FST StudioProjects Fund

IN THE STUDIO WITH LARS VAN DOOREN

2020 FST StudioProjects Fund recipient, American artist Lars van Dooren (b. 1976, lives and works in New York) welcomes us, over Zoom and emails, in his current studio space in Bayridge (which also doubles as a fallout shelter) and discusses the varied influences behind his drawings and installations.  

by Myriam Erdely, March 2021

In lieu of seeing your actual space, our interview is done digitally, over Zoom calls, emails, sharing images and written words. Perhaps in the future I can visit your studio and see the work in person! Can you tell me about your current studio space?

Certainly. My studio is in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. After having spent 7 or so years in Sunset Park I was forced out by the standard form NYC industrial gentrification model and ended up finding a space in the neighborhood where I live. Bay Ridge is an entirely residential and small business neighborhood with no industrial or manufacturing spaces to speak of. I have a decent sized (but low height) basement space. It is actually a fallout shelter, so that could come in handy.  The studio is very close to home with a proximity and ease that makes it possible to work almost every night. I’m very happy to have it despite some of its inherent architectural limitations.  

Having won a grant from the FST StudioProjects Fund in 2020, which was created by Frederieke Sanders Taylor in order to help artists defray the cost of their studios in New York City. How has the FST StudioProjects Fund grant changed your practice? 

One of the reasons I was drawn to FST StudioProjects Fund is that it is not a residency. I don’t really apply to residencies right now, where the expectation would be to leave New York. At this point in my life, I have other obligations such as my family and day job. I have always had a studio and been generating work, so this grant is an alternative for people like me who don’t have the flexibility to explore those dedicated creative opportunities external to NYC. It is also validation that pushing against what might be some of my more conservative creative impulses has been a good decision. One sacrifices a lot to be an artist in New York and this grant reinforces those choices. Making art has always been a defining component of my life and I see no sign of that changing. 

Do you research prior to creating a work or series? Are you driven by any type of subject or theme that you dig deep into? What are some of your influences? 

At this point, a large and eccentric group of influences runs through my work, to greater or lesser degrees; they are so disparate and broad, that I find it hard to define one thing being more important than another. But insofar as research goes it would be the things that I’m reading, which I wouldn’t really call research but more the feelings or associations that I have with these literary and historical references. Those ideas and thoughts are then inserted into the work in both concrete and subtle ways. My range of reading covers topics from nuclear war planning, First Nations mythology and belief systems, anarchist theory, US foreign policy, William Gaddis, to an interest in The Spanish Civil War – to name but a few. 

Additionally, there are some more observable elements in my work that tend to hold on. They include representative or abstracted religious iconography, text, geometric and volumetric forms, cult emblems, automatic and gestural marks, pattern, plans and schematics, de-tuned faces, and dead-end embellishing. 

That’s interesting. It reflects a lot on your aesthetics; the work looks fragmented. When I look at images of your work, I see a lot of different types of marks, gestures, textures, can you tell me more about the types of materials you use?

Drawing remains the foundation for much of what I do. Within that world, I’m open to materials and their uses. A wide variety of pens, pencils, carbon paper, incense ash, enamel, and metal leaf are common for me. Broadly, those materials can move into traditional mark making, collage, or frottage on paper; or abandoned for exploratory smoke chambers that burn scraps of previous drawings and studio ephemera onto plate glass panels. 

Sculptures and objects are often made from a combination of traditional building materials such as wood, drywall, plexiglass, cardboard, glass, Formica, driftwood, and found materials. Often, I obsessively draw (using many of the above materials) or create relief surfaces on parts of the sculptures, the latter as areas to create pigment or graphite transfers from – pulling the work back into drawing again.  

Drawing seems to be your primary focus yet sculpture also appears in your installations and ways of displaying your work. How do you combine these two disciplines, how do you pull from one or the other, how do they influence each other? 

Before moving to New York, drawing was my primary concern. When I moved here to attend Parsons The New School for Design to complete my Master of Fine Arts, I felt it was limiting me and I was looking for a way to expand my drawings into more sculptural or object-based work. 

The work, thesunthesea, 2013, is an instance of this expansion of drawing into sculpture. This is an early example of a body of work that continues to this day. Using sculptural elements like Formica and wood skeletons, plexiglass cases and other sculptural supports as framing devices and holders for drawings. By playing with how drawing is framed, constructed or displayed, I was expanding out towards making these precarious sculptural objects. The drawing and physical elements are on equal terms, both supporting each other. At the same time, I was looking to make objects that I could draw on, like tabletops, walls, backdrops, or standalone pieces.  These elements ended up being central components of installations where drawings were also exhibited, so that was the genesis. 

To read the rest of this interview please go to www.myriamerdely.com/interviewlars-vandooren