Giselle Torres: When did you first find yourself immensely impacted by a work of art or possibly one that inspired you to start your own practice?

Tatiana Sky: That’s a great question. It is hard to think back to a single work of art that had a big impact on me. I was fortunate to grow up with a lot of art; my mom is an artist. A lot of people in my family were artists. On my mom’s side, my grandmother and grandfather were painters, and my great-grandfather was an illustrator. So, I always just had a lot of art around growing up. It’s hard to think of a specific piece of art, but I was always influenced by things my mom did. She is a sculptor, too. I was always close to people making things, which was really nice.

GT: That is so fascinating! What kinds of themes and subject matter did they tend to focus on?

TS: Everyone was very different. The only members of that part of my family that I ever met were my mom and my grandma. I never met my grandfather or great-grandparents on my Mom’s side, but my grandma was a classic watercolor painter, landscape painter, and still life painter. She was very serious about her practice and had a little studio in her home. My mom is a ceramicist and a painter and did other mixed-media sculpture things.

GT: Nice, so when did you decide that art was a path you wanted to similarly follow?

TS: It is hard to remember. It was something that I was just always doing and always enjoyed doing and I was lucky that my mom was so supportive and really encouraged me to follow that interest.

GT: You were like, ‘yeah, this makes sense.’

TS: Yeah! It just felt very natural.

GT: Were you always making sculptures?

TS: I was lucky to get to try a bunch of things and experiment a lot. In college, I was interested in performance art and installation-y stuff. I do really like making three-dimensional things because I am interested in how things can take up space in a room and have their own autonomy, this presence or weightiness to them. I think that is what keeps me coming back to sculpture; it has this quality that other things don’t have for me.

GT: I definitely know what you mean. Even as I first walked into your studio, there was a sculpture on the ground facing me, and I felt a bit confronted or acknowledged in a way by your art, which was fun to experience.

TS: Yeah! I like to think that the sculptures can almost speak for themselves, take up their own space, or insert themselves into the conversation or something when you look at them. It's not that they're alive, but I do feel they have lives of their own outside of me after I make them or something.

GT: Oh, I love that! What type of environment do you typically need to have in order to create if any? Are there any rituals you find yourself coming back to as of late?

TS: A lot of the time it is a mindset thing I have to get into. There are certain things in my environment that will help me get into a better mindset. Usually, I have to start with a pretty blank slate. I used to work with music or podcasts, but lately I have been working in silence [Laughs]. This is not a requirement, but it is really nice when you can get into a flow state. It feels so different from anything that I do in my life so being in that state of mind is so precious. In terms of the environment and how I want the studio to feel, I want to feel comfortable when I'm making things. It is nice to give yourself a lot of time wherever you are, even if you're just looking at stuff, because that can become a big part of making, too, just hanging out with the things you are looking at.

GT: Oh yeah, totally. The more you think about something, the more realizations you may come to find about it.

TS: Yes, definitely!

GT: How would you go about describing your work to someone who has never seen it before?

TS: The texture in my pieces is really important to me. I have been really into these rocky, rough surfaces in a lot of my pieces. Even if the shape or form is softer or delicate, like a drooping flower, all the pieces have this rough textural part. I have also been thinking a lot about fossils, rocks, and these forgotten lost artifacts. I like thinking of the work in that way where it could have been dug up from somewhere or pulled out of a swamp where it has been for a hundred years or something [Laughs]. Or that it could be this relic or thing that belongs to this other world.


GT: Okay, cool I can definitely see that. How does that tie into the choices you make around color? You use a lot of silver. I've noticed some neons. I noticed a black sculpture here in the studio. What drives you to use a particular color to the extent I have seen you do so in the past? Do these choices intentionally correlate with tying into the goals of creating work from a different world or time?

TS: I find that I tend to work in a series a lot of the time. I will get really obsessed with a certain color, and all the sculptures will become that one color but all the work is related when it is all of that color group. In my mind I feel like they are all from that world, like the silver world or the neon yellow world. When I was working with it initially, the neon yellow color felt like the most plastic or unnatural color. It was this polluted, acidy green, almost like a cartoon poison green, this toxic caution color. Often, the color is instinctual, and then parts of it make sense after the fact. This most recent piece that I am working on, which is this black color, is a new thing that feels exciting to me. I don't fully know what it's doing yet, but it feels charred or ashy to me almost like when things turn into rock over time.

GT: You have a unique approach to choosing recognizable items from our world, whether that be a single shoe or a bobby pin with an evident past, from the wear and age you constructed.

