Alexandra Rozenman

GAME IN THE FRAME of the door

New York’s Writers Center “Village Quill” in Chelsea recently closed a show of paintings on old wooden doors by Alexandra Rozenman. The work, which was both whimsical and beautiful, was quite fittingly entitled “Enter.”

Olga Dunaevskaya: I know one Russian artist, who lives in Paris and uses folding mattresses as his canvases. How did you come up with the idea of “a door”?

Alexandra Rozenman: In March of 2006 I had a two-person show with a successful American/Jewish artist, Beth Grossman. The show was called “Unfolding Time” and each one of us was telling—in words and pictures—a story about her family or herself as an immigrant. Her part of the show consisted of a folding structure made of five old doors, painted on both sides. On one side, the doors tell a story about her great-grandmother’s migration to America in the nineteenth century; on the other side they describe Grossman’s conceptual approach to her family. I really liked the idea of “folding time” that hides behind an old door. A few years ago, one dusty summer in Moscow, I found myself in an old Wine Factory, known those days as “Vinzavod” Art Center. An historical show about old village doors was displayed in one of the galleries. The installation itself was beautiful: doors stand around the gallery space, growing out of the floor, like mushrooms after the rain.
After walking like Red Riding Hood in the forest of doors, I left the gallery to find my own art door happiness. My doors tell stories. In a way, I do collect them like mushrooms or flowers: each one is unique for me. I am intrigued by the history of doors and like to collect old locks and keys—anything that is related to doors. This is how the series started and keeps going.

Where have you studied art?

When I was growing up in the Soviet Union, my father painted a lot, mostly abstract watercolors that were nonetheless full of narrative. Today I would say that his paintings were part of the surrealist tradition, but he did not know it then. Most importantly his work taught me at the time that things like imagination and freethinking do exist in the world. One day in 1977, my father took me to a museum. While I was changing my shoes, I started a conversation with another 6 year-old girl. Soon her father came by and told her to hurry, because “she came here to work.” My Dad asked where do 6 year-olds work in this building? This is how we found out about the Art School for Children at the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. Nina N. Koffman, the only art teacher/director of this school, played an enormous role in my art. She taught me to be strong, trust my own judgment and be a hard-worker.

Have you studied in a “normal” art school?

When I turned ten, I had to leave the Museum, because it was very much for little kids only. It was time to apply for admission to one of Moscow’s After-School Art Schools. The Soviet Russia of the 1980s was a tough place to live in, when everything was as difficult and as stubborn as it could be; yet thankfully it was not so dangerous as it had been in 1930s. To get accepted to the Art School you had to pass three exams: drawing, painting and composition. First of all, you had to get permission to do that by submitting samples of your work. I arrived with a big colorful portfolio. With what I had in my portfolio and an expression on my face that people on the committee recognized only too well, they disliked me right away and asked if “I studied with Koffman.” “Yes I did,” I said. “Well, here you will have to control your temper,” said a woman as she gave me permission to take the exams. I got very upset with this stern woman wearing glasses and decided not to take the exams at all.

But somehow your education happened?

We lived on Taganka, close to “The House of Education.” In that exact place at that exact time free-thinking artists from the sixties were renting a gym for their studios and taught kids in their free time. They were all followers of the legendary Eliy Belutin. I took lessons from them. But around the middle eighties my parents thought that they had to teach me at least something, especially if I were thinking about making art my major. At that time I was planning to be a scene designer. Thanks to the effort of some friends I became one of the private art students of the now world famous, Grisha Bruskin. He did not teach us that much, but I was able to watch him working. That was priceless. Later on, in America, like all other American Art Students I learned during my school years, first in Empire College and later on in Museum School in Boston. My two main teachers in America were Gerry Bergstein and Robert Ferrandini.

All your paintings have titles, but are also very symbolic. When and how do you title your paintings?

I am trying to create framed structures, mazes, divided worlds and let my viewers to walk through them, looking for big and small surprises. I give my works titles to help my viewers take this journey. The titles give hints about the journey or are just a pure description of an image in the painting. What is important is that neither the titles nor the paintings have an end, they are the process. This is a method that gives me the chance to be connected to my viewers and tell them a lot, but not everything.

How do you start and finish a painting?

