KATIE COMMODORE
Katie Commodore at the opening reception for her solo show Between Friends and Lovers at Untitled Space - standing with her work “Greg in His Catsuit,” 2018
Providence, Rhode Island-based artist Katie Commodore writes of her work, “Over the past few years, my artwork has concentrated on creating intimate portraits of my friends, often focusing on how they express their sexuality. Not whether they prefer men or women, but sexuality in the broader sense — what is it that makes them feel sexy, how do they express that physically, and how has it changed over the years?”
Katie currently has a solo show up at New York’s Untitled Space (through December 12, 2020). Quoted from the gallery’s site description: “Curated by Indira Cesarine, Katie Commodore: Between Friends and Lovers debuts a series of large scale erotically charged figurative tapestries, created with detailed adornments and unique embroideries, along with a number of her signature portraits in gouache, miniature watercolor paintings on ivory, as well as works on paper including intaglio etchings, metallic foil cutouts, and photogravure prints.”
Interview by Mackenzie Aker
Hi Katie! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your practice?
Oof! That's a big one! How long do you have? I'm Katie, I'm forty-two, after living in Brooklyn for fourteen years I recently moved to Providence, RI, where I decided that it would be a great idea to renovate one of those crazy Victorians (sigh, I haven't had a real kitchen in almost sixteen months). I'm one of those artists that hates "going" to the studio, so I've always found a way to have my studio in my home. I've been creating erotically charged imagery since 1999 (it started on a dare, I'll tell you about it next time) and couldn't imagine drawing anything else! What's better than that?
Your exhibition Between Friends and Lovers is currently showing at Untitled Space in New York, can you tell us a bit about the show? How did it come into being?
I've been showing with Indira Cesarine through Untitled Space for several years. She's included me in some amazing group shows and I was beyond excited when she asked if I would like to have a solo show and be represented by the gallery. The show wound up being a sort of "retrospective" and includes art from the past decade (and a little bit) and so it was really interesting to get to see everything together and to be able to track how my art had grown and changed over the years.
“Pieta,” 2020
What is the significance of having your friends pose for your works, as opposed to models or imagined figures?
When I started doing portraits of my friends, I was very driven by the idea of showing real examples of real people's sex lives. Most of us, for several generations now, learned about sex via porn, and sadly there is woefully little reality and examples of people actually enjoying themselves in porn (although there are now some excellent examples and sources for real life porn that I wholeheartedly support - Make Love Not Porn is an excellent example). I have always been one of those people that people trust (in a good way!) and I absolutely approach every photo shoot with absolute love and openness. Everyone is beautiful and should be celebrated in their happiest and most confident moments. And those moments (almost) never involve duck/pouty faces and staring into the camera instead of their lover(s) or internally into themselves.
“Marc and Lisa, No. 7,” 2013
As an artist, how do you conceive of your own place within the intimate moments you capture in your work? How does gaze come into play here?
It's actually very interesting how little I'm "there,” I try to keep my gaze as neutral as possible and make it more about them and showing their power. I think if you asked — particularly the couples I've photographed — they would say that after the initial few minutes of getting used to me moving around them, I kind of disappear. On the same note, I need to admit that I take horrible photographs. I can draw, but I am a terrible photographer. Partly because I'm so focused on getting images that have their whole body in it, without distorting their limbs in such a strange way that I can't compensate for it when I draw it. At the end of the day, the photos aren't what anyone sees, they're just reference material.
My gaze really comes in when I pick which photos to create art from. But again, I tend to zone out and look at each image purely for how it could work as a reference for drawings/paintings. I take hundreds of photos at each shoot, so I tend to sort through them a few times and will continue to go back to shoots years later just to make sure I didn't miss a gem. And then my personality tends to come out more in the piece. I try to pick patterns that reflect on the models, something that harkens to their personality or lifestyle or whatever, but at the same time, it's all about how I see those aspects of them, how we relate to each other.
“Molly and Erin, No. 6,” 2008
You have mentioned before how tapestry and fiber arts have historically been gendered practices. In conversations surrounding sexuality, intimacy, and creativity, how does your practice engage or disrupt this concept?
The history or artistic developments show a definite trend toward gendered practices. Sculpting tends to be a male dominated art, while the crafts, such as ceramics and fiber arts, have tended to be female. This is all changing and evolving. Besides the surface taboo of being a woman that is focused on sex positive imagery that could be considered pornographic, which is totally a "man's world.” We all know that women don't like sex! (Ha!) How can they make art about good sex? I've found myself drawn to marginalized mediums that always existed on the border of craft or women's work until men started using it as an artform.
