I loved interviewing New York City-based painter Amy Chaiklin, whose recent series “Cultured Pearls Portraits” explores a visual documentation of contemporary women artists and curators.

Can you tell me about your background?

As a young girl, I knew that I was born an artist and spent all of my time drawing, painting, and listening to music in my room with it’s pink carpet and flower wallpaper. I am truly a 1960’s flower child. My parents have been supportive of my art career and I am forever grateful that they have attended many of my art exhibitions. Growing up in a small town in New Jersey, my goal was to live in New York City. My (BFA) Bachelor of Fine Arts undergraduate degree is from Washington University, College of Art, St. Louis, Missouri. I also studied in Paris, France with New York Studio School. Immediately after graduating from art school, I rented my first live/work studio and started participating in the thriving art scenes of both downtown New York City and Berlin, Germany. In 1992, I moved to Berlin, Germany as an artist in residence and stayed for five years. Since 1996, I have lived and worked in New York City.

What ideas are you exploring in your work?

In 2017, I began a new series of paintings that honours the sisterhood of female artists and curators that have inspired, influenced, and supported my work. The title of this collection of paintings is the “Cultured Pearls Portraits.” This is a love project from my heart to each of the women I chose to portray, as well as a feminist art project. What started as a personal series of paintings showing my gratitude to these women has become my visual documentation of more than one hundred intersectional international contemporary women artists and curators.

Has the “Cultured Pearls Portraits” series helped you connect with or expand your network?

My network of female artists and curators has always been important to my artistic practice, as we encouraged and supported each other’s work. Meeting with artists, visiting galleries and museum exhibitions, as well as attending theater and music performances all inspire my work.

The “Cultured Pearls Portraits” are paintings informed by photographs that I have either taken of each woman or sourced on social media. It is important for me to paint my perception of each artist’s and curator’s essence by honoring their personal stance, individual hairstyles, and fashion choices. I draw each woman with her eyes facing forward creating images of empowered confident female artists and curators looking directly out at the world.

My personal connections to these women informs my “Cultured Pearls Portraits”. I have known some of the artists & curators for decades, some are new relationships, and some I am familiar with through the context of their work. Recently I have shown the “Cultured Pearls Portraits” to some of the participants whose positive reactions led us to interesting dialogues about the project.

As my art world network expands I make additions to the “Cultured Pearls Portraits” project. For example over the past year of living in isolation due to the pandemic, I have met new artists and curators though joining two on-line female artist membership groups: The Art Queens & The ArtMamas Alliance. I have also been inspired by artists and curators that I learned about through Instagram, Zoom artist / curator talks, and by listening to art podcasts. A few of these women are now included in the new group of “Cultured Pearl Portraits “ that are on my work table, sketched and ready to be painted.

Can you talk a bit about the evolution of your practice and your work?

As a figurative painter, I have been producing images on the theme of female sensuality and empowerment for forty years. Currently, I am working on two painting series honoring women, The “Cultured Pearls Portraits” and The "Femme Power Goddesses.”

Throughout my career, I have produced hundreds of oils on canvas ranging from small 10 x 10 inches to large 72 x 66 inches as well as thousands of gouache and colored ink paintings on paper. It is my practice to work in series. For most of my career I have painted figures from either live models or my imagination ranging from mythical goddesses surrounded by flora to modern women in urban settings. Many of my paintings express a women’s experiences of explicit sex, marriage, pregnancy and motherhood.

After a lifetime of painting with oil paint and thinner, seven years ago the thinner fumes started to give me headaches, even the non-toxic products. I was devastated that I had to stop painting with oils on canvas as I loved the richness of oil paints. When I painted with oils on canvas, I first used a brush and a thin oil wash to sketch the outline of the figure onto the canvas. All the details of the images, background, and the colors were discovered as I painted.

In 2014, I shifted my focus to painting exclusively with water based inks on paper. Although inks are not as lush as oil paints, I like their fluidness. Working with gouaches and colored inks on paper is a different process. I first draw the complete image with graphite on paper, down to the last detail of the figures and the background, and choose all the colors before I start painting. Once the ink is applied to the paper, it’s impossible to change the color or image of the painting.

My palette is vivid and joyful. Each painting has many layers of paint applied until the colors are vibrant. To me, colors pulsate with energy, and I purposefully juxtapose colors which will intensify the vibrations between the pigments of the figures and the background elements. The warm hues of red, pink, and orange hyper sensualize my paintings of women.

Which artists do you look to for inspiration?

Kiki Smith
Simone Leigh
Judy Chicago

Which artists do you enjoy at the moment?

Laurie Simmons
Marilyn Minter
Shirin Neshat

What is the most memorable thing someone has said about your work?

“I have to put on my sunglasses to view your work!”

Are you working on anything new?

While isolating due to this challenging time of the global pandemic I am focusing on meditation. During my daily meditations I started sketching images of goddesses which I developed into a new series. To me, these paintings honor goddesses as they express their love and healing for the world. I have titled this new body of work “Femme Power Goddesses”.

Currently, my “Femme Power Goddesses” painting “She’s Sending Water to Wildfires (Goddess Kali) #1” is included in “Talismans : A Virtual Group Exhibition” curated by Monica King and Jenny Mushkin Goldman of Monica King Projects.

On view until March 31, 2021 at www.monicakingprojects.com

This month, several of my “Cultured Pearls Portraits” will be included in the “Les Femmes Folles: Feminist Connect” on-line group exhibition curated by Sally Brown and Leslie C. Sotomayor.

Check out more of Amy’s work on Instagram @amychaiklin.

Amy Chaiklin

China Jordan

Dipayan Ghosh