Ep. 4 - Colleen Barry: Reclaiming Beauty

Welcome to the Bent pod, a place for conversations around painting, technique, and life as a painter. I'm Christian Rex van Menden, and today I am joined by Colleen Barry. We talk about traditional painting, mentorship, building community outside of institutions, and finding your own path as an artist. We talk a lot about the value of learning in the studio and the tension between isolation and connection, and why making work with beauty, pleasure, and a little charm still matters. Let's get into it. All right, cool, cool. Yeah, it's good to see you on your studio. Yeah, good to see you too. Is that a white board you have? Hi, Colleen Barry. Hey, Colleen, yeah, I'm trying to make it nice. Did you have to write it in reverse or you flipped your screen so I could read it? I flipped my screen. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, yeah. My pleasure. My pleasure. I'm going to like, yeah, it's kind of like a studio visit, you know, is kind of how I feel. Of course. Feeling this. Yeah. You need that in my life, and I miss it. So. I know. We live too far apart. You and like everyone else, you know. I know. I feel like everyone scattered in different places, you know, like whatever. Sorry. But you're in Tally. I'm in New York, but I guess, yeah, we went to Will's studio when we hung out last. Yeah. He just moved into that space. Oh, yeah. It was cold. It was cold. I just remember kind of shivering with excitement, and we had to take a warm up break to turn the fan. Are they here? Really funny. Yeah. I know. Oh, I was so excited to talk to you guys. Oh, man. That was so fun. It was such a nice conversation. Yeah. We actually haven't really had anyone. We've kind of our podcast is kind of. Let's just say life takes over, and I forget I even had a podcast or, you know, content creation can, when you have kids, like, you know, falls on the way side very quickly. Who says that it's got to be at a consistent schedule? Stop trying to put me in a square hole, you know, like, yeah, think that's sort of a helpful thing for me to remember. It's just like, I'm not a consistent person. I'm not like, I'm moody, like, very all over the place guy. And so that's just going to be the nature of my production schedule as I enter the content creation world. We really feel that this obligation to provide quicker content, yeah, and, um, but then I remind myself that, you know, paintings happen slowly, and good things do happen slowly. So why would I feel that I have to rush anything else? You feel the obligation to rush because you're like, oh, I just dropped 10 subs today. Great. I got it. Okay. I got to get on this now. You know, like, but when you're like waiting for your painting to dry, you're not dropping subs. Right. It's just your content is dropping, dropping and raising. It's just following the graph. This is the life now is following graphs that go up and down, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's real. I think that's all okay, I mean, hopefully it doesn't drive you nuts, but I just loved what we're able to do now. I love what you're doing. I find what you're doing to be so inspiring. I mean, you're my leader right now. So whether you like it or not, you're leading the way. Oh, that's so sweet. Um, yeah, I mean, I'm like, your sub sack is fantastic for people who don't know the modern age painting sub stack. Um, do you have more than that? Do you have like a Patreon too? I'm kind of maybe. Yeah, I have a Patreon where I just show painting, painting, uh, well, I just videotape myself painting intermittently, um, and then show process. But I don't, I don't really put writing up there. Yeah. It's just visuals. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you're, you're kind of back and forth between the two. So I want to save at least half of this podcast to talk about things from your sub stack. Specifically, I just read your interview with your mentor, which was just awesome. So I have a bunch of notes about that that I want to get to later because you, you basically have like an hour from now, right? Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah. Let's, yeah. Let's wrap up in an hour and plus, you know, perfect. Perfect. Yeah. There's just so much I want to talk to you about. And also like, we don't need to make it exhaustive. I think that that's always like, for sure, leaves me with a really nasty feeling after I do a podcast where I'm like, where it tries to be exhaustive and you're like, oh, but you left out the front of my grandma. I know. I know. Oh, man. I know. Too much backstory. It's like, yeah, we got to keep it punchy. Yeah. Keep it speedy. Well, so I guess I wanted to, I mean, okay, so where do I begin? So it's August now and you just, your show came down in April, started in March, ended in April, right? Yes. So, I mean, can you tell me how you, I recover makes it sound like a bad experience, which it was clearly not, it was epic and made big waves. I'm sure it was hugely successful, but like, how do you like stick the landing after that? That's a good question. I mean, I, I don't know what, I don't even know what a huge success is anymore because it's weird. You get a little bit swallowed up and I, I'm always gauging my success off way more successful painters, so I'm like, but from where I came from, obviously, like, it's, there's good things that are happening and, and half gallery is a very hardworking gallery and they sold all my paintings. So that was really good. And it's a saw in a soft market, which in this economy, I know, I know. And so, you know, they, I think they were a little shocked as, as was I, but, but, you know, the, the, let me just say, the price point in which my paintings are situated is not, is not in the price point where people are really being super challenged right now. It, you know, like, it's not, it's not six figures, you know, so, so it's like, the paintings sold because they, people could buy them because they're, you know, at a good price point, healthy for, you know, for me and, and so it's not like, you know, asking crazy prices right now. And I, I think that the soft market thing is, is freaking everyone out. I mean, really, I think every artist I know is kind of just like, oh, God, what's happening? So to, to have a successful show right now is definitely a feather in your calf, right? So, but I, but I, I think that, you know, what came together for the, for those, for that show in particular was my communication with my audience. I didn't just appear out of nowhere, like, people who came to the show were active readers of my sub-stack, were painters and collectors who have known my work since spring break, or maybe even before, and that was 2020, um, the one, 22, like, when Will and I try to actively get into the art world, uh, right, right during COVID. So how many years is that, like, at least five years of efforts within the art world and a clear, consistent showing up and, and, uh, communication through the art, but also I, I guess this past year, since sub-stack became like a thing, I was like, jumped on because I was like, oh, I have lots of thoughts. Let's, let's play with this. I didn't think there would be a following there, but I think that, like, there was a collision of thoughts surrounding art and a cultural moment right now, where it seems that institutional strength is waning. I'm talking news broadcasting, I'm talking, like, Hollywood, I'm talking educational, uh, you know, institutions that we thought