In The Studio: Ana Benaroya
Ana Benaroya is an artist from New York, currently based in Jersey City. Her primary medium is paint, her practice is ever-expanding. Speciwomen friend and colleague, founder of Dizzy Magazine, Milah Libin spoke with Benaroya about possibilities, reference and X-Men.
Ana Benaroya in her studio in New Jersey, photographed by Philo Cohen for Speciwomen.
Benaroya’s studio, photographed by Philo Cohen for Speciwomen.
The Backstroke, 2022.
Benaroya’s studio, photographed by Philo Cohen for Speciwomen.
Tea for Two, 2022
Milah Libin for Speciwomen: When I was doing research and looking at your work, I felt this overwhelming feeling of freedom and joy. Seeing all these women–these figures–playing the piano, riding horses and motorcycles, smoking throughout the series–I thought to myself, ‘Damn, these are things I want to do! I want to smoke everyday with no cares at all while playing the piano’. Your work is very much akin to a trippy noir, and I wanted to be inside of it. I’ve read in other interviews that you’ve done that you can sometimes feel shy and that painting these scenes can, for the viewer, and I imagine for you as the maker, let you enter a depth of feeling. As a woman existing in the world, what has that experience been?
Ana Benaroya: I’ve always identified with the figures and women I paint, and for me they are this extension of my own body and mind. I am able to be totally free and a bit more in-your-face and wild in my paintings than I would ever be in real life, but I do feel like that is equally part of who I am. I’ve always felt that all the restrictions I feel as a person and as a woman in this world, in the U.S. specifically, have been escaped by these women. They’re of this world but they’re also in this imaginary realm that exists in my mind. They are fully in control of their bodies to the point where I feel they could grow extra limbs if they wanted. There are no earthly restrictions on them–they’re free of shame.
ML: It’s poignant and relevant now more than ever, considering the fact that politicians are attempting, and in many cases succeeding, in controlling our bodies and our autonomy, which is really sad. It doesn’t feel like men are present in most of your work. Your characters are smiling and there’s a lot of friendship in them, as well as love and sensuality. From what I’ve seen in your practice, it’s rare to see sadness or tears. I did notice one piece It’s Judy’s Turn to Cry which particularly struck me. I know that it’s the title of a Leslie Gore song and, I’m sure you know this, but [Gore] was queer and in a lesbian relationship for many years. [I’m wondering] what that experience must have been to have to sing these songs for so long about these heteronormative dynamics and relationships as a young woman. She does always have that fierce self-empowerment, though. When I listen to music or songs where it’s about women seeing men with other women, I always think about the potential ambiguity in that situation. It’s Judy’s Turn to Cry specifically felt different. Did you approach it differently? I’d love for you to talk about the intention behind that specific work.
AB: Actually, pretty much all of my titles are based on songs, lyrics, or poetry. The beauty of listening to a woman sing a song, unless she is explicitly mentioning a man, is you can imagine that she is singing to another woman. That’s something that I’ve always thought about and something I probably did subconsciously as a kid before I realized that I was gay. I often think about being able to trace oneself along the lines of the media that exists in the world. When there isn’t specific representation, you still find a way to kind of jump through the hoops of making it apply to you. That's one reason why I use the song lyrics and titles.
Your earlier statement is right: the feelings in my paintings are usually joy or intense anger or a strange mixture of both of those. It’s something that I’ve thought about before and friends have mentioned it to me as well. “What if you did a really sad painting?” My mood affects the mood of my paintings. [It’s Judy’s Turn To Cry] was part of my show that was just at Venus Over Manhattan. The theme of that show was ‘Women in Water.’ From the beginning, I knew that I wanted to have a crying piece, whether it was a drawing or painting. It was actually the last piece I made for that show. It’s somewhat based on a Roy Lichtenstein crying woman, obviously I’ve changed it, but that was the original source of information. This is not as specific to that piece, but as I was thinking of women’s bodies next to water, I was first thinking of my own experience. Every woman has this experience of having to put a bathing suit on, of being more exposed.
