Studio Visit with Shawn Quilliams
Studio Visit with Shawn Quilliams
2021 Chautauqua School Resident
Taken from a conversation with Larkin Cook and Olivia Tawzer
Olivia Tawzer: All right, so I'm Olivia Tawzer.
Larkin Cook: I'm Larkin cook.
OT: We're interviewing Shawn Quilliams for Mineral House Media. We're doing a studio visit/interview. One of the things that I was wondering, with how you write and speak about your work, is the Appalachian aspect of it.
Shawn Quilliams: Specifically I'm from Sevierville, right down the road from the Great Smoky Mountains. So the nature aspect of Appalachia has always been really important to me, because I've just always been surrounded by it. I think Appalachia is really different because of the reasons that people decided to come here to begin with, because a lot of people came here to escape something. I know a lot of people went to the Gatlinburg area because nobody knew about it, like nobody knew that it was there. Nobody knew that people were settling there. So it was almost like this hidden little club that people went to to escape something. Largely that was criminal activity, because the moonshining thing, because of the history with coal mining, and corporations coming in and fucking us over, that sense of hating the ‘big man’ and now in present day, it's like, nobody sees it that way anymore. Everybody's like, “Oh, capitalism is great.” You know, that's the general consensus in Appalachia, but a long time ago, it was never that. We were like, “Big corporations came in here and screwed us over.” But nobody sees that anymore. So I find all those complexities and dichotomies and ideals that contradict each other within this region fascinating, and I like to play with them. But then also, I'm obsessed with the nature aspect of it because I did grow up, you know, 30 minutes away from the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The nature aspect shows up a lot in my work, and that dichotomy of Appalachia specifically doesn't always show up in my work. But I really like to play with dichotomies and weird complexities in society. And how that kind of relates to me and my story, making work about that stuff. It's heavy stuff. But I found that through doing it, it's really cathartic in a way for me, it's healing. I just started making these pieces about family, my relationship to them and I started focusing on family get-togethers because they were such a weird liminal space for me. You would go there and the family get together would be that happy thing, like you're getting to catch up with your relatives and stuff. But for me, because of my identity and different things that have happened in my family, like with a queer cousin, there was just always this underlying sense of unease. Because I had all these preconceived ideas about what a family get-together was, and what my family dynamics were, and I was able to realize that I'm not controlled by those. I'm not controlled by other people's expectations of me within my family, being able to separate myself from that, using art as a tool for that has been super helpful because I'm able to put my attachments that I feel to those ideals in my art, so I therefore me, myself, I don't have to feel the attachment. It's in the art.
LC: Was it hard to show them that work or talk about it with them?
SQ: So that's interesting because I used to make works that were so completely vulnerable, like I made work about terrible experiences that I went through and I just showed it, but being able to put them through a fantasy lens or through a lens of magic, or unrealism helps me not always have to be so vulnerable. When somebody asks, “Oh, what's this painting about?” I'll just be like, “Oh, it's about, you know, families not getting along with their other members of their family, and what that feels like.” So fantasy and magic and abstraction is almost like a safety net for me in a way. During my time at the Chautauqua Residency this past summer I realized that I don't use myself in my artwork ever. So, I was like, “why am I not doing that?” And I realized that it was a part of that safety net, that these people in my paintings, they're me, but they're not me. They're existing in a liminal space in between me and my experiences. So yeah, I'm kind of putting on these visual stories for people to show them what I've been through, but being open enough to where if you come up with your own narrative through my work, that's completely fine for me, as long as the tone and vibe of the work is coming across.It's like a big construction work, because even if I'm using multiple different experiences in one, I've never painted a person that I know in my work. I have painted real people in my life that I view as antagonist figures in the work. It's almost like a collage of images that I'm replicating in paint.
LC: How does that process start for you? There's something significant happening from the very back of the painting to the front.
OT: It’s very full.
SQ: It is just taking all these images and then throwing them up on the canvas and seeing what works. I just do the sketch just to get the idea down, but if it doesn't look like that in the end, I don't care. Like I just want the painting to be good.
OT: So, like we were talking about with Swingset Carnage–This piece, Search Party, paired with The Deep End, and then Swingset Carnage. I was just wondering how you approach this, and think about death in your paintings.
