Pamela Avril

"Painting is not an easy path. But you start to build your own history, a vocabulary of your own personal language that you have to fall back on. It gets easier when you have that to draw yourself out from." 

By applying the traditions of Western painting to images of ancient Eastern deities, Pamela Avril fuses the long histories of two very different cultures. Her mark-making creates circuits of thin colored lines that run throughout her paintings like veins, connecting each part of the piece with its whole body. This visualization of connectivity aligns with the ideas she is looking to explore, particularly the degrees of honesty within our consciousnesses as well as what unifies us all as human beings on this earth.

GE: When did you first start painting images of Eastern religious iconography? What sparked your interest in this subject? 
PA: Prior to 2008, I had been painting portraits of contemplatives and studies of my daughter for about a decade. For a decade before that, I had been working much more abstractly and gestural, but even then (about 20 years ago at this point) Eastern imagery would come into play in my work in a very disguised way, although it was too abstract to be read as such. Working with these images in a more direct way is new, starting in 2008. I've always been interested in Eastern culture, music, art and philosophy. I think I actually bought one of the first yoga books that came to the United States in the early 80's.

Rain, Oil on Canvas. 2011

GE: In 2008, there was a significant shift in your approach to painting. What triggered this effect?

PA: For about a decade before 2008, I was doing a lot of investigation of ways to paint from observation. I had been painting abstractly for about 20 years, but I still enjoyed realism. I learned a lot from that period of time. In my journey, I have wiped out any thoughts of hierarchy in painting (i.e. abstract vs. realism). A major influence was that both my kids had an interest in music and I loved to go to their lessons. The teacher would talk about one note being slightly flat. I thought, why should it be different with painting? Painting is like learning to play an instrument, with hours and hours of technical training. This showed me that I needed to keep working and keep training in order to find my voice – to find out how to speak about the things that really matter to me. I knew I needed to keep going and eventually, things started to flow. Work begets work.

GE: Light is very clearly presented as an important element in your pieces. What role does light play in the Eastern religions you are representing?

Birthing Worlds, Oil on Canvas. 2011

PA: Meditation where you visualize certain lights is an important practice in many Eastern religions. Some of my images merge from meditative states and light does come into those visionary aspects. Of course, light is also a metaphor for enlightenment. In terms of painting, I've always been interested in light. In my early studies, I fell in love with Impressionism and its depiction of light in painting.

GE: Given that your figures and their backgrounds become so much a part of each other, do you base your palette and energy of a painting off the figure? Or do you first create the atmosphere of the painting and then incorporate the figure? (Which came first, the chicken or the egg?)

PA: Most of them were the figure first. They begin in my mind more like portraits. The background becomes a radiation of the meaning of that particular figure. Some of them go through many changes throughout the process. I'm inventive as I go; they are painted much in the same manner as abstract painting, which is to dive in and let the process take over. Finding out how it should come into being comes through the process - it's a letting go. I have to let go of what it is I think I want.

Preserver, Oil on Canvas. 2011

GE: Do you ever become frustrated with the way a painting is developing? How do you cope with this frustration?

PA: Yes, it happens regularly. Although there are times when it is nothing but easy and I've had times where I felt, can it really be as easy as this? Those are the times it turns out that others respond to the work most. You can't have expectations and you can't have fear - it's a gradual unfolding of saying yes. When we have expectations and fears of opinions, we prevent ourselves from what we really want to do. Frustration can be excruciating, how deep it can feel. It's like a self-imposed prison we are putting ourselves in. Painting is not an easy path. But you start to build your own history, a vocabulary of your own personal language that you have to fall back on. It gets easier when you have that to draw yourself out from.

GE: What are the advantages of working from a model as opposed to a photograph?

Floating Mountains, Oil on Canvas. 2011

PA: I much prefer a model if it can be accommodated, but the trouble is that it's not always possible. If you're looking at something that has already been transcribed into 2-D, you are only looking at a portion in terms of tone and color. Especially digital imagery really simplifies tone and color. Yes, it is easier to work from 2-D because the decisions are already made for you. When working from life, you decide for yourself what colors, what light. In a photo, the flesh might appear in browns - if we looked at each other, we see pinks and blues. Now if I have to use a photo, I can imagine colors with my memory from working with life. Also, the pressure of time that comes with working with a model is really riveting. The pressure that you put yourself under produces the energy of creating. In a way, it's like a furnace. Pressure can help.