TS: Yeah, I am really interested in all these little remnants of things people will leave behind and the life and story they could have held, with a bobby pin left behind or a shoe that you might see on the side of the road. I feel like focusing on these little fragmented objects or artifacts left behind gives off this ghostly absence of a human presence in the work. Overall, I am trying to understand this complex, weird relationship people have with their environment. Whether that be through the objects they leave behind or the ways they want to change or manipulate their environment, decorate it, control it, or distort it. So I am focusing on how, through those processes, things get left over time; they get transformed, changed, and often harmed or polluted. It is kind of just trying to understand that weird, murky place between people affecting their environment.

GT: Through your work, do you express or reflect how you would desire the world to be in any way?

TS: I don’t think that my work is trying to express how I want the world to be. I do feel that making art is an act of striving toward something hopeful but I think I am cautious about making anything overly utopian. I don’t want the work to be an escape from the reality of the world we live in. I want it to be more of a reflection or closely tied to the experience of living on a dying planet. I don’t see it as necessarily taking a stance on how the world should be or offering a simple solution; it’s more about just processing it.

GT: Yeah, and what is so nice about your work is that every person who interacts with it will have a different interpretation or takeaway based on their preconceived notion of a particular item you're representing or themes at play, and as a result, they can have their takeaways regarding the world around them.

TS: Yeah, I’m really interested in the dissolving line between natural and unnatural environments, but it is really hard to feel like the work takes up those issues directly. Usually, to think about our shifting relationship to our planet, I implement a lens of fantasy as a framing device to reimagine alternative ways of relating to nature. Like you said, I am working with things that are more like symbols than direct materials.

GT: How interesting! I would like you to delve into a piece, in particular, titled Stray Pathways, which is at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park. How would you say your work speaks to the environment or functions of that environment?

TS: The pieces I made for Sweet Pass were also part of a residency program they were hosting for temporary public art installations. So, Sweet Pass works by inviting artists to make site-responsive commissions around a theme. The theme of the exhibition I was a part of had the theme of concrete. So me and the other artists in the exhibition Ariel Wood, Dalia Sanabria and Valentia Jager were making work that had to do with that material.

The amazing thing about Sweet Pass is that the co-directors, Tamara Johnson and Trey Burns, provided this whole academic curriculum about concrete.They gave us this amazing orientation to West Dallas, where the park was located, and some of the histories of that particular place and then we learned about concrete from all these different angles. The way they built their program to me was inspiring and exciting because they encouraged knowing things about the park and the materials you’re working with and the place you’re in as a starting point to coming up with the idea for the work. I made two pieces for that show which were a bridge and a fountain. I’m not sure how much detail you want me to go into about it [Laughs].

GT: Oh, please go into as much detail as you’d like! It seems like they really wanted you to facilitate a relationship with the environment and I’d love to hear more.

TS: [Laughs] So, I made this bridge-like form pointing toward this other small fountain. They were meant to create this imaginary pathway between them that now would have been overgrown. The fountain was miniature because when I thought about making something for the park, the bridge felt more like this grandiose thing for the people; it was at a human scale. But the fountain was supposed to be a water source for birds, bugs, and these other tiny frogs I had seen in the park when I was visiting. That is why it was more tucked back into the bushes and was harder to see immediately.

GT: It is nice that you're making art spaces for the tiny creatures in that ecosystem by making it less accessible to humans.

TS: Yeah, even the head of the flowers is fully drooping down so that you can't really see it. But the unexpected thing that was magical to me that I didn’t anticipate was there were all these little kids at the opening who were interacting with it because it was their height which was so cute. They loved playing with the water coming out of it.

GT: That’s awesome! Who are some of your inspirations? You said your family influenced you a lot growing up, but at this moment, who and or what is inspiring you?

TS: Rebecca Warren is one of my favorite artists; I love her work. I also really love Lynda Benglis and Mika Rottenberg.

GT: What about their work has drawn you to them?

TS: To me, they just have this in the way they work with materials, which has always just felt really inspiring and made me want to make things.

GT: Are they using materials that are more daring, per se, and that is how you see their confidence shine through?

TS: There is just something about the way that it is applied in the piece. To me they make these decisions that feel so bold and I will always be trying to learn how to make work like them.

GT: I feel like your work is very confident and bold as well.

TS: Thanks, it is hard to know how it feels or it is hard to always feel that way.

GT: No, yeah, that’s understandable. Have you faced any challenges when trying to develop your voice or visual language of your art?