were just these impenetrable, like, pillars. There's just, like, teetering right now. I think culturally it, people are like, wait, what's, what's up? What's down? Oh my God. I thought I knew what was like, um, what, what was stable and I, I just wonder if people are like, rethinking a lot. Um, and I think painting, you know, can show decadence in society, right? And not, and so like painting in general, and I like to speak very broadly. Some people hate that, but like, I think I love it. It's modernism, it's like. if it's definitely dying or if not dead already because it's so it's so far gone. It cannot be revived. There's like no oxygen left for that. Yeah. For that thing. So like where else does the pen, what's the pendulum of swung so far? Well, where is it swing back? I think it swings back towards reclamation, reclaiming old tropes or traditions or and it doesn't have to mean that you're going to be like painting like that old stuffy painting you found in the attic that you just would never hang on your wall. That's not reclamation to me. So I think that's one of the reasons why the painting sold and that it was a successful show is because there's that collision of all these things happening. I don't know how to put this into words, but it's you sort of prophesied this. You kind of were able to walk the talk and like show up and show how this thing can be in a hopeful way, how this thing can be turned around. Yeah. Sure. And it made me really rethink a lot of what I have done in my journey. I mean, as we talked when we visited, like I'm just sort of rethinking everything. Yeah. But yeah, it's just really exciting. And I mean, I love that you're just making the right people mad and the right people glad. And everybody, it's just good stuff. I don't, to be honest, I don't know if anyone's even I haven't really been posting serious essays these days because actually I'm so worried about the next body of work that my the molecules and my brain are really fixed toward. Okay. Yeah. Let's make some better paintings. And once I get into, once I get a sense of a challenge in my mind, it's really hard for me to take time and pull away to something that I feel like it doesn't matter as much. So my next essay on sub-tech is going to be about how I can't commit to essay writing like I did a year ago because I have to think of painting. I will continue to write, but I just don't know if I'm going to have the fever pitch because I have to make paintings and they're hard. And if like if I'm not advancing, if my next batch of paintings isn't an advancement of the of the previous, then I just feel like I've failed, you know. Yeah. But I love a good fight and I love writing. I do. I love it. I ask anyone I hang out with. I just want to like I want to get into it. But for the sake of just getting into it, not for like bashing anybody, but I want to like try to understand a little bit of what's going on and like and what is good and that kind of conversation gets me really excited. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was just talking to my daughter this morning about moral relativism. She's 10 and I'm like it's so hard now to judge what's good because of moral relativism. And it's kind of like good, but it's kind of bad because you really can't say that there are principled things that we need to do and like for our, you know, principles don't matter or something anymore. And so I would think that if you have like principles for your body, let's say if you're like, you know, not in shape, not bad. I got it. I got it. Get to the gym every day at 6am. I got it. Eat my vegetables. I got it. Get my protein. You know, principles in our aren't so bad, just like principles with your physical body aren't so bad. You know, this type of thing, but it's like what kind of principles? It's really hard today for people to converse along those lines. You're getting me all worked up, Colleen. You get me all worked up. I'm tall, tongue tied. I'm like, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. Where do we begin? I mean, I'm. Where do you begin? It's really hard. Yeah. There's, it's tough because when you emerge out of that murky morass of relative, relativism, the second shooted drop after realizing that there is truth is that there is also anti-truth. If I can use that word. Yeah. And that's alarming. And it can kind of create a sense of frazzled paranoia. It did in me. Yeah. In me. But you know, it's like you just got to look. Look for the light. Look for the good messaging. Look for that kind of leadership. I think you're you're meant not to get into this too quick, but you're mentor of saying something about like there need, there needs to be lighthouses out there for artists to look. Beacons. Yeah. And especially for the young artists. Yeah. Cause you can be drawn to some really dangerous stuff. You really can. I think today is more dangerous than the past for your for the mental, like in the past, let's say 200 years ago, if you were, you know, like, curta, right, like going on the grand tour, your dangers would be physical. You can get a disease and die very quickly, right? And things could happen physically that were very dangerous for a young person. Yeah. Exploring. Now the the dangers for young people are not physical, like they were, they are mental, like young people are not sheltered enough from from the freedoms that come with, you know, that come with our society. I can't the freedoms are too numerous to say what they are, but, but let's just say with the arts, if there isn't enough restriction in the early years, to formulate an understanding of language, artistic language, I just think that people can get, because the youth is so seduced. I know I was very, you know, let's just say I could have been very much seduced into so many strange ways of thinking and thinking something's really cool when actually it's really not cool. Yeah. But because of the people around you and the voices you're hearing and the books you're reading, it's like making, making philosophies that aren't really that great. Sound really great. Yes. And then like if you just break all that down, that was what Sam was really good at doing, because he was from Ghana, Africa. He didn't have any of the like obligations of a Western mind to be, to be have allegiance to what the universities were propagating, right? Yeah, yeah. Or the elitist university mindset. He didn't even know what it was. He was like innocent in a way, right? And so his naivety, he came from Ghana with his naivety to look at Western art and be like, this is truly great art. Yeah. And he gave me that naivety. And I took it and I was like, this is, I just was sheltered from from any other forces that could have come in and, and, and spoiled that for me. And I think it was a gift and there are liabilities and that I was way sheltered. I was way too sheltered. Whatever. That's a whole another conversation. But yeah, I, I mean, I wish I had somebody, I mean, he also uses this term providence, which I think is really profound. And my providence has been my own. And it's led me here. And I'm here. So I'm grateful. I don't regret any of it. But I was led into this world being taught to be a vandal to be a, right? I remember you saying that. Yeah. And you know, it's a testament to the power of this work that by proximity or osmosis, I became fully converted, you know, full of true believer. And like, Oh, no, I'm so I feel sort of guilty in a lot of ways. But, you know, I'm here now. So that's okay. But