1) Could you introduce yourself? Where are you from, and where did you study art? When did you first see yourself as an artist?
Hello my name is Zoe Toscano. I am from Modesto, California and I just finished my Masters of Fine Arts at School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, New York. I first saw myself as an artist from a very young age, starting around 9-10. I was drawing as early as I can remember, and my parents were super supportive of my interests. I took art classes, where I would create ornate patterns on graph paper and build houses out of construction paper.
2) Why are you a figurative painter? And why do you paint mainly women?
I’ve been mulling this question over for a while now. As a young adult, ideas would come and go naturally and I never really questioned why. I took my practice more seriously when I had the opportunity to run an all female-owned art gallery in my hometown. During that time period, I was learning a lot about how I wanted to portray myself, how I wanted to navigate the world as a woman, what I could give of myself, and what I needed from the people around me. Because I grew up without many women to look up to, the relationships with the women around me became my inspiration and focal point, but also a great source of vulnerability and sometimes even anxiety. Because I see my painting practice as a time for self-reflection, those who I have intimate relationships with became the subject matter I felt the need to portray, along with my own body.
3) Are human sexuality, beauty of the body, and vulnerability important to you? Why are they important, and what is the unspoken thing (or message) that you deeply seek to express of humans and, in particular, women, through your work?
Sexuality, beauty of the body, and vulnerability are all very important to me. All of these aspects–and more of course–create the human experience. I think, most importantly, they are means of expression, as art is itself, so they need to be protected, celebrated, and memorialized. It has never been lost upon me how lucky I am to live in a community where I possess bodily autonomy and have a safe space to create art freely. My work reflects and celebrates this, and, in turn, I aim to create a cycle for others to be seen and, in turn, for the viewer to see me.
4) What is kitsch in the contemporary era (as opposed to the modernist idea of kitsch as discussed by the art critic Clement Greenberg)? Does your work play with the idea of kitsch? Can you elevate the appearance of kitsch into a meaningful expression? Is alchemic transformation possible, in your opinion, turning pornography into art and kitsch style and subject matter into a philosophical inquiry?
Oh, I love this question! I wouldn’t necessarily align my paintings within the realm of kitsch–I feel like my work is nestled very comfortably next to it. My life as a whole, I would consider kitsch. I feel like “kitsch” may be so hard for me to define because I function so concretely within the boundaries of its definitions: I am a woman who loves to craft; I teach art classes to kids right now; I love a cozy aesthetic in my home; I love beautifully ugly objects; I make jewelry; I love making homemade gifts for my friends. I would snort glitter up my nose if it wasn’t dangerous. I mean, if this is my everyday life, how can it not find its way into my practice? I don’t always have an answer for that.
I remember reading Clements Greenberg's essays in college and feeling so punished by it. Not because the work I was making then or that my ideas were kitsch–at least I didn’t feel that way–but because who I am is something to be considered unserious. Greensburg’s definition of kitsch and avant-garde seems so clinical to me. This is important for the sake of academic and philosophical thought, of course, but I was exposed to these ideas as a young adult when I was first formulating the definitions of myself. The aspect of being labeled “kitsch” kind of feels like those rat traps that are made from buckets of olive oil with a piece of cheese in the middle: it's so easy to slide into, there's a delicious reward in the center but there’s no way of getting out of it except for an external human force that lifts you out and washes you clean.
There is no need to elevate kitsch into meaningful expression for it is a means of meaningful expression. My grandmother made clothes and blankets for her children. I would never accuse her craftsmanship of not having meaningful expression because her work was used to clothe her children or to keep them warm. Those objects are priceless to me and my family. How can they not be considered avant-garde? They are works of art. If you take away classism, elitism and economics differences from kitsch and avant-garde I think they would boil down to the same artistic concepts.
If I’ve learned anything from living in New York and seeing what is considered high art in the best art scene in the world without a doubt alchemic transformation is possible within the context of porn to art and kitsch to philosophical inquiry. I think it's equally possible to turn both of those subjects into “fine art” and “bad art.” Western society is so saturated with the nude female form, especially art depicting the nude female form made by men. Subjugation, cultism and assigning value to objects are the backbone of the art market but artists suffer from those consequences as well as profit from them. When it comes to the artistic practice, or at least to mine, I don’t see value in putting limitation on activities/products that are a part of humanity ie. crafts and porn.
5) How does color contribute to your execution of the poetic visions and visual metaphors in your paintings? What does color have that words or forms do not have?
Color holds such intentional meaning. The meaning of colors came to me before the understanding of words. While an individual word can hold several meanings, a single color can hold infinite meanings. Color is formulaic and philosophical. Quite simply for me color is everything.
