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Gelsy Verna
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Iowa City |
interviewed 8-1-1999 | mixed media, painting |
artwork
interview clips
artist's statement
galleries
memorial page (third-party)
| Gelsy Verna was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1961. She lived there and in Zaire for the first few years of her life, but since 1968 grew up in Montreal, Canada. She is the second of six children; her father was a radiologist and her mother, a teacher. She received her B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in December 1988, and her M.F.A. from there in December 1990. | She taught art at the university level, including the University of Iowa and the University of Wisconsin. Her artwork consists mostly of collage, works on paper, mixed media, and oil on canvas. Sadly, Gelsy died unexpectedly on March 11, 2008, at the age of 46; her five-year-old daughter, her mother, and her siblings survive her. Read her first-person narrative edited from the interview. |
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| Belongings copyright © 1995 Gelsy Verna All Rights Reserved |
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| Sketchbook—Dennis
& Voodoo copyright © 1996-97 Gelsy Verna All Rights Reserved |
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| Untitled—red
fro copyright © 1999 Gelsy Verna All Rights Reserved |
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| Crowd—salt copyright © 2000 Gelsy Verna All Rights Reserved |
| Growing
up
(46 sec.) |
Shapes
& fragments
(22 sec.) |
Making
art
(50 sec.) |
Living
in Iowa
(50 sec.) |
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The process: My images develop through sifting, moving things around. Layering indicates adjustments of my consciousness through time. What I seek is a balance between what I am describing, the process of discovering the elements that organize the picture, and the meaning which results. I would like to think that it is possible to say that the painting paints itself. That the meaning in a painting not only comes from the juxtaposition of the elements painted, but also through the means by which the paint is applied. I am interested in simplicity of means. I am eclectic in my personal taste and its manifestation is present in my artistic process: collection, accumulation, layering. I like the idea of the "found object," collected in the cities, at flea markets, in classrooms. These fragments outside their original environment, resist naming; opening these "founds" up for new meaning and musings. These strategies allow me to explore issues of identity (cultural, personal), including broader examinations of consciousness and memory. On one |
hand, I enjoy spontaneous gestures and on the other, I want to stand back and work out a determined path. The spontaneous gives me a feeling of freedom to start anywhere, not knowing where it will take me. It is like casting a net in your mind and looking at what has caught in it; sometimes the old shoe appears, at other times, a gem. The collage and layering function on a metaphorical level, as I explore cultural, social identity. I grew up in a land, Canada, that is different from my land of birth, Haiti. I work in a land, America, that is different from where I grew up, and live in my second language, English. Traveling has made me aware that my perceived and projected identity varies depending on my geographical location. I am aware that a reading of my work sometimes points out the issues of identity, difference. However, I also come to painting liking what paint and painting can do. My
memory disfigures my feeling |
Artemisia,
Chicago, Illinois
Porter Troupe Gallery, San Diego, California
I've always wanted to be involved in art, but when I was growing up, I always said I wanted to be a doctor like my dad. And the only prize I won in high school was a biology prize. So it was kind of, Okay, this is what I'm going to do. I'm glad I didn't even go into art at first, because I like to think that I messed up someplace else, and then got my focus in art. For me, art is the place that gave me my self-confidence, even though sometimes I shake my head and I can't believe. I mean, it's a field where you're kind of walking with your heart on your sleeve, and this idea of self-confidence through that. But I think there was always this little voice—or I would tell it to myself, I think you can do it.
I like shapes. Maybe apart from shapes, I like fragments in a sense that a fragment can give you a point of entry, but because you don't have the whole, you could imagine. It's almost like the Venus of Milo—we know she's standing, we know she's twisted, but what were the arms doing?
I don't think I'm painting emotion or drawing emotion, but that emotion could come through how one treats the material. That there's something how your body responds to it. That has been a little bit more clear to me recently, because I went from, in my artistic life, wanting things to look real, to being interested in the surface, like how paint gets applied. And being more abstract to coming back to having a bit of both, abstract and namable things. And also, using collage, and the idea of collage is maybe bringing things that have a different history of origin, but the synthesis of them makes something that when they're apart, you can't see it. It's like, how they come together.
When I first moved here, I didn't think I could work here. I would always think, Oh, I need to go back to Chicago because at the time I was really interested in finding things on the streets, and collecting pieces. And then I thought, well, how can I do this here?
For me, Iowa works on the sense where it allows me to focus as a teacher. Then there's something of that, that goes to the studio. But I can only do it with enough traveling. Being able to go to the places where you get questions or you get answers, and then you can come back to your studio and do it.
When I spent a year on the East Coast there were times I was like, Oh, I can't believe I'm wishing for Iowa. But it was like the quiet, the taking a breather. Iowa gives me more of a kind of interior life.
