Little Deaths
In the Studio with Emily Noelle Lambert by Liesl Schwabe
Considering the Work for Little Deaths, the Impact of a Muted Palette, and the Ghosts of What's No Longer Visible, but Still Felt
The following excerpts are pulled from a conversation Friday, September 3, 2009, at her Greenpoint studio.
Cross-Pollination
Emily uses the words "cross-pollination" when she talks about working on multiple paintings at once. Hearing her say so, I imagine she uses the phrase for its metaphoric implications, taking as she does bits of color, of texture, of echoed shapes from one work to the next, though usually transforming each element mid-flight, so that when it germinates in the next canvas, it reappears as familiar, but never duplicated. But when I think of the same phrase, it is the literalism of meaning that strikes me; I think of the paint on her brush like pollen. In turn, as the painting develop separately, and vary spectacularly in the journeys they embody and portray, there is a congruency of origination, of having some shared fundamental essence, even as each one blooms full and completely with its own self.
The Resonance of Absence, of What's Been Painted Over
In "Moment to Moment," we find haunting proof of Lambert's recent explorations into a more muted palette as we are confronted, here, with three rows of heads. One in particular seems motionless, still, almost mummy-like, its allusions to impermanence direct. Others, however, seem inhabited, in gesture, perhaps, as in the top left, the two-faces together, either showing indecision or the waywardness of human nature.
Lambert explains that the inspiration for this painting came while she was at the Vatican, during an art pilgrimage of sorts this past spring. Struck by the shelves of busts there, endlessly long and multiple layers high, each horizontal lined with white carved head after white carved head, she came back to the studio curious how this same general image would manifest on canvas.
Ultimately, how each of these heads relates to one another, with their inferences of the thoughts and perceptions they might have held or perhaps still wrestle with, is what I find most fascinating. Do the juxtapositions we create make new nuances? Do the household gods on our altars talk to one another once we've left the room? Do we understand more about each of the books we've read when we see them together on the shelf, seemingly in dialogue? Do the figures – or parts of figures – in "Moment to Moment" consider one another? The power of the piece seems almost to come from what they can't know about each other, relying on us, instead, to imagine the whole that then becomes more than the sum of its parts through their interaction.
Lambert, too, says that this painting had been busier before, with even more heads and most busts lining the shelves. But, with what's been painted over, what's evident is the resonance of what was but no longer is and the even more complex relationships created by the timbre of what had been.
Accumulating Skulls, a Pile of Stuff
The painting from which the show takes its titles is immediately striking. Even in the jam-packed studio, paintings squeezed together like squares on a quilt, the presence of "Little Deaths" creates its own sense of space, of depth, and of reverence. The graceful figure on the mound of skulls, stacked like a funeral pyre, resists the very death the narrative might otherwise indicate. As the skin of her body remains flush with life, the whiteness of her face seems, though in contrast, not to reflect an end, but rather tranquil resolve. She claims what has been hers as much as she accepts what has passed, and indeed these two categories cannot be separated. In conversation, Lambert elucidates some of what she's unearthed with this work, namely that a mindful presence in the moment relies on a steady, yet fluid understanding of what has gone, of what's left or been let go. We accumulate our own histories, the stuff of our lives, the intimacies and fascinations that must die in order to make room for others, in order that they might find their own ways, in order that we might keep going.
Sculptures
As both a foil to and a continuum of the paintings (and the narratives they cause and affect) come Lambert's sculptures – built of and born from found objects, lace and wood, a doll... The continuity from the paintings is evident in the paint itself, translated three-dimensionally, to become here, the ends and the means. The departure, meanwhile, is undeniable in the utter unruliness. To say organic, would fall short, though there's surely something animate in the way they build themselves up. Ultimately, it's the combination of what's recognizable and what remains impossible to define or compartmentalize that calls into question the lines we draw between safety and risk, playfulness and harm, control and abandon.
The sculptures, though, also necessarily remind us how we each take up space in the world, solid and with substance. While the mind might – must – work to stay in the moment, the body asks for nothing so difficult. Complete and unyielding, the stuff of our flesh and our bones is here. The nature of mind may be to destroy and rebuild its illusion of self again and again, meanwhile the matter of what carries us is undeniable. The banter here, between sculptures and the paintings, reminds us of this – the resolve and the release, the interdependence, between what we create and what we encounter.