that was also super 90s philosophy, right? Yeah. Yeah. That was the 90s vandal. Yeah. That that was the whole philosophy of the, of the, I would say, well, one part of the 90s, I don't know, but, um, I think, yeah, that came with the territory of not to not taking it, not to take it seriously. Right. Right. And also just sort of, uh, yeah, relativism being brought up in relativism and not questioning what comes through that anything is okay. Everything is okay. Nothing is right. Nothing is wrong. And that, that kind of defined my, like it felt like just drunk driving through my career. Right. To this point. Um, so just to get back to where you're at right now, like your, yeah, look, you're making paintings. So you're back in the flow. Um, trying to, yeah, trying to get, pick up the pieces again. Um, yeah. And, and, and you know, like you, I do krizai painting. You can see this is a krizai. I don't think I load up my whites like you do. I love seeing your cool strips when I was following your patreon. I was like, oh my god, these luminosity. That's how he gets his luminosity is because you're really loading up your white in the krizai. Is that right? Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maximum turning contrast up to 11 and then the effects that you can get. Christian, I mean, really? I just looked at it. I'm like, how is this even oil painting? Like how? I just is so intimidating. You have no idea. I mean, it's all the same for me. Can I ask you about one specific technical thing that I was curious. It's related to krizai, but I wonder, have you ever heard the term Verdakyo? Is that the green one? Yeah. Green underpinning? Yeah. It's using greens. And I was looking at the show, the iconophilia show. And I think there's even evidence of it in the good mud show. But I was just curious if that was something that you were consciously building into your process or something that you had researched or if it was, if it was just where you were drawing inspiration from. No, just the green palette in general. Well, I guess green anticipating flesh glazes would be how I would, yeah, originally how that was used. But sometimes you reveal it, sometimes that it looks like it's glazed and other times looks like it's left. Like that little head on the, oh, right. It's under my shoulder. Yeah. Yeah, I think the, I think that the unconscious of, I guess, the vibratory quality of the ground, the underpinning, whatever that is, and then the overpinning. So those things can change. Like if it's a cooler, if it's a cooler underpinning, the next layer would be warm. Yeah. If it's a warmer underpinning, the next layer would be cool, right? Yeah. And of course, that's all kind of relative on a scale of warm and cool. But so, I just think almost that the overpinning almost depends on the warmth or the desaturation of the underpinning. If that makes any sense, because if I do like a cool underpinning and then put a cool on top, it's going to look horrible. Right. Yeah. It's going to look dead. So like some objective truth to like the magic that happens when you do that. And it doesn't really matter. I used to have so much stress as to how cool is my underpinning or how, oh, my God, because there's a scale there. This is just wrong or white. But it's on a slightly warmer. Like when I made the ground, it's a gray ground with, with the cadmium yellow in it. Oh, interesting. So you can see there's this, even with this, it's just a dead painting, but there is this like warm underneath and then a cool on top. If you could, if you think of raw umber as cool, which compared to the blue, it's not, you see what I'm saying, this is all color real. But the next, the next painting on top is going to have to be warm on this one. Right. But I had a few green paintings, very green paintings in iconophilia that had warmer underpinnings, more purpley. And then I had to put like a vibrant green on top and that and wherever I left little pockets of the purple, that was the complementary. So I feel like I'll make a study, you know, and I'll try to get a sense of what the colors are going to be, but it really comes down to the warming cool play, like how much saturation there is with that intermixing of the three layers, the ground, the underpinning and the top layer, which sounds like very much what you do, right? Yeah, definitely. And sometimes it gets to this point where it just kind of ties my brain and knots and I sort of give up and return to a more simple approach. And I guess that would be, I would call dead coloring. So if Versailles is the most basic approach that you can kind of get there, you can get 95% of the way with just a basic Versailles. But as soon as tinting those grays with color and you start creating greenish grays or purplish grays and then just throwing the complementary subsequent glazes and you start reverse engineering every outcome that way, it's kind of insane. I mean, I think people have done that successfully, but it kind of, it's just creates a, it's hard to track and anticipate. It is, it is. So would you, excuse me? That's like where you emerged out of this last show, that's like the learning curve is in those, you know, I guess what the result is of doing of this process are these weird, unnamable colors, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Dynamically mixed grays, where you're not mixing black and white, but you're mixing yellow over purple or red or green and it, it's hard to name like what you're looking at. But somehow it's dynamic and electric. Yeah, and I think that's why I always tell students who are, you know, maybe just beginning to paint, you know, don't be afraid of neutrality and understanding. Well, through neutrality, you can understand value, which is important. And, and then, and then painting over neutrality is something that I value so much because of like that subtlety that you're talking about, that the huge extra position that's in neutrality that I think people overlook so quickly. Yes. And in color, you know, just, oh, I want to, I want to, I want it to be colorful. There's so much new nuance and value beneath color that can give it substance. Um, so, but at the same time, I do feel that, um, if I ever want a flatter picture, which sometimes I do want flatter picture, because it looks good and interior is maybe it sells better at just from a distance, it looks more post-rized. I have to, um, negate this desire to break through the picture plane, which is meaning the faceting desire. Right. Because I, I was trained that everything's faceted and turning and moving like this, right? Um, that you're breaking through a picture paint like a sculptor would chisel away, um, mass on a, on a, on a stone or whatever. Yeah. Um, and then that's important. But like, one of my biggest problems with my things that I don't like, it doesn't always happen, but sometimes it happens where I'm not flat, I'm not flat enough. Because I, I'm constantly at war between like, Picasso and Corbe, you know, I want Picasso, but I want Corbe, but I want Picasso. I want Corbe. And the Picasso says, line it out. You know, that's the curve. And then the Corbe is like, oh, but there's all this subtle like juice and stuff. And so that's probably where I'm most pushed aesthetically to different goals, you know. Yeah. My friend Noah always calls those moments in contemporary painting the apology. Yeah. You're, you're, you're sort of having to apologize for being deferent to, uh, faceted beauty. Right. You have to do something that violates