Ezzo’s recently exhibited body of work entitled Patterns in Healing was the topic of our recent conversation.
The images you've created in your Patterns in Healing series use color and line in their most simplistic and literal of forms. What has your approach been to the body of work, and the strong use of these formal elements thus far?
Ezzo: The Patterns in Healing series are cyanotypes, a simplistic and fun photo process. It's a perfect method for me to quickly test and experiment with concept ideas and techniques without the particularity of other more complex alternative photo processes. I wanted an expedient, highly effective way of noting how the ink, gouache and image worked together.... many of them are far from perfect, as they demonstratemy lessons in combining the mediums and creating mixed media pieces. Just like the process of healing itself, where scars leave tangible evidence of past events these works quite literally display my learning process and my mistakes.
I find this to be extraordinarily important on many levels because both my work and in my personal life things prim with change. These life changes are very much reflected in my work, from more abstract concepts to the most concrete elements.
At what point in time do you feel your practice must adapt to focus on a particular point of interest within your work, and what is your approach to maintaining this focus, yet preserving the freshness of your more spontaneous works?
Ezzo: Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of concept building/planning beforehand. I do a lot of mulling through ideas before I even attempt at making something physical. Perhaps to a fault. Often, I'll have several ideas for what I think might be a couple series of work. I'll sit with those ideas to see if perhaps they can be combined, refined, extrapolated, and so forth. I feel like this process is much longer than the actual art making process for me.
During this time, I'll have both specific images in my head ready to go, as well as, potentially interesting more general directions to wander down. That spontaneity is never completely void of intent, yet simultaneously relaxed and exploratory. It's like taking all your favorite ingredients, eye-balling the amounts, throwing them all together, and seeing what comes out of the oven. For some, this may feel unfocused or off topic, but for me it is an critical phase of art-making. There are countless pieces during this experimentation process that never end up seeing the light of day. I cherish this time to meander about, dream, and take notes, all the while keeping my original idea in mind. At the end of it all, I reflect upon everything - the good, bad, and ugly - to see what best expresses what I want to communicate. Sometimes having such a strict agenda, cuts off deeper less obvious emotion. Emotion I wasn't even fully conscious of when I started the series. I'm trying to be as truthful about myself as possible; naked through art.
Ezzo: Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of concept building/planning beforehand. I do a lot of mulling through ideas before I even attempt at making something physical. Perhaps to a fault. Often, I'll have several ideas for what I think might be a couple series of work. I'll sit with those ideas to see if perhaps they can be combined, refined, extrapolated, and so forth. I feel like this process is much longer than the actual art making process for me.
During this time, I'll have both specific images in my head ready to go, as well as, potentially interesting more general directions to wander down. That spontaneity is never completely void of intent, yet simultaneously relaxed and exploratory. It's like taking all your favorite ingredients, eye-balling the amounts, throwing them all together, and seeing what comes out of the oven. For some, this may feel unfocused or off topic, but for me it is an critical phase of art-making. There are countless pieces during this experimentation process that never end up seeing the light of day. I cherish this time to meander about, dream, and take notes, all the while keeping my original idea in mind. At the end of it all, I reflect upon everything - the good, bad, and ugly - to see what best expresses what I want to communicate. Sometimes having such a strict agenda, cuts off deeper less obvious emotion. Emotion I wasn't even fully conscious of when I started the series. I'm trying to be as truthful about myself as possible; naked through art.
Otherwise, any maintenance of focus may simply be my obsession with the topic at hand and a lot of coffee.
It seems as though much of your concept development, as well as the intentional marks within your images reflect you, personally, yet Studies in Healing is comprised of portraits.
How is it that you feel your subjects coincide with the control you exercise over your works, and what is the dynamic of your relationship to your subjects, and vice versa?
Ezzo: In the most obvious of explanations, the subjects in Patterns in Healing are people who have effected me in some way, even just a little. Through friendship and love, you grow. A lot of my work deals with the concept generally. Particularly, a series of diptychs taken with the Fuji Instax, Difficult Loves. The subjects in both bodies of work are people who have both in the failure of being of photographer, but also a more personal failure. You can learn a lot as an individual through the interactions and relationships of others.
How is it that you feel your subjects coincide with the control you exercise over your works, and what is the dynamic of your relationship to your subjects, and vice versa?
Ezzo: In the most obvious of explanations, the subjects in Patterns in Healing are people who have effected me in some way, even just a little. Through friendship and love, you grow. A lot of my work deals with the concept generally. Particularly, a series of diptychs taken with the Fuji Instax, Difficult Loves. The subjects in both bodies of work are people who have both in the failure of being of photographer, but also a more personal failure. You can learn a lot as an individual through the interactions and relationships of others.
How do you feel interactions and relationships with others have immediately effected your work?
Ezzo: My relationships and interactions with people have always affected my work greatly, but even much more now. With this new body of work that I'm focusing on, Kindred Systems, it's about exactly that. I'm shooting less "models" and more friends, loves, and so forth. I want to talk about the concepts revolving around difficult loves, the fluidity of friendship, and basically picking apart how I connect with the people in my life.
It seems that asking where your work is moving from here, should become more of a question of, where are you going, I suppose on a personal level, from here?
Ezzo: This seems like it has the potential to be the most straightforward answer, but also the most difficult. For me personally the next couple months will be about finishing this body of work, streamlining and perfect my new home studio space (it's pretty chaotic now), and focusing on creating more and thinking less. I want to let the process assist in helping me work out challenges; challenge the nature of these relationships through photography. Otherwise, I've been putting a decent amount of thought into grad school.
You can see more of Danielle Ezzo's work at www.danielleezzo.com
