Seth Bauserman’s Exuberant Art Examines Childlike Mark-Making
Whenever I think of childlike marks and squiggly gestures, I invariably think of that funny clip of Joe Rogan dissing Cy Twombly. His dismissal is something along the lines of: It’s a fucking splatter! I could do that.
Personally, I’m drawn to paintings deemed ‘childlike’ or ‘naive’ or ‘crude’. Whether it’s Twombly or Robert Nava, there’s something about that freshness of line, the looseness, the uncontrolled gesture that gets me excited to make work. I respond to that art because it feels alive, untamed and in the moment. For me, overly considered lines and marks sometimes feel a bit stiff, forced, and at worst, dead.
This week I’ve been thinking a lot about childlike marks in relation to the work of Seth Bauserman. Based in Richmond, Virginia, Seth makes paintings - or drawings, as he thinks of them - that are imbued with the vibrancy of a child’s frenzied doodles. And yet, he tells me he isn’t simply trying to tap into a childlike creativity, as many artists claim to do. Seth has a much more personal, introspective relationship with his mark-making.
I spoke to Seth via Skype (yes I’m old school) and we compared adhesives. I wanted to ask him how he responds to the perennial “my kid could do that” statement, partly because when I have those conversations with people - which can be funny and amusing - I still struggle to find the words that articulate why I love the art.
Hey Seth. So you just had a show in Charlottesville at Quirk Gallery?
Yes, it’s a beautiful gallery and I’m thankful for the opportunity.
Can you tell me about this most recent series?
This series is the result of becoming a dad, trying to understand my children and myself, as I relate to them. My work in the studio has always been my time for self consideration and my world these past few years has completely revolved around my two kids under the age of four.
When this all began one was two and the other was days old. I approached my eldest daughter drawing on the sidewalk, it was just these scribbly lines, a bunch of different colours, nothing representational. I asked her what she was drawing. She didn’t look up at me. She kept on drawing and she said, ‘I'm drawing whatever I want. Everything. I'm drawing everything.’
It’s hard to understand what I was feeling when I heard her say that, but it was something like conviction or envy. Whatever it was I set out to explore it and that became this series. I borrowed / stole my two-year-old daughter’s drawings (she’s now four) and tried to understand the intention she brought to the art she was making.
Did you plan to scale up your daughter’s drawings?
At first it was pure curiosity with exploring the subject matter and intent. The marks, the colors, the energy. But eventually, yes. When considering the presentation, scale became an interesting part of the process. From her drawings I started pulling compositions and figures, which I would iterate until I was doing it from memory. From there I would play with that form in a new plane, which for many of these works was on a large scale panel, or fabricated oversized sketchbook paper.
The last few pieces I’ve made have these same images taken from my daughter’s drawings, but they're really abstracted and obscured. It's not so much about her work. It's more that there was this image; this childlike image at some point, but time has obstructed and suppressed it, and it's covered and it's become something else.
I wondered if you saw it as a way of tapping into a child’s creativity?
Since showing this work people have said to me, “you can create like a child”, “you can tap into those things”, but that was never what I was after. There was a hope that some of it could rub off - and it has - but it seemed like more of a byproduct. I didn't want to try to regain or re-engage with that innocence. I wanted to explore the space between us, and show that I’m unable to create the work that she is able to create because of what I've learned and experienced. For me it’s less “kids are amazing” and more “what happened to me?”
It's a bit of a celebration of who she is and where she is. But it's also an acknowledgement of who I am and where I am now, and how those things shifted over time, and how I weigh my full awareness of the world against the purity and innocence that I see in my daughter.
Where does the ‘Care Less’ title of your show come from?
It's pulled from a line in a TS Eliot poem I read a long time ago, and have kept with me ever since. ‘Teach us when to care and when not to care’. Something about learning not to care registered deeply with me, and I knew it was aspirational. Something ahead of me. I saw my daughter doing that on the sidewalk that day and realized that was the part I was resonating so much with. There's a real enviable simplicity to how she engages with our world.
There’s a funny clip of Joe Rogan dissing Cy Twombly, saying something like his kid could draw better than Twombly. What do you say in response to the classic ‘My kid could do that’ criticism?
I never thought I would hear Joe Rogan and Cy Twombly’s names in the same sentence.
When I’ve had casual conversations with people in the past who would ask what kind of art I make I’d say: it’s the stuff you point to in the museum and say, ‘my kid could do that’. It’s probably a coping mechanism for avoiding unwanted comments and questions, but it is something I have no issue associating with.
At the end of the day, what I’m most engaged with is mark-making. I find that marks are most appealing to me when there’s something unconsidered or unconscious about them, and I think children do that. I think that’s why I’m so drawn to my daughter’s work; I find it to be a very honest expression of who she is.
How do you balance art with your job? And tell me what you do.
I’m the general manager of a coffee roasting company, and I’ve been doing that for 15 years. I do that three days a week, two days in the studio, and I sprinkle in some construction work when needed. For me, in order to make the work I wanted to make I had to somehow find a way to keep it preserved from needing to make money, and so having a job has been good for me. I think the balance still isn’t quite there, but I am also not sure that I will ever find it.
Follow Seth on Instagram: @seth_bauserman
Things on Our Radar This Week
The group show ‘Buffer 3’ featuring emerging artists at Guts Gallery (opens 6 August)
A video interview with Oscar Murillo ahead of his big Tate show
Speaking of which, David Zwirner announced a survey of new paintings by Murillo at their London gallery
Should artists be exploiting AI’s capabilities? The creators of a new Tate show say it’s “not a new existential threat for creativity”
Sune Christiansen has some works on at Alzueta Gallery Barcelona Turó
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
Oliver & Kezia xx
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