Avery Wheless, 1993, grew up in Petaluma, CA and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She has a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (2015). Her paintings explore the existence of female bodies in regards to the space they inhabit. Utilizing a combination of heavy, energized mark making and illustrative strokes, Wheless creates a stage on which figures play with the intimate interactions between subjects, and their roles as surveyors and as the surveyed.
How does your background as a dancer influence your work?
My background in dance filters into my work in various forms. My mom was a ballet teacher, and she finally let me start when I was five, so performance was ingrained in me throughout my life. The fantasy worlds and taking on another role is always part of my painting process. When working on a painting I tend to think of it as a stage—a safe space for me to explore what it means to be in my body and create something new out of movement. I often wonder what would have happened if I had continued to dance. Ballet also filters into my paintings in terms of subject matter. The figures in my paintings are primarily women, which is influenced by the hours and hours of studying my body alongside other dancers (who for the most part were female). The focused training of manipulating my body in certain ways also extends itself to how I apply paint on the canvas. Sometimes I work in more frenzied and sporadic movement, other times my marks are deliberately gentle and confident. The overall physicality of making a painting is very much a part of the finished image itself. Dance and movement are also why I incorporate film into my practice as it allows me to have a more direct and obvious incorporation of movement within my work. Whether it’s in film or a painting, I like playing with moments when people may not realize they’re already in a level of performance. My approach to the world and my time in the studio will always be through movement and through my body. Once you’re a dancer, you always are.
Why is drawing such an important part of your practice?
Making a quick sketch before I head to the canvas allows me to get a general line of action, experience how it feels to make the composition and decide if it is something that holds my interest enough to further develop into a painting. I probably have thousands of these drawings and only a select few make it into paintings. When I decide to bring one to the canvas, I am warmed up, my body is familiar with the line and I can just dive in and perform. It is similar to any athlete warming up before a game—I don’t like to be too tight when I paint, so a quick simple drawing gives me the confidence to be more expressive when making a piece.
What are some of your favorite fashion magazines and how do they inspire you in creating the couture in your paintings?
I actually don’t really look at a lot of fashion magazines. There is a mixture of art, culture, and fashion magazines, both print and digital, that I love to look at such as Autre magazine, Dazed, and Nowness, but mainly for their written articles or interviews. In general, I tend to get fashion inspiration from music videos, films, or dance performances. One dance piece that I think about a lot is Pina Bausch’s 1975 masterpiece, Le Sacre du printemps The Rite of Spring. The costuming is simple as the ensemble performs in white slip-like leotards on a stage covered in dirt. In the piece, the dancers perform to honor the advent of spring; their movements symbolize engaging in rituals of celebration and competition. A young woman is chosen as the sacrificial victim who must dance herself to death; she wears a red chemise, an omen of what is to come. The choreography is primarily frantic, the dancers move as one pulsating body; fists clasp in unison as they touch the dirt-covered stage and hit their chest. As the piece plays out, the white leotards become dirtied due to the choreography’s repetitive movement where the dancers hit the dirtied stage and then their chests. By the end, the white leotards have a dark circle in the center of the body. It’s simple, haunting and beautiful.
Another early fashion influence was a book I was given as a child “Dressing a Galaxy: The Costumes of Star Wars.” The book contained beautiful costume images from the Star Wars films which ranged from preproduction sketches to the final creations. I was obsessed with the otherworldly sexy and theatrical outfits. I would draw from Padme’s looks for hours on end and dressed as her for Halloween more than once. I also love the fashion from music videos of iconic pop stars such as Cher, Shania Twain, and Alizée. I could go on, but those are a few fashion inspiration origins that come to mind.
Who have been some of your biggest mentors?
First and foremost, I am lucky enough to have artists as parents. My dad is an animation director who started off his career as an illustrator. We used to spend time together by “people-watching.” This activity involved an afternoon of walking to the art store where I was allowed to pick out one new sketchbook and something to draw with. At that phase of my life, probably 7-10 years old, I was obsessed with the blue sparkly gel pen. I chose the coveted sea foam green color every time. We would go sit on a bench or at a cafe in the little town I grew up in and draw what we saw. Later, this turned into us going to figure drawing classes in Berkeley where dancers from the SF ballet would pose or working alongside him in his studio on creative decks for films or even him attempting to teach me the more digital side of drawing which I never took to—there was never the same physicality and messiness you get with paint.
My mother is also an undeniable mentor as she was a graphic designer as well as a ballerina and the one to introduce me to dance. Throughout my childhood she taught ballet, so we were at the studio the majority of the time. I think the critical nature of dance is why to this day my mom is someone I still love a good honest critique from. I like to think of my paintings as stages that I set as a director and performer all at once. My ballet training is present even if it’s just in the focus and discipline that I bring into the studio. It’s a time where it’s just me, my body, and the resulting performance of the painting.
Mary Fassbinder is a woman I met later in my teens who owned a frame shop and is also an incredible painter. My mom saw a need for me to develop my painting and had to convince Mary over the course of a few years to teach me. Initially, Mary was skeptical about letting me into her space for lessons, but when I started painting with her in her shop at around fourteen our bond was immediate. She taught me how to use pastels and it was from her I really learned about color. Eventually, she let me tag along with her and a group of seasoned local artists to plein air paint in the northern California landscape. They also would host figure drawing nights where we would listen to jazz, draw from the model, and drink wine. They all were much older than me, some professors and others seasoned artists, yet they always treated me as an equal and I always felt super mature and loved being part of a true “fine art” community. They would talk about painting and give me advice on my work and life. Even when I went away to college, Mary always stashed a key for me to come work in and out of her studio as I pleased. She truly nurtured me as a “painter” and continues to do so to this day.
What would a dream performance project look like for you?
There are so many! All of the performers and dancers I have had the honor to work with still blow my mind with their talent and were such a dream. I’m developing a few new performance pieces, so I don’t want to tell all my secrets, but if we are talking about a DREAM scenario with artists dead or alive—collaborating with Pina Bausch would be incredible, or FKA Twigs. Doing something with Philip Glass, Lucinda Childs, and Sol LeWitt as an extension to their piece “Dance”. It would be so fun to play more with the visual effects assets we have now to really push the abstract level of combining space, time, and sound into a single physical unit. Maybe even taking it into a more immersive VR space…?
Which artists would you like to be in a group show with in the future?
Francis Bacon, Marlene Dumas, Cecily Brown, Pipilotti Rist, David Park, Paul Pfeiffer, Rae Klein, Jacolby Satterwhite, Dike Blair.
Where are your favorite places to travel that have a vibrant art scene?
New York for its overall “scene”—there is a sense of immediacy, community, and grit. It’s fun, hectic, and intellectual all at once. Paris for its iconic history, romance, and breath. I just explored Rome for the first time and barely scratched the surface. The tickets for the Borghese Gallery were sold out, which I wanted to see, but I loved wandering the streets, walking into cathedrals, and casually stumbling upon Carrivagios. Places like these make everything in the States feel like it’s made out of cardboard. I need to go back.
What can we expect from your upcoming show at NADA with Bozo Mag?
I’m really excited about this one. Without saying too much since I’m still in progress with it, I am working on some paintings and a video piece. They incorporate themes of how I see myself and hold myself in relation to others, being an unreliable narrator, and the alteration of memory over time. They have a mixture of immediate gestures, yet maintain a distance, which is a reflection of how I struggle to remain grounded in my own body while life keeps moving.
“Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once…and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you.”-Susan Sontag