6) Do your figurative paintings operate or manifest at the level of the flesh, desire, and the ego (meaning that a continuous and direct rendition of the flesh is important, as well as the desire relating to the flesh, and the ego driving the desire)? Or are you able to distort the figure in a more abstract manner (as in figurative abstraction), but you choose not to pursue that style for conceptual reasons? What would you gain and lose by pursuing a more aggressive abstraction of the figure?
I find the body to be a canvas itself. When I paint figures, I don’t really see them as figures. I approach them as I would an abstract painting, you can see this if you view my work by compartmentalizing the figure. Up close, my work is loose and painterly. I use unexpected color to describe the figure and I embrace the behavior of painting such as leaving drips of paint exposed. But yes, the rendition of flesh is also important to me. For me, the mind is the signifier of individuality, but the flesh is our symbol of our commonality. Our flesh is a vehicle for expression, but as a woman, my flesh also dictates how I am treated. By my peers, my government, my community, my society. Deep down that is what my art is about and that is why I alway come back to the female form. If I pursued more aggressive abstraction in my figuration I would gain poetry and levity. The figures become more symbolic to their stylization and palette. I think the biggest loss is small intentional details. If I want a piece to be a very specific highly-detailed, predetermined image, I find it difficult to use abstraction to relay that idea. But I believe there is a time and place for both, I don’t want to be held to a specific range of realism or abstraction in my work, I want to be able to explore styles and themes.
7) Figurative painting as color and form, as texture and transparency, and as temperature and value contain information about the subject being depicted. (The information may include spatial, movement-related, emotional and/or psychological, temperature (in a literal sense), direction of light and shadow, etc.) For example, in the work titled, "Summer Flowers on Cyprus" (2023), I observe all the information put together, resulting in a construction and deconstruction of the feet. Then you juxtapose the feet with a background that is marked by the illustrational and decorative, stylistic choices, which are flat to a much greater degree and lack those kinds of information. What was your intention behind this decision? Do you feel, for example, that nature has traditionally been relegated to the role of a background, to the figure that is the subject? (If that's the case, and you are trying to reverse the power relations between people and nature, why are the feet better painted than the grass and the flowers?)
I don’t agree that nature has traditionally been relegated to the role of the background. Nature just occupies more space and volume in a spatial reality. The second I walk outside, my existence is in nature, with every molecule of air and blade of grass as compared to the voluminous mass of the figure. But throughout history nature has not always been relegated as the background by most. The Flemish and Dutch masters come to mind with a lot of their subject matter being nature, animals, insects, and plants. I would argue that neither the background nor the subject matter of the feet are painted better; I don’t compartmentalize my work in that way. They are simply painted differently. The feet are painted in a way you could so it is more abstract.
8) "Cyborg Manifesto," a 1985 essay by Donna Haraway, pushed the Feminist ideas further into the realm of Post Humanism (despite her rejecting the association of her ideas with the philosophy), and argued for the blurring of the boundaries between humans, animals/nature, and machines. How practical is this kind of philosophy in your opinion? Can humans truly relate to other beings and objects on a direct, one-on-one level of complete equality (such as plants, animals, and machines)? I ask this because you seem to prioritize human figures to a much higher degree in your paintings, endowing them with greater depth of information than the flowers and other creatures.
In my opinion, blurring the boundaries between humans, animals/nature, and machines comes naturally to some, but not everyone.
I think humans can relate to animals and inanimate objects but we can not truly understand if we can “truly” relate. Honestly, where we are with technological advancements happening so quickly, that may very well be possible for us to know very soon. That being said I grew up divorced and lived half of my time in town and the other half in the countryside. I felt strong relationships with both the animals I lived with and–I can’t deny–the bond I had with my electric devices. As I’ve gotten older, my bond with machines has become dull. My devices satiate my constant sylical cycle of overstimulation, but my relationship with animals have grown even stronger. I am slowly incorporating more animals into my work. I used to constantly draw the horses I grew up around as a kid. While capturing horses still comes naturally to me, I find other animals can be difficult to capture, each species has their own personality. Animals are highly symbolic in my mind, so I want to use these strategically in my work. Not only do I want to understand their use in art throughout history, I want to make sure I attribute my own symbolic meaning to whatever natural subject I choose to paint.
9) What are your dreams and goals for the future? Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
Well, I’m going to share a series of sentences that begin with “I want” so, bare with me…
I have big dreams for myself, very big dreams. Most importantly I want to continue to work on building an art community, even if it's just as simple as keeping in touch with my friends, meeting new artists, and showing up for them. I want to be in more shows with galleries I align with spiritually. I want to be more confident in my skills. I want a solo show, multiple solo shows, of course, and when the time is right, gallery representation. I have a wonderful studio, but I also yearn for something even larger with more wall space and a nice visiting area with gorgeous light. I want to not have a day job. I want to make more money from my art. I want to live comfortably and with abundance. I don’t normally share this because it feels almost too vulnerable, but I want to be more honest with myself and put my desire out into the ether.
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