Josette Urso is a Brooklyn-based painter who thrives on the pulse and rhythm of the city. She draws inspiration from construction sites with their giant cranes and fluorescent helmets, the clashing of colors and shapes on the subway, and the ubiquitous laundry hung out to dry, where distinct patterns overlap and ‘clothes encounters’ abound. All of this is condensed into a visual sausage that is at once chaotic and controlled, its myriad ingredients encased within the overflowing canvas. Urso states that her new series of paintings, currently on view at Markel Fine Arts, mediate the interior and exterior, by which she means everything inside and outside her studio. Indoor succulents merge with urban skylines, only to be eclipsed by a rogue patch of plaid that devours everything in its path. Meanwhile, unruly scribbles are herded into a corner where they unionize and create their own ecosystem. It’s easy to get lost in Urso’s worlds within worlds, where a dozen languages seem to be spoken simultaneously, each demanding our undivided attention. This is perhaps a byproduct of Urso’s working method, where she begins by blocking in large shapes of color, resisting the urge to go granular too early in the process. As the painting evolves, her marks accumulate and the disparate voices begin to emerge, an atonal symphony that grows increasingly loud and complex as it builds momentum. The composition comes full circle when the initial broad strokes reappear through the layers of pigment, at which point the painting takes on a separate identity. Urso labors hard for that moment of recognition, when the painting comes alive and seems to gaze back at the artist (has the work of art become a separate being, or are we looking into a mirror?) Her work is astonishingly alive, shimmering with vitality and tenderness, like an exotic fish caught, examined with curiosity, and gently released back into the sea. Indeed, Urso seems to gather the vast, chaotic universe into a celestial net, closely scrutinize it while imposing a modicum of order, then cast it back into the radiant night sky.
MH: Your paintings appear to be nonobjective, but I see landscape references, and sometimes I catch glimpses of the figure. Are you influenced by your environment, or does your work come straight out of your head?
JU: I’m completely influenced by the world around me. If I rely solely on what’s in my head, my vocabulary is somewhat limited, so I need something to respond to. When I’m in my studio in New York, the view from my window is a great jumping off point, and I get inspiration from my interior space as well. I’m always rearranging things in the studio, resolving the space between the inside and the outside. I live and work in Bushwick where there’s a lot of construction happening, and I love seeing the giant cranes, the deliveries of bricks, and all the workers with their fluorescent helmets – their movement and activity inspire me.
MH: So what happens? How do your paintings take shape?
JU: I work from general to specific, and I do this by using large brushes and big, swooping shapes. I just need to get something down on the canvas to respond to, to break the ice. I try not to see imagery too quickly, because as soon as I see something, I can get stuck. I thrive on the unexpected collision of elements that are happening on the canvas. Then slowly things start to get more particular, and as I build up layers, the figure and ground starts shifting.
MH: When I asked how you begin a painting, you said a bird might fly past your window, or a cloud move across the sky, and those become some of the initial marks. I love that. It feels at once simple and profound, like haiku. Do you ever think of your paintings through the lens of poetry?
JU: I think of my little collages in that way, but not so much with the paintings. But yes, I think poetry is closely related to painting.
MH: As you’re working on a painting, you said that it starts to have a presence. It catches you off guard and makes you laugh. Would you elaborate on that? Why laughter?
JU: When the painting makes me laugh, I feel like it’s taking on an individuality and becoming a separate being. When I take a step back from it, it’s become enticing to me, and at that point I can trust that it’s close to being resolved. It may still need some fine tuning, but my moves start to slow down, and I know I’m almost finished. It’s funny, I can’t quite understand it other than it feels like it’s alive, and it’s something beyond what I could have predicted.
MH: Maybe it’s good that you don’t understand it. It’s like dissecting a magic trick, or reading the ingredients in sausage – best not to know.
JU: Exactly! And no painting resolves itself in the same way for me. I really don’t know, and there are a lot of agonizing days in the studio, chasing something down, waiting for that moment when something surprises me. I don’t have a formula, other than how I start a painting, the brushes I use and so forth. But I don’t have a method where I move from A to B to C; it’s always unpredictable, but that’s what I like about it. It’s such a challenge! Painting is incredibly difficult, that’s why I find it so engaging and exhausting.
MH: Right, formulas are fatal to good art. When an artist discovers a formula to make a good painting, their work starts to decline. You can tell that their search is over.
JU: Yes. Anyone looking at one of my paintings in progress might think that it looks done, but for me, I need that other thing, and I can’t leave it alone until I find it.
MH: When an artist starts a new piece, there’s this sense of mystery, of not knowing what lays ahead. It can be unsettling because part of us wants to know, but then there would be no journey. When you approach a new painting, do you experience this tension, or is it straight up sunshine for you?
JU: Sometimes a painting sneaks up on me and it comes together right away, and I don’t know why it happened so effortlessly. But usually it’s a process of hunting, exploring, not settling, not being completely satisfied. It’s hard to satisfy myself! It’s like I’m looking for something, but I don’t know what it is. But sometimes I can be in love with the process, the hunt, even though nothing’s really happening in the painting. So the activity of working is sometimes sunshine, but it’s also agonizing.
MH: Does the opposite ever happen? Where you feel like you’re painting the worst canvas that’s ever been painted, then you go back the next day and you love it?
