The following is the complete edited transcript of an artist interview of Alisa Sikelianos-Carter that I conducted during September 2022
Gina Dominique (GD): …So, I'll just get started. And of course, there's no right or wrong, it's really just a framework... to talk about your work. I wonder if there is a conscious autobiographical component or motivation for your work mainly do painting.. I gather (there is) from your website...?
Alisa Sikelianos-Carter (ASC): But yeah, but it's all mainly in paper or panel that I'm working in or on. I think I mean the way I start...It was partly thinking about my own sort of experience and story. But then thinking about like the general, like collective black experience. I mean, I'm speaking from like a black American experience. And so, I think this show this show that just opened it at Friedman is a bit more focusing on me. So, I think previously, or, I don't normally think about myself in the narrative. I use my figure or my partner's figure as like a sort of template when I’m like creating. You know when you see the figure in my work. It's like me or my partner, basically or um images like five hundred or something... that's pretty explicit.
GD: That's explicitly autobiographical, or do you not mean it that way?
ASC: I don't. It's not. It's not me. Like I'm not thinking about myself and it's just because it's easy. We're there, and so it's like a template for woman or person really, because my partner is trans non-binary. I also don't I want my work to sort of like It's also non-binary, or I don't subscribe like a gender to it exactly.
I guess many people read it in certain ways, but for me it's… sort of queer history and related to that… like a template for blackness and power… if I had other people that were around that I could… quickly take a picture of… then I would do that.
But it just happens that it's easier for me to just use myself or my partner… I'm really not thinking about myself. I think my relationship to those beings in other paintings. But then the work that is that Friedman is actually, most of it is about me. It is about my thinking about the last year, not even in addition to Covid, or anything, but just my kind of family experience. And it was a very, very, very trying year and kind of coming out, an emerging from that and like getting reacquainted myself and reconciling certain things.
GD: So, this is a little bit of a departure?
ASC: You could say that. It's correct of the current or most recent work. And not all of it. There's like very specific images, like the green paintings. I'll say, and there's a few of those that are very much what I'm just talking about...myself directly. So, it's like if you see a figure, that figure is very much, it is literally my figure, and it's also about me.
GD: Right, and you don't mean future ancestors, you mean you have a body of work on your website called 'Future Ancestors...?'
ASC: Oh, yeah, I don't mean that is the work is about me.
GD: You mean that those are not necessarily correct?
ASC: I do sometimes... like there's these two specific ones that are kind of sepia-toned, and I those ones, very specifically, I kind of imagine as my actual family members. Like the heads...the braided heads. And it has like gold. It's like kind of this iron. It's actually iron oxide like an iron, and then like brownish with gold around it, and then a black. So those are only two in that kind of color palette that I made.
But I plan to make like a larger body of work, and I do see those as like my like fictive kin like those like. I don't, you know, like kind of the stories I don't know, like I want to do like a broader sort of body of work based on these family members, and I've been making up.
So, I feel like we're related, like we're connected. But then the rest, genetically, the other ones, are more like I'm trying to sort the person tasked with telling me a story about these future ancestors, or about these Afronauts, which I don't have yet, but which is listed like that on my website. If you see a painted Afro-kind of head, like I'm looking at it now, seated with their legs, almost aboriginal...
GD: Yeah, I get what you're saying.
ASC: … That's this first time we see the Afronauts. And then there's like the black into blue, which starts to tell the story of the Afronauts. So, like that happens. I kind of create these weird divisions, and maybe that won't make sense to people, but you know, I want to start saying there's like the black and the blue, which is the beginning of the Afronauts, and how they came to be.
And that's the first sort of version of this transformation, which is black and the blue, (which) is the title of a piece, or a body of work. But it's also the color like I think it's a tab on my website…Interference Blue… And I call it that just because what I the kind of things I use is like actually black paint into blue interference. And then, I think you know, like black people into the ocean. And then, obviously, the palette is all essentially blue, but that is, and that came later. But that's sort of the start of... the idea of... this... almost ... chapters. Like this is the beginning.
