 
www.ninarodin.com Enquiries :Nina Rodin nina@ninarodin.com or Max Rutten max@helixventuresllc.com
You are not a real painter, she said. NINA RODIN National Arts Club, 29 November 2017 - 4 January 2018
12 QUESTIONS FOR 12 THEMES IN THE WORK OF NINA RODIN
1. Image and representation? I feel that there are so many images out there already. But there is something utterly addictive about paint that exercises a visceral attraction on me. Though my work can look very cold and calculated, it’s really a case of managed addiction, pure desire for the stuff of paint. Hybrid I-VI is representational work, in that I work from a photograph. But it hovers somewhere between representation and abstraction, appropriation and invention. 1000 round drawings is also representational but more about the sheer infinity of possible images the mind can conjure. It’s been a long time since I painted an individual image.
2. Portrait or landscape? My first painting course, in Florence - sandwiched between a first degree in physics and a Ph.D in Neurophysiology - was in what I call academic painting. Oil on canvas and “stick to what’s in front of you!”. I got quite good at portraits and I can do a decent landscape but people and the world around them is so much more complex and multi-layered that I find such classic reprensation so very superficial. Still, they are great excuses for indulging in the act of painting. In 27 portraits of my mother, I used portraits of my mother taken throughout her life and painted her 27 times - still the results doesn’t begin to do justice to the complexity of a person. In Swiss Landscape, it’s the banality of the finished image that allows me to cut it up - the better to appreciate the sensual variety of marks that constitute it.
3. Layers? I love working with layers. In 2 times 71 layers and a brush, it was a daily ritual for the best part of a year to start my studio day by covering one colour with another. But there is also something about archeology or forensics that fascinates me like when I look at renaissance paintings that have other paintings hidden underneath. So in Circular sample from 25 consecutive paintings, It’s about a sort of reverse archaeology. Second Derivative also reveals the layers that go into the process of making an image- something that is normally only accessible to the painters themselves. 4. The painterly mark? If the painted landscape makes me cringe, the painted mark makes me lust. In Samples of marks from 7 London Colleges and the book Déjà Vu, I systematically collected both found and finished marks made www.ninarodin.com Enquiries :Nina Rodin nina@ninarodin.com or Max Rutten max@helixventuresllc.com
by other artists. In the book Circular Samples, I sample mark making from famous painters from the past. I can’t get enough. Concurrently, I feel that the painterly mark is nearly exhausted as a field for new invention. Basing a painting practice on a personal mark seems outdated and contrived. Every way of applying paint to a surface at this point is quoting from the history of the medium. And so I base my practice in a very deliberate appropriation of marks, either working from Déjà vu or from a large archive of famous artists before me like in 27 portraits of my mother.
5. Copied paintings? Copying paintings is both a way of getting around the problem of the original image and an expression of my scientific training. The scientific experiment, unlike the work of art has to be reproducible. Copying is also a way of learning. Both of these elements were important to me in Second Derivative. In both of these I asked Sarah Knill-Jones to copy a fragment of another painting while I copied her. In Fact and Fiction, I asked Nicholas John Jones to paint as he mornally does while I copied him. These works question the archetypical notions of the ‘hand of the artist’ and the emotional connection to the expressionist stroke. In Compound errors, I was responsible for both paintings but explore the myriad tiny variations and decision points in painting. In all of these works some differences are imprecisions, others are mere accidents. Such differences are amplified when the copied paintings are cut into small pieces like in Duplicata or Cut Paintings. At some level, a painting really is irreproducible and I feel that is part of the attraction of the medium. I never know excatly what it will do.
6. Circles? I often work with circular formats, in particular when I am sampling the painted mark. It references the circular aperture of the telescope (the first academic theses I wrote was in astrophysics) and of the microscope (my second these was in neurophysiology looking at brain cells through a microscope). It also moves away from traditional compositions about the image’s relationship with the corners or the straight edges. It feels more democratic.
7. History? Being a painting student in a contemporary art college is regarded as a little retrograde. Painting is the grand old dame of the art world. She has a longer history than photography or film but is also a little crustier and dustier for her pretentions. The history of painting is also very male. These are issues that I feel I have to take a position on as well, particulary in the book Circular Samples with the description of the dream of sampling paintings from old painters. I also feel it matters that we are two women in Second Derivative and that I worked with a younger male painter for Fact and Fiction.