it, which sort of is a, which tells the, the world that you are current, you are contemporary. It's the problem. I know. I was like, that's dang man. He, that kind of blew my mind when he told me that. I was like, oh, shit, I do that so much. Like at the moment I start taking anything too seriously or heartfelt. I got to like joke about it or like try to, you know, it's so true. You have to always be able to switch to your opposite or whatever. Right. It's kind of violent. It's the kind of aesthetic violence. For sure. For sure. I think we're all dangling between some kind of, um, chasm, you know, between the things that we love and things that we feel obligated to be. And then the natural way that we are to a more sophisticated self that maybe we're like challenged by or something. Yeah, or afraid to wear unapologetically. I mean, I feel like I'm at that. That crossroads myself, but the danger is then becoming sort of like stuffy and self-important, which, you know, he see how you see where that goes to. I don't know. Yeah. I wanted to, I wrote something down that really, uh, I thought was exciting about like this was one of your earlier posts, which I'm basically just like, like on your sub stack. Just my sub stack is just reposting your sub stack. But you wrote something. Thank you so much. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, it's just awesome. And I don't even really typically go for that kind of thing. I'm just like more an image-based person, but your writing's great. And - You wrote like, scenes have to come back. This was that, my fantasy is that a scene would arise of a low budget art education served up lofty pedagogy, not in a not institutionalized space, which you had me all the way. That's definitely what I'm trying to do. But then you're like, but it has to be in an urban environment, and I was like, damn it. - Oh no. - Well, I guess Santa Cruz is right here. - It really, it really doesn't, but I guess the concentration of people, I kept thinking in scenes is usually in an urban environment but that doesn't mean I can't be anywhere else other than an urban, of course. - Yeah. - There are scenes, I mean, there are scenes anywhere. But I just feel like with Instagram, with social media, and then institutional education, those two things have taken the air out of people getting together physically. Like, okay, so in institutions they get together physically. You have to pay a lot of money to get in those rooms. - Yeah. - And I just think when I look back, well, I wasn't there, I mean, I was, I'm a product of the '80s, but I wasn't, you know, I didn't see Julian Schnabel, Andy Warhol, and Basquiat, and everything was going on in New York. That was a scene, that was a physical thing that was going on. Like, I just don't think that that's a thing anymore. And universities are where people are learning how to, I guess, be part of something, but there's a huge price tag there. So I don't know, I'm just like, what's the solution here? Like, how do people get? Okay, so the bent, talk to me about the bent. Is this a scene? - Yeah, I mean, this is the bent, or this is the bent right here. I mean, this image here epitomizes it to me. And you nailed it. I mean, it's basically, it's not an atelier, it's not a school, it's a club. So I really feel like that term club is the main thing because it's super cheap, it's a egalitarian, and it's very practical. Like, it's entry, like, it's very accessible, but aims are extremely lofty. - I love that dichotomy. - Exactly. - That's so great. And I mean, that's, that's what I'm proposing is like, get 90% of the way there towards mastery for $20 a month, and sort of like being both irreverent towards the institutions that gate keep this stuff and reverent to the tradition, that everything you need is offered up to you right then and there, and that I'm not like the only owner of this. I'm basically presenting a boiled down version of what I use serially. And I mean, I'm painting still life, which is not my, that's not my thing, I had to learn this to teach it, but more just like, I'm grafting a branch onto this tree that's been hacked apart in hopes that I can create a sort of critical mass around it to generate innovation quickly, like quickly, so that hopefully people will emerge out of this to lead me out of my state of stockness. So, and it seems like you're kind of doing that too. I mean, I would say that you're your sub-stack and Patreon and presence generally. I mean, we don't have to need to talk about the apps because you're putting your heart and soul out there in a lot of different ways, all creating one effect. And it's drawing people to you. So that is the scene. And maybe, I mean, that's, I'm really excited to just see where this all goes. - Me too, yeah, I am too. And I'm a little perplexed 'cause like, I don't really know who all these people are 'cause I'm not interfacing with them the way that you are. I, like, and also, people read, I can look at the stats on a post and be like, oh, $3,500, $3,500 people read this essay but I have no idea who these people are. - Mm-hmm. - Like, and I, that's interesting because it means that things are, you know, like, you're throwing things out into the world and you don't know how it's gonna affect those people and how it's gonna come back. But, and that's social media, basically. But I don't have a relationship. I'm still here alone in my studio. I mean, I have the Grand Central Atelier, which is the school that I'm the director of drawing there and I know those students very well and it's one of the reasons why I love traditional educations 'cause I can see how these students, and physically, you know, weekend, week out, how they can improve so much in a short period of time by focusing on traditional techniques. But that's just a small, like, our school is like 60 students, you know? - Yeah. - It's a tiny ol' school. - 60. - I mean, if it's just full-time, like the full-time program would be roughly 60, something like that, even less maybe, but all the part-time program would be more than that. But like the core, there's only like 20 students that incoming every year. - Yeah. - So you've got like 20 intimate IRL relationships and thousands of parasocial relationships. - Yeah, and I don't know if these parasocials like me? Oh no. - You don't know them, so how do you know the effect you're having on them? - Yeah, they all could be hated. - Or if they're just sort of reading you 'cause they hate you. (laughing) - They could be hate reading, which is fine, whatever. - The effect is still real. I mean, you're gonna be winning hearts and minds. I'm certain of it. - Yeah, but I might be winning like certain hearts and minds and then, you know, this Warner, I wanna be in David's Warner one day. If it's even fucking around in whatever vlog it takes for me to get to that place. But this Warner curator who said, who's just calling Barry? Oh, I like her art. Oh my God, she's so good. Wow, oh no, she has a self-tech. Oh, fuck, she's just conservative. Whatever they said. So I'm gaining, who knows who from God knows where? And then I'm losing the one person on the top that could be my bestie. You know, so this is part of me. Some people think I'm crazy to have this voice, these opinions on self-tech 'cause it's supposed to be anonymous, it's modern age painting. But if you dig, of course, it's me, you know, people will see. But I don't even know if people care. I just don't know. To be honest, I don't know. And I hate being repressed and oppressed