Marti Cormand
(Born 1970 in Barcelona, Spain; Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY)
I believe it’s important to look back at old work. You see some artists who see a clear path. They work in a straight line that keeps going somewhere to a place like a personality or universe. In my case I work in circles. I always go back to other things and incorporate them. I constantly confront them and use them. I never leave them.
The relationship between artificial and natural has always been in my work. It’s like an appropriation but I want to bring it to another place. Sometimes I find an old image and I bring it to the present through transformation. Things from the past corrupt my work.
I draw every day. Drawing is a big part of my doing things, drawing not only as a process for something else but drawing as it’s own thing. I do drawings I don’t expect to go anywhere. Sometimes I draw things with no intention. I love that, like a laboratory. I would like to spend a year like that, going back to the roots.
Painting for me is very important. It’s more like playing. I can let loose from the drawing. It’s more about the object.
I like the idea of non-valued things, bringing them to a new level. It’s probably a romantic idea but I like thinking about how to design waste.
–Conversation on May 26, 2020
Listen to our conversation here:
Selected Image from the Collection:
Cormand, Marti, Formalizing their concept: Luis Camnitzer's "Coca-Cola bottle filled with Coca Cola bottle" 1973",2013, Graphite on paper, Framed: 37 x 30 in.