Farshad Farzankia
Copenhagen
B. 1980
No one has ever looked cooler answering a Zoom call than Farshad Farzankia. Rolling a cigarette while perched on a stool in a studio flooded with sunlight, the painter cuts a wry, Dylan-esque figure. Fittingly, Bob Dylan happens to be one of his heroes. A Copenhagen transplant born in Tehran, Farzankia creates canvases that feature abstracted visages floating through existential landscapes while gnashing teeth or skulls hover close by. The work is as indebted to cinema as it is to mythology. Since slipping into the scene only a few years ago, the artist has seen his paintings sell out at art fairs and has conjured knockout solo shows at venues like Andersen's in Copenhagen—and his first museum exhibition is up now at Denmark's Arken.
GQ STYLE: You worked in graphic design before you transitioned fully into your art practice. Why did you return to painting?
FARSHAD FARZANKIA: When I went to graphic design school, I had basically made my flat into a studio. I was thinking that graphic design was more hands-on. But of course it was on the computer; everything was on the computer, right? This was 25 years ago. It changed when I figured out I had to do just one thing: I started pursuing painting.
This notion of you needing to decide to pursue one path feels consistent with what often seems like a kind of devotional aspect present in a lot of your paintings.
You know the story about the Virgin Mary, right? And the birth of Jesus and everything? Somehow maybe it's more abstract, you know—maybe we are all Virgin Marys and we have to give birth to this thing. But that sounds crazy. It's a concept from Rūmī; he talks about it. You have to devote yourself to one thing. Like in love, like in true love. In an open kind of way, you know, because I think happiness comes from choosing. It's an act of choosing. You're willing to go there.
How do your paintings take shape?
Making paintings for me is like a conversation, or a series of constant decisions. I make the drawings and then turn the drawings into paintings. There's always a transformation or shift going from paper to painting. It kind of shifts shape and size and fits on the canvas. And also, the painting becomes very different from the drawing and it's a very intuitive process, so the drawing always gets abandoned initially and then the painting becomes something that can stand straight for itself.
Philip Guston says that in the beginning of a painting everyone's in the studio—like all of your thoughts and people who are on your mind—and little by little everyone leaves and finally the painter leaves too, and then the painting happens, and it becomes a painting. I've always thought about this description, and it's for me very true.
When you choose what to paint, do any subjects or symbols or images occur that you would never want to touch?
I want to say I'm open to everything, but that would be a lie, because no matter what, we all have a small path that we're walking on and it's somehow there, you know.
Have you been making any work directly about the pandemic?
No. I never really do that, but my paintings became very black. I started using a lot of black and red, and I was surprised by that. But that happened during that time, and then it became blue. It's almost like you practice, you go to the studio and play the music and rehearse, and then when the painting happens it's more like a performance, not like practice. So then it happens, like Keith Jarrett on the stage when he just improvises. But it's not really improvisation. Because he brought something with him.
Andrea Marie Breiling
Brooklyn
“Eyes to the wind,” Andrea Marie Breiling's 2021 exhibition of layered, sweeping canvases at Broadway Gallery in New York, represented a departure in line curvature from the crosshatched paintings she showed a year earlier, which themselves were strikingly dissimilar to the more traditionally Abstract Expressionist pieces she was making before that. Such rapid evolution could be attributed to the American painter's sharp instinct for recognizing, and transcending, limitations. An expired passport leads to a new studio in New York; a returned box of spray paint becomes an entirely new artistic direction. In turn, her colorful work, on view at upcoming shows at Almine Rech in London and Night Gallery in L.A., offers transcendence to others.
GQ STYLE: How has your recent move to New York impacted your work?
ANDREA MARIE BREILING: When I got here in 2020 and I made the show for Broadway, I started adapting and learning techniques with all the different tips of spray paint cans and all the different things that they can do. I was able to really create some interesting depth and atmosphere with just that alone. It really made the work more airy and kind of floaty, and it was presenting itself to me in this really fresh way.
Just making one key change in how you apply paint to canvas could change how the final piece turns out?
Yeah. Because there weren't any big philosophy shifts I was going to make. My work is emotional. It's really about transcendence. And for me, it's a form of poetry, so it's not like I was going to go in and do anything different about the way I was approaching the work, because that wasn't the problem. People were into the energy force and how much of my body was being thrown onto the work and how physical it was and almost violent in ways. I was attacking the canvas. I knew that that wasn't an issue and that was also something that I wasn't going to reject. I wanted that to stay sacred; it's something that I enjoy and get pleasure from.
How would you say your day-to-day life relates to your time in the studio?
I'm starting to wonder if there are two different kinds of painters. There are the painters that operate out in the world very seriously, and then they get in their studio and a lot of it is almost comedy, where they go in there and they get to poke fun at society or the things that are hurting them or make commentary. And I think for me it's the opposite. Outside in the world I'm much more lighthearted and fun and not taking it all so seriously, but I don't believe in irony in the studio. I don't even think there should be irony in art, period. I've never really heard a good love song or any great album that has irony to it. But I do credit the studio for the fact that I can exhale and have a good time outside of it. Recently, [New York Times critic] Roberta Smith shared my painting on her Instagram, and I was like, “Well, that's the coolest thing that's ever happened to me.” You can quote me saying that.
