maybe you’d stop making work that came out onto the floor, and your creative process would somehow be stymied?
GP: The problem is that I tend to be contrary, so the work probably wouldn’t be as interesting. I do think my work has a commercial component, but I just want to make the work that I do and let the chips fall where they may. And what does commercial mean, really? If someone loves the work and wants to show it or live with it, then it's commercial, no matter the challenges.
MH: I’ve heard blue chip galleries described as graveyards for art. Do you think there’s any truth to that? Does art world success tend to suck the soul out of pure creativity?
GP: Ha! No, I don’t think so. I mean, there are so many great artists who show at blue chip galleries, and they’re still making fabulous work. It just depends on the artist. There are always going to be bad shows, and artists are always going to get into ruts with their work, but then their next body of work will be better.
MH: That’s generous of you. I suppose when an artist achieves a level of commercial success that demands more and more of their “product”, there may be less time or incentive to experiment. I see a lot of shows where it looks like the artist is doing knockoffs of their own work.
GP: Yes, well you want to be able to keep moving in whatever direction your work is going, and I’m sure the constraints are more difficult when you’re dealing with a gallery that’s selling your work faster than you can make it. But there are other models of showing your work if you’re afraid of that happening. I’ve shown my work in college galleries, museums, and other non-commercial institutions.
MH: What do you hope to communicate through your art practice? Have you achieved it, or is it a work in progress?
GP: For me, it's all about transformation, reformulation, and metaphor. Ideally, it’s always a work in progress. But I feel like I’m where I should be – not that I’m going to stay here, but I’m more comfortable with what I’m making now than I was many years ago. Anyway, it’s all a mystery.
MH: It seems like the theme of mystery keeps coming up, and there are so many mysteries in the art making process: how to make it, what to say with it, where to show it, how the work is going to be received. We work in such a difficult field where there are only unknowns! Are you comfortable working in such an environment, steeped in uncertainty?
GP: I don’t know if comfortable is the right word, but I’m at peace with it. We need to make the work, and we like people to see it. And because I do installation work, it’s useful for me to show it in different venues, so I can see it out of the studio. It gives me ideas and shifts my perspective when I’m back in the studio. So for me, showing the work isn’t just about sales or reviews, but having it out there and being part of the conversation.
MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
GP: You have a space, literally and figuratively, where you can always go and make stuff, even though it’s not always easy or peaceful or without anxiety. The surprises that happen there are a big part of the satisfaction, as well as the ability to change anything you want anytime. A place to keep asking questions is a gift.