8. Failure? Failure is important to me. It is the excitement of possible failure that makes my day in the studio interesting. This too is perhaps a hangover from my scientific training: you don’t do a scientific experiment if you already know the outcome, if it will work. On the other hand, you then always repeat the experiment to corroborate your result. So there is a lot of repetition in my work, a lot of pseudo-scientific protocols in my processes. Self portrait of the artist… is the only formal self portrait I have ever made. It actually contains references to three failed projects: only by wrapping myself in the failures and feeling cocooned in systematic colour did I feel complete.
9. Colour? In science, highly contrasting colours are used to separate different data sets. If a graph has two curves, one will often be green and the other red. If we need a dozen colours, we use every colour in the rainbow. I tend to take the same approach and use every colour available to me in my work. It feels more democratic. 2 times 71 layers and a brush has one each of every colour of acrylic I have in the studio, straight out of the tube. www.ninarodin.com Enquiries :Nina Rodin nina@ninarodin.com or Max Rutten max@helixventuresllc.com
10. Sampling and numbering? It is almost the first reflex of the scientist when confronted with a new species or phenomenon: to sample it and then to label it, if not with a name or a classification, then at least first with a number. I enjoy the poetry of imposing numbers on painting, something that really can’t be counted. I have been accused of pulling the wings off the butterfly but I see painting as something so primeval and timeless than it can take the insult and come out unharmed.
11. Complexity? Whether through large numbers of items or many cumulated layers, or books with hundreds of pages, my work is very complex. I have a mind that notices an excess of tiny details, I am easily distracted and I have a large capacity for retaining a lot of data. But I think that this is also very much to do with the deep impression it made on me to spend months counting star formation areas in spiral galaxies or peering through the tangled layers of neurons in slices of brain. The fact that the brain can be in more states than there are elemental particles in the universe is for me a fact of the ultimate beauty. The latest expression of this complex experience of the world is The Clothes project where I documented every change of clothes I made for a whole year. This resulted in 11,985 photos from something as simple as getting dressed - something we all do but where the possible variations are infinite.
12. Origami? I have folded origami birds for more than 12 years now: it happens in waiting rooms, on public transport, as a form of meditation on diversity and the complexity of human experience.I am drawn to the papers themselves and the myriad varations and near-infinite combinations of a relatively limited number of motifs. A new variable is introduced in the small differences produced in the folding. I have collected well in excess of 1000 different papers by now and am currently working on a frame holding 1000 origami butterflies arranged in a fibonacci spiral.
And the Trelex residency? I started the Trélex residency 5 years ago and have welcomed well over a 100 artists to work with my in my studio in Switzerlan. This has been important for my practice as many of the collaborations in this show have sprung from meetings with residents. It has also allowed me to observe the very many different practices of other artists. It is really the artistic process that interests me and is the basis of my philosophical writings and lectures. The Trélex Residency model (now in the peruvian Amazon, Paris and Istanbul too) is unique in the world in that it welcomes all artists on a first come first served basis and operates by word of mouth only.
With thanks to Max Rutten for his curiosity about my work and his support for this exhibiton at the NAC.
www.ninarodin.com Enquiries :Nina Rodin nina@ninarodin.com or Max Rutten max@helixventuresllc.com
List of works - You are not a real painter, she said. Nina Rodin NAC 11.29.17 - 01.04.18 1
27 portraits of my mother, 2013
acrylic on wood in acrylic frames (3 x (51 x 35 cm)); 3:51 video loop with sound.