I look at art history as well. I was looking at Bonnard’s “Bather” paintings and obviously there’s Botticelli’s “Venus on the Shell.” I also thought of the idea of water as a site of judgement for women's bodies and personal experience, but also a site of religious renewal and birth.
I was thinking about how these women’s bodies are solid but they’re also sometimes transparent and light. They’re relatively anatomically correct– they haven’t verged into the monstrous just yet, but, when I’m making them, I feel as if there are no bounds to what their shape could be. Relating those bodies to a body of water is interesting in some way to me. That is the only piece of the show where water is coming from the body through tears. In a way, she’s not that sad in that piece, she actually seems furious, but that’s just how I felt about it when I was making the piece.
ML: You said most of your work is titled from song titles. Seeing what those titles are, you have a very eclectic taste in music. You’ve referenced everyone from Vashti Bunyan to The Brothers Johnson to Leslie Gore and contemporary artists as well. Do these different genres affect the work and what you’re thinking about when you’re painting or drawing?
AB: Totally. I listen to music all the time when I’m working. Often, I’ll make a playlist for a show I'm working on as I'm working on it. The first show I had that was Casablanca inspired took place at this imaginary jazz cafe. I did play the playlist I made at the opening.
ML: Do the titles ever come first?
AB: Sometimes. But it’s more often that I’ll either be listening to something without thinking about painting and hear a line that makes me think “That’s the right title for this painting.” Or I will complete a painting and start listening to songs and wait to see what feels right. Every now and then I'll write my own title and it will be right for the piece. But that’s happening less and less. I don't know why, it just is.
ML: I was looking at your sculptural work and, particularly the reclining figure that’s farting, which is amazing and funny but also referential of these historical reclining nudes of women. I like this kind of reimagining and reinventing it and showing the sides of us–because yes, we do these grotesque things! Continuing those reimaginings in your work is really interesting. Are you curious to continue making sculptural works? The way that you render your paintings or illustrations makes them feel so full. The contour and shading especially makes them feel so three dimensional already.
AB: I definitely am. I want to. I think the issue is that there’s a lot of things I want to do and I need to pick and choose. I'm hoping I will do at least another table-top size of the “Farting Woman” within the next couple of years, and I would love to do another life size one as well. Both of them I sculpted in clay to scale, so even the large woman was to scale. I really liked the idea of my hand, my fingerprint and my touch being present and not distorted in any way. It was my first attempt at making a sculpture, and it was a technical challenge. My initial education was as an illustrator so I never really identified with one medium, even though I mostly do 2D work. That’s why I love doing the paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. I would love to continue doing all of them, because I feel like I am creating this universe. It only makes sense that it would step into the three dimensional.
ML: Your early experience art-making was illustrating, I know you made comics as well. I read that when you were younger, you were drawing a lot of male forms. I imagine that’s because, when you’re reading comics, most of the characters that you see are men. When we’re kids we definitely are referencing things to draw. When did the shift happen to drawing almost exclusively the female form? How has that experience as an artist, shifting the forms, been for you?
AB: It was relatively recent. I didn’t begin trending to completely depicting women until I was partially through graduate school. For a long time I identified with the male form, because, as a kid, there was no depiction of a woman where I thought “that’s me,” where I looked up to that character or person. All of the interesting stories were written for men, whether it was a movie like Indiana Jones or the X-Men or Spider-Man comics I read. I was a tomboy, so most of my interests were considered “boys interests.” I couldn’t figure out a way to depict women in a way I really identified with, so it turned into this idea of, “If I can make a mockery of men in my paintings, that’s what I want to do.” I still think it’s funny but back then I was like, “Maybe I should depict my own experience instead.” It sounds like such a “Duh!” moment but it didn’t happen until I got to graduate school.
