AM: So what you just said is you like to break it down and then make a small area bigger and bigger?
FE: Right to actually take a small image and blow it out, to keep growing something so that I can understand this small tiny little piece of information rather than just what the whole looks like. That may be the whole of it, but in terms of what I'm looking for, I'm looking to break down the tiniest infintessional piece of it and then I can then recreate it in my own terms, not resemble it. I want to deconstruct it as well, but not reconstruct it the same way. Like if I was deconstructing a body, I'd put the feet on the top. So that it really doesn't resemble what the original looked like or have the original intention, but it could now represent what I want it to mean.
AM: So where does the subject matter come from? Did you start with photography before you painted? Or was it a dual pursuit?
FE: No, its actually, I used to be in advertising and graphic design so that was behind it-and only a few years ago I started painting. And in the process of painting I found -the the world of advertising and design while the commercial aspects, while its lucrative- it just wasn't enough. So I really wanted to look at “what else”. Cause you know life is short, what the hell, you know you just kind of gotta do what it is you feel is necessary to your own existence and so painting was that way. I dabbled in painting and photography and artist book. I mean, I sort of wanted to see where I fit and saw there was pieces of each that could belong to me or that I could belong to. So I'm not discounting anything. It's like I'm letting everything be ok. While photography-I think that stems off of that advertising mentality- to commercialize the image and to do that make the image super important. The importance is no longer the image the importance is the lines the space between the lines- what it is, is no longer important.
AM: So when you lay this down you have an image in mind- Do you use one of your photographs?
FE: I have an image in mind and I'm sort of recreating that image, but sort of as quickly as my hand will do it so that I'm not restrained by it. I don't want to paint it exactly. I want it to free me up. This shows more freedom it shows the hand shows the environment. It works with nature because I use gravity to help pull the paint.
AM: So do you have a process in mind in terms of the colors and how you are going to lay it down or do you just go based on your instinct, which color comes next or what you feel like needs to get added?
FE: I think that the color process at least in terms of photography was valuable but you know I want to sort of lose the color process in the painting part or limit it. To be more restrictive is to have more freedom and to, you know, continue with the photography there's something very satisfying in working with photoshop thats different. It's serving a different part of the creative process and its feeding the simplicity. Cause you know you need to get that out some way.
AM: So are these (Photoshopped prints on canvas) going to become paintings?
FE: These are paintings. I think of them as paintings because the process as they go through as photographs changes them and they are no longer photos. Its digital painting. You get to the point where you get to understand- like you understand the paint brush- the medium and so photoshop and digital tweaking is another type of art. Like with a brush, how you use it and what you can bring into it. But it doesn't replace this (gestures to painting), sometimes the hand needs to move, the hand needs to represent work.
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