This is how we came to be. This is how the Afronauts were the first people to go through this transformation, which.. is, that our hair taking over and becoming this like protective, and not a mask really, but like a physical... organic...biological... attachment. It's not something you take off. It's like our hair has become this this like... meeting me on the other side... and that's almost ... like dreadlocks...like four of the long pieces of cord on the figures. And those are... sort of ancient blackness like bots who are calling the Afronauts into the water. So...in the story there are some textural pieces.
I'm like jumping around the whole website, but in black, and it's like these very textured pieces. One is a piece of planet, and another one is a world. So, I sort of imagine those with a snapshot of the sky, or like the bottom of the ocean, and if you were to stand up, that's what these figures are like. They are from...a fairy tale kind of movie, or something where there was like a giant troll. And they were actually the mountain, or like a rock.
Where the rings are, there's like these rock giants... they're huge. I just recently watched it, and I have heard some of those books, but I remember where they're like a part of the mountain. There're these huge rock shrines, and they're not going... When they move, you realize it's like the mountain it's actually a whole being.
So, I'm just explaining it to say that, like this scale in my story of those long figures is like they're like, you know... the whole sort of... earth. And so, and they're a massive like... enormous. They are like beings called into the water to safety, and to remind them... to say like you actually can survive this.
So, I didn't say this part, but the Afronauts are, in my mind, people who traffic-ed Africans to enslavement during the middle passage... and so were either thrown overboard or jumped overboard. Then they go into the water, and they exist in this new world, which... other images that are like in Atlantis... So those large, underwater... fish or the older version, like the round ones are... almost like Afronauts, but nautical.
They sort of activate these larger deities, or call them into the water, and remind them of their power, and how they survived because, as a result of their blackness, or as this thing that is very much a linked to their blackness. They are able, by their hair, to be kind of transformed, and they are going somewhere.
To go back to your earlier questions, I think it's like a lot of things, like I really I love storytelling. My love is creating fantasy, and to do these interventions into different parts of history. But also, it's like a reminder. It's a kind of love letter, or like a statement to black people... I like thinking about our bodies... like police in this way, when they degrade and act as though blacks are like weird or exotic, or whatever. For so long, and even like, now, still, like, exoticize and... quasi, celebrate or whatever. But it is not appropriated, but like, targeted.
So, this idea that like we are alive because of our blackness, as opposed to like what actually happens... We wouldn't be able to survive X, Y and Z without this divine technology, or this sacred adaptation. So, I'm thinking about that, and...that representing survival and resilience in general. Then, for myself, to like, remind myself of my own personal power and my ability. You know, claim what is mine, or take up space, or whatever. So...I'm always in the work in this way.
But I think there are ways that...are...more sort of external. I'm just talking to everyone. And... I'm going to... specifically draw on my own very kind of more recent experiences. So, to get back to like you...were saying... well, yes, conceptually... I guess that you know...you came kind of full circle. I'm going back, anyway to what you originally said, and sort of a more full, better picture of what you mean by that.
GD: Yeah, I can see it, and the story telling…is sort of second half of that we... already discussed. But if you want to add anything in terms of the evidence of that in your work... You know, I guess I'm thinking because you were talking about the hair, and the adaptation of that.
ASC: Yeah, also the coloration...the bronze... the brown, or yeah, or black...
GD: You'd already said yes, especially conceptually... It is more explicitly autobiographical than your current work...I'm just wanting to know where we see evidence of this? Oh, yeah, but you did discuss it in those ways. Did you want to add anything else?
ASC: Sure… I want people to understand that this is absolutely work made by a black person… I think I'm someone who makes a statement. I was talking to someone a couple of months ago, and they're like... sometimes people make work that's for everyone. Mine is… very much for black people. And I am a black person, and I feel like, yeah, I couldn't make this work if I wasn't who I am. Obviously, that's true for everyone, but mine is so linked to my experience as a person of color in the world. And then I'm using hair that is very me, very recognized... People see it. They're like, what am I looking at? So, it does take an understanding of what you're looking at.
But obviously, I've been working at it for years. So, I'm like, yes, but that is very much associated with blackness and black aesthetic. And so, I want that to be at the forefront. I want you to know that this isn't like in your face. Black is, but that's not always like that...(it) doesn't have to be like this.