2
Swiss Landscape, 2017
oil on canvas by unknown painter, wood and perspex frame. (25.9 x 35.6 x 4 cm)
3
Compound Errors, 2013
acrylic on archival prints on Hahnemühle Bamboo Paper, framed (82 x 62 x 2.5 cm)
4
Self portrait with three failed projects, 2017
gouache on archival print on paper (59 x 47 cm)
5
Second Derivative, 2014 (In collaboration with Sarah Knill-Jones)
acrylic on archival prints on Hahnemühle Bamboo Paper overlaid with printed tracing paper ( 2 x A3 ); video 10min54s - in acrylic frame with ipad mini
6
The Trélex Residency - 100 artists, 2017
27 portraits of my mother in different styles mimicking those of other artists were painted onto three boards, one on top of the other, keeping only 1 cm from the previous painting. Each portrait was photographed. Footage with studio sound of some of the obliterations and images of all the paintings are included in the video shown alongside.
An oil painting of swiss landscape was purchased at a market in Switzerland, taken off its frame, prepared with the help of a conservator and cut precisely into 16 pieces that are mounted as a block in a perspex frame.
Prints of wool (suggestive of a large brushstrokes) were made using two different print settings. Each subsequent painted addition varies slightly from one to the other, exploring the myriad decision points in a painting. Using the studio setup for the clothes project, Nina Rodin wrapped herself in two failed projects. One is a 270 sonobo unit origami polygon, the other is a crochet blanket done using systematic combinations of colour juxtapositions. Both failed: the origami ball couldnt hold its own weights, the dog chewed up the notes for the blanket. The final layers is part of an interrupted series of watercolours.
For the first pair of paintings, Sarah Knill-Jones was asked to copy and enlarge an excerpt of a small painting, itself generated for this purpose from imitations of abstract expressionist painters from the past. The small paintings use to copy from in the video are shown here, overlaid with graph paper as a guide to the area used. As she paints, Nina Rodin uses identical brushes and paints to copy every gesture she makes in real time. For the second pair of paintings, roles are reversed. The video is the final product more than the paintings. Poster celebrating the first 100 residents artists to have stayed with Nina Rodin in her studio and home at the Trélex Residency.
archival print on paper, framed (76 x 100 x 2.5 cm).
www.ninarodin.com Enquiries :Nina Rodin nina@ninarodin.com or Max Rutten max@helixventuresllc.com
7
Complex Crowd, 2011
Origami scultpure in glass globe on wood base (30 x 30 x 40 cm)
8
Crowd - 86 origami birds, 2008
Nina Rodin has folded origami birds for more than a decade. She is drawn to the papers themselves and the myriad varations and near-infinite combinations of a relatively limited number of motifs. A new variable is introduced in the small differences introduced in the folding. Folding happens in waiting rooms, on public transport, as a form of meditation on diversity and the complexity of human experience and leads to musings weaving in the structure of the brain and of glalaxies of stars. A similar work to Complex Crowd above. Here the origami birds are pinned in an entomological frame with insect pins.
Origami paper and insect pins in hinged enthomology frame from Deyrolle in Paris. (40 x 60 x 10 cm)
9
55 - Universality of the Singular, 2011
Origami paper and insect pins in hinged enthomology frame from Deyrolle in Paris. (50 x 40 x 6 cm)
10
Hybrid I - VI, 2015-2017
archival print on paper, acetate, watercolour and gouache on paper, mounted and framed. 6 frames, each 34 x 42.5 x 2.5 cm
11
2 times 71 layers and a brush, 2017
acrylic on board and brush. (each 24 x 30 cm). In perspex frame.
12
Déjà vu, 2010 with new cover in 2015
Hand-made artist book with archival prints, acetate and machine-cut inserts. Artist’s own copy, (28.5 x 6.5 x 21.5 cm)
This is part of the second series of over 1000 origami objects, Nina Rodin has folded. For this series, 20 frames with each 55 birds were made. Thought each frame has 55 different papers, each is different both in arrangement and in how the patterns of each paper appear through the fold. The hybrid paintings are part fo an on-going series of works based on the samples from the book work Déjà Vu. Starting with macrophotographs of details of works by other people or mere accidental marks in London Art Colleges, these are a way of looking closer through the act of painting at the mark of others. They are a hybrid of appropriation and creation, representational and abstract painting. Each is shown with the microscope slide from which they are derived. Done to indulge in a desire to paint as a near-daily ritual for months on end. Each board was covered in successive layers of opaque acrylic paint (sometimes requiring successive layers for complete coverage), one using masking tape for the edges, the other not. A sort of reverse archeology of paint. Nina Rodin’s reference book or encyclopedia for painterly marks in the studio. For a long period, everything she has painted has been consciously sampled from this book. It consists of 250 of the 2000+ ‘microscope slides’ that make up Samples of marks from 7 London art colleges (see below).