SQ: I like, I love, actually, that you got the pairing between [The Deep End] and Search Party. The Search Party was a diptych painting, so they are two separate canvases. And I came up with this story in undergrad, of these kids. The sky turned pink and everybody who was queer, their eyes turned pink and they couldn't hide it anymore. So then they ran into the woods and were hiding from everybody. There's two sides to the canvas. So there's two separate search parties. One is a group of people who are kind of frantic, they have binoculars, they're wearing pink hats. And pink is a very queer signifier in my work. So these people are trying to appear friendly. Like, these are the allies. So like, “Oh my gosh, all of our kids just left us, where did they go?” These two–they're loading up guns. They're getting on their four wheelers. What kind of a search party are they going on? You know, it’s kind of the question that I was posing with the work. And then if we go over to The Deep End, it kind of tells us, yeah, what kind of a search party they were doing. But this one was really about a moment when I came out to somebody who I thought was a safe space for me, but it wasn't. I did take a dive into the deep end and I wasn't ready, but I didn't know that it was the deep end. It was like a feeling that I almost got shot. I felt betrayed. I felt just wounded. But then nobody, nobody saw that coming in my life. And that's how it can feel navigating the world as a queer person. It's like you don't know if you're in a safe space or if you're about to take a dive into the deep end. Death is largely metaphorical for me in my work. Death can be like a moment of intense pain. Sometimes I am referencing the past, you know, or even the present. It's still happening today, like LGBT people constantly are getting attacked, killed or are killing themselves. It makes me mad. So, yeah, this painting is so new that I don't know everything about it yet. Like sometimes, a painting will have a central idea, but every complexity within the painting, I don't know everything about it yet. So I don't know what that figure is, but they're largely metaphorical in my work. They never mean literal death, but they mean pain, trauma, stuff that I haven't dealt with yet, you know, or don't really want to deal with, so I just put it in the painting and then I come back to it later. I like a certain level of realism. I like a certain level of abstract. John Seed, the writer and founder of a style called disrupted realism, he was a really big inspiration. His book–amazing. Just looking at figure painters, people who are abstracting space, and just doing new things, and texture and stuff, I'm all about it. There's a lot that goes into it. I write stories for each painting, just so I can grab ideas out of it. I put up a bunch of pictures on the wall so I can grab images. I'm writing a lot so I can grab ideas to put into my work.
I really like the conversations that happen that come from the other side of the table. Then like what I'm working with, because I think that's where change can happen and progress can happen. So there was a guy who came to a show that I was in at ETSU Slocumb Galleries called Dolly. He was, you know, frat boy like, Christian organization on campus, full on conservative. So, not my viewpoints at all. And he came to my painting open, he just came open. And he wanted to know what it was about. So we discussed it, and we had a really good conversation about trauma within Christianity from the queer community, and how he can try to help queer people within the Christian space and help them feel welcome. He was actually really trying to learn about that. And then understanding my viewpoints, so me and him had a very healthy back and forth, just standing in front of my painting, which was cool because we weren't necessarily talking about my painting, but it was like a backdrop to this conversation that was only facilitated because of that painting. That's where I see the value in art comes in. It's through the conversations. The paintings can be amazing, you know, technically, visually just amazing, but it's really those conversations that are happening that I find value in. So a lot of my practice does come from me wanting to have these conversations.
LC: I had a question. You were talking about how while you're working on big paintings, you’re also doing a lot of writing and stories. Are there any other side things that you're doing in your studio when you're working on bigger work?
SQ: I used to ignore this aspect of it because I was like, “Oh, that's nerdy,” you know, but Dungeons and Dragons, okay. It’s so much fun, first of all, that human connection element, it's coming in. But it really does, and the world building, the story element, that collaborative story, I think is really big. So yes, I do prepare my Dungeons and Dragons game in my studio. Fantasy world building, cooperative gameplay, I think matches painting in a way sometimes. Because as painters, if you're a lone painter, like I am, it's sometimes really hard because painting takes a lot out of you, and being able to just look around your canvas and see another person there and just be like, “Hey, what are you doing?” It's really helpful. The figure is the most recognizable thing to us. We see faces in everything, humans are always looking for other humans. So when you use that in a painting, that's already a connection that you've made to that person. Because we're all human. We all have stories. And when we use those, it becomes way powerful.
LC: Yeah, I can definitely see that. I feel like when I look at your work, I think about myths or something, or even folk tales, or those kind of storytelling things.
SQ: Yeah, yeah. And that's a really big part of Appalachian culture, the spoken word, history aspect of it. There's a lot of stories that my grandpa's told me that terrified me as a child, but now I have a fascination with horror. I love goosebumps, even today. Like when I'm painting I'll watch goosebumps. You know, we did these visual diaries and one of my visual diaries was comparing my works with Hernan Bas and Goosebumps. Drawing connections to me, Hernan Bas and Goosebumps. So that's R.L. Stein, and then me and Hernan Bas as skeletons.
