Connor Tingley + Vishnu Dass + James Minchin III

On the eve of publication
FUTURO VOL II
THE LAB MAG PRESENTS

the CONVERSATION

*Connor Tingley and Vishnu Dass in Connor Tingley's studio, Los Angeles, 2024*
*Photograph by James Minchin*

VISHNU DASS visited CONNOR TINGLEY's studio to talk about life and art. The Nuns is an extraordinary series that Connor has been working on for five years. The Lab Mag is proud to debut this work to the world in the FUTURO VOL.II printed edition.

Photographer JAMES MINCHIN immortalized the conversation with some beautiful images of the two friends. The pair talked for hours, and this edited excerpt recounts their visit to artist Robert Irwin's gardens at the Getty Center in California.

VISHNU DASS Do you remember the first things you started drawing?

CONNOR TINGLEY It was a sun with a face. I still have it. It was a really shoddy circle with some lines around it and a little eye. My first word was star, and the sun is a star. All those very cosmic things have been fascinating to me, foundationally.

VD The sun is a primary root of worldwide mythologies. We could spend an entire day just talking about the different iterations of mythologies that come from the sun, being reinterpreted through centuries into many different philosophies and religions.

CT That's what I think the through line is, when we look at symbolism around the world and mythologies and we're like: how did this culture have a symbolic relationship to that culture 20,000 miles away? Because they were interested in that idea of what is beyond. I think that's within all of us. So, for me, it always comes down to being in a state of wonder.

VD I can definitely resonate with that. I'm looking at this painting against the wall and that represents wonder to me. I see Monument Valley and an infant's eyes superimposed over the dusk-lit sky. It's that purity of curiosity and wonder that we have as children that really starts being drowned-out the moment that we start having to define ourselves within cultural roles and expectations.

*Deserted Mourning* by Connor Tingley, Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 37.5 x 58.75"

CT Very true. And within those defined cultural expectations, there are also actions that we can take, that we can be rewarded for. Like making art that looks like art. Oh, that's a painting, so you're art making. You know, and I recognize that there's a relationship between a medium and an expression. But what happens when the medium becomes more important than the expression? Or the craft becomes more important than the feeling? The medium is merely a way to translate it. So, when I think about any of these works, I always say that I'm making paintings right now because of the convenience of making paintings.

VD It's something you can contain within the studio.

CT Right.

VD Whereas, you know, we visited Robert Irwin's Gardens (at The Getty Center in Los Angeles) several times.

CT Phenomenal, phenomenal work.

VD Yes. But, it's not something you could do on your own within the confines of the studio. It requires so many more resources.

CT Totally. I think about that piece often and how dynamic the functions of that work are. And that it's a symbolic storytelling work. I walked around, and I showed you that back piece, that triangle going out into the city that very few people ever catch.

VD Well, we thought it was an exit. If you reach the back edge of the garden, you go through the gate and along this little curving path, and there's a point where it looks like it would be an overflow for water to escape. But when you look at it closer, you see it's actually tilted inward, so it's an entry.

CT Does it even make sense?

VD It's vaginal, right? It's also like a seed, and it's being coated with the water that comes from this mountain from above. So it's like the earth. Then, there are the rocks that break down into smaller pieces. And then, the opening of the garden is the meat and potatoes, the human aspect, the human form, the incarnation, matter in form.

And then getting to the other side, it's like, oh, this is where you exit. And then there's the maze of life in the middle of it all, that's in the water. It's the entry point of spirit. I mean, that was where we finally arrived. It was like, this is also an entryway, but it's not the physical, it's not the water and the stone and the earth and the plants. It's this place for spirit to enter.

*The Getty gardens designed by Robert Irwin. Photograph by Bernardo Ferrari courtesy of Unsplash*

CT My favourite part about that work is that it's always changing. It's an environment that's been created that is all about change. And I wonder how I could represent that in a painting. If I wanted to make something like the Robert Irwin sculpture, right? But I don't have the means to make it on that level. I often think about concepts and where I'm at in my current work. I see feelings, vignettes of feelings. I'm looking at extremely raw materials. What I'm doing with mixed media on canvas, what's new is that it is unique to me. That's what's new.