by some ghost idea that like someone's gonna hate me out there. I'd rather get the juices flowing and have a conversation. I find that's so much more fascinating than hiding away and being like, oh, someone's gonna hate me if I say, speak my mind, that's so cowardly. Yeah. And people are like that. They're just like, I'm like that. I mean, by contrast, I'm like, I'm such a fucking coward, man. And it's just like, it's very exciting. And like I said, you are the leader of this thing. If we could say it, it's a movement. I know you don't have time to write a. - Yeah, is it a movement? Who knows? - It could be, it could be a movement. It could be. - A thousand percent. I mean, that's. - Because. - Yeah. - Again, I'm gonna go back to your guy here. But he's like, what did he say? The future belongs to the prepared or something like that? - Yeah. - I mean, here we are. Yeah, the future awaits the prepared. He's like, dang. Because everybody walks and stuff. Everybody, like, who is going to Yale? Like, honestly, who in the world looks at that in 2026 and says, that's where I want to be to nurture my creative spirit? - Yeah. - I find that perplexing. Like, how is that? - I know. - That can't be. Unless you understand it for what it is, which is that this is your quick way into the collusive art valuation cycle. - Yeah. - That's what that is. And I'm not even hating on it. If you wanna get in there and make some big money and be vacuous so that you can be filled with meaning and value, like, that's a great path. Great path. - Yeah. - I don't see Gen Z or Gen Alpha putting that as-- - Airing that much. - No. Like, things are different. And that's exciting. - Yeah. And the art world is changing. - Yeah, and what, yeah, I don't even know. I pretty much just sort of given up. and I just. Like I need to feed my family. I don't have a, I'm not independently wealthy, so I do concern myself with like, oh gosh I'm gonna have to sell paintings Somehow I can't be like run out of town. So it I can't like just not care completely I do need to operate in the marketplace, but yeah, of course. I just I Just have to be careful not to go so far that I start to low then Yeah, yeah, for sure So I'm not there yet because I feel excited about what is coming from these neglected areas of the art world Yeah, I'm I think we try go ahead. No, I was gonna say loathing our You know that negatron person in the room that you can just tell hates Haves the like the top or the successful or whatever Like it's such a downer like so I I Don't I would hope that no one ever thinks I'm a hater For for critiquing the culture And maybe they do but But I I feel that I don't hate The the system So much as It's I know it's fragile and could change right and that you know You think things are fixed it for in a certain you think things are fixed and but they're actually not they're very malleable Mm-hmm malleable or whatever so and and so I artists have to be I think ready for the fact that you know The culture could tip in your favor Indeed just because you are like I would judge myself as being I didn't go to you You know, I didn't get indoctrinated into a lot of theory and post you know Marxist whatever Whatever co-filled Marxism. I don't even know what to call it But you know whatever's happening now with just like a kind of free-for-all I just think who knows what how long that can stand and that things might Tit a different way. I'm I'm always thinking that like something's gonna change just around the bend You Yeah, and I you know lead with love. That's it And have I have a vital like added I think vitality on the part of artists really important that were that were um Revital and Full of life and full of Excitement for what we're doing That takes a belief in what you're doing. Yeah, anyway, so we have to focus on that and it's contagious, you know It is I just wish I could see more of this the leadership qualities that I see in you and the vision that you have I wish I could see more of that reflected in the art profession the non-artist component of this world we operate in because It really I find it really Discouraging to be to feel so differently Then the people who kind of run the show, you know, like I it's all kind of about power and partying and I just like I just don't feel any connection to that like I don't I've really frustrated to not be able to have the conversations that I want to have about spirituality and Like beauty and and like real stuff like I just don't Hear those conversations like even people that even with the people that I have worked within the past They don't want to talk about that part of it. They just want to talk about money and like gossip and Like who's doing what and I just like for a long time I could kind of stomach it But I just really kind of bones me out. So yeah, that is so much of that world Yeah, there's so much of that in that in that market sphere I purchased Izzy Woods diary. She's she purchase okay. She she publishes her like diary Okay, which is so strange because I feel like isn't that personal? It's very personal stuff and Like will and I were reading it in his studio the other day You know, this is Izzy would the the painter right the London based paint painter. Do you know her work? I actually only after heard you guys talking about her. I kind of looked it up But I didn't really was not she's a market darling. She's doing very well with anyway So but but when I read her diary like page after page after page of it was just All the luxuries of an elitist life But she's like one of the most superficial from what I could read in her diary. I was like this person is The most superficial person I have ever like it's it's almost a parody like Zoolander Remember Zoolander the parody of the supermodel. She is like the parody of that that really snobby Like only child And I was like she's perfect for the market. No wonder she's killing it in the market. She is like born to be in Balthazar's talking about their caviar and then the drugs and the sex and then the The you know flying first class from London to New York and the All that superficial like that baggage or whatever Some people are just like made to live that life and have There aren't intermingle into that Well, yeah, it's it's It's almost like the rage bait. You just have the the theme of the day is just blocking out the rage bait I feel like even Yeah, we're just being drowned in it Yeah, oh my gosh, and this like that goes back to this really brilliant idea you had about the New iconoclasm, which is not a direct acute attack on images as it was in the first, but an inundation of slot and I just think that was such a brilliant Summary of what the total effort is now is it's not a cute attack, but a general drowning out of the good And that's kind of what we're up against so oh Yeah, and now with AI here I mean, it's gonna make the slot even more tangible because You know everyone is using AI images for their businesses now and But but it's like detect that you can detect it it looks terribly you can just tell it's the it's well There's a there's an AI witch hunt going on right now with tons of companies now like Claude You know has this invisible like watermark. That's on anything AI generated. Oh Chatting cheese probably gonna do that too a sub stack now has the visit pen gram or whatever that app is that like tells you I mean how much is AI written and how much is human written? Anyway, you know, there's kind of like an AI witch hunt happening now and All the images that are gonna