I'm kind of backtracking, but like there's so many ways that you can exist as a black person, and it's not like only one way of looking or being. And so, I want to show that variation, too... So yeah, I'm drawing on that. And I want that to be a part of it because I started to make the work.
It was like, oh, I feel enraged, and I feel heartbroken, and I feel disempowered. And so, I was like, 'What can I do? How can I... kind of reclaim that, or shift that feeling for myself?' And this is what I have. I have like power. What? Okay?
So, I'm going to take that, and then like, transform it so that visually, there's like one figure. I think that seated figure actually, the one that you were saying was like aboriginal that you see, the pink one... I changed it with that figure. It was bright, and I was like, what is happening here? So, I changed it.
But in the green ones, the figure is green, you know. So, I think that's where I'm like, Okay? Well, it doesn’t have to be so literal. I don't have to.. always talk about it, or present me as a black person, or as a queer person. They are who am.
And in this painting, I get to have some relief from that. I do not have to always like to talk about who they are, you know. So, I mean to me, the green represents a lot of different things... That's why I chose to use that like kind of palette. For that body of work, it's on my website. But because I was sorry, not black and blue...
GD: I saw just one. But there you do use this very specific, almost sea foam green.
ASC: That's one of them a literal. It's like right here... there's this color...I use the Titan green. Oh, do you know that one?
GD: Yes, I do.
ASC: This sea foam green is from where I buy paint. You know, it's new. So, they just sell these pigments, and basically I just buy everything from them. I'm really so into powders, glitter and stuff, which obviously, is my work. And then... this like green interference pigment and some other ones. I hope I can show you on zoom.
GD: Or you can also just send it. Okay, let me let me do a share screen.
ASC: My desktop is really crazy. So, you'll see that on my laptop at the same time. I have like physical books out too. It's actually a slide show I did yesterday.
I'm just going to show you very quickly. I don't love talking about work... I mean, it's like all kinds of greens. Yeah, I mean It's they're actually like way more minimal than my um previous work. I just did it. Okay, But um, I don't really think. But I and I can explain what brain has a significance. One, two, three, four, five, Okay, great... Let me see. I will. I can share... So okay, you can see that. So, these are like smaller works, too. They're like twenty-two by thirty. They're even more abstract.
GD: I mean, your work is pretty abstract.
ASC: Thank you. I was like, in my dreams. I kind of want it to be, but I didn't think I was doing that. You must be more rooted in abstraction than I think I am. I just didn't really realize that (I was) until more recently.
GD: I did see this in these pieces when I first saw them. Now that I feel like I have an even better sense, because it's larger on my screen. They have such a print-makerly quality.
ASC: Yeah, they do. I did a lot of her relief printmaking. And also, the person did motto printing this summer. And I believe I really was like; I actually have a bunch of prints that I was going to have in this show. But they're actually very similar. I'm a maximalist in a lot of ways, like, materially, and also compositionally. I was pairing down. It is also like my second solo show this year. And so, I just want to take a breath. I need to take a step back, but be no less powerful. And I think to know that it's possible to know that I don't need to make something to feel impactful. It is kind of something to give myself to.
GD: It's really accurate, too.
ASC: Yeah, um. And there's like that's new sea foam green on this gorgeous kind of sparkle. I think it's called Pacific Sparkle. But the green is like this spiraling swish of green, like when I was a kid and stepped in a puddle. I would always do on a purpose. It's just kind of what I associated with anxiety. But stress is also basically very much about bundling, and I was thinking about the whiz!
Have you seen The West? Oh, it's really good. Well, anyway, there's a scene in the ways that everyone is dressed in green. It's like at the Emperor's house, where everyone's wearing green, and it's like very regal, and like just like so beautiful, and they're so like elegant. You know, I'm not imagining anyone's going to like kind of internally process that. I'm just kind of like stepping out of the show, a spell is a map. That is meant for you, you know, like kind of these small cells. I say small because they're like smaller works compared to the literal cells. It's like calling in abundance, what is meant for me and my power, and so a reclaiming, like I said. But because I just needed to do that, so that's what these pieces are. They seriously represent that.
GD: Well, it dovetails beautifully into another question, so I’m just going to ask you if you ever think about color theory. Either formal color theory, or scientific, or more specifically, a color theory applied to painting that you might have studied. Or even a more personal one which, I think you've just alluded to?
