Hutch, 2004
Artificial hair, beads, metal bracket
74 1/2 x 96 inches
Artist Quotes:
“The studio is a place of conversation. I talk, I listen, the work talks, I cajole, wrest, caress, sometimes force and always try and respect. It’s a toss up as to who is ultimately in control though.” artslant.com interview, 2008
“I really never expected to only make one type of thing, I don’t think it’s in my nature. Some things come and go depending on what’s required (for the work) and what I’m interested in talking about at that time. I never want to just be ‘that bead boy’!” badatsports.com interview, 2011, http://badatsports.com/2011/interview-with-kori-newkirk/)
Inspiration behind beaded curtains:
With a BFA at the Chicago Art Institute in hand, Newkirk went on to an MFA from the University of California at Irvine. By the late 1990s he was reading the New York Times at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. “I just thought I would draw and strategize about the next step,” he explains. “I was just out of grad school and stuck in the country with few materials.” It happened to be the summer the tennis player Venus Williams broke into the US Open and Newkirk took note of press coverage her braided hair and beads received. (Apparently her opponents on the tennis court were concerned that the beads may break loose during the game and trip them up if they rolled onto their side of the court.) The beaded hairstyle “had a resonance” for Newkirk, an African-American who grew up in the 1970s, and remembers the style as “something I always wanted as a child but could not have.” Interested in the possibility of “making a picture on the back of someone’s head” he made a beeline to the local Wall Mart and stocked up on plastic pony beads. That summer, his first pony bead curtain was borne. Sadly, he deemed the exploration “horrible…. just a little too kitsch for me” and abandoned the materials for two years. The opportunity for his first solo show brought him back to pony bead curtains and this time he threw himself into the labor-intensive construction. But with two satisfying works completed, he again abandoned the materials for another two years. Since returning to the materials a further time in mid-1990s they have become the mainstay of his artistic practice.
Excerpted from Kori Newkirk: Painter without Paint by Jessica Hemmings for Surface Design Journal (Link to http://jessicahemmings.com/index.php/kori-newkirk-painter-without-paint/)
Additional Links:
Artist interview about his recent retrospective and process
Image of Kori’s studio with beaded curtain in procress
Curriculum lesson about Kori Newkirk’s Hutch
Video interview focused on labor intensive process and making visually seductive work.
California Landscape into Abstraction Research 