www.ninarodin.com Enquiries :Nina Rodin nina@ninarodin.com or Max Rutten max@helixventuresllc.com
13
Circular samples from 25 consecutive paintings on one canvas, 2010
Acrylic on Canvas in perspex frame and acid-free mount. (55 x 110 x 5.5 cm)
14
Circular Samples, 2013
Hand-made single edition artist book work with punched postcards. Two volumes in slipcase. (29 x 21.5 x 7 cm)
15
Fact and Fiction (1/4), 2013 (in collaboration with Nicholas John Jones) Oil on canvas in perspex frame with acid-free mount. (65 x 100.7 x 55 cm)
16
Duplicata, 2015
Hand-made single edition artist book and box with acrylic on canvas inserts. Interleaved with archival glassine. (45.5 x 33.5 x 5 cm)
17
1000 round drawings, 2013
The same canvas was painted 25 times in a row with abstract and representational paintings in different styles. A circular sample was taken each time before the next painting was added. In previous presentations, the 25 samples were shown simply stacked in a petri dish.
A single circular sample is taken from postcards of male painting ‘masters’ of the past. Each feels representative of the painting. The rest of the postcard is shown in the Appendix. About the weight of the history of painting, the artist’s desire for the material and her relationship with museums, about a dream.
Nicholas John Jones was invited to the Trelex Residency and painted a series of abstract paintings. Nina Rodin imitated every gesture from stretching the canvas, through priming and painting. The process was filmed (not shown). One is a finished painting by NJJ, the other is not. The viewer is not told which is which, but invited to consider on their own which is the original and which is a copy. Sarah Knill Jones was asked by Nina Rodin to paint an abstract painting using gestures and marks from a set of visual references consisting of excerpts from abstract expressionist painters from the past. Nina Rodin copied her in real time. The two resulting canvases were each cut up into 32 pieces shown side by side on the 32 pages of this book. Nina Rodin was curious as to how many round drawings she could make before running out of ideas. In the end she ran out of labels.
Book work including screen with video and 1000 original drawings in clamshell box made by the artist. (41.5 x 47.5 x 8 cm)
18
1000 round drawings, 2017
printed book, edition of 7.
19
Cut Paintings, 2014 (in collaboration with Dennis de Caires)
Single-edition bookwork containing 10 volumes of acrylic on Hahnemühle Bamboo Paper. Interleaved with archival glassine. Screen printed text and covers. Handmade by the artists. (28 x 31 x 24.5 cm)
This book was made so that the 1000 drawings can be accessed at the viewers own pace. It contains a short essay about how the drawings came about and an index of captions, detailing what each drawing is of.
This is a ambitious collaboration which consists of 10 paintings: each gesture added to the first had to repeated on all 10 paintings. After finishing the first 10, they were turned over on the floor and painted on the back. Each painting was cut into 16 pieces so that each painting could become one book with 16 pages. So 10 paintings became 10 books.
www.ninarodin.com Enquiries :Nina Rodin nina@ninarodin.com or Max Rutten max@helixventuresllc.com
20
Samples of marks from 7 London art colleges, 2010
archivable prints, acetate, pins, size variable
21
The Clothes Project books, work in progress
archivable prints, individuayll annotated and bound by the artist
A subset of more than 2000 macrophotographic samples See DĂŠjĂ vu (above). Some are marks were found in the buildings, some were from finished art works. About the multitude of types of mark already found in contemporary art and abotu the possibly futility of trying to invent new marks. The product of more than two years of work at this point, these books contains every one of the 12,985 photos of The Clothes Project where Nina Rodin photographed herself every time she changed a piece of clothing for a year. Designed to be part of a larger installation with a video showing all the photos in quick successtion. Shown here with a short documentary about the project.
www.ninarodin.com Enquiries :Nina Rodin nina@ninarodin.com or Max Rutten max@helixventuresllc.com