be coming out like all the slop is going to be the it's gonna counter out how it is gonna be in a form of Iconic Lasm in the next couple years people are gonna be so imaged out They're gonna be disgusted Yeah, so I don't know where what that means for painters, but It's I think discernment is the word discernment and connoisseurship will take on a new Gravity it really well and Just like in the set these when the organic foods Movement was sort of laughed at and is now kind of standard. I think the same process will will kind of run through cultural products, you know like Verification certain some sort of certification if not just discernment like Rejection of anything tainted with eye, but maybe more than that a The value of of the soul will be Paramount and how do you how do you discern its presence in an artwork or in a person or in a group? That's gonna be everything and maybe that is the the silver lining to all this. I think I ultimately I'm an optimist and I think that's what Will emerge because that'll be the only thing of value to anybody any more Like right in the Rosalie's picture of the outcomes of what this what our future will look like That's all that's gonna be left, you know if there's no work anymore and we have no All of our needs are taking care of by robots and AI what will be left for us? I mean, that's that's in the best case scenario, but I mean it really is like It feels like it's going to put the art world through chemotherapy Yeah, everything that it it's going to come close to death and will be reborn again Yeah No, but it's true. I I 100% agree. I mean, we we don't know what the future holds, but But value systems will be tested Yeah Well, so they'll just connect one really quickly. I know we don't want to run out of time before I Talk about your mentor and this beautiful interview you had Which I was so grateful to have read this morning before the Yeah, Sam Ado K. Ado K. Ado K. Ado K. Ado K. You can say Ado K or Ado K. Ado K. Ado K. Sam Ado K, Ado K. I actually don't know exact. I'm not French. So Right. Maybe I don't even know the way. I think it's Ado K. Ado K. Okay, I mean just a beautiful Story, I mean, I just that you got so lucky to have come run into somebody like that in your early 20s to give you this like really solid wisdom. I mean, I was actually 14 14 yeah, that's awesome I met him from a high school boyfriend That see am I and I was 14 I was in ninth grade and my boyfriend at the time was like you have to meet my stepdad It wasn't his real dad. It was his stepdad um, and I said sure okay, and he was like he's a painter and he's really amazing and um, and so um And so I I met him at dinner at my boyfriend's house Or apartment in Manhattan and Sam said can I paint you would you post for me because he worked from life and stuff And so I posed for him when I was 14 and I got to sit in his studio every Saturday morning and Um, and watch this artist's life and I got really I got I entered into a sphere Of the artist studio, which I'd never really been an artist studio um, and he'd be listening to his music He'd like to Ali Farge Tore and like a Tinari one and you know like I just remember and but he was very like um, you representational painting, you know, he's trying to make great my likeness Um, and I was just like oh my god. This is so different and I was pretty much sold I said oh, I guess because I'd been painting and drawing for years um But not Traditionally, I was just painting from photos in my bedroom, you know And I just said oh this could work the artist's life. It wasn't Even a big revelation. I just said oh, I could be an artist and um, I just followed him Um throughout my whole high school years I've studied with him on the night nights and weekends after high school I would go to the national academy, which was just across central park Who's called the national academy design and I would paint with him Because school would let off at like, you know, 245, 3 o'clock and then I would paint from four to six With Sam from the live model and then I would go home From six till whenever to do my homework and stuff um, but I did that all throughout high school And then I in my early 20s as well like once high school was done I decided to really just stick it out and really try to understand painting just from one one hand one voice And um Those that were very formative years that really like anchored me With one one voice one singular voice some people would think I'm crazy to do that But I thought it was it was a really profound experience and it helped that my boyfriend at the time who I was dating for a very long time Uh was connected to him so it was like more family And I was having family troubles So I was very connected to Sam and my boyfriend's mother at the time so it was like it was almost like family Yeah Like you know in the old days you You'd learn from the local your dad or you'd learn from the local person is like very close to home The trade was handed down. Yeah, not that Sam was my dad, but he was like a father figure. Yeah Well, and it's like his message is so contrary and contrasting to what you would have absorbed Oh sure what singular individual like that Um, and here you are yeah that extremely strong internal locus of control, which is rare You know everybody surrenders that first thing upon arrival at their indoctrination camp You know, it's like that's the first thing that goes and you've made it Through And now everyone else who you mentor gets to benefit from that Um, yeah, I think people yeah I wanted to read one of the quotes which was yeah your question was What advice would you give a young artist just coming out of school trying to establish themselves Stay stay committed to the path and not give up or how do you think artists should study If they truly want to grow and Sam says And bringing our dreams to life our mind heart head body and soul must come together and work towards serving our life's mission It is this understanding that should convince every serious artist to seek knowledge insight and an understanding of both craft and spirituality So as to avoid unnecessary setbacks and hardships It is spirituality that helps us understand what the heavens need from us And guides us toward what the future requires I mean Yeah, that's where that voice Where do you hear that voice? nowhere Gives me goosebumps man. I'm just literally nowhere nowhere nowhere nowhere nowhere nowhere nowhere nowhere that's that's where nowhere that's because it I mean if you're lucky you'll find someone that speaks to you like that but um no It's because you know he he is a deeply rooted spiritual person and he Has always been but I think that um You know that type of moral compass just doesn't really mentor mixed with art education generally Mm-hmm So somehow education is just like very dry But when you when it's a humanistic drop Yeah But when human is broken down when humanism is broken down then you break the bonds between two people three people a family And the institutions have broadened the message over the span of how many faculty members how many people do you hear The diversity of messaging that um that that you know the breaking down of the human Connection is when you sever You know one person to the next And you and that relationship is is solid and then you go to the next person. That's mentorship. I thought That's I think an older model of education that that seems to not really exist now Yeah, I mean it's it's it seems more uh Like it should exist within the family, but