Interview with Artist Josephine Durkin.

Conceit: How would you summarize, explain or categorize what you make?

Durkin: When I first started learning about tools and materials, I focused on making objects. Then, when I was exploring video techniques, I developed an interest in time-based work. Sculptures became kinetic and then expanded into moving installations. The need to document these works through video provided me with footage to produce video works and to suggest narratives through editing.

Conceit: I know you got your MFA in sculpture, but do you feel obligated to concentrate on a particular medium?

Durkin: Not at all. I’m most interested in communicating a certain feeling through orchestrating particular environments and events. Anything can be an art medium. Wood, paper, orange peels, pencil sharpeners, cat whiskers. I just have to experiment with a variety of materials to see what is best for the job at hand, and, how in changing materials, the meaning of the work is altered.

Conceit: Could you talk about your studio practice?

Durkin: Making drawings, lists and diagrams are necessary. I can do a lot of preliminary problem solving that way, both in deciding what I’m most interested in making and ideating on ways to build structures and mechanisms. My sketches are usually quick which is helpful because I am never attached to a single master plan. Each work probably goes through at least ten or fifteen revisions as I go between drawings and models while making many adjustments.

Conceit: Earlier you mentioned narrative in your work. Is it important that your work reveal a particular narrative?

Durkin: It’s important to me that my work be suggestive and provide a heightened awareness for the viewers. This can be different depending on the work, but can include participation and veuroyism, sexual perversion, methods of communication and even humor and romance.

Conceit: Which artists have been the most influential to you?

Durkin: Natalie Jeremijenko, Piplotti Rist, Arthur Ganson, Tim Hawkinson, Jessica Stockholder Janine Antoni, Bruce Nauman, Tara Donovan and many others.

Conceit: So when did you know you wanted to be a professional artist?

Durkin: I knew, even from a young age, that it was a possibility. Art has always been a part of my education and I was very fortunate to have some outstanding teachers as well as a family who has been very supportive. Although I attended a math and science high school, I decided to become a music major in college but took some art classes in the evening. After a year of studying the oboe, I changed my major to sculpture and everything seemed to make sense. I could incorporate music and technology if I thought it was fitting for what I was making. I could work with objects, performance or video. It’s so encompassing that I didn’t feel limited. As soon as I was in the sculpture department at VCU, I knew that I needed to turn art making into a career.

Conceit: Could you tell us about what you have in the works?

Durkin: It’s difficult for me to give out specific information before the work is completed, especially since many changes may be made. I’ll vaguely describe two of the larger projects that I’m currently working on. One involves a nineteen-channel video that will be projected onto a stadium of objects. The other is a kinetic installation that is activated by viewer participation. Umbrella-like structures are involved.
Conceit: Sounds exciting, I am looking forward to those. Final question, how do you feel that form and movement function in your work?

Durkin: There’s a certain sensitivity to materials in my work. When making decisions concerning what materials to use, I have to explore what they can and cannot do. Often, some of the most common materials can function in a surprisingly elegant way, and these tests will steer me towards deciding how I want to use these materials or systems of materials in a complete work. At the same time, art doesn’t always need to move. Although I have a tendency to ideate with time-based possibilities in mind, some things should remain static. I will say, however, that there’s something very magical about making things move or operate in a way that I’ve only previously envisioned. Even in a rough maquette form, when materials and objects start to function on their own for the first time, I get to witness an event and become the viewer.