TS: I feel every time I make something, it's a challenge [Laughs]. I never felt like making an art piece was easy. I feel like every time it is a lot of trial and error, figuring it out as I go. I think that is part of what I like about art and part of what makes it so hard. Sometimes you get into a good flow, and things come together, and other times, it is really horrible [Laughs]. When I was in school, I made a lot of pieces out of cast metal because we had the facilities. I was very into alchemy, and the whole process of doing foundry felt so magical and ritualistic. It really felt like this cauldron of liquid magic that you would pour and make into things. I'm not making cast metal work as much anymore.

I think the thing with making work out of metal is that it is so tied to industry and production, and it has such a heavy material history. Right now, working with other lighter materials feels good and most natural to me. I have been getting into paper pulp, mixing a bit of paper pulp and cement, and trying to experiment with other lightweight sculpture materials. That is kind of where things have evolved towards.

GT: When I think about your work, I see the silver, and it rings this connection to metal for me. So it is cool that you are making those nods to the metal industry and its connotations, but you do it in a way that feels so light and gentle.

TS: Yeah, it's like the metallic part has stayed with the work. What's cool about the metallic part is that, to me, the silver is almost like a mirror reflecting whatever is around it. I like that aspect, too, because it brings the environment into it a little bit.

GT: That's so true because no matter where you put it, it'll pick up different things from its ever-changing environment. You had a show at LVL3, an art gallery in Wicker Park, Chicago. What was the curation process for getting that show ready, and where was your head at bringing it to life regarding the collaboration of ideas with the folks over there and the intended tone for the show? Also, if you have any advice for those looking to get a show in a similar place or have a similar goal in mind, that's welcome, too.

TS: The show at LVL 3 was so fun. The way LVL3 is run is such a cool model because a lot of artists come in to volunteer and run the space, usually for different stints of time. So, they had two curators there at the time, Ellie Schrader and Lily Szymanski and they put me in that group with Micheal Assiff and Sidney Mullis. They had the idea to bring the three of us together. I loved being in that group; they're both awesome artists. The curators were also super generous in saying, "Bring whatever you're working on," and gave us a lot of creative control in that sense, but I can't really take credit for the show because it was sort of their creation and concept.

But the work I made at the time for the show developed because I had been hoarding this treasure chest of these cast aluminum pieces that I found at a thrift store. I think they all come together to make some garden gate or sign or fence or something. I could never puzzle piece them together, but I always knew I wanted to make stuff with them. I had been so afraid to do it for so long that I had been moving around with this heavy box of them forever. And I finally took a chance and tried incorporating them into some pieces. We can look at them if you want.

GT: Yes, let’s look at them!

TS: Yeah, okay. So, they’re all painted silver, so it looks very homogenous and same-same. I have this little guy one; these three were included in the show.

GT: Woah! Yes, I remember seeing pictures of these!

TS: [Tatiana proceeds to point to different spots on the sculpture and details their origins] So, you can see the pieces of metal from the gate, and this was a cast metal piece I made, and then there is a fired ceramic form inside of here. And I connected everything with cement and painted it.

GT: It all makes great sense together as I stare at it. You mentioned earlier that you find yourself looking to the past, or this idea of the relic was something you've been thinking about, so I see some of that popping up here. Would you say so?

TS: I think so in a lot of ways. I can imagine that these are broken pieces of this garden architecture, and they've gotten stratified in the ground and become this other fossilized thing. But it also felt like a love spell to me or something.

GT:What about this work reminds you of a love spell?

TS: I think the loose heart shapes. I titled this one, Mandragora, which is a little cheesy but it just felt right to me. That’s a kind of nightshade plant, better known as a mandrake. The mandrake got its name because its root structure kind of looked like a person to some people and I feel like this sculpture kind of has two legs or roots in a similar way. The mandragora is poisonous and hallucinogenic but it was believed to be an aphrodisiac so people used it in love spells.

And looking at this sculpture, to me, it feels like maybe a poisonous vine wrapping around a gate, or some kind of lumpy, bodily fruit or tree that has grown and merged with a gate overtime making them inseparable. Painting them all one color unifies them more and turns them into a weird hybrid thing and I like to think of it as one thing instead of a combination of parts.

GT: Oh my, I love that so much! What about this one here, can you talk a bit about it?

TS: Thanks! I made it this year. It’s mainly ceramic, and then it's connected with cement at these joints just because I had to make it in pieces to fit it in the kiln. And that is actually part of how working with concrete came about because I needed a way to connect things, or I had scraps of sculptures around that I wanted to try to combine with other things. This piece was also made of a bunch of different materials, like ceramics and concrete chunks from the road or other parts of a broken plaster sculpture that were put together. Making that piece felt exciting, and I wanted to keep recombining things.

