Today we’d like to introduce you to Piper Bangs
Hi Piper, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My painting journey funnily started eight years ago when I came across French Academic painting online. At the time, I was shaken by how luminous and designed they were and all I wanted to do was learn technical painting.
I chose to attend LCAD for my BFA because of their commitment to teaching technical skills in drawing and painting. Since I was young, the rigor and uniform standards of the technical craft that can be involved in these really appealed to me since I was a funnily committed rule-follower in some ways. When I started reading the work of classic art critics like Linda Nochlin, John Berger, Susan Sontag and others, I started to find my footing in the subject matter and lush paint application that really interested me.
I always thought that creating paintings as my life’s work wasn’t an option, but thankfully Alex Rubio at The Contemporary at Blue Star’s MOSAIC program and the late Katie Pell at Southwest School of Art changed my mind fully. I owe it to both of them for showing me how to pay attention to what I wanted to make internally at a young age and how I could start to pursue painting professionally later on.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In terms of painting, I found that I used to get hung up on trying to decide whether a painting idea I had was “good” or ”bad” before I’d made anything beyond a sketch for a painting, and sometimes it could hold me back from fleshing it out. So, a few years ago, I made a rule for myself that I would always make the full painting and then decide if it was working or not. I’ve found I love some of the painting ideas I was most unsure about the most.
As a young artist, I feel like there can sometimes be a temptation to put every thought about a massive, overarching theme into one big painting. It’s been helpful for me to think of it more like a long digestive process, where I can pick apart an idea more thoughtfully over many different paintings.
When I feel like a creative block is coming on, I’ve found it helpful to look at older threads of thought with fresh eyes by opening my sketchbook to look at the ideas I’ve scrawled down quickly while painting. They build up quickly, and making sure I jot down ideas as I have them helps me make sure I have lots to draw from during a lull. Lately, listening to podcasts about botany and ecology and re-reading my journal entries have helped me come up with painting ideas.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I make oil paintings set in a world of anthropomorphic fruits and plants interacting with each other dealing with themes of femininity and desire. I began a series of pear paintings that I call “beautiful fruit” while thinking of Renoir saying “my goal in painting the nude is to paint them as beautiful fruit,” which has always made me laugh. I set out to paint my own, first painting pears as natural bodies posed as Western canonical nudes. In my recent work, I’m interested in them having their own internal lives from the point of view of a young woman, acting out themes including the search for community, transition in young adulthood, sexuality, the sharing of knowledge, and relationships with one’s body. I arrived at this imaginary, metaphorical world as something I’m finding useful for expressing certain feelings coming from lived experience.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Humor is important to me in painting, so moments in the studio when a painting makes me laugh or makes me feel like this is exactly where I need to be, life satisfaction-wise, make me the happiest. I also get unreasonably excited when I see an unusual or odd plant or tree on my walks—they’ve been making their way into my paintings recently.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.piperbangs.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/piperbangs/
Image Credits
Nino Mier Gallery, Piper Bangs, Reid Calvert, Hallie Gluk
