Interview between Saria Smith, Curatorial Assistant, and Victoria Sauer, Residency Fellow
Victoria in her studio. Photo: William Johnson http://www.wmjohnsonphotography.com/
S: Where are you from?
Victoria: I am from Hendersonville, Tennessee, and it's a suburb outside of Nashville. The only legacy is that’s where Taylor swift is from, so all her small town songs are written about that city.
S: How did you hear about Stove Works?
Victoria: I originally heard about it through school. It was kind of like a vague idea that was being formulated when I first moved here four years ago. They had a couple of pop-up shows during my time at school, and I heard about the sideshow slideshow, their impromptu artist presentations, and I was able to do that. Then I did a studio visit with them and got offered this residency fellow position, and while I was waiting for that, I became the curatorial assistant under the previous curator Mike.
S: What are some things that inspired you to this interest in real and surreal.
Victoria: Dreams. That's basically the short answer. In the last two years at UTC, we get a lot more free reign in our studio classes. So, I started making work about the everyday and mundane, like odd moments that people don't really pay attention to. It could be a scuff mark on the wall or something. Then I flipped it and started doing surrealist dreamwork, which the Cereal painting was the first in that area. I think of my work as being this point on a spectrum between ordinary and absurdity. The inspiration for the absurdity comes from my dreams. I use them kind of like source imagery for some paintings. Then, things from life are just inspired by moments from life.
Cereal, 2019, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in
S: You say you work with hyperrealism to “bring awareness to these moments we find familiar but frequently ignore,” but could this also not be achieved through photography? What is your argument for using oil paint to relay this message?
Victoria: It’s not a very deep answer because, for me, it’s almost nonsensical for me to assume photography is fine. For me, the photograph is so far from what I want to create. I do work from photographs, which I take for my reference, but I would never want to present those photographs. To my eyes, they're just not good enough. To the blind eye, they may say my work looks like a photograph, but to me, I've actually changed it so much. The way I work, photography is not fulfilling enough, I need to put my hand in it, and I don't want to lose the tiniest bit of error that I put into a painting. The “hyper” in hyper-real is that it's realistic, but it's just a little outside of our reality.
S: Your mixed media art also deals with this idea of mundane images. How would you say your mixed media work relates to your paintings and more well-known works?
Victoria: I’ve only done one book that is based on dream worlds, and that’s the book Recalling. Everything else has been more about identity and domestic spaces, which are ideas that come up in the paintings. Domestic spaces are the setting of a lot of my paintings. I have a lot of personal relationships to homes. My Piece (De)construction is deconstructing the top floor of my childhood home. That work is far more personal than my paintings ever get. It’s about my childhood home and memories. The specific architecture of my house played a big role in a lot of my childhood trauma. It was therapeutic to physically deconstruct it and see different images forming. I've found that mixed media is more intimate, but commonly my first thought goes to painting.
(De)construction, 2019, matte board, permanent marker on acetate paper, book rings, 7x 8.75 in.
S: Why do you do what you do?
Victoria: I do it for myself, but I also want to share my experiences with the world and other artists and other people. That's what I get out of viewing other people's work. It's like this exchange of humanity. When I see something that no one would ever look twice at, I feel like I want to share it. I want to represent it in a new way.
S: By using oil paint, you relate back to the idea from art history, but with a modern twist, which is likely most evident in your painting Reconstruction of the Female Nude. Do you seek to emulate age-old Western techniques, how much does that influence you?
Victoria: I don't really try to emulate that style. My work is pretty contemporary. That painting is an outlier because it's not about dreams or the ordinary, but it still is this reconstruction of a common thing. The way it’s presented is pretty absurd. It was a challenge presented to us in a figure painting class to study old classical nude painting of women and think about what that means today and how we can still paint nude figures without sexualizing them and appreciating them as a form. I aimed to bring attention to certain parts of the body that don’t get much attention, like knuckles or toenail polish or weird folds in the skin.
Reconstruction of the Female Nude, 2019, oil on canvas, 45 x 30 in.
S: What was your biggest fear after graduating with your BFA?
Victoria: I got the opportunity to be a resident fellow offered to me a few months before I graduated, but prior to that, I was lost. I was so scared. My biggest fear was that I would never pick up a paintbrush again. I love painting, but it's about accessibility. I don't have a space in my old house I could have painted. You don't have the same camaraderie you have in college. I would recommend to anyone just make it work, look into renting, carve out a space in your house, stay connected to your old peers and old professors. Thankfully being here right after graduation is the best thing that could happen to me as an artist.
S: What advice do you wish you had heard as a student in the Arts?
Victoria: I’d say I'm never going to make anyone go to college or say that you need a degree, but if you're in it, don't give up if you have the financial resources to stay in school. I get frustrated with how meaningful degrees are, but they are. There were so many times in college where I wanted to quit. Mentally and emotionally, I didn't know if I could handle it anymore, but I'm really glad I stuck it out because it really is worth it in the end. Fresh out of school, I feel thankful for everything I learned and all the people I met. I miss the critics and professors challenging me, but at the same time, it's been really freeing.
Night House, 2020, oil on canvas, 35 x 50 in.
S: What is something that you think Stove Works has done really well in your time here?
Victoria: I am super impressed with the show downstairs, Teachable Moment. That’s a lot of work to get together and installed in a short time frame. I’m also very pleased with how well and seriously they have handled COVID-19 and that they do their best consistently to make us all feel safe and cared for. Other than that, this entire organization is just really well done. To build a residency and gallery space up from nothing is so incredible and so necessary for this city.
S: What are you planning to do after Stove Works?
Victoria: That’s a really good question. That brings me back to January of last year where I just had no idea. But I've learned that especially now, after living through a year of COVID, planning sometimes means nothing. I've also learned that not planning is okay, and sometimes things just fall into your lap when they need to. I'm a spiritual person. I believe everything happens for a reason. I just have faith that everything will always work out for the best as long as I keep pushing myself and applying myself in the present day. So, to answer your question, I don't have immediate plans at all. I'm open to anything.
About Victoria
Victoria Sauer is an Artist and Resident Fellow at Stove Works. She recently graduated from the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga with a BFA in Painting and Drawing. She spends her time creating images that explore dreamlike, hyper-realistic scenes and aims to bring attention to mundane moments of life through oil paint. She has worked with mixed media and sculpture as well. She is inspired by the real and surreal and aims to create in the middle point between really real and moments just outside of our common reality. I was lucky enough to sit down with her as she finished her bagel and ask her some questions.
To learn more about Victoria and her work, visit her website: http://www.victoriasauer.com/
ABOUT ME, THE INTERVIEWER
My name is Saria Smith, and I am a BFA Student currently working as the Curatorial Assistant at Stove Works Gallery. I am an artist and find joy in expressing myself through various ways involving, working with found objects, collage, and music. I decided to start these artist interviews as a way for the public to connect more with the residents who flow through Stove Works perhaps unseen, especially during this pandemic.