VD Well, if you were to do a piece that's a massive canvas or even a form of sculpture, and you would work on it once a season and give yourself 24 hours with the piece and modify that piece as you see fit for where you're at, I mean, that's a way that I could see you creating a piece of art that evolves. Like Robert Irwin's garden or like some of these garden installations. If one were to try to do something that reflects that same sort of constantly changing art form, that changes with the light, that changes with the seasons, that's an interesting thing.

CT I think the thing we're always trying to get back to when making art is the truth. And the truth is that these feelings or ideas that we are recording have to be tied to some little piece of ego, of needing to hold onto it so you yourself could remember it at that moment. That action is intrinsically valuable for a human being. To have a concept or an idea and to get it down and see it appear is a reflection of what is inside.

But I have also met people who don't call themselves artists, who are living these extremely expressive and honest lives. And they don’t give themselves the title of artist because they're not recording or making tangible things.

VD It's more artefact than art.

CD Yes. And I think that the spirit and the language of the artist, that inner feeling lives within everybody. So this idea of me being special for being an artist has actually always been uncomfortable. But I've explored what that is. What's that image? What's that idea? And I don't really identify with being an artist. You know what's interesting? You ask somebody at a party or you get together with them and you say, what do you do? The response isn't, I do this. It's I am this.

VD I'm a dog nurse on a tight budget. That's what I tell people when they ask me what I do.

CT You are that and much more. But it's interesting that they command the "I am this," this is my identity. My identity is whatever is in front of me. I do spend a lot of time making things. I would hope that in the future, more people can give themselves the permission to express their art without needing to artifact, record and make. I think that there's still growth to be had, just from having conversations with people and living earnestly and authentically. Ethics are an art form in a way.

VD People wouldn't really consider Gertrude Stein to be an artist, for example. However, she was at the center of the art culture of Paris at the time, and she advised everyone from Hemingway to Fitzgerald to Picasso. Her art was in the creation of a community that supported itself and the evolution of that community. You could call that the art form, and then the actual process of art-making would be the artefact of that convergence. You know?

CT Yeah. I think that's incredible; when the intention that was put into something has the ability to perpetuate. But I do hear what you're saying, and I think about it almost from the way that I see design, you know? Because I think that is problem-solving. My relationship with art and design is extremely rigid. I know the difference between the two of those for myself.
Seeking some degree of reward is a very designer mindset as well. Solving problems for other people is definitely something that is more of a design mindset.

Art thinking, that idea of expressing those feelings, shouldn't consider structures or other people. It shouldn't. That's why art is always sort of ahead in a way, or it should have the ability to be ahead because it doesn't need to please other people. It should be all about that pure expression, your ideas, your feelings.

VD I know that we both really honour artefacts; I have material bits, artefacts from my family history. My family has been in America since before the Revolutionary War, you know, and there are these artefacts. On the level of design, some of them are design artefacts, some of them are photographs, and some of them are doilies. I don't want to discount the importance of artefacts, the creation of artefacts.

CT No, not at all.

VD It's a record. And record keeping is very important.

CT Essential because we become lost if we don't have these things. And it's important for us to have these references to who and what we were and might have been. But I do think that they become imbued with that art essence, that signature of-

VD The price tag.

CT I wasn't going there. I was actually going to a place where artefacts can become very personal. That key that you gave me, the one that has the patina on it. It's very personal to me now. I don't think that it was designed for me, it's something where my perception around this object and the intention that you brought to it, and my intention that was paired with it, was a beautiful moment of expression that isn't me making something. It's just an item that exists, and now I understand its history. It's an artefact still, but, and at that point, it's become something-

VD It almost becomes a tool, you know, a tool of accessing whatever that artefact brings forth.

CT Right. I'm interested in exploring what really is art and what's the edge of it. And for me, when making those paintings in the front room (The Nun series), there was a version of me dying as a painter or an artist. It reminds me of when Robert Irwin stopped being a studio artist, asking what is this? It was more philosophical than reinforcing the identity of being an artist. And I think that needs to be challenged more because the identity of being an artist is now associated with being cool or interesting. And in the moment that we're conscious about being cool or interesting, we're not busy with actually being in a state of wonder, in a state of exploring an edge, because the identity is constantly needing to be grounded so that other people can receive it, so that we can be rewarded for this.

It's an ego thing. We need to be as separated from that as possible in order for us to be present, in order for us to be on the edge and being rooted in that presence, that's the closest that we're gonna get to the future. So that idea, when I found it, when I received it, when I recognized it... I recognized it when I was on the edge of the future.