In college, I was introduced to gouache, which is an opaque watercolor originally used mostly for creating sketches for oil paintings (it's technically considered a drawing medium) and then for commercial advertising mock-ups since the color is fast drying and flat. In the golden age of advertising, it was very common for women to work in the sketch departments of firms as it was one of the best jobs for female graduates of art programs. Men came up with the ideas, women sketched them up, and then the artists that did the final copy piece were often men. Women didn't get any of the credit, although it wouldn't have existed without their hands and technical skill. In the sixties and seventies it became a popular craft artist medium and by the eighties it could be found in almost every elementary school (as those crusty cakes that we all called Tempera Paint). And now it's pretty much only used by art school kids in color theory classes.
In grad school, the head of my Department, Andrew Raftery, introduced me to wood engraving, which was the medium that photographic images were first reproduced in newspapers before they found a way to create the dot matrix that is currently used to print tonal images cheaply. It's a form of relief printing that is done on very dense end grain wood that creates very fine lines and detail that can be printed thousands of times. Women made up a majority of the work force of people creating thousands of detailed images to be printed every day in newspapers around the world. However, when you look at fine art wood engravings it was also male-driven. Like so many fields, women weren't even playing in the game even though they did most of the visually consumed work.
Then in 2011, in the height of my singledom and finally having a real cellphone (I am not a techie person), I, just like everyone else my age, fell into the sexting craze with pure enthusiasm. But as my phone filled with dirty photos from my friends I got to thinking about how to make them precious again, and started a series of traditional watercolor on ivory miniature paintings of their nudes. Although the overall point of the series wasn't a reference to how women fit into the historic aspects of miniature portrait painting or the trend of lover portraits, but more about taking something that we all do without a second thought, even though it's fun and titillating and making it something extra special and enduring.
When it comes to fiber arts, that's always been a medium that gender didn't play as definitive a roll in my mind. Men and women have been pushing the art form for decades. So although there's still a tie to the history of tapestries and lace-making being a profitable adventure for men, while being made my thousands of nimble fingers of women, it wasn't in the forefront of my exploration of the medium. I began experimenting with embroidery because it didn't require as much hand-eye coordination as drawing does, and as my Multiple sclerosis progresses, I'm losing my super-fine motor skills and have developed a tremor on my hands and it can often be difficult to create the line I want. Whereas, embroidery is really forgiving, you can stab the needle up a thousand times before you get it in the right spot and it makes no difference!
There's still the inherent dialog of embroidery and fiber art being an acceptable pastime for women that is being disrupted by the imagery and use of subject matter that reflects on what actually is a completely acceptable and excellent pastime.
“Julia, No. 10,” 2018
“Greg and Tiffany,” 2015
The exhibition features vibrant large-scale tapestries, is scale important to your practice? How does scale affect meaning for you?
It is! I have a deep-seated love for tiny, tiny things and absolutely love creating miniatures, but miniatures often create a sense of preciousness and fragility that I'm not always looking for. When I created the first tapestry because I was looking for something that would bring the imagery to a size that people wouldn't see as precious, but relatable. At human scale, or even a little bigger, viewers can imagine themselves as the viewer or participant or even subject as opposed to looking at it and just thinking, "that's beautiful, but I'm not (pick an adjective) like that," or whatever runs through their head when they see something tiny and titillating. I'm not saying I'm going to stop working tiny-tiny-tiny! I have way too many three-haired brushes that I can't stop using, but I also really love the larger scale pieces for their ability to allow me to make tiny marks and keep the OCD level of detail, while also bringing an ability to flex my arms and do broader strokes (even if they take as many tiny stitches as the itty-bitty bits).
Why this show and why right now?
I am a Woman of Color with an incurable chronic illness. There is so much going on right now that is bigger than that and my art, but my art is what I do. I thought about delaying the show since it didn't immediately address everything that's been in my heart and on my tongue over the past ten months (who am I joking, four years!), but after talking to some friends and other Brown creatives and some serious soul searching, I came to the conclusion that I couldn't put my career on hold because there is so much going on that needs attention right now. Black womxn artists need attention right now. Healthy sexual relationships need attention right now. Non-binary/Queer/Gay/Trans lives need attention right now. I deserve attention right now.
And that may sound childish, but I've worked too hard to let 2020 silence my voice.
View more of Katie’s work on her site and Instagram
Between Friends and Lovers is on display at Untitled Space through December 12, 2020
Main page photograph of Katie by Adrian Buckmaster
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Mackenzie Aker is a Montreal-based writer who has worked as a curator, filmmaker and publishing editor. She holds a BFA in art history and film studies from Concordia University and her academic interests include museology, archaeology, and early documentary film. When not writing she spends her days reading in parks, drinking coffee, and listening to metal.