Considering the Work for Little Deaths, the Impact of a Muted Palette, and the Ghosts of What's No Longer Visible, but Still Felt
The following excerpts are pulled from a conversation Friday, September 3, 2009, at her Greenpoint studio.
Cross-Pollination
Emily uses the words "cross-pollination" when she talks about working on multiple paintings at once. Hearing her say so, I imagine she uses the phrase for its metaphoric implications, taking as she does bits of color, of texture, of echoed shapes from one work to the next, though usually transforming each element mid-flight, so that when it germinates in the next canvas, it reappears as familiar, but never duplicated. But when I think of the same phrase, it is the literalism of meaning that strikes me; I think of the paint on her brush like pollen. In turn, as the painting develop separately, and vary spectacularly in the journeys they embody and portray, there is a congruency of origination, of having some shared fundamental essence, even as each one blooms full and completely with its own self.
The Resonance of Absence, of What's Been Painted Over
In "Moment to Moment," we find haunting proof of Lambert's recent explorations into a more muted palette as we are confronted, here, with three rows of heads. One in particular seems motionless, still, almost mummy-like, its allusions to impermanence direct. Others, however, seem inhabited, in gesture, perhaps, as in the top left, the two-faces together, either showing indecision or the waywardness of human nature.
Lambert explains that the inspiration for this painting came while she was at the Vatican, during an art pilgrimage of sorts this past spring. Struck by the shelves of busts there, endlessly long and multiple layers high, each horizontal lined with white carved head after white carved head, she came back to the studio curious how this same general image would manifest on canvas.
Ultimately, how each of these heads relates to one another, with their inferences of the thoughts and perceptions they might have held or perhaps still wrestle with, is what I find most fascinating. Do the juxtapositions we create make new nuances? Do the household gods on our altars talk to one another once we've left the room? Do we understand more about each of the books we've read when we see them together on the shelf, seemingly in dialogue? Do the figures – or parts of figures – in "Moment to Moment" consider one another? The power of the piece seems almost to come from what they can't know about each other, relying on us, instead, to imagine the whole that then becomes more than the sum of its parts through their interaction.
Lambert, too, says that this painting had been busier before, with even more heads and most busts lining the shelves. But, with what's been painted over, what's evident is the resonance of what was but no longer is and the even more complex relationships created by the timbre of what had been.
Accumulating Skulls, a Pile of Stuff
The painting from which the show takes its titles is immediately striking. Even in the jam-packed studio, paintings squeezed together like squares on a quilt, the presence of "Little Deaths" creates its own sense of space, of depth, and of reverence. The graceful figure on the mound of skulls, stacked like a funeral pyre, resists the very death the narrative might otherwise indicate. As the skin of her body remains flush with life, the whiteness of her face seems, though in contrast, not to reflect an end, but rather tranquil resolve. She claims what has been hers as much as she accepts what has passed, and indeed these two categories cannot be separated. In conversation, Lambert elucidates some of what she's unearthed with this work, namely that a mindful presence in the moment relies on a steady, yet fluid understanding of what has gone, of what's left or been let go. We accumulate our own histories, the stuff of our lives, the intimacies and fascinations that must die in order to make room for others, in order that they might find their own ways, in order that we might keep going.
Sculptures
As both a foil to and a continuum of the paintings (and the narratives they cause and affect) come Lambert's sculptures – built of and born from found objects, lace and wood, a doll... The continuity from the paintings is evident in the paint itself, translated three-dimensionally, to become here, the ends and the means. The departure, meanwhile, is undeniable in the utter unruliness. To say organic, would fall short, though there's surely something animate in the way they build themselves up. Ultimately, it's the combination of what's recognizable and what remains impossible to define or compartmentalize that calls into question the lines we draw between safety and risk, playfulness and harm, control and abandon.
The sculptures, though, also necessarily remind us how we each take up space in the world, solid and with substance. While the mind might – must – work to stay in the moment, the body asks for nothing so difficult. Complete and unyielding, the stuff of our flesh and our bones is here. The nature of mind may be to destroy and rebuild its illusion of self again and again, meanwhile the matter of what carries us is undeniable. The banter here, between sculptures and the paintings, reminds us of this – the resolve and the release, the interdependence, between what we create and what we encounter.
