interviewed by Bridget Conway | Visual Processes | Fall 2018
Bridget Conway for Wilder Voice: Tell me a little bit about your work!
Nina Josephson: So I like to create these sort of weird brightly colored bizarre creatures primarily with papier mâché and with needle pointed felt. And so the sort of thought behind all of this is that I’m trying to represent the weird little beast that lives inside of all of us. And like here these creatures that represent like the various visceral emotions and actions that people take that we’d normally just sort of bottle up; love and sorrow, entrapment, motherhood. I’m sort of just trying to think about how I can draw out the beast within us and focus on this little kernel of truth inside of people through these ridiculous forms. And just one more thing I’ve done because I think that it may be confusing: These forms are so strange and surreal and alien and goofy, my hope is that I sort of hope they’re so unlike yourself when you’re looking at them that it sort of gives the viewer space to connect to them and see themselves in these because they’re so, so bizarre and so out there that you know you’re not necessarily looking for a connection and the connection will find you.
BC: Yeah they look kind of like almost like cartoon characters but from like a scary children’s show or something like that.
NJ: Yeah, yeah.
BC: They find this really nice line between almost scary and and just kind of unsettling but also like I want to pet one!
NJ: Well I definitely like to play along that line of, like, creepy and cute and scary and playful especially now. I feel like now I’m sort of moving out of the gross-out weird pickled pigs and chicken feet. I sort of have moved away from that, chilled out a little bit, but I don’t know I think that’s a really fun sort of dichotomy to engage with.
BC: So other than moving into this more fantastical world how has your work changed as you’ve grown into senior studio and your time just as an art student at Oberlin?
NJ: It’s crazy! I started out printmaking and was just super into printmaking, which is still cool, but I think it was just like the first medium that I was introduced to at a college level and was really pumped about and was, I don’t know, just at an exciting start and then sort of as I started taking more classes and started questioning what makes good art and what I should be sort of working towards, I started moving into the third dimension a little bit. This is the first year that I’ve fully done the 3D stuff but definitely my work is a lot more playful, and a lot lighter. I don’t take art less seriously but I take my own art less seriously and just have sort of given myself more space to just do things that are fun rather than like being like “oh, how will this go over at the critique?” Yeah, I’m happy with the direction I’m sort of taken.
BC: Yeah! Other than just taking more classes why do you think that your scope and motives have shifted?
NJ: I guess just engaging more seriously with the art world and taking myself more seriously as an artist who can actually make things that are actually art. That sort of switch and understanding where you’re like, “Oh, I can create art too.” Taking your work more seriously and placing more value in the things you create really makes you sort of change the style. I guess I’m being weird by saying I’m taking myself less seriously and also taking myself more seriously but I’m having more fun and taking myself seriously. Yeah, that’s what I would say!
BC: That makes sense. You can sense that you were pointing to some of these creatures and explaining what they were—what are you working on here? What’s this creature going to be?
NJ: This guy has six legs and he sort of is like a little daschund and he’s going to have a striped tail. And yeah I think this is sort of a process driven work because I don’t really know who he’s going to be until I’m finished with him. You know, I think their identities and characters sort of develop with the colors and the textures and the story happens as this guy happens so right now I don’t really know what’s going to happen with him, but I think he might have sort of been starting on a little baby for him, so maybe this one’s going to be a mommy too.
BC: Alright, I like it! So in your work do you find a rhythm in the process? I’ve noticed in a lot of these they have a lot of similarities. So when you start a new piece, how do you decide where you’re going? Or do you just start off with some plaster and go for it?
NJ: I guess it’s like a little bit of a formula that I stick to to keep these creatures in the same sort of realm of existence. Like I like the heads with a rim so it looks like they’re wearing a little suit or something with their heads exposed. And I like the polka dots. And of course the bright colors. But in terms of their form, I sort of just wing it. I work with chicken wire and it’s like really hard on your hands. That’s the worst part to me, making the actual structure and I’m just rushing through it like, “I just gotta get this done!” And then you sort of create more of the form once you add the layers. I guess there’s direction and there isn’t direction. Sort of like a matrix that I’m following but each one is a little bit different. Sort of like trying to make it work as I’m working with it.
BC: Yeah! Are these ones that are hanging and fuzzy, are they constructed in the same way?
NJ: No, so these these are crazy! These ones are really big felted creatures—needle felted, out of that wool stuff that’s sort of like this fluff y wool roving. This has, like, a skeleton with one piece of wire and then you sort of wrap it like poly-fil or whatever and then the wool roving and then you, like, stab it up until it sort of forms a little guy like this.
BC: Another thing I’ve noticed is how those are obviously hanging to the walls and they have this wool felt that looks really inviting to touch and these other creatures are the size of a small dog or something like that. How do you want people who are looking out to interact with your work?
NJ: Oh, I want them to interact with it! Everyone always says that they want to pet these and I want them to, even the ones that aren’t as fuzzy. I think they’re so sweet and just to engage with them and touch them… I mean I make them out of papier mâché so they’re light and they’re durable and they’re not going to break. So yeah, I want people to think they’re like little puppies or babies and I want people to be excited about their bright colors.
BC: And it’s very fun! It’s kind of like they’re living with us in a children’s book.
NJ: Yeah. Yeah! I want to put them in a giant room of polka dots and really get it going.
BC: So you talked a little bit about, like, the reasons your process has changed, but what are some of your inspirations, artistic or otherwise, that inform the work you make?
NJ: Oh, well I definitely have my favorite artist influences. I really like Allison Schulnik who works in clay and also animation and also makes figurative animals but they’re super influential to me and I think about them a lot. Also Louise Bourgeois. Love those little creepy spider guys. I think all these artists who sort of have these weird alien creature animation things, not animations but animated creatures, those are really what I think about. I’m thinking about this whole world that already exists out there and all these different funky guys and I’m trying to sort of add my own into that space.
BC: Yeah like that, it’s very engaging. Is there anything else that you’d like to say about your work or that you want people to know when they look at these?
NJ: No, but I can plug my website! My website is ninajosephson.com and my Instagram is nina.makes.art, and that has my in-progress works!
Wilder Voice Magazine 