10 Questions with Dave Kwinter

Dave Kwinter was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of his life. He is a retired attorney who has two degrees in psychology. Dave has practiced law, been vice president of a bank, served in the Canadian military, delivered mail, worked underground as a miner, and, as a lab assistant in a memory study, trained goldfish.

Besides artmaking, Dave enjoys kayaking, nature photography, chess, and playing the bagpipe.

davekwinter.com | @kwinterdave

ARTIST STATEMENT

After years of painting with acrylics and digital art software, Dave has discovered the delights of assemblage. Working in three dimensions is much more fun for him than being confined to two. The components of his sculptures come from thrift stores, flea markets, and eBay. More than once, something he picked up from the sidewalk ended up in an art piece. Among the objects that he especially likes are picture frames, kitchen implements, bird and animal carvings, children’s toys, jewelry, finials, tassels, doilies, and all sorts of hardware.

Most of the time, Dave begins an assemblage without a clear idea of where it is going; rather, he tries to combine two items in an interesting way, searches for a compatible third, and so on. To varying degrees, Dave favors symmetry in his art, but he also enjoys disrupting that symmetry. Some of his sculptures were inspired by coats of arms, and some by modern pinball machines, with their colorful, many-leveled complexity. Surrealism has always appealed to Dave, so he welcomes ambiguities and incongruities when they appear. He agrees with Francis Bacon that “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.”

Among the assemblage artists whose works Dave admires are Max Ernst, H.C. Westermann, and Daniel Lind-Ramos.

Bikers II, Assemblage, 36x48x4 in., 2019 © Dave Kwinter

INTERVIEW

First of all, tell us about your background. When did you start getting involved with visual arts, and how?

I first became aware of my desire to paint as a teenager. I bought some oil paint, brushes, and canvas boards and completed one or two paintings. I was very disappointed with the results and gave up art-making for almost ten years. I took up painting again in my early 20s when I purchased a beginner set of acrylic paints in a hardware store. This time, I produced some paintings that I found satisfactory.
Years later, I discovered Corel Painter, a computer art program, with which I estimate I have created about 10,000 digital art images. Most of these involve manipulated digital photos, many created by superimposing a semi-transparent image onto an opaque image.
In late 2018, I accidentally transitioned to making assemblage sculptures. While wrestling with an unsatisfying painting, I began to stick various items to the canvas, and suddenly, I was in a new world of artmaking. I have devoted myself exclusively to assemblage ever since.

You are a former lawyer, but you also have two degrees in psychology, and on top of that, you also "served in the Canadian military, delivered mail, worked underground as a miner, and, as lab assistant in a memory study, trained goldfish," as you mention in your biography. How do those different experiences influence your practice as an artist?

One way my experiences as a lawyer influenced my art is that they depended on logical and verbal reasoning. These experiences serve to remind me, now that I'm retired, that I am finally free to revel in the irrationality and playfulness of making the kind of art I want to make. Also, having lived through some quite stressful experiences as a lawyer has helped me to deal with the unpleasant emotions that can impact any artist, everything from the frustrations involved in the creative process to the pain of rejection when being judged.
I believe my psychology training gives me some insight into how unconscious mental processes can influence perception and emotion, a subject of particular interest to me because I take a surrealistic rather than representational approach in my assemblages. Having studied psychology also helps me to understand why some people are avid art buffs, while others have little interest in art.
Being a soldier and a miner both taught me to persevere when dealing with physically challenging circumstances. This ability is important in my assemblage-making, where doing what is essentially carpentry in my cluttered condominium/studio can be difficult and frustrating ("This whole thing is going to collapse if I don't remember where I put that long black screw!").

And how would you define yourself as an artist nowadays? What is your personal aim?

I now define myself as an assemblage sculptor, rather than a painter or digital artist, even though I have spent most of my artmaking years as a painter and digital artist.
My aim is to continue to produce artworks that I feel good about. It would be rewarding if others appreciated my art as well, but I aim primarily to please myself.