Thank you. So there's a Hernan Bas, a screenshot from Goosebumps, and a portrait that I did at Chautauqua. Here's the thing that I wanted to show because this one was like “whoa” to me, all focusing on graveyard, and even this one was so cool to me. This is a Hernan Bas painting and then here's mine. I was not referencing this painting when I was making the one on the right. So there's a miniature house and in each one, the color scheme is the same. So weird to me. Here's another fun one: so, Hernan Bas, long neck person, me with a long neck person. Ghost on the staircase, ghost on the staircase, you know, it's weird and cool.
Before, in my series Out in the Open and even in Rituals of Familiar Kind, none of the characters–they would either represent a protagonist or an antagonist as the extent of what I got, largely, but through going to Chautauqua and learning about the hero's journey and all the different archetypes that are in stories that I read and watch, I realized that I needed that to really solidify the narrative in my work. So with this one, I'm really starting to think about archetypes and how I can weave a story together without having to paint the same people over and over again, because, I don't know, if I do that, I'm gonna feel monotonous, and I don't want to do that. So like with [Outpost Studies], the guy in the background is you know, like an antagonist figure. He's looking over his shoulder. His eye is green, which is the opposite of pinkish red, which is my queer color. So I'm starting to equate green with evil, and enemies and stuff. And then, with [Swingset Carnage], while those characters aren't here, I still think they are, like in the back, maybe, I'm like, “Oh, they're having a bonfire.” Who knows? So I feel like they're there, but then, here the green eyes show up again, and that's coming from my video work, like with the woodsman character with the big green light for the face. So with the video work; I love video, I love video art. I guess it's film, but I don't know, video art is a different thing in its entity. I referenced Goosebumps for that a lot. Like a lot. So the colors, the vibe, the cheap and terrible writing sometimes. So yeah, I was really referencing kids horror, you know, that cheesy mysterious vibe was so much fun to work with. Making those videos felt like when I made a good painting for the first time. Like it was just exciting, you know? It's just fun.
LC: Was there a specific experience in your life or a specific work or project that was a turning point into you making the work that you’re making now, or a catalyst for the work that you're making now?
SQ: I had a really rough critique the fall of 2018, I believe. And by really rough, I mean really beneficial, because it showed me all the things that I was doing that weren't helping me anymore. So I took all that advice, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, what am I making artwork about? What am I saying in the contemporary art world? Why is my voice important?” So then I just looked at myself and I was like, “What have I been through?” you know? So I made the first painting that blended queerness with Appalachia. It's called Cherry Pickin’, and it's just two boys in the woods, and one is eating a cherry and the other one is looking at the other boy eating a cherry.
It was a really simple concept. But it was about the moment that I realized that I might be gay, because I was looking at other guys in how I should act or compose myself. But then I realized I was just looking at the other guys. So the cherry is like a metaphor for men liking women, and then me trying to participate in that, and I was like, “Oh, I don't want to participate in that. I just want to look at the boys.” You can still see this in my current work, like the male figure in nature, the abstracted nature around them. I've obviously–or at least I'd hope obviously–I've grown from this, but yeah, this was the turning point in subject matter for my work. But the turning point in the way I create my work and the kind of formula that I've come up with, was Danielle museum as 2019 class where I learned how to construct a narrative and a physical painting. So yeah.
OT: So I think I think that's it! Shawn, thank you so much for letting us talk to you, sharing your work. I really want to see your work in person.
SQ: Someday. Yeah, definitely. Thanks for the interview. Had a good time. Always love talking to you all.
OT: Thank you, Shawn.
LC: Thank you.
SQ: Thank you all.
Shawn’s Statement:
By using my own experiences in Southern Appalachia, I address the uncomfortable experiences queer people face in society today. While progression continues to happen within the LGBTQIA+ community, people are still being rejected, kicked out of their homes, and harmed just because of their sexual identity. I explore the relationship between identity and familial structure, Appalachian culture, and societal stigma. My exploration into these relationships are inspired by personal experiences, and I use narrative figure painting to construct a story around my paintings. By using storytelling elements, each painting is a chapter to the larger narrative in the series of work. I explore tension by use of hyper saturated color, mark making, and pitting characters against other antagonizing figures and nature. Through storytelling, I want to challenge the notion that everything is “okay” now in queer communities when, as a society, we have a lot to improve upon to ensure it is safe to be queer in America today.