I do not remember exactly how it happened, but soon after I moved from New York to New England in 1996 my landscapes became less abstract, the line of the horizon began to appear; images of the sky, air and water emerged from my sexy and organic forms. Curtains had been covering a big part of my paintings up until that point—playing the role of a hidden element. However, after my return to a landscape I started wondering what should I put in it. The idea of leaving it empty and open was somehow foreign to me in those days. I was looking for a “visual narrative.” The cinematic work of my favorite directors and scene designers became one of my main tools. One time I painted a blue horse, soon it started snowing around her and everything became white and puffy. I remembered the scene from Tarkovsky’s “Ivan’s Childhood,” where many apples are falling out of the truck and the poor horse does not know what are they and what should she do. So I started putting apples into the snow. Something was still missing in the painting and I realized that it was an orange color, so some of my painted apples turned into oranges. The painting is called “Apples and Oranges” and since that day nothing can replace a magical orange in my palette and subject matter.

Why do you like “Three Oranges” so much? Your blog in English is called “Oranges on a Windowsill.” What is so special about this image for you?

To me life itself, in many ways, is similar to an orange in its whole structure. Orange is universal. It is round and is falling apart into smaller pieces. Many important things in life are round: earth, face, sun, moon… For me orange can symbolize a cycle of things we live in.

Do you have any favorite colors?

My palette changes itself a few times a year. As for me, I am just watching it as an outsider. It is always a surprise for me. I do know that more often than any other color, I run out of blue, which probably is my main color. This is not surprising, because I so much like to place my “unfinished plays” into the water or on the sky. I hear that some people say that blue is a depressing color, but I hope that this is not the point. Orange and bright red are the opposites of blues, and since I so much play with contrasts to get an effect of bright light, those two colors also play a very important role in my art.

What do you like more: painting or drawing?

They are very different for me to compare. Such a comparison would be an unfair one: like comparing dill pickles to ice cream. Drawing is more impulsive for me, more unconscious. When I draw I often feel as if there is not a pencil, but some sort of a creature that knows way better than me what is going to happen next. Painting for me is much more multilayered process. It has its own system of evolving the characters, time and unconscious. I think that the main secret of my best works is always a balance between those ingredients.

Schiller wrote his poetry holding his feet in cold water. Do you have any “oddictions”?

I am sure that every body has his/her own strangeness, no matter how creative or not those people are. For example, the love of solitude—is it strangeness or just a part of a personality? I can say that in the studio I get tired very quickly and my blood pressure falls down. Because of that I always have a big bag of sugared candies in my studio. I often paint listening to a very loud music: rock or even alternative punk. It helps me to concentrate for some reason.

You came to America as an adult. Do you feel here “at home”? If YES, when have you felt it first?

I came to the States at the age of 19 and think I was still growing, or as we say in Russian, “was still green.” This has its ups and downs. I do not feel at home anywhere. I feel that the world is very big and wherever I am located geographically, I am who I am. I think that only because I immigrated my work is what it is: naïve, whimsical, nostalgic and, in a way, traditional. In music critics have called that style “new folk.” Singers Regina Spektor and Sophie Milman are two good examples. I think my work fits this category very well.

In the States the most of writers, artists and musicians also teach. What place takes teaching in your life?

Teaching plays a very important role in my life, it always has. When I was just a kid my very young parents, having no problems in imagination, came up with some wild assignments for me! No wonder I am who I am. For example: they would cut a portrait out of the magazine and tell me to come up with a biography of that “created” person. After elementary school my teacher often invited me to her after-school art classes to help and I often gave her new ideas. When I came to America I started looking for any job and suddenly found out that creative teaching is appreciated. I was lucky and found a job in a private art school organized by a retired ballet dancer. Later on she became my very dear friend who introduced me to many people, collected my work and also hired me as her babysitter.

Do you work with adults?

As a teacher I re-discovered myself after graduate school, when found a job in the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. I invented a few classes for working adults. The main one was called “Can I Paint Like That?” In this class I helped students to understand what it is they like in art so much and helped them to find ways to learn from what they themselves like.

Who do you teach now?

I am teaching a drawing course in Minneapolis Community and Technical College, called “Seeing with the Pencil”, but am also about to start my own program/art school. I am calling it “Red Square.” Its motto is: “Where a Square is not Square.”

Have you switched from canvases to doors completely?

Absolutely not! Right now I am just intrigued by a door’s structure and symbolism. Many ideas can be related to that of the door.

Where are your next shows?

My next show opens at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisconsin on February 21st. At the end of April I am participating in Art Crawl - An Open Studios event in Saint Paul, MN. This Summer I am having a three-people show in Ann Loeb Gallery in JCC in Washington DC. The exact dates for this show are TBA.

Interview by Olga Dunaevskaya

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