Divya Alamuri: Your artwork involves a lot of layering and superimposition of images. I was curious about whether, for you, composition precedes concept or vice versa. Can you tell me more about your process?
Richard Fox: I use Adobe Photoshop in my process, which works well for creating the layers of transparency evident in my collages; the use of this process as a compositional device often precedes any concept(s) I may have in mind. I was a printmaking major in my first undergraduate school experience, and used lithography and screenprinting techniques to achieve some of the same effects. Insofar as the original thinking for the use of transparency and layering in my work is concerned, I am an admirer of Robert Rauschenberg’s prints and paintings, which I will cite as inspiration for the pieces in the series published here. I later took a second degree in photography, and was interested in alternative ways of making work in that medium. As a result, I created a large body of work which relied on the hand-application of photosensitive emulsion to paper, printed my negatives on this prepared surface, and then later completed the work by adding drawing and painting elements to the images. This led to my interest in the use of computers to create similar visual work, since I don’t have the space or resources to create work by hand as I did formerly.
DA: You describe yourself as both a poet and visual artist. How do the techniques and themes you deal with in both these artforms intersect with one another?
RF: The work I’ve done as a poet doesn’t really intersect with my visual work, in the usual sense. I have paired images with text in my work, but found that the use of poetry as a text source fails to bring the two forms into coalescence; the visual component appears to merely “illustrate” what the poetry says or does. At the intersection of poetry and art, however, the “Myths” series asks viewers to superimpose their own myths on what each visual piece suggests, much the same way as mythology attempts to explain our worlds to us.
DA: I’m fascinated by the interplay between the human and the non-human in your work, as well as the tension between organic and inorganic elements. Could you speak more to what role this tension plays in your work?
RF: Most of the interplay between/among these disparate elements occurs organically, as I add, remove, and alter the images. Sometimes, these images “talk” to one another, and my intuition “hears” and responds to them in unknown and mysterious ways. I rely on the tension this creates to impose a sense of order on the whole composition, as if the removal of any small part of the composition would destroy the whole. All of this is to say that I trust my intuition first and foremost.
DA: How does your approach to long-form, book-length poetry projects differ from the way you approach a visual art series like ‘Myths’?
RF: My work in the visual realm satisfies needs in the intuitive part of my mind; poetry seems to address the needs of my intellectual side.
DA: I notice the way you use text in your visual art. What role does language play in your art? How do you make the choices to include text in your artwork?
RF: I think my use of text, when combined with images, allows me to bring another visual element to whatever it is I’m making. Words have meaning, of course, but I like the idea that they are composed of characters which are discrete visual symbols as well. I also choose to include words with images because they can serve as an anchor to or a direction away from any traditional meaning the images themselves may have, aided (or abetted!) by such combinations. The actual choices made when including words usually occur near the end of the creation process, when I can associate word(s) to image, but often, even these choices are indiscriminate, made by use of an online random word generator.
DA: Graphs and other mathematical elements feature prominently in this series. Is this something you frequently engage with in your work? What draws you to these elements?
RF: I love the matter-of-factness of the sciences, and the visual elements used to illustrate some of their concepts; it’s a kind of shorthand, so to speak. I think of these scientific/mathematical forms as part of a language that is beautiful in its own right, despite the fact I am illiterate when it comes to reading or understanding it. Compositionally, the graphs and diagrams I’ve used in a lot of my work act as frameworks, upon which I can attach/hang visual images in order to build and complete each piece.
Thank you for your interest in, and the close reading of, the pieces from my “Myths” series!