Work in Progress: “I know a painting is done when it feels like it is eating itself”

For “Work in Progress," we talk to artists bringing their latest works to Frieze fairs. Ahead of debuting new sculptures with Chapter NY at Frieze New York, Gina Fischli reflects on her joyful return to sculpture and the autonomous spirit of a work, while Willa Nasatir speaks about the hallucinatory edges of vision, memory and knowledge that frame her most recent paintings.

Livia Russell How is your practice currently evolving?   

Gina Fischli During COVID-19, I didn’t have a studio, so I only worked on flat surfaces, but now I‘m really enjoying being able to make sculpture again. The work I will be presenting at Frieze New York will all be sculpture.

Willa Nasatir As of right now, I'm absorbed in painting. The relationship is in a very romantic place. I think my works are becoming more complex and harmonious, with the representational elements sinking deeper into the ground. I know a painting is done when it feels like it is eating itself.

LR Are there any new sources of inspiration that are guiding your work? 

WN I’ve been thinking about vision span – the concept that there are delineated edges of your periphery where the eye can and cannot register things – and where that idea meets memory, hallucination and other kinds of sensory recall. I like thinking about the instances that we know things are there without being able to see them.  

GF Often the works inspire themselves. You start with something, or maybe an "idea," but the work is steering in a totally different direction.

LR Which part of your process are you devoting your time to in the studio right now? 

WN In the beginning of the year I was making lots of drawings and now those drawings have become skeletal structures for the paintings I am in the midst of. Right now it feels like I am dressing and undressing those forms. 

GF I don’t think I have a clear process, per se, I just work. When I'm in the studio working, sometimes I take a walk.

LR How is presenting new work at a fair different from a gallery show? 

GF It’s a very busy environment so people don’t have a lot of time for individual works. It’s more about impressions.

WN You’re in an ocean of other work – personally, I love being in the ocean.

Read more: Work in Progress: Olivia van Kuiken—“My paintings are always a surprise, even to me”

Further Information

Frieze New York returns to The Shed, May 1–5, 2024.

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^{Main Image: Willa Nasatir, Breeze, 2024. Acrylic dispersion, flashe, urethane on polycotton 76 × 112 cm. Courtesy the artist and Chapter NY. Photo by Charles Benton}