Briana Gaydo doughnuts. Who doesn't? They are super sweet and colorful. A delight for our eyes and tastebuds. Briana's painting investigates our natural obsession with junk food which can often be more harmful than we'd like. Here is my interview with her at her studio in the Civic Square Building.
{JD} Hi Briana
{BG} Hi Jackie
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{JD} Where are you from?
{BG} I grew up in New Jersey, went to Parsippany High School. It was a small town, but so small, Its big but everyone knew eachother and I always loved art. I always took studio art classes.
{JD} I'm actually from near there too, I was born in Morristown.
{BG} I love morristown, its so beautiful there.
{JD} So you started painting in High School?
{BG} Yes, I'd say sophomore year, we had easels set-up and small little store-bought canvases and painted still lifes.
{JD} Did you start with oil paint?
{BG} yeah, my teacher would provide us with tiny tubes of paint. It was nice. I wish it was like that in college.
{JD} So when did you move from still lives to what you are doing now?
{BG} It was a weird journey through Mason Gross. I started out really really interested in Design. I took all the visual thinking classes, intro to design, etc... I was either intimidated or wasn't interested in the time. I remember seeing all the painting students and seeing how big their paintings were and how much independence they had and they could just do what they want and admired their intellectualism and thought, Why not? Whens the next time I can paint what I want? I know people make time for it but I wasn't thinking that way at the time. I really like painting thick and I like painting food and portraits, recognizable things. I have this poppy graphic style and as of lately Ive been interested in graphic design again.
{JD} Do you think your poppy/graphic style comes from beginings in design?
{BG} Well, I think I've always painted like that, maybe thats why I was drawn to Graphic Design from the begnining.
{JD} Do you think its something from our generation....the visual culture?
{BG} Definitely, watching tv, cartoons. I've always been interested in the process of how cartoons are made, drawn and animated.
{JD} I never liked cartoons, and still don't. Its a hard time for me to watch them because there's not enough expression on their faces and Its hard for me to follow, I think I have to see something in order to understand it.
{BG} so youre drawn to people acting?
{JD} Yeah, I think that's the performer in me...
{BG} I like both though, Ive always been amazed with the process though. I always asked my mom, "how do they draw that so many times?".
[JD} Have you thought about doing animations?
{BG} Um, yes. I'm thinking about doing some kind of program after I graduate involving web-design or animation just because in high school I thought it would be awesome to be an art teacher and I love my art teachers. I was always so inspired by them. I feel like the whole experience of art was and is being around such awesome people and that never changed in college. I love all the painting teachers. That was just what I was drawn to at the time, I just wanted to be around awesome peole, I dont know... its stress free. But now realizing the situation of having no jobs... its nice to have sort of technical talents.
{JD} So you think you want to go into teaching?
{BG} Eventually, I dont think now is a good time, especially because you have to pay for it after mason gross, its not like they have arteducation. Its a matter of money constraints.
{JD} Going back to your paintings...does your recent paintings of food come out of painting still lifes?
{BG} I think it was just kind of a "I wanna paint a donut!"...I love bright things and modulated colors
{JD} And donuts happen to have those shapes and colors AND we happen to be down the street from a Dunkin Donuts.
[BG] Yeah! two of them...Theres one by the train station too! Yeah, I'm very drawn to pop-culture.
{JD} Do you look at alot of artists that paint food?
{BG} Naan de paulmury (SP?), she does these awesome ice cream sundaes and doughnuts and shes shes just so good at it. Who else... just even the pop-artists of the 60s i find a lot of inspiration there. I really like Wayne Thibaud, I love his work, its so fun and the colors are awesome. Something about the repetition that i love. Food is something that is a necessity. People like to make food, talk about food. Its such a big part of life....as far as my direction...Ive been trying to ways to fuse together my interest in design and my interest in food and perhaps work with Photoshop and creating patters out of the photographs that I take...maybe reconstruct something different but still recognizable. I want them to have a sculptural presence, not so much where I am putting actual things underneath but where I'm building up with paint I'm thinking about using acrylic again just for the sake that it is easier, since I'm not doing too much blending and technical work... I dont see a necessity for it. I'm a messy painter so i think its safer for me.
{JD} Have you thought about creating a facsimile of a doughnut and then painting that?
