Cincinnati-based artist Rick Mallette received an MFA in 1994 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA in 1990 from Western Michigan University. The artist shows extensively in the region and is in a number of important collections.
The following are Mallette’s answers to 6 questions posed to him about his work:
* Mad magazine
* Keith Haring / Jean-Michel Basquiat
* Taoism / Zen Buddhism
* Abstract Expressionism / Surrealism music
Mad magazine was like experiencing an art exhibition before I knew what an art exhibition was. It embodied an amazing range of drawing techniques, great sense of (adult) humor, satire, cultural critique, naughtiness, teenage angst, etc. The anthropomorphic abstraction of one of their artists, Basil Wolverton, would make an immense impact on my future artwork.
Keith Haring’s site-specific murals elevated the medium of drawing to more than a preparatory stage of painting, a serious genre with serious scale. I saw my first Haring in the mid-80s at Cranbrook Museum in Michigan. What he created on site, seemed impossible, incredibly courageous. Little did I know I would make my first spontaneous wall drawing less than
10 years later. Basquiat was grittier, more punk-like. The way he drew with paint re- minded me of why I was into Picasso, but Basquiat was more relevant, more my time, more influenced by pop culture.
From Taoism and Zen Buddhism, I embraced the importance of relative meaning, interconnectedness, effortless effort, the value of play, and the concept of art as activity rather than commodity. The act itself is everything. For many years, I purposely made unsellable art with nonart materials and showed art in unconventional ways. The present is all. The edge is where I set my sights, where opposites meet, and of course yin/yang (order/chaos, male/fe- male, inner/outer, etc.).
Abstract expressionism taught me the importance of each mark, to see action as the subject, the possibilities of scale, the expressiveness of calligraphy, and art as an extension of oneself. Surrealism gave me automatic writing, the idea of trusting the subconscious and the formal/conceptual possibilities of biomorphic abstraction.
I feel a kinship to music more than to the art world. The Beatles were my key childhood influence. Living in their music provided me with a vague blueprint on how to grow up, how to express myself in sophisticated ways. I also gained great inspiration from the complex dynamism of Beethoven and the improvisation of jazz, especially when listening to Miles Davis. Also pop music’s Lo-Fi bands, punk, and bands like Pavement that make music feel accidental and therefore more real, more something from nothing. My large mural “Outdrawn” was made to the backdrop of the high-octane pop punk band Greenday, without which the speed in my marks would not have been possible.
2. Describe your process and how important it is to the overall meaning of your work.
My work is about searching for that place where conscious and subconscious meet. Because of this, improvisation is essential. It is the essence of my work and every piece I make begins with it. Murals continue and end as such. Paintings, however, often require the “fixing” of an improvised mess. When color is added, things become complicated. I resolve this through the creation of contrasting forms, a range of mark making and overall compositional intent.
3. List 5 words or sentences that help define the content behind your work.
Yin/yang (effortless effort), emotional caricature, searching for purpose through connection/ interconnectedness.
4. The shapes and symbols in your paintings appear to be almost random. Are they random or defined or a mixture of both? Please describe.
When I am creating a piece, I am not thinking of the symbol per se. It is already in me, a result of having studied what I would call the history of caricature, from Saturday morning cartoons to hieroglyphs (Maya and Egyptian). Influence also comes from Psychedelic posters, counterculture, alternative comics and album art as well as my lifelong study
of natural forms, invertebrates, vertebrates, plant forms (Karl Blossfeldt), the pocket field guides from my youth, and human anatomy (internal/external). I take this raw material and sort of sew it all together through a caricature that comes out of calligraphy, all with the intent of expressing the essence of things. In my early work the imagery was as explicit as it could be, without becoming recognizable. Presently, however, there is more of a short-hand to these forms. They appear as generalized archetypes, simplified but still familiar, yet strange and universal.
5. With your work being rooted in a number of art historical movements from surrealism and automatic drawing to symbolism, abstract expressionism, and graffiti art, which movement do you feel best informs your work and why?
I am reluctant to isolate any of these. When a person begins their creative development, they borrow from what they are drawn to. Eventually they develop a hybrid which is uniquely their own, a personal voice. Like the growth of an individual’s personality, eventually the influences are inseparable, a lifetime of growing, changing, responding and they are always led onward to the next fresh/exciting thing, which can often be triggered by a simple change or influence in one’s life.