We recently connected with Eva Nicolait and have shared our conversation below.

Eva, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

The kind of risk I’m addressing here is the objective in a work. The process of painting is interesting to me because there is risk involved from the first contact to the last. The beginning, for me, is never anywhere near how it ends, and, along the way I encounter cool ideas, the safety of the past, supportable but unexciting solutions, and then, in dismissing all these, the unknown. Having a brush, or whatever, and skills in hand on one’s way to wherever can feel like the edge of a precipice where one can retreat to the safety of past gestures, ideas, or take those things we’ve already done and extend them to somewhere new, or somewhere completely different. The resolution is the point at which intellectual and aesthetic curiosity is satisfied.

Eva, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I began, in my teens, with drawing and had a thrill that I hadn’t experienced before. I had been taking photographs and was already in love with composition, but this new hand-to-paper experience opened up a potential that had only ever existed in other people. From there I got some skills together, but was producing careful, representational work that, after some years, left me unexcited and wondering what the point was for me. I had good hand-eye coordination but so what. After a break from painting for some years, I began again with a WTF attitude that enabled me to paint as if there was no consequence, and, of course, there wasn’t, and still isn’t. It’s an exploration of imagination and ability that includes formal ideas, new ideas, crazy ideas, that always takes one somewhere, and that’s always a welcome opportunity.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal with painting is to produce work that is interesting to me as well as other people. In addition, I have always set gallery representation as a goal, and I realize that may not happen. The inevitable ebb and flow of confidence, which is a phenomenon that exists in all of us, can be heightened when you are working alone and lack commercial validation. But an artist should eventually realize that validation of a commercial nature may not occur. The work itself will have to be sufficiently satisfying to overcome that lack. For me, it is.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

For me, the lesson in developing as a painter is to disregard any goal of an end-product, or of success, however one sees that. When I address a canvas, or anything to make a mark on, I have learned to let go of any projection. I trust that I can let my hands do what they will, that they are connected to my abilities, my mind, and my heart. I’ve learned not to confine my movements and impulses towards my work that, at the very worst, won’t work out, but then I’ll just take whatever mess I’ve made and make something of that. Projection is very inhibiting for me. It confines my trajectory of movement, of thinking and feeling. That relates to my work in that when I was starting I wanted things to look like THE thing, not just like anything. When I arrived at the point of skills where I could accomplish that, I became bored. I have a camera. I can take photos of THE thing. I can also manipulate the photo to enhance certain aspects I find visually interesting. However, when I paint I start from scratch, make that first mark, let it all go and see happens. There are moments of elation and frustration, problems to ponder and solve, and that is the biggest thrill.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.evanicolait.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evanicolait/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eva.nicolait
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eva-nicolait-a6270546/

Image Credits
Eva Nicolait