INTERVIEW | June 2020

Dramatic skies, earth pigments, scorpions and Giotto’s frescoes.

Visiting Emily Platzer in her temporary studio in a remote farm in Southeastern France.

A few days after the closing of Emily Platzer’s solo show I keep the whole of you in the edges of my eyes, the world went into lockdown. Luckily, Emily and her partner were able to escape to the countryside, swapping their central Paris apartment for a remote farm in Rosans, a small community in the Hautes-Alpes region of Southeastern France.

We talk to Emily about what living in the countryside has been like, how the lockdown has impacted her practice and how she treated this time as a self set up artist residency. We take a virtual tour of the outbuilding she has been using as a studio and discover her process and the inspiration behind her new work. Finally, we find out all about her new studio mate.

Where did the lockdown find you?

I have spent the last two and a half months of confinement in the countryside of France. I have been living in Paris for almost a year now, and we were fortunate to be able to move from our studio apartment to the countryside and isolate ourselves in a remote farm in Rosans, in the Hautes-Alpes region of Southern France. I have never lived in the countryside for an extended period and it has been quite an experience for me.

La Grand Coste has belonged to my partner’s family for many generations. We are situated in a valley, surrounded by the Alps and at the source of a river. As you can imagine, the geology here is very diverse, and this is particularly interesting for me as I am always keen to explore local sediments and minerals. There is marl here, which I use to make grey earth pigment, crystals and fossils which poke out of the ground like sparkling jewels.

There are many animals here too, a family of wild boar, deer, foxes, frogs and cats, but also bats, scorpions and snakes…There are even wolves here, high in the mountains!

My favourite moment of the day is ‘entre chien et loup’; the moment between day and night when the animals come to visit us.

Have you been able to establish a temporary practice in Rosans? How has it taken shape, and where do you work from?

La Grand Coste has been a working farm until recent years and there are many barns and curious spaces to explore on the compound. I have made a temporary studio in an outbuilding, originally used for drying walnuts.

In the past, when I have made work as a visitor in other contexts, I have installed the resulting paintings in the surrounding landscape. In this instance, however, perhaps because the landscape itself is so dominant, I have found myself more concerned with occupying my space.

I began with what is the most natural starting point for me: putting colours up next to each other using long torn strips of canvas. This process allows me to think about colour, and test the opacity and variable qualities of pigments. The process also helps me to arrive at and unravel my thoughts in a new space, similar to a drawing practice.

Naturally and slowly, these test strips grew into a tableau installation against the back wall of the studio – a wall with two doors that open to a series of storage rooms and a large barn. 

Behind these doors there are vast collections of cobwebbed and dust-covered agricultural equipment and memorabilia. It smells very old here, and there are bats and scorpions.  It took me a while not to feel afraid of these dark places that are scattered around the farm.

I have come to think of covering these doors with canvas as a means of protecting and carving out my own space within this expansive environment.

What do you see when you look out from your studio windows?

I can see the mountains from the studio windows, and I get to work in natural light. This is a big change from my studio in central Paris: a basement without any windows at all.

The sky here is enormous. It changes dramatically each day… it can be stormy one day, heavy, dark and low, and bright, still and pink the next. The stars and planets are incredibly visible by night with virtually no light pollution.

Do you feel there is a natural continuity in your current work or has the appearance of the pandemic and its effect on our daily lives shifted your practice?

I recognise I am in quite a fortunate situation, but despite that, I remember initial feelings of displacement and anxiety surrounding the emergence of the pandemic.

I had to take a pause before collecting the energy and motivation to set up a temporary studio space here. Overall, I have benefited from more studio time and fewer distractions; the current circumstances have allowed me to work at a slower pace and eventually on a larger scale than would have been possible for me in Paris right now.

I have lived in Paris for almost a year now and the experience of this very strange time has strengthened my resolve to remain in France.

Where have you been drawing inspiration from for your most recent work?

During my time here at La Grand Coste I have been very conscious of and reflecting on a project that had to be postponed. I was due to participate in a month-long residency at Palazzo Monti this coming July. The current lockdown situation, but most importantly the tremendous and horrendous effects of Covid-19 in the Lombardy region in Italy has forced us all to pause our plans there.

Nevertheless, my proposed project for the residency involved travelling to nearby Monte Baldo to collect green earth. The so-called Verona green was a pigment commonly used in the verdaccio process (or underpainting) of renaissance fresco painting. I wished also to visit the Giotto frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua and through this research to introduce buon fresco techniques into my practice; using the drying time of the plaster to determine the length of a painting cycle.

So here, in these unexpected circumstances, I have time travelled to the Scrovegni Chapel via Google Images… Initially, I made a series of 13 small distemper paintings on paper, musing on the figures and narratives of Giotto’s frescoes.

Eventually, I translated these forms to a much larger scale. The two large paintings that have resulted are reminiscent of the scale of fresco painting, and aim to explore more narratively my experiences of shamanic journeying. The concept of travelling to the upper or lower world as a means of healing and questioning feels even more valuable at this time, when for most of the world travel is restricted. Perhaps it is comforting to know that these worlds are available to us regardless.

What else fills your lockdown days?

I have been listening to the radio a lot, and podcasts.

In particular, the podcast Chats with Artists in Lockdown by Emma Cousins and Late Junction on BBC radio 3. Their Venezuelan Music Special which aired on 20th March is very interesting, as it explores electro-shamanism with the composer Miguel Noya.

I have made a few new friends here during this time, including my semi-adopted farm cat (‘mon chat’) who likes to sleep in the studio. I will miss her when I return to Paris.

I think I will miss many things.

I have been a grateful visitor here.

EMILY PLATZER

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EMILY PLATZER

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