ASC: I don't think... okay, yes, I do. I think more personally, like I haven't deeply studied color theory. I would like to. I think that it's like a plan, you know, a goal of mine that Isn't really coming in here. But I mean like just basic kind of stuff. My work is so rooted in the feeling, and how it makes me feel. That's a huge part of it, and like I did a show-and-tell us that I was talking about how selfish my practice is, and what does this feel like? What do I feel?
I'm physically making work, but I've seen it's all about what I want. So materially, as far as the process, and the actual work, but you know, that's that. It feels a bit like more like I have to make this work because of what it ends up looking like. But color wise, like the black into blue...blue is my self-identified, power color. It's very, very, very important to me, and you said so Right?
GD: I was just going to say I can understand that you were talking about in the black and blue. Your sort of first chapter, or that first body of work. It relates to the ocean in the water.
ASC: Yes...but all that work came this past year…So, I started this whole practice several years ago, …started by dipping my toe in, and then I realized the narrative quality. And I like the overarching mythology. Then I though, I have to go back start to solve this story, you know, in order to only keep going forward.
But for me, personally… I just like just blue. It just makes it feel very powerful, and so I don't think about it. I am attracted to things that make (me feel) good. I'm like, yes, I want this in my life. I want to start collecting those things. And so yeah, I like this green.
I started this summer, and I was just like... also there's another sort of story that I want to start to tell. That's not about me, but has to do with a kind of experimenting, and thinking about how it feels...like another kind of intervention within history that I want to make. So, it is really about the feeling.
Look at my studio. I was at a residency, and I had another open studio, and, I had all this glitter, and the majority of it is greens, purples, and blues...very little red. It's not so cool. There are silvers, golds, and I have coppers as well. I'm like I should try it, and make a work in just reds. I was like there'll be some place for that to happen in my world.
I think it's more that I am sort of being held. And that is like the feeling that I want to kind be there in that auditory expansiveness as well as being held in this space...in the purples, and greens. You know that's like the way I do a couple of theories. What do I think? What does it feel like? How does it look? Do I imagine being a kind of race of that color? What is that? That's how I think about it.
GD: And it seems super closely related to feeling?
ASC: Not just intuitively, well maybe initially it's intuitive. You're not thinking, you're not feeling, you're just attracted to it.
GD: But then it seems like when you say things like you just like, wrap yourself in it or hold it, or feel held by it, that yeah, that you keep going back to feeling, it seems more feeling based than intellectually based.
ASC: It is, Yeah, that would be my whole practice, I mean, like, obviously, I'm thinking, of course, but it's very much about what it feels like. Yeah. And then that also connects directly in my mind, anyway, to the ocean, the water, which is, you know, so emotional. And feeling based, too. So, it does make, you know, in a rational, logical way it makes perfect sense. Yeah. And in space, too, like in the cosmos.
You know, like it's a huge, I and didn't even consider the ocean as a place where these beings would exist. And then I made up that there's a larger painting that was in the show this past year. It opened in April. It was like the first piece where I started using that kind of Golden black paint and blue interference. And I was like, oh, okay, this is something else. This is water. And so, I have to make a whole lot of work based on this now. I was just like messing around material. I wasn't really thinking about it.
So, to say that space is huge, that's where I was like. Okay, these feelings exist in space, and I didn't think about them really being like on earth, or in a nation that we understand. You know, to be real, or whatever that is, real. Then the next body of it will also be on land, or in the swamps. And so yeah, so space is a big part of that too.
I know what it's like to be motion, but like obviously, they don't have any reference or a space... I'm just making up what it feels like, but it's still very much a part of it. It's a huge influence on my imagination.
GD: How you can see that in color. Or does that connect to a particular color?
ASC: I mean, I think in the blue... and there are these new sort of green ones too...even though they're in relationship to oranges and browns, they all make it into space. I do imagine the ones I was referring, are like my actual family. It's kind of in the sky in this way...it's a little bit related to space. Like I have like a hidden power that you can't see. I think because, if you look at especially the newest images, that I'm out there with them. And in my thinking, I'm often influenced directly or indirectly 'where' I'm drawing from... from in space, from the ocean, from crystals, or from books, where I do these little tests, and I get glitter, glitter glue, and different materials, like gem stones, the rose quartz, and all of these different things. I use light pink paint, and a pinky green one that I like. So, it's very out there, but it is very much about nature.
