How ‘Perfect is Boring’ and ‘Gray Areas' are Compelling — Collage Artist Somsara Rielly Glues it all Down.
Pulling from personal narrative SOMSARA RIELLY’s collages invite the eye to linger on the familiar, re-contextualized. As the mid-century ideal much of her imagery references, rarely are things as they appear.
Somsara Rielly in her Pasadena studio © Diana Zalucky
cheers Somsara — we hear you were born in Connecticut, not far from Machamux gallery in Westport, but have lived most your life in Los Angeles. do You have some connections to “Old Hollywood”?
Yes – My grandmother worked at the gift store which was called “The Lush Shoppe” (Mrs. Lush was the owner) at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and she had a ton of crazy stories. My mom had a much more “Hollywood” childhood than I did because she went to Beverly Hills High with lots of now-famous folks.
Growing up here you always know someone, or went to school with someone’s kids – Hollywood is just part of the local business. The way everyone in Washington, D.C. knows political people. So to be honest, I don’t even think of it as that strange, it’s just more how it is. I also have very little desire to be a part of it.
East Coasters think of L.A. as somewhere people go to re-invent themselves...
It is true people come here to reinvent themselves – and I suppose Hollywood allows you to pretend to be whomever you like for a while. I subscribe to “wherever you go there you are” so it’s pretty hard to fully escape who you used to be. I do really like the idea of a new start but your past always comes with you. So, in that sense yes, I think I am always influenced by where I’ve been with what I’m doing. It’s not always in ways that make me the most happy, but I think it’s important to honor it. I’m a huge believer in trying to be authentic, and hypocrisy really makes me bristle, so not sure how “Hollywood” that is – ha.
You have a way with words — Do you think your relationship to the mainstream American culture as both an insider and an outsider (due to your Jehovahs Witness upbringing) has enabled you to read things that others can’t always see, at least on first glance?
Thank you, and that’s a really interesting question. I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness from infancy. That will really do a number on how you see the world. I’ll probably spend the rest of my life undoing that programming, but I suppose it’s made me a more complex and layered person. Oddly, I think I paid a lot of attention to words because of religious upbringing – trying to figure out if that really was what the Bible was trying to say, or were these people getting it all wrong? Aren’t there so many ways to interpret what was being said there?
I think finding multiple meanings in things is very second nature to me, I’m always trying to suss out a multitude of ways something could be interpreted. There’s a lot of gray area with words, things are very rarely black and white. The gray area is a lot more interesting.
the Jehovah’s Witnesses discourage advanced education so you pursued graphic arts instead of “fine” arts. Andy Warhol worked in commercial art for many years before he hit the “big time.” certainly his exposure to the commercial side of design had a strong influence on his pop art work. do you think working as a graphic designer influences your artwork?
I love Warhol for that reason – I feel a kindred spirit. I love him almost more than his work because his approach was so unconventional and fascinating. I definitely am compelled to bring type into my work and sometimes have to consciously choose to do stretches of work with no typography at all just to see if I can. My design background sometimes makes it a challenge to be “imperfect” in what I am creating, and I have to fight knowing where I am going with a piece, because proper layout is such a part of my training.
I saw a piece once that said “perfect is boring” by Martha Rich and I chant that to myself just to free that part of my brain. It’s definitely a struggle, but it has its benefits too.
Warhol might have loved your collage “Memory is Mostly Fiction.” can you tell us about the genus of that?
I have such a terrible memory, and there is so much from my childhood I am still trying to recall – but I don’t even know who to trust, least of all myself about those memories. Sometimes I’m just exploring the idea of memories – trying to recall them, and then sometimes actively choosing to make them more positive or beautiful in art to make them something nicer than they were.
HANDS ARE REOCCURRING IN YOUR WORK, AND YOUR WORK IS ALSO 100% HANDMADE. WHAT ATTRACTS YOU TO HANDS AND DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS FOR AN EXCELLENT MANICURE?
