The Mystery and Theatre of Queer Abstraction: An Interview with David Willburn
FLXST Contemporary’s gallery director Jan Christian Bernabe sat down with the Fort Worth-based artist David Willburn to talk about his recent solo show Stories about Monuments and Landscapes. The show ran from July 10 to August 22, 2021. In it, Willburn showcased a suite of new abstract paintings that offered viewers a reconsideration of abstract paintings as representational work and not simply reduced to their formal qualities. More specifically, Willburn’s work captures abstraction as a queer language of representation, based on his lived experiences as a gay person navigating the constraints of heteronormativity and homophobia inside the heartlands of Texas and what he views as the damaged world in which we all live.
Jan Christian Bernabe: The title of the show is Stories About Monuments and Landscapes. Can you elaborate on how you came up with the title? I ask because, in 2020, many monuments and the landscapes they occupied were sites of protests and the focus of many debates, particularly about Confederate monuments. Those debates surrounding monuments were just one part of a very fraught 2020. I’m sure 2020 had an impact on you and the creation of the work in the show. Is that a fair assessment?
David Willburn: I think of my work as narratives, despite my use of abstraction. Maybe I’m considering the process of making it a big part of its storytelling. I’m always thinking about landscape. Growing up in the plains of Texas instilled a keen interest in the connections between earth and sky and how those connections are interrupted or marked. That’s what I’m doing in my work: marking and interrupting what I think of as “landscapes.” And you’re right to bring up the conversations about monuments in 2020. I think those discussions played an important role in my thinking about how we mark sites of significance. Once someone decides to create a monument for something or someone, it becomes automatically problematic in that it serves as a permanent marker for that thing, event, or person. The monument forever claims its subject as the site for a particular idea. I think I’m playing with that notion in my work, suggesting new ways of memorializing territory.
When we first discussed exhibiting your work, I latched onto the idea of what “queer monuments” might look like or how they might function? When I saw your work, I realized that abstraction could help viewers find their way to less oppressive and more inclusive places. You work primarily in abstraction. Is there a reason why you do? Does it help you achieve a particular goal?
For about 12 years after grad school, I worked in a very representational way, making embroidered drawings of domestic sites and scenes from around my own home. The jolt of the 2016 presidential election caused a shift in my thinking about materials and processes, inspiring work that was less specific to my environment and more open. Abstraction can be very liberating in some ways. It allows viewers more space to enter into a conversation with the work by giving them more questions to ask and more ideas to consider.
Your Monument Head paintings have no references, are composed abstractly, and stand counter to the very definition or image of conventional monuments. First, why do you call them “Monument Heads” — what do they commemorate (we generally think of monuments as ways to commemorate a person or an event)? And why do you resort to abstraction and the media that you use to make the series?
I think of these works as proposals for a new kind of monument. I imagine monuments representing universal humanity rather than a specific white guy known for winning a battle. Sure, there should probably be monuments to great people somewhere, but what if we occasionally encounter these great “Go Humans!” types of structures?
There is a prevailing argument in art historical criticism that abstraction removes any signs of identity from work compared to figurative or realist work. Therefore any discussion of abstract work is reduced to the works’ formal qualities. As someone who is primarily an abstract artist, what do you think of that argument? Can we speak about, for example, queer identity when viewing your work?
I get the challenges that I face in claiming queer identity through abstraction. The work represents my queerness through my sensibilities and my use of color, materials, and other formal considerations. Unlike pure non-representational art, the work I make often references things that I’d like to see or experience in the world. Landscapes, monuments, oceans, islands are all part of my thinking as I construct my paintings and mixed-media collages. In my mind, these are not abstract. They are representations of places that I need to exist in the world.
In your biography for New American Paintings, which featured your work recently, the last sentence stopped me in my tracks. You write, “The world is difficult to explain through realism.” Can you explain what you mean and the paradox in your statement? It seems like clarity to explain the world would be more difficult through abstraction.
Not to diminish the seriousness of things through humor, but the world is a hot mess right now. That is, it’s a beautiful place, but we’ve done more to fuck it up than we’ve done to acknowledge and correct our mistakes. Maybe I can find imagery to reference the myriad problems I see, but each issue is so multifarious that abstraction becomes my safer choice. And these abstractions often represent an escape from the dumpster fire(s).
The trope of “the origin story” is another aspect found in your solo show. It made me wonder about what queer origin stories look like and how your work represents them? Are these origin stories specific to you, or can we extend them more broadly to the experiences of a broader queer community?
At the heart of my studio practice is a dedication to fantasy. I imagine this is maybe a universal sensibility found throughout the queer cosmos. Fantasy has always allowed me to escape various small and large traumas, so it makes sense that it also allows me to invent my (and our) own stories—beginning with the beginnings. I like to imagine where we might have come from and what it might have looked like as it happened. Like many great religious stories, I want “Queerness” to have its way of thinking about what binds queer people together. That we just came from generations of non-queer parents, and that’s how we all got here is so boring. We deserve more mystery and theatre.
What might we expect to see from you after this successful show? Can you give us a glimpse of things inspiring your practice or new work in your pipeline?
I’m continuing my stories about invented origins and mythologies. I’m very interested in making coded abstractions that reference landscape and travel, and maybe exploration is a better word for it. I’m reading about pagan spirituality, trying to find openings within my work for land and sea-based practices to appear. These ideas are in their infancy, and they are very much a continuation of where I have already been. Plus, my paintings are getting larger, giving me more room to work and find things.
DAVID WILLBURN
Since earning his MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, David Willburn’s work has been shown at venues including Dallas Contemporary (Dallas, Texas), San Diego Art Institute (San Diego, CA), University of Art and Design (Helsinki, Finland) Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY), Galleri Urbane (Dallas, Texas), and Carneal Simmons Contemporary Art (Dallas, Texas). His studio practice is supplemented by employment as art faculty in the School of Creative Arts, Entertainment, and Design at Dallas College (Dallas, Texas). He lives and works in Fort Stockton, Texas.
FLXST CONTEMPORARY is a contemporary fine arts and photography gallery and an arts incubator in Chicago. It showcases highly evocative and uncompromising artwork by emerging and mid-career artists, and it supports the creation and exhibition of new artwork across visual mediums. FLXST Contemporary works with and represents mainly diasporic, immigrant artists, LGBTQ-identified artists, and BIPOC artists based in Chicago and in other parts of the country.
Please email info@flxst.co for inquiries about David Willburn’s artwork.