GD: So, maybe you've covered this, but if you want to add anything more, I'll ask the second part of that color question, which is, do you consider that it inclusive? Your concept of the construct of color? Other than what you've already said... that you use it in a more personal and intuitive way vs in a scientific or formal way?
ASC: You mean more inclusive than the art?
GD: I mean in a more inclusive than historical Western art, colonized, like white male cannon of formal color theoretical way/ Do you think that it's your interpretation and/or your use of color is one of the elements that makes your artwork more inclusive? Or do you think of it in relationship to color, in relationship to the kind of you know, British Western painting tradition?
ASC: For example, to be honest, I like don't ever think about the Western tradition of painting. I don't think about art history that much.
GD: Well, here's what you did say, though, that you were hoping to be, or set out to be, an abstract painter.
ASC: So great, I think. Yeah. We've all had an inescapable art history. Yeah, I think when I say that I’m not even thinking about I mean, It's just like again. I associate with a feeling like... What does it feel like?
GD: Yeah, What do you think it's about?
ASC: I feel like abstract, meaning it's sort of about feeling... about coming from here. And that's where I'm always operating from. And so, it feels like my experience was, you know, a constraint, and learning about that stuff long ago. It feels like the unknown, but I'm not trying to reference anyone that I know of. Obviously they're in me, and there are artists who I love, but it (my process) is very intuitive. And it's… the stories (that) feel very, very precious and intuitive. It's my spiritual practice.
I want to just do what I'm doing, and as far as color, I guess it's inclusive in that I am (trying to) talk about blackness. If we are referencing white male painters, I don't think we are talking about that, but you know, I mean my work is inclusive and exclusive at the same time. Because I'm talking about a very specific demographic, and we've been excluded for so long that we get to have this time, and for now until forever, we get to be seen.
I love art, and I love reading about certain artists. I took this 'Women in Arts' Art History class in Albany. That was so amazing. We (read) Whitney Chadwick, and Sarah Cohen. She's super brilliant, and interesting. I loved learning about that. But when I'm in my studio, I'm really just thinking about what I am doing. And I ask myself, 'what am I saying?' Then I think of the future, and I'm very much facing forward. I'm thinking about the future, or times in the present, but in another sort of alternate reality...or parallel to it.
GD: That all comes through in your work.
ASC: Awesome...that's so great. But when I think about color, I imagine what space looks like, or what this feels like? I'm working on a kind of terrible painting, but I'm going to keep going. It's right next to where I'm thinking about. I haven't talked about this at all, but I'm a mother, and I'm thinking about motherhood, and I like I haven't talked about that in my work very much...It's like I never kind of pictured myself talking about that in my work. But it actually is very exciting. She's, my daughter is, eighteen now. And I'm like holy shit, it's time to sort of reflect on that. How does that fit into the context of this mythology? Because I'm really into sort of shoving everything into what I'm creating.
I just think it's interesting to be like, I'm in there, too. And my journey as a parent, is included in this. Not in any way superhero (way...I'm not saying that) people should be in a comics. I'm not really interested in that. But this sort of really magical afro-futurist world is like, where do I fit in my mothering?
So anyway, I'm trying to imagine what it feels like to communicate that through color, and that's the feeling again. How do I communicate to you that I am a mother whose daughter has just gone to college. And so, I'm like, okay, there's this body of work, and we're going to be in space and it's (going to have) astrological like elements. That's how I think about it. So, I'm not thinking about me so much.
GD: ... About philosophy again, either formal, formally studied, like as in aesthetics, or something related, maybe phenomenology, or any kind of philosophy, either formally or one you've constructed. For example, one like Andy Warhol's, 'from a to b, and back again.' It could be one that you are so far into... a kind of personal mythology. Do you think there's some kind of philosophical influence in your work? Or the art history professor who you had for two semesters who you worked with, or maybe specific women in art which philosophically influences you? Did you have an experience in a philosophy course, or with a book that someone handed you a philosophy?