I keep asking myself — what is it with the hands? The best answer I can give you is that they are where we create from, and they are so expressive. Even as a kid I watched people’s hands, and I am attracted to men’s hands – I pay attention. I’m also a little weirdly obsessed with my own hands right now, I am wearing way too many rings, and even though they are so bad for you, the occasional gel manicure is my guilty pleasure. Always wear sunscreen on your hands!
your work references a 1950s american ideal as expressed in movies such as “All that Heaven Allows” and “Imitation of Life.” These films by director Douglas Sirk were once considered one-dimensional but are now viewed under a contemporary lens as “revealing an oblique criticism of American society hidden beneath a banal facade.”(1) What attracts you to this time period? why this imagery?
I believe a part of it is that I heard so often when I was young what a magical time this was – but when I go back and look at it, I find such mixed things. Yes on the surface it does seem that everyone looks happier and it was simpler, and more naïve but it’s also a horrible time for anyone who wasn’t basically male or white.
Particularly looking at it through a female lens, it’s repeatedly shocking what advertising and media then portray the “concerns” of a woman then, versus what they actually probably were and still are now. How much shame and subservient behavior was put on them – it’s hard to process now and it wasn’t that long ago. At the same time the quality of printed material and the vibrant colors, style, typography, and illustration at that period is just unmatched. I love working with that old paper so much.
There is something about the juxtaposition of being so attracted and so repelled by this time – and the contradictions that are inherent in it, that bring me back for more. Also women’s clothes of this era are just dreamy.
Is there something you once feared that you fear no more?
Armageddon? Haha. Seriously though, I really used to worry what people thought of me – afraid of being uncool or too weird, or just really different. I finally realized that mostly people are only ever thinking about themselves and don’t care about you all that much to begin with. That’s really freeing. I also used to fear pink hair, but not anymore!
OVER HERE IN CONNECTICUT WE CONSIDER LOS ANGELES TO BE ONE OF THE CAPTIALS OF THE ARTWORLD. ARE THERE ANY FELLOW LOS ANGELES-BASED ARTISTS YOU RECOMMEND WE CHECK OUT?
Oh yes. I love Stephanie Vovas the photographer so much — her work is just the dreamiest, sexiest, most fantastical world I want to jump right into. I admire Mel Kadel too, Her show, “Thought Pattern” at Subliminal Projects blew me away. I love Brooks Salzwedel’s work too, it’s so ethereal and moody. I also wish I could paint hands the way Isabel Samaras does – she is insanely good.
What is a soulcollage®? Tell us about some of your new art business ventures and collaborative projects...
SoulCollage® is my new obsession! My friend Jessica Snow (a long-time guided meditation teacher) and I went to a dream workshop that totally changed our lives. We learned this process there called SoulCollage® and once we started we just couldn’t stop. It is a blend of meditation practice and collage to explore the inner landscape and draw things out the subconscious. I can’t say enough good about it – we both got trained to teach it, and and are now hosting workshops together in Los Angeles.
anything online those of us who are only in california periodically?
We have a starter e-kit if you want to learn in the comfort of your own home…or gallery. It’s great to do with friends or solo. Check out the whole story at art-x-magic.com
HMMM…IT KIND OF SOUNDS LIKE YOUR own ARTWORK IS A collage from your soul, LITERALLY illustrating OUT OF YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS, IS YOUR art making cathartic?
I did not plan for it to be, originally I was going for wit or a certain aesthetic.
But the older I get and the more I look back on the themes that keep surfacing and the imagery I choose, I am pretty sure I’m working out some big stuff that is still revealing itself. It’s a layered process.
There is a reason artists are compelled to make what they make, and I think figuring that out is why we keep making work.
amen!
THANKS FOR TALKING WITH US TODAY SOMSARA, WE’LL LOOK FOR YOU IN THE GRAY AREAS— you’ll stand out with your pink hair. :)
Check out some of Somsara Rielly’s work in the Machamux group exhibition, “rehtonA semoceB enO" & follow her on Instagram @Somsara.
Yours Truly, @MachamuxGallery
- Schiebel, Will "Revisiting Douglas Sirk's A Time to Love and a Time to Die". OUPblog, Oxford University