that's less and less likely Yeah, um, I mean expecting that from art faculty is a lot But it's not only not present, but it's actually the messaging is antagonistic it's Antithetical to holding that spiritual center as your Where all everything comes from it's it's like Yeah, it it doesn't just seem not available. It seems like what is presented is The antithesis is antagonistic to that view Right You know, I wish to be honest the only thing I Wish I had done differently was that I could have experienced at least one year In one of these institutions like I got accepted to Pratt in 1999 Um, I could have gone there. I had a little scholarship I could have gone. I didn't but I wish in hindsight that I had gone at least one year So I could say this is what I experienced within Those walls because it might what I've gathered in terms of the experience of the university is only from other people I can't say I've ever ever ever been exposed so I hope that if I'm going to critique myself, I'll say I hope I'm not vilifying something that maybe isn't as bad because I've never been in those rooms But you see the fruits Oh, I see the fruits for sure and and nihilism I don't know if nihilism's dying because I actually it's hard to pinpoint that but I think nihilism is what was sold And what was offered and everyone just accepted it and maybe that's what one of the reasons why art fell so far as it has. But it could, you know, I don't know if that's over yet. We'll see. It's hard to say. It's hard to say something's over. I mean, we went through the identity politics period, which was like COVID to maybe last year. I think identity politics is pretty much done. I could be wrong, but what's forward thinking? What's happening? What's going to happen next? Exciting. I think that I keep saying I keep saying it's a trick. It's going to be tread like paradigm. Definitely. I think it's also like a resurgent new ageism, which is going to be pretty wild. Yeah. Because that's its own sort of scary outcomes. But yeah, well, so how are you? I mean, what do you think about mentorship? Because that's what I'm thinking about a lot is like how I can share a method. I've got this method down. I can teach people how to use this very specific Grasai method. That's like practically speaking. I have that locked in and I can teach anybody in a very short amount of time. Outside of that, I'm thinking more about what about mentorship? Because I don't know if I have a lot like a really. I don't feel solid in my own standing to tell people how to be or what to be. Yeah, that's actually a really good question. And I wonder that too because I have a guilty conscience. If I had a young person come to me and be like, "Okay, Colleen, tell me what to do." I would know that I have limitations and that I. Do I trust myself to really teach somebody the way? And I know and I deeply know that. If the young person wants to get into the elitist oasis that is the art world, connections are paramount, and that's a God that you serve. So I'd have to make it very clear that, listen, whoever you are, you're going to learn the technique from me. But once it's time for you to decide what you're going to do with this, that's a whole nother ballgame and you better find somebody to get you connected if you're not already connected through your parents. Because we're living in the age of Nepo babies too. Well, we've always lived in the age. The most so many successful artists have always been Nepo babies. Yeah, yeah. That's not new. Right? I don't think that's new. It's not always that way, but of course you're going to get handed privilege if you're from a privilege. William has a sort of idea of what you're going to have to. That is your God, you will worship. The question is what you're going to have to sacrifice. What are you willing to put a place in? That's a hard conversation. Because, okay, Christian, if you had a conversation with me 10 years ago, I was a totally different person. Yeah, me too. Well, I was younger, but when I was in my early 30s, I was having my first child and I was cut off from the world. I had only just started Instagram. I was so severed from the world, I really had no idea what was going on because I had really shut the world out. I was not interested in having a conversation with the world out there. I had, I really didn't want to be influenced by anything. So, I was going through a serious period of isolation. But I was living in New York. Weird. I just felt like I was in between worlds. And then I realized when my baby was born, that "Magod, Colleen, you are never going to make money as an artist if you do not start to open up your realms to people and relationships." And I was so scared to do that. Listen, I went to private, the latest high school in Manhattan and I knew a lot of people who were in our world already at a young age. But I knew them well enough that I could have really pushed for my own movements into the market. But I was so insecure and I was so deathly scared that I didn't know how to paint and I didn't know what my voice was, that I just shut that whole world out. And I said, "I'm not going to use my connections to get me into the art world." Even though I knew I had them. And I just got more and more isolated and just isolating into traditional techniques. Like I was drawing and I was like, "We want to roam." And I was like, "I just got lost." Anyway, when it was time to wake up and start to really open up, I had to really, like you said, I had to sacrifice certain parts of myself and serve other parts. Oh, it was a huge shift. Anyway, so at moments we do have to say, "Okay, my old, I've shed my skin and now I'm going to start." I hate to say worship, but sometimes when you really have to go somewhere else, you have to make a new God. You have to switch from the old God to the new God and say, "I'm going this way." And I have to, that's, there's my new altar and then, anyway. So, yeah. Okay. Well, so what would you tell? Alright, so I don't know if this is going to be, this will probably be public eventually, but my main goal is for my bent community who are largely outsiders, like people who are working a full-time job who aren't doing the traditional route but who want to become painters and are interested. And like, what would you tell those people who are just like creating a little studio in the corner of a bedroom or a kitchen and are sort of looking at this pathway as a possibility? What would you, from a mentor's perspective? What would our fearless leader, Colleen Barry, say? Oh, my God. Well, okay. Well, I would say, first of all, is like a default or not a default, but the artist will always default back to being isolated because that's how you make your art. So, isolation isn't necessarily bad thing because you have to paint an isolation, you know? Painting's not a communal thing. Mm-hmm. Right. So, painting by its nature and learning it is an isolating art. But you can't be so isolated that you don't know what's going on around you in the culture. Maybe for a period you can't. Yeah. When you're learning your techniques, you can be as isolated as you want. You could pretend you're living in 1750 or whatever. Or farther back, whatever. But you can get lost in history for a period. But once you emerge out of that, you can't be an ostrich that it's head in the sand. You have to wake up. Oh, okay. What do I want? What are my priorities in terms of finances, right? You have to know what you want in terms of where you're going to steer your