ASC: Actually, I never have, no, never, or I if I did use one, I didn't know I was.
GD: But you have a personal world view.
ASC: Yes, one hundred percent. I haven't taken any sort of like a formal philosophy course or anything. But I'm like a queer black person, which makes my politics very radical. I attended a really pretty progressive boarding school, where art was a part of the curriculum, and equal to academics.
GD: In high school? It's interesting that that's where you go. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania and went to a high school called Westmont Hilltop, and we could major in both also.
ASC: Yes, correct, art and academics in high school. Yeah, it's not very typical. So, I was always, in elementary school, drawing all the time in the middle school, and like kind of escaping. Then, this stuff that was happening in school, so they couldn't stand it. And I was in an Art Club, but I finally transferred to this boarding school in tenth grade. All to say that it was very progressive, for example, we saw Angela Davis speak.
My mom is a nurse, but she's like also kind of a hippie, and it's very extremely progressive, so I feel like come and coming an arts family. I have a lot of poets, and I have painters and sort of just creative people in my family, on my mom's side specifically. Then for me, you know, I was like I don't fully identify, like them, as a woman because I was the only black girl in my family.
I have two brothers, and my mom was a white woman, and my dad's black...he was in and out, so I have a different experience. It's like I was a black girl, and my mom didn't really quite get that. My older brother has a different dad, and he's also black. But we all grew up together.
And then my younger brother, who my dad raised. And my dad raised my older brother as his child too. But I feel like when I think about the kind of differences in how we walked in the world, I was quite different from them in certain ways. Different from my brothers.
In my life at that point, I was like, this is what's happening. I thought being queer, and being a black girl, I don't have to accept that narrative. So, I really changed the way that I thought about the world. I wanted something different, and in terms of the family systems, I thought, 'I don't want this.' And I know I can get something better than what's happening right now. So, I went to boarding school, and I didn't quite believe that my family was normal, but I really changed what I was doing.
I became an artist. I did all these things that were quite different than when I was growing up. Then, in my twenties, with like very radical, queer community, and with social justice at the forefront... (and with) thinking about equity, and about empowerment, which taught me that all these things are very much a part of who I am. And what I believe in, like Socialism, and anti-capitalism, and about people that I was around seeing and saying, this really fucked up. Reading black Anarchist zines that I was just picking up... I couldn't articulate this, but I knew something wasn't right.
So, I wanted to be around people who were talking about this... I got that my mom, again, was pretty radical, and for a lot of reasons, compared to her peers especially. But (even though) I was not reading philosophy, all of that had a (philosophical) influence me. And my own sort of spiritual practice influenced how I see the world, or understand it. Does that make sense?
GD: Yes, totally, all of it. I followed it. You're talking about how you formed your worldview, which is your personal philosophy...about who and what shaped and informed you...who was in your first family unit. Then naturally, and I think similarly to how most of us mature..., throughout your teens and twenty's you rejected of a lot of your childhood. No matter how wonderful or shitty it was for anyone, we have to individuate (to let go of it) to grow up. We have to leave it, or reject it to move on...even if we come back to embrace some or most parts of it in our adult years. So, what you've said makes sense. It's totally cohesive to me.
ASC: You get it. It's good, and really cool that you've stated (it that way.) ...I know, I mean, we're going to move, but we're not going to New York (City.) I know that for sure. We'll just go a little bit further south (of Albany,) because it's a cool arts community. And because we are buying land there.
GD: So, you're going to build on it.
ASC: Yeah, that's the plan. Yeah, and it feels a little bit less theoretical than other places in the Hudson Valley. Like it is cool.
GD: Yeah. It's great.
ASC: Yeah. I'm like into staying. I'm not like you...
GD: You're not moving to California.
ASC: No.
GD: And your daughter's in school?
ASC: Oh, yeah, a really good school.
GD: She's an artist, too or no?
GD: That's great.
ASC: What about all my questions?
GD: You were so generous. I really appreciate you spending the time with me and for your forthrightness.
ASC: Yeah, yeah, it's very... maybe (a credit) to your questions.
GD: Enjoy the rest of your residency in California!
ASC: Yeah. Okay, take care. Bye.