ML: It’s not necessarily a “Duh!” moment for me because I wasn't given the blueprint for that either. We should be able to see ourselves in the media. I was reading X-Men a lot as a kid too, and I definitely was attracted to the female characters but didn’t see myself in them. They were unattainable but I could also sexualize them. I didn’t feel like I could be ‘Rogue’, for example. On that note of X-Men and Mutants, your world and your characters have special powers in their empowerment, but do you see them having actual special powers?
AB: I think so. Gravity doesn’t apply to them. I'm working on a show now that is a continuation of the ‘Women in Water’ idea, but more mythical and fantastical. I was re-reading the story of the sirens in The Odyssey, and there’s a woman with a wand in one of the new paintings… I haven’t explored what their specific powers would be but I feel like a bit of magic is starting to enter them. I don’t know where it will go but I imagine with time they will continue to transform and be more fantastical. I don’t know how I’ll feel in a few years or if that will still be true.
ML: The most powerful work is made when you let that personal experience lead you. It also comes to be when you create something you want to see or what you see yourself in. Those works tend to be the most striking. It seems like you read and research a lot. How do you find what you’re going to read and what are you most drawn to when it comes to literature?
AB: To be honest, a lot of what I read is often art books. This particular look to The Odyssey, was more of an anomaly, actually. The very first show I had out of graduate school, I looked at the movie Casablanca as a point of reference. It’s usually a more visual reference point, but not always. I would just say, I have a ton of art books in my studio. I'm sure lots of artists have a folder on their iPhone where they save a ton of screenshots or images they found on the internet. I just try to cycle through [the books] and see what is relevant for a show.
ML: Could you tell me about some of the comics you were reading as a kid and if you’re still reading comics now, what those ones are?
AB: I was really into DC and Marvel comics. Spider-Man and X-Men were my favorites but I read Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. I didn’t discover alternative comics until late in high school and into college. I was really into Robert Crumb. I also loved Tom of Finland, which doesn’t really count as a comic, but he does do narrative stories.
ML: I had a similar experience growing up. I read a lot of Spider-Man and X-Men as well. I know you’re based in Jersey City, but essentially you’re in New York. It’s interesting what gets more exposure or more of a platform. Animation and comics are left in the underground scene in NYC specifically. A lot of the attention is given to the musicians, filmmakers, and photographers. I think about that a lot because this is a huge world of people who are comic creators and comic makers. I wonder what it is about NYC where that hasn’t been given a forefront or the attention that it deserves? In general, people aren’t making as much printed matter and reading materials. Some people are, though.
AB: I think people are!
ML: People are. But can we come out of our caves and show it more?
AB: I think the art world is changing a little bit. Even in the last 5 years, they’ve become more receptive to that kind of work. Robert Crumb is represented by David Zwirner which is pretty big. He’s one of the biggest comic artists, but still. There’s this hierarchy that exists and for some reason that form of art is related more to illustration and commercial art. It’s just as interesting as painting and drawing, in my opinion.
ML: What is your relationship to writing? I am wondering if writing is a practice that you have outside of art making.
AB: So far I’ve only been able to share in the context of zines. I haven't made one recently. My writing is actually more humorous and usually in short story format. There is definitely humor in my paintings but I haven't found a way to incorporate that exact sentiment into my paintings yet. I don't actively write as much as I actively draw and paint, but I did more so in the past, when I was working as an illustrator. The zines I did make were my own stories.
ML: I noticed that you paint a lot of your frames which is something that not a lot of artists do or think about. It extends the piece beyond it, to frame it almost. I can see that as a way of making it even more of a story. Is there an intention that’s specific to painting the frames?
AB: I started doing that with the drawings last year. I liked it for the reason you said, but also it made it feel like an object. It made the drawings feel as impactful as the paintings. To me, the drawings and paintings are of equal importance, one’s not higher than the other. The frame really helps with that. Also, in relation to thinking narratively in terms of a comic book page, whenever I hang a solo show, I think about the pieces in