Alake Shilling
Los Angeles
B. 1993
The psychedelic, winsome creations of Los Angeles-based sculptor and painter Alake Shilling have landed in the collection of the Hammer Museum, in an upcoming exhibition hosted by Jeffrey Deitch (opening September 10th in NYC), and in the heart of anyone who discovers her work. Shilling maintains a shifting roster of inspirations that includes both Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo and Nickelodeon's CatDog. Fittingly, her favorite characters to render—a bear astride a train, a ladybug on a joyride—were recently transformed into limited-edition miniatures made in porcelain, the first of which quickly sold out. And she recently collaborated with Marc Jacobs for a series of pieces featuring her work as part of his new Heaven collection.
GQ STYLE: Coming out of the pandemic, are you creating an abundance of art? Do you feel a new rush of creativity?
ALAKE SHILLING: The pandemic was very helpful for me, because I'm an introvert. So the fact that I didn't feel the stress or pressure of having to go out was great, because a big part of making art is meeting other people and going to openings, which is very stressful for me. I could just stay home without any guilt for not going to openings—it made me feel much more creative and much more stress-free.
What are you feeling inspired by lately?
I really like nail art; that inspires me. I wish I could get some of the techniques nail technicians use onto the canvas. I like fashion a lot too; I've been looking at a lot of fashion Instagrams, just people that post iconic pieces from really iconic designers.
Why do you think your cartoon and animal figurines get the response in people that they do?
I want people to look at my work and feel automatically really good, and I feel like cartoons are so relatable. It's a universal thing. I haven't done any research on it; I just feel that a lot of people across many subcultures and cultures gravitate toward cartoons and can understand them. And the colors and the organic shapes are really enticing to people, I find.
Is there a difference in your creative process when it comes to making paintings versus ceramic figurines?
When painting I have to do more research when it comes to creating an environment and a scenario. I usually make sketches for paintings but not for ceramics. When I start a ceramic I think of an animal I want to make and start building. It doesn't always turn out to be the animal I had in mind, but it's okay. Ceramics is definitely more labor intensive, but I feel there is a carefree aspect to embrace when I make ceramics.
When you create these characters, are you trying to give them an identity?
At this point it's still kind of developing. They don't really have their own identity; it's more like each character comes out of a feeling I'm trying to go for. They're not people, but the personification of a feeling or an emotion or an idea.
Harry Gould Harvey IV
Fall River, MA
B. 1991
During the pandemic, many drifted inward. Instead, multidisciplinary artist Harry Gould Harvey IV and his wife, artist Brittni Ann Harvey, founded the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art on the ground floor of an active textile manufacturer in Fall River, Massachusetts. A talented photographer who found his first success making photos as a teenager, Harvey managed to capture the art world's attention when he began creating his arresting, occasionally gothic and hexed-seeming objects. He's landed a spot in this fall's New Museum Triennial, as well as in an upcoming two-person exhibition at Brown University's David Winton Bell Gallery with the eco-feminist artist Faith Wilding, and he doesn't half-ass anything: Harvey IV's respect for Wilding is so acute, he has her name tattooed on his hand.
GQ STYLE: How did you make the transition from commercial photography to the art you're making now?
HARRY GOULD HARVEY IV: I started out as a bit of a troubled youth in the greater South Coast, Massachusetts, region. I was a high school dropout—I got expelled from nearly every school I went to. Ultimately I realized that educational institutions didn't really work well with whatever neurodivergent soup I was in, or even just my colorful lived experience. So I went touring in punk bands around the U.S., and that experience in documenting that kind of lifestyle became something I learned how to commodify at a young age. By the time I was 18 or 19, I was working for Time magazine and The Fader and all these different magazines. Those initial trips to New York City, where I would start to acquire contacts or figure out how to navigate the spectacle of media, were incredibly formative to my art practice as a whole.
Is that why wood and fabrication play into your work? Is it a reaction to the digital ether?
Initially I had to pare down my art practice out of economic struggle. I couldn't produce photographs anymore, I couldn't make larger sculptures. Back in 2015, I had a pretty severe mental episode where I lost language, and through drawing I rediscovered ways to communicate more effectively. Once I had the drawings, I realized it was important to protect and guard and revere these drawings with some type of object. I realized that traditional frames are kind of afterthoughts, or something that is meant to be quiet in relation to the objects that they're framing. I saw it as an opportunity to protect these spiritual ruminations with a crown of thorns.
I happen to have friends that had a black walnut tree that was poisoning their yard. They had to cut it down, and I started milling that wood. I have a lot of interest in ecology, so I was already interested in the whole ecosystem and how the black walnut tree relates to native and non-native species, how it has certain pollinators that relate to it, how it has certain moths that are attracted to it. Not only did the wood come to me by chance, but it became something that I could manipulate to protect these drawings.
How did pandemic isolation suit you?
I mounted a solo show and started a museum during it, so in a certain sense I thrived. But it was also really tough because my mother passed away immediately before COVID hit. It was a pretty tumultuous time—she was only 56—and then I went into this isolation and hit a depressive wall. But any day could be anything for me; I try to deal with things holistically. Ultimately I found the pandemic to be pretty rewarding, because I didn't have to travel to New York so often.
How has opening your own museum affected your work or perspective as an artist?
We started it last October, and it's one of the more integral things to my practice. There are certain aspects of creating and making art that can ultimately feel self-serving, and the museum allows me to use the cultural capital that I've been able to acquire within art media and within the gallery structure and institutional structure to illuminate socio-economic issues in the city of Fall River.
Helen Holmes is an art reporter for ‘The Observer.’
A version of this story originally appeared in the GQStyle Fall/Winter 2021 issue with the title "Fresh Paint 2."
