Art & Life with Sandra Low

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandra Low.

Sandra, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I’ve always loved looking at pictures–in books, cartoons, cutting them out, arranging them. Learning how to make them myself was a way of possessing them down to its DNA. When you make something yourself, you get to really know a thing–you birth it, digest it.

I grew up in L.A.’s Chinatown and in the San Gabriel Valley, 90% hardcore nerd and 10% arty. Growing up in an immigrant household, you get that typical disconnect between your life at home and the world “out there” that makes everything seem kind of alien. You experience things like eating whole animals with eyeballs while you watch white people eating SpeghettiOs and Fruit Roll-Ups. It messes with your head.

I always got praised for my art abilities at school, but had no exposure to fine art. I had vague fantasies of drawing cartoons for a living, but I had no idea how that could be accomplished. The lovely thing about a liberal art education is that you can major in art and your immigrant parents only understand that you are going to a world-class university far away from home. So I graduated from UC Berkeley with a double major in sociology and studio art, hoping two “useless” majors would magically turn into a double-whammy supermajor! They didn’t teach you how to draw or paint at Berkeley; they just kicked you into the pool with a supply list and told you to start paddling.

I finished my Master’s degree at the University of Southern California in 2000. Since then, I hustle like a lot of artists, working art-related part-time gigs, including teaching art, and have continued to make and show work. I currently teach at Long Beach City College and Rio Hondo College.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I primarily use humor, parody, and a collage aesthetic to create socially aware, surreal paintings and drawings. A consistent thread throughout my work has been a fascination with and repulsion to consumer culture.

The churning universe of stuff our culture produces is endless, spitting out galaxies of cheese puffs and mattresses. Everything from boba tea, lowriders, to Modernist architecture has invaded my paintings at one point or another. I am a bit of a visual magpie, collecting images and styles everywhere I look. I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve always been a bit of an outsider all my life, and I developed a habit of imitating others without really following anything. (Which makes me sound like a captive chimpanzee, but it could be worse.) So the remove I feel from others makes me curious about how we, as a collective, shape and control each other, which is why almost all of my work contains some element of social commentary.

For the past few years, my paintings have featured food as a metaphor for consumption and excess. I dunk various things in melted Cheez Whiz and paint them in their ideal habitat. I’ve also worked on a drawing series of funny stories about my mom for over ten years.

I want viewers to get inspired by the visuals, to chuckle, and to think a little bit.

In your view, what is the biggest issue artists have to deal with?
Not enough avenues of support: financial and community-wise. It means finding ways to get your art to be seen or sold or finding work that will pay the bills but won’t leave you too drained to make work, or feeling like you’re pouring everything you have–mental, emotional, time, money–into making messages in bottles, or landfill. The art world oftentimes feels like eternal high school: Am I cool enough? How do I make the right friends?

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
Check out my website; follow me on Instagram; buy a painting!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sandralow.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sandralow.art/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sandra.low1

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