Get out your sunglasses ‘cuz something brighter than the sun is here! The cold is not over, but Ally Sulpy is heating things up this Friday at the Winona Arts Center with her show “Store Facades.” What is she hiding behind all those facades, you ask? Nothing.
In her brilliant, bright, bear-it-all style, Ally is inviting you into a world, half fantastic, half real. Based on her experience of the Philadelphia Rust Belt, the crumbling and abandoned downtown, Ally has injected her florescent imagination to revive “what could have been” without hard times.
She’s hot, smart, and quotes David Bowie. Need I say more? Her show opens on Friday 6-8pm at the Winona Arts Center on Franklin (that means it is a short detour from Ed’s, and really every downtown bar! So no excuse!). Be there at seven to catch her talk and ask some ironic questions.
For those of you afraid to leave your homes, there will be snacks. For those of you afraid to miss out on the bar scene…let me say this, you will look so dank dropping your analysis of Sulpy’s art later that night. Watch out! I mean, come on, people who go to avant-garde art shows are irresistible!
And to those of you afraid of art: Ally Sulpy is all bubbles and joy with a little electric zing to wake you up and fill you with wonder. See you at 6pm at the WAC on Friday! Afterwards, you’ll have all the time in the world to waste your night.
Twigz: Well, let’s be honest. You aren’t from ‘round these parts. Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here?
Ally: You’re right, and a few times I’ve been given the MN equivalent of “‘y’all ain’t from ‘round here” within seconds of meeting folks. I think they’ve mostly picked up on my overcompensating arctic getup, or excitement over gas station milk in bags.
I, along with my wonderful yet dragged-along-every-where-I-go husband Sean, are from New Jersey. I went to school at MICA in Baltimore, grad school at Indiana University, and have been an itinerant professor of Drawing and Painting in Utah, Pennsylvania, and here. I’m here in Winona for a one year visiting position at WSU. I had been in Minnesota once as a kid, although I remember none of it other than the Mall of America (because let’s face it, I’m a Jersey girl and that’s what matters).
Twigz: I’ve seen some of your works and honestly they are blindingly fluorescent (!) and yet oddly beautiful. (If they had a taste it would be radioactive
candy). Tell me about your painting style.
Ally: Well thank you! I must have a magpie mentality, because the fluorescent/iridescent/interference paints, glitter, gold leaf, bronze plates, lenticular lenses, etc. etc. all make their way into my paintings. While I’ve always had a bright palette, the addition of my ‘magpie’ materials has mostly begun with the series up at the Winona Arts Center (opening 6-8pm, January 31st 2014!), titled “Store Facades”. The short story of this series is that the town adjacent to where we lived in Pittsburgh was a sad depiction of the Rust Belt at it’s finest. Although I didn’t learn this until after we moved there, it was the town my grandmother grew up in. There was a beautiful history of life and stories, and layers of interwoven time residue all apparent in it’s abandoned downtown. I wanted to inject life back into this downtown, give its shops some merchandise and customers, and its streets back their lost glitter and gold. It’s all larger than life because normal life is over.
Twigz: Why do you do art? How did it all begin? To me, most artists are basically super heroes. Was there a chemical spill in your past and now your cat eye sunglass protects us from your fluorescent x-ray vision that you can only share with us via your work? What do you hope to accomplish with your art?
Ally: Oops, jumped the gun on answering that one. I’ve got to be one lame as hell superhero, because to paraphrase Bowie here, I think about paint and I think about glue, what a jolly (totally not) boring thing to do. Many artists, myself included, make art for completely selfish reasons. I work because I have a mental itch that needs scratching; I want to create a fantastic world, a depiction of a familiar scenario (in those parts especially) and share my version. My version is just a bit bubblier, stranger, and more colorful. And well, that’s me.
Twigz: Tell me about a few of your favorite pieces. What is the story behind them, and what are you afraid we (the unenlightened public) might miss given that we don’t have years of art history and aesthetics behind us.
Ally: The first painting I did in this series, before I realized it would become a series, is “Store Front” (the large piece above the stage at the WAC). I had been painting toys, humanlike creatures, and artificial humans (obvious yet wonderfully posed people in yearbooks, vintage porno, dolls, and the like) for a while, and was thinking more about the synthesis of human and object. Those lovely ladies are part of each, they’re objectified, just not sexually. They’re more like merchandise, posed creatures to entice you into bringing them or their wares back home. Remember when I said I was from Jersey? I love material objects, and what they say and do. The only real time I made my figures, which are typically nude to nude-ish, into sexual objects is in my last painting I completed for this show, “Teeny Weeny”. This title of course refers to the cute little yellow polka dotted bikini in the background, and shows the sexy little stripper trolls in the display of objects for sale. My 2 cents for those who are afraid of approaching an art show for fear they won’t ‘get it’ or that they’ll misinterpret the work: Screw that. Come enjoy art in person for what it is. Take art appreciation or history classes to further your understanding, but never let that stop you from enjoying art.
Twigz: So…tell us. What is happening Friday night? And what exactly takes places at your “art shows,” pray tell?
Ally: Wild antics, like me lingering, smiling, and eating snacks. I usually snap a few photos. The opening is from 6-8, but I’ll be talking a little bit about the work at 7! I’m sitting here eating granola, but I could just as well be ready to pregamea beer for a night downtown, (or to be honest, lock my door, close the shades, and hunker down for some quality time with a book), why should I, A) change my crazy horse plans to look at art, or, B) leave the comfort of my hibernaculum home to risk my life in the gelid cold! You’re probably not ALL as much of outdoor-disliking, sunlight-hissing hermits as I am! Come on out! I’ll only be around ’til summer, when I move on to the next job who knows where. That book and can of Surly will still be around a half hour later. 🙂