boat in what direction. Okay, I'm going this way. I want to have this is my goal. You have to write it down. And as you emerge out of isolation, you have to start to think about where you're going to start building connections with marketplace. Whether it's workshop market, selling painting market, doing stage backdrop market. I don't know what people do to make money as artists today, but you know, it's so important to have community. So I would say isolation on one side, community on the other and some community members offer market connections. And you're like, oh, but I don't know anyone. I don't know any dealers. Oh, my God. Well, you're going to have to start walking up a hill and take a long time to strive. I remember making lists, writing lists of people in New York. I just put all their names down and you just start checking names off after emails and texts and going to the gallery and high shaking hands and cross that person off the list. And then and then there's art fairs like the spring break art show. That's a big one. So no one's going to want to contact anybody on a list of news. names if they feel their art is total dog shit. So you do have to feel a little bit of confidence in what you're doing as a picture maker before you start making phone calls, right? So I would say have a few pieces ready so that you have something to show in case when you call one of these people on the list or you go to an art opening and you want to meet somebody, a dealer or something, you have a few works that are ready to be shown. That makes sense? Yeah, yeah, that's bold. It makes me sort of sweat just even thinking about it. Well, I had a very, very important dealer come by. And I had no art to show him. It was the stupidest thing I ever did. Yeah, he never came back. He never came back. I've fumbled a few, yeah, yeah. So have lists of names. And do the spring break art show in New York if you want to break into the New York art world? I don't know. There's other art realms like Southern Southwest art. Oh, yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot of money out west. Yeah, yeah, I mean, who knows after the sort of like critical-- or I guess at some point, we're going to be-- we're going to reach the trough in the bottom of the wave of gallery closures and we'll be in this sort of upswing. So maybe it'll be worth sort of doing a reassessment at that point. But seems to me and tell me if you agree. Now is the time to be isolated. Now is not the time to be seeking out dealers as they-- No, because they're not going to want to talk to you because they're at full capacity. They're in contraction mode. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now is not a time to expand. Now is the time to punk or down and make beef stew. And don't buy groceries outside your house, you know? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, because even if you were-- even if your pictures were ready and they're hot to sell, I don't think that a dealer would even take you on right now because maybe someone out West, not New York, but I don't know. Yeah. Well-- I could be wrong. I could be wrong. That's good stuff. I mean, painting first isolation and then emerge strong. That would be-- I think that's the way. I think it is. I think that we're going to have periods of expansion and contraction and learning your language. Painting is just a language. And you have to learn it the best that you can. And experiment, of course. Like if someone's going to emerge and they paint just like you, Christian van min and 2.0, they're going to have to do a little experimenting to figure out how they are unique. No, I don't think so. I think my gallery should pick you up right away from my experience. Really? OK, cut that out. You're going to have to edit that out. Exactly. Well-- And it's hard to know what will sell. It's also hard to know what will sell in the marketplace. So you might as well just do your own thing because you can't predict those things all the time. Exactly. That's kind of-- You really can't. That's where it's boiling down to. For me, too, it's just like, wait. This has got to have intrinsic value or nothing. So-- Oh, can I say one thing, Christian? Just because I'm telling myself this these days-- and I will tell other people this too-- make it easy for people to like your pictures. The pictures can be even grotesque. And they can-- or they can be sad, or they can be scary. But if there's an ease to like it, even within those contradictions, you're going to sell pictures. And do you think that has a lot to do with the way the person presents those works or something contained entirely within the picture? I think it's contained inside the picture. Like I think Matisse, many Picasso's late 19th century, early 20th century painting. They knew how to make just pleasing pictures, like even Van Gogh. I mean, I know he never sold anything in his lifetime because he didn't have the right connections. But like, it's easy to love the work. And like, sometimes we feel as artists, I know I did for a while that the painting has to be difficult. Right. But I think we're going into a place in the future where we're a pleasure, pleasure for beauty, and pleasure for color. Like, pleasure is the new place to exist as an artist. You can just make like a beautiful picture and a pleasurable painting. And it still can have funny and quirky. It doesn't have to be like following rules all the time. But I think that's one advice I would say that I'm trying to-- - I love that so much. - Don't live by. - Yeah, be generous. - Yeah. - You can feel generosity and painting. You can feel-- - Yeah. - Yeah, I love-- - And charm. Simple charm. I feel like in the 19th century, Bonaired, Booliard, Renoir, Dega, Manet, all these guys. I just feel like they just knew that you can make a simple beautiful picture, and that was not a big deal. Just like a simple, beautiful picture. - Like a stroll park. - Right. - Like a stroll in the park. - I know. I just feel like, but it can be moody. It can be like even a little scary. But I just think if it has enough charm, your work has charm. - Aw, thanks. - No, it really does. Like even if it's a scary head or whatever, but there's like the way you're painting it, the how you're composing it is like, it's enjoyable. So I think that you can't forget that we're here to also-- - Yeah. Well, good riddance to that old paradigm, man. Good riddance to that, where what you receive is some ascorbic meanness. Good riddance to that. - Exactly, that-- - Thank you so much. - Thank you so much, Christian. - I just feel like so full and excited, you know, like that's a beautiful thing, really. - I'm just happy to reciprocate 'cause you came on our podcast and it was amazing and so many people got to hear your voice and I understand who you are. You are always so enigmatic. I could never know who you were for so long. And a lot of artists are like that on social media, where you just see the painting, you have no idea who's behind the painting. - Yeah, people are usually disappointed. They're like, oh, you're not covered in face tattoos and mean, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm just like a Midwest guy. - No, you're perfect. - All right, well, thank you, Colleen. - You're welcome. - Yeah. - See you on your welds of the internet and hopefully in New York before too long. - Yeah, let me know when I'll help promote this on my end. - All right, bye. - Okay, all right, see you, bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]