JU: Yes, and sometimes the part that’s really bugging me, that’s unresolved or not working, turns out to be the most exciting part. But it’s when the painting starts to settle down that I can feel if it’s sound. I rotate my paintings a lot during my process, to give myself a fresh vision and not to get stuck in any one area. Often when a painting works from multiple viewpoints, I feel like I can start trusting it.
MH: Is it the tension that makes a good painting? Without the struggle, do paintings become facile or toothless?
JU: Perhaps. Within the painting there’s tension between the elements, the way they play off from one another, like when everything can be read in multiple ways. This kind of tension contributes to the overall orchestrated painting. And then there’s the tension of the artist, who’s on a journey and doesn’t necessarily know where they’re going to end up.
MH: How do you experience time when you’re in that creative space?
JU: Lately I’ve been aware of this strange compression of time when I’m painting for a long stretch, where time changes and compresses. It’s like I’m in another place, where 8 hours can go by in an instant. It’s fascinating to me.
MH: Is it because you’re so absorbed in your work that you lose track of time/space?
JU: Yes, it happens when I’m so engaged that the work becomes all encompassing. But I have to create the situation where I can have time happen that way, because if I have other things that I have to tend to, it won’t happen. Louis Pasteur said that chance favors the prepared mind, so I have to carve out days where I can be in my studio without interruptions or commitments. Those are the best days, when I have complete freedom to follow a thread of exploration.
MH: Creativity and artmaking can be overwhelming at times because there are no rules, no instruction manual to consult. Do you ever create your own set of guidelines just to have something to push against?
JU: I often see something out in the world, like a color combination on the subway, or when I’m hanging my laundry and there’s a color collision between two patterns, that triggers an idea, and that gets woven into my painting. I love the activity of finding contrast, contradiction, and similarities – odd things that relate, not in a logical sense but in a way that makes sense to me.
MH: Does there come a point in the painting where the guardrails get in the way? When do you jettison your vision and let the painting take the driver’s seat?
JU: Almost immediately! I just need a place to start, but once there’s something on the canvas to respond to, the painting starts to have a big voice and I can’t tell it what to be or where to go. Once the first mark is on the canvas, I can’t completely impose what I want it to be.
MH: That’s interesting. It’s not what I thought you’d say. I think most artists spend quite a bit of time putting down paint, imposing their will on the canvas for an extended period.
JU: Whenever I impose my will, it gets painted out completely. It just feels too contrived, like I know it too well. I’m not as interested when the marks are self-conscious or literal; I like a shape to be implied.
MH: It sounds like one of your objectives is to get out of the way as quickly as possible.
JU: It is, and that’s a good way of putting it. It’s funny because in the rest of my life I like to be in control and my studio is fairly organized. But I want my work to be more free, more unexpected. I don’t want to be the manager of the painting.
MH: Your paintings appear to be chaotic, like 4 or 5 languages being spoken at once. But there’s a unity to them as well, where the disparate voices are saying the same thing, or pointing in the same direction. Do you think of your work as chaotic?
JU: Maybe an organized kind of chaos! (haha) I love music that has many different layers of sound and rhythms and volumes that work together. So I feel like the painting is orchestrated, but shifting, so things can be read in several ways. It feels chaotic in the beginning but then it sorts itself out.
MH: Is organized chaos a thing? To me chaos implies a total absence of control, otherwise it’s like chaos lite. But I see chaos in your work, don’t I?
JU: Sometimes I feel like the whole painting is chaos, like I can’t quite bring it together, and in the end some areas are still chaotic. If you zoom in on a detail it may look like chaos, but it’s contained within a shape that relates to another shape and ends up looking less chaotic when you see it as a whole.
MH: The general assumption is that chaos leads to order, but for some artists, it’s the other way around. Chaos imbues vitality into their work and their lives, while order sucks the life out of their creativity. Where do you stand on the chaos/order spectrum?
JU: I’m drawn to chaos and complexity. When I’m out in the world I like things that are unexpected and alive, but I feel the need to impose some order and logic as well. If everything was tidy it would be boring, but I need my life to not be chaotic so I’m freer for my work.
MH: Well, you live in Bushwick, which is the most chaotic place I’ve ever lived. How does that feed into your work and creativity?
JU: I love my studio and the light in my space. It’s like big sky country for me. Sometimes I feel like I live in a tree house! Bushwick can get really chaotic, but I’ve always responded to the speed of the city and felt connected here. It’s an energy that feeds me.
MH: Would you talk a little about your show at Kathryn Markel? What are you exploring in this new body of work?
JU: The new paintings are influenced by my experience in the city, and the sky is contributing in a big way. The work mediates the inside and the outside, that space in between. I call the show Wildcard because I was thinking about the element of chance and unpredictability. I’m always gambling as an artist and stepping off the path, so I like the play of the title. The paintings are new and still revealing themselves to me, sometimes slowly and in ways that I didn’t anticipate. There are also some collages in the show that influence the paintings. It’s not so much that they’re studies for the larger pieces, but they can inspire combinations of shapes and colors.
MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
JU: Being in the studio and in that place where you’re totally free, exploring and discovering things and messing up along the way. The gift of being in the studio uninterrupted – for me, that’s the best part about being an artist.
www.josetteurso.com
Wildcard is showing at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in Chelsea through July 26th.
179 10th Ave., NY, NY 10011