GT: I love that it looks like a dust layer is on the sculpture. Almost as if you brought your finger across it, it would come off onto them. I am interested in your approach to figuration. Some of your works take on a human-like form, but you uniquely go about them. Is figuration something that you think about a lot?

TS: I think with the figurative elements, I usually try to process an emotion when I’m making something or evoking an emotion. Sometimes, the most legible way to do that is with something figurative, bodily, or kind of viscerally weird. So I’d say that is what brings me to figuration.

GT: Your ‘Remote Desire’ series, has many references to the human form, do you mind delving into your inspiration for those works?

TS: Yeah, this one here is one of the most figurative of my works, and I still don’t know how I feel about it. I really have never made anything like this piece. I knew when I was making it that I wanted to make another pair of high heels, and it grew from that base and took on that shape. It was for a show with my partner, Daniel Champion.

He deals a lot with figures and portraiture in his work, and I think when I was making it, I was thinking about our show and I was sort of trying to find a place where we would overlap a bit. It feels different from other things I’ve made, but the theme of that show was very romantic. Taylor Payton, the curator of Sulk Gallery wanted to have a duo show with an artist couple, so it made sense to me to make work that was kind of like meeting in the middle and emphasizing where we mesh.

GT: I really like how the more I look at this work, the more I discover something new. I really appreciate the places of protrusion, like the ribcage. Typically, we consider that a spot where the bone and flesh pop out; here, they are caving in.

TS: Yeah, I think my experience of having a body is so uncomfortable and awkward that the sculptures end up feeling that way, too, or are trying to show that too. I am interested in awkwardness and trying to make work that is kind of uncomfortable.

GT: Yeah, it’s like the sculpture is saying, “Yeah, I feel awkward, but I still got my heels on, and my hair looks good. I’m going out!” [Both laugh]. How has the world around you informed the way you work? We touched on this a bit earlier ago, but if you could go into more depth, that would be great!

TS: Yeah, I find that the desire to separate humans from nature and see ourselves as not part of the ‘natural’ world is really weird. Living in a city has been interesting because so many of our touch stones with plants or the outdoors are these fabricated simulations of ‘nature’ like a man-made pond or a park. I am really interested in the craftsmanship in that. I have also worked in the floral design industry for a while, which has influenced the way I think about beauty and aesthetics in nature.

There is this really high standard that we hold flowers to. Our roses have become this highly engineered, genetically modified thing that has a super straight stem and is supposed to last for 10 days in a vase. We’ve altered the way it smells and looks to make it more commercially viable. Everything about it has been tailored to the consumer's desire of what a rose should be and of course this has devastating environmental repercussions. 

I think about things like that a lot when making work because separating humans and the things we make from nature has always been a false distinction anyway but it is becoming harder and harder to do so. So, the sculptures come from that confusion and blurriness between places.

Also, I just learned a new word I'm obsessed with: technofossils. It describes all of the stuff that is going to be on the planet in hundreds and millions of years and like an archeologist you can tell time from those layers of technofossils in a landfill. Like in the 80s, you can see this layer of floppy discs and other obsolete technology from that era. Since most of my materials are not biodegradable they are kind of technofossils too but they will probably be less interesting for the aliens to learn from when we’re all extinct.

GT: Yeah, it’s so interesting. This idea of being so in touch with nature but yet the nature we are experiencing is curated, and with the layers of garbage under our feet from the 80s, can really make you think and mourn and consider that heaviness at large.

TS: And also this sense of having control over something simple like your lawn and maintaining that, you know. I’m interested in this obsession with reorganizing nature for all these various needs that we feel we have and can take priority when it comes to other life forms.

GT: What kind of responses or reactions to your work have made you feel happy or inspired?

TS: My favorite thing has been seeing how kids react to the pieces because I honestly feel like kids get it on a certain level that I don’t even get. My dream project is to one day make a playground. It's fun to think that there is one audience for art-viewing adult people, but I also want to think about the plant, animal, and little kid audiences.

GT: Yes, I see how you've been working towards that in the work! Typically, we end our interviews on a sentimental and hopeful note: "What is something you are looking forward to?"

TS: I’m looking forward to making more art and learning more things about the world around me, spending time with my friends and celebrating 6 years with my boyfriend, Daniel.

GT: Lovely! It has been a pleasure chatting with you and learning more about your practice. Thank you!

TS: Yes, same here. Thank you so much!