{BG} Like building up the canvas?
{JD} Making an actual clay or plaster doughnut?
{BG} I did think of that actually. The other day I was thinking what If i use dmy canvas scraps and rolled them around and glued them to the canvas and painted over it...and Im just htinking of the process. I know everything is different in your head than when youre actually doing it, but just thinking about it... Just thinking about it, I think it would be so messy, and I was thinking about how I would make the edges smooth and just easily transition to the canvas.
{JD} It would be a solid object apart from the canvas...because you have this sculptural element to your doughnut here, where its warm and sitting on the cold ground so its popping out at us.
{BG} Its weird, I've never been interested in sculpture, I"ve never taken a sculpture class. I'm very interested in design and the two dimensional.
{JD} But you're taking 3-D objects and putting them on the 2-D space.
{BG} I'm trying to build and be sculptural and not trying to paint flat. thats just weird to me because its not an interest. Sculpture isn't an interest of my but maybe I guess it is if this is the way i'm painting. Maybe I just want to mimic that texture in my own way. Make it something thats still present as a painting and not the food.
{JD} So, are you trying to tell a story with your food paintings, are they referencing something outside of the physical doughnut?
{BG} Yeah, I fell like when you are deciding to paint something, consciously and subconsciously there is a motive. I feel like it came from the initial aesthetic color that I like about it. I just liked the bright, variety, sprinkles that are fun.
{JD} An instinct?
{BG} Exactly, its fun to me. And also why not expand on that with jjunk food and candy. and I have this love hate relationship with food, and I'm sure alot of girls do. Its like you can't eat that food, it'll go straight to your hips kind of thing. And back in high school I struggled with problems with that so I feel like that is my way of staying connected to it I guess.
{JD} So its a way of investigating yourself.
{BG} But its a weird investigation because I don't want my paintings to have this eerie psychological thing.
{JD} They definitely don't just have that, I think they have both. You look at them and they are beautiful and painterly and thick. We want to look at them but then they are images of this malign, 'devil' food of this really junky food that you can't have too much of it. So you're allowing us to have it through our eyes and allowing the pleasure and juicyness. You're giving us the satisfaction of experiencing the doughnut without it hurting us.
{BG} I like that translation, I was thinking of it and couldn't articulate that, so thank you! It would be so different if I were to paint broccoli or apples..people would be like what are you doing cezanne?
{JD} You're welcome! Yes, this isn't about anything other than the doughnut. Is the backgroud completely subjective?
{BG} I started out just liking the artificiality of it. So i just did the whole thing that color and thought... I think blue would look good with pink. It was instinctual...I automatically match colors in my head depending on if they are complimentary or analagous. I think color is fascinating. I liked learning about color theory.
{JD} Like the whole Josef Albers thing?
{BG} Thats really complicated, I've read through it a few times but it hasn't sunk in all the way.
{JD} Where you put that yellow on the pink versus if you put that yellow on the blue, it looks two completely different colors.
{BG} I should read that over... I think I am going to paint through my curiosities and see where I go. We still have all semester and through next semester. I know I want to focus on food and design and it's appeal to the viewer as the consumer.
{JD} Yes, like when you walk into DunkinDonuts these doughnuts are sitting behind the counter in a great bright light on a neat display and they all have that wax pinky paper. It might be the pink background of the inside of the doughnut display case, I'm not sure what it is but it reeks pink to me and you've really captured that materiality here. Do you look at the materials that are around displays of food as part of your paintings?
{BG} I think I just take the piece of food in isolation. I feel like if there were a ton of glass case you are safe. Its not like you can just grab it. When there is just a lone doughnut, say its sitting on your kitchen table and your roommate was like "here, take this last doughnut!" You are so tempted. So I think this is more enticing. Food in isolation as opposed to food in abundance. In a way it is reflective of the economy and everything is so scarce. IT is this one lone piece of food and it is so tempting.
{JD} So you are painting the background first and then the doughnut?
{BG} Yes I want to be more methodical, I'm not sure how it will turn out.
{JD} Definitely whatever you do will be of your hand. Its great you've found something you've lived with your whole life and you are sharing it with us.
{BG} Especially living with an Italian family. It is something that reminds me of happiness but at the same time guilt.
{JD} So it is a story and this isn't really a doughnut.
