Interview with Will Yackulic

I look at Will's work and see the beauty of taking your time and the importance of giving great value to all that you do or create. Sometimes with an artists work, you need to read about how it was created and where the idea originated. While I do find history and technique strikingly significant those aspects only made Will's work better for me. When I look at his work, I'm captivated, not after reading about it but before I even get to that point. For me, it's a soul connection. Good art pushes me over and leaves nothing but my soul.

Enjoy!






Your work engages in a visual and intellectual conversation. What is your relationship with science?

Well, for one, my brother is a scientist. Which may or may not indicate a predisposition to scientific methodology. You know I used to make work that lacked a sort of "structured" approach, and for awhile that was great but eventually I found that I repeated myself.


I've been working with different sorts of structured approaches (I had a show last year at Jeff Bailey Gallery titled "Focused Aggregate Intensity", this is a rough umbrella term for what I've been up to for the past five years or so), and I've found that I surprise myself despite what someone might describe as "restrictions". So things have reversed, which doesn't mean they won't change again.





Living in New York... What is your favorite lunch spot? Place to go relax outdoors? Place to meet friends for a drink? Venue for music?

I love the food at Souen, but sometimes the service is dreadful. I'm not very good at relaxing outdoors, if I'm outdoors there's usually an activity involved. Is that still relaxing? Daddy's, by default (it's down the block). The music is good there but sometimes the dj's get a little too excited about what they're doing and then it gets way loud, particularly later.


If I'm meeting my friends I want to talk to them, you know? I've seen the greatest shows mostly at unsanctioned spots, rooftops etc., otherwise I've seen good shows at Silent Barn and Market Hotel. Truthfully, I don't go to shows that much, anymore.





The geodesic domes remind me of souls or human cores. What do the spheres represent to you? Why that shape as the central object in your art?

I call them "outposts", but they don't signify anything specifically. They are contradictory, though, and that is psychologically significant. Triangles in a sphere shape is contradictory, and I find that mysterious. A lot of these choices, though, are intuitive.


I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what to do, I just do them and they evolve. Spheres, dot patterns, waves, triangles, grids are all different "phosphene" phenomena that appear in all different cultures' art, particularly what people call "primitive" art. There are some obvious symbolic reasons some of these tropes exist, but I feel I get more out of my time by painting more and not going down the theory wormhole.





Why did you start using typewriters in your art? Have you messed around with other technical devices? (photoshop ?)

I was typing text on drawings, and all of a sudden I realised that I could do a lot more with it. I like the tactile aspect of it. People have said it reminds them of textiles, weavings, etc. I like the process. I've messed around with some other techinical devices, particularly letter-press. I used pinking shears for awhile. Friends of mine make fantastic work that uses photoshop somewhere along the way in the process, I just never have. My work would be different, though.





How would you begin your ideal day?

If I get up at a reasonable time, have energy to work, and my back doesn't bother me, then I've begun an ideal day. This day happens frequently enough that I feel lucky. I had one today, in fact.





Other talk online about Will.
Tumblr
Artforum.
Jeff Bailey Gallery