In your statement, you mention working in painting and digital art before turning to assemblage. Why did you choose this medium? And what does it represent for you?

Assemblage produces the "wow" experience for me much more often than painting or computer art. ever did. In painting, and in much of computer art, every aspect of the artwork results from a decision by the artist, so there are countless decisions to be made, each of which can give rise to doubts, which in turn can lead to endless corrections, frustration, and perfectionism. {Computer art based on manipulated photographs can involve somewhat fewer decisions because a photograph starts with some fixed qualities.}
In assemblage, the items to be combined each have fixed qualities like shape, size, color, and surface texture. (Of course, most of these "fixed" qualities can be changed by the artist). In addition, each item has a number of possible orientations in space- it can be rotated any number of degrees, or it can be flipped. Because of all these pre-existing fixed qualities and spatial options, any two or more objects can be combined in many different ways. Like a rotating kaleidoscope, some of these combinations will be both surprising and pleasing.
A small number of items can be glued, screwed, or tied to each other in an interesting way, and then the resulting "cluster' can, sooner or later, be put to use in a developing artwork. Combining these clusters in an unexpected and satisfying manner is truly one of the joys of assemblage.

Basket Man, Assemblage, 18x20x9 in., 2019 © Dave Kwinter

In your works, you use discarded objects that you reassemble into works of art. How did you come up with this concept?

When doing paintings, I would sometimes include collage elements such as images cut out of magazines or pieces of canvas from earlier paintings that I had torn up. It was a natural development to include items that had some depth, like matchsticks or buttons. In late 2018, while painting a pair of bicyclists, I responded to a feeling of frustration by attaching more and more objects to the canvas. I was pleased with the result for a while, but then, weeks later, I decided to add even more items. The result was Bikers II, one of the artworks I have submitted to Al-Tiba9. This piece made me realize the possibilities of assemblage, and I am still enjoying exploring those possibilities.

What is the most challenging part of your work?

My biggest challenge is spatial limitations imposed by the fact that my studio is also the condominium where I live. I constantly face the problem of where to put the many items I have collected for inclusion in future sculptures; sculptures I am working on (eight, at present); my tools; my completed artworks, and my collection of artworks done by others. My art-making has now taken over my dining room, my living room, and one of my two bedrooms, and I am now working on a piece on the kitchen floor. And I have little wall space remaining anywhere.

And what is your creative process like?

Compared to painting and doing computer art, assemblage sculpture is easy for me - I have little problem producing artworks that please me. Lately, I have been producing about 10 sculptures a year.
I am aware of two phases in my creative process - one, of course, is assembling items I have collected, but the other is deciding on which items to buy or collect and which to reject. I prefer certain kinds of items which I have mentioned in my statement. But for any particular item, how I decide whether to choose it or to let go is a mystery to me. In terms of how I combine the items I have chosen, there's a lot of trial and error. The process reminds me of an eye examination for new spectacles, where I am asked, "which is better, this lens or this?"

What do you think about the art community and market?

There are apparently far more people making art than people who want to buy art. I'm glad I don't depend on art sales for my income.

What are you working on now? Do you have any projects or new series you are currently developing?

I am working on eight sculptures right now. Some will be hung on a wall, and some will be free-standing. I hope to do more painting on my latest sculptures than I have done in the past. I also intend to add more ropes and pulleys to some of my future pieces. And maybe, because of space limitations, I will try to make smaller sculptures.

And finally, what is one piece of advice you would give to a young artist?

First and most importantly, don't give up because of frustration. Some of my friends who said they wanted to paint have quit after a few minutes of painting. If you are unhappy with what you have created, ask yourself what is wrong with your creation, then try to fix it.
Also, try different kinds of artmaking. If you have trouble with accurate representation in your painting or drawing, try abstraction. If you are frustrated by painting, try sculpture, printmaking, or photography. Above all, if you want to create, do it, and don't give up!

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