Inside the Artist's Studio: Kristof Wickman in Bushwick
by Benjamin SuttonPage 3 of 3
You work predominantly with resin, often transforming an object from its original material into resin; is there a particular attribute that attracts you to that material?
I use this aqua-resin that's supposedly non-toxic, so I can do it in my studio, and it's really malleable. And I have a way of working with it where it's totally liquid at first then it starts to harden up. At first it's pourable and towards the end it's carvable; very similar to plaster. I don't only use resin; a couple of ceramic pieces are being glazed right now by a friend of mine for the show, so it won't be a resin overload, I hope.
You often combine cast resin copies of objects with other objects in their original material state; what dictates which items you maintain and which ones you make copies of? Is that strictly an intuitive process?
Yeah, I think so. If I want to transform something then the way the casting works for me is that I can basically add stuff to something or take something away from it and reinforce it, make it into a slightly different thing. But sometimes an object is exactly the way I want it, so I decide not to cast it. I just try to figure out if it needs to be transformed anymore to be effective, and if it doesn't then I leave it.
Resin has that weird way of making every object seem quintessential, like this is THE stool and this is THE pumpkin.
I think that comes from the color, the bone white color, which I'm trying to get away from. Color's been a tricky thing for me lately. This is one I've just painted. I have a set of tables that are in the show, and this is one of the table-top objects. This is all resin. In this case I'm trying to get away from that obvious "this is resin" sort of look.
The Brooklyn Museum often lets artists incorporate pieces from their collection, or install some pieces in their period rooms; are you planning anything like that?
I know they've done that in the past, which was sort of why I didn't want to touch it because it's been done a lot better by other artists. They had this mezzanine space open for the first slot and it's a beautiful gallery and I felt it was just too good to pass up and they wanted to fill it, so we both agreed on it. They were really open to me doing stuff in the arcade, in the lobby and things like that, but it ended up being way too much to handle with an 1,800 square foot gallery plus more. Ideally I would have wanted more time, but you never know if you would end up procrastinating just as much and giving yourself ten weeks in the end if you had twenty.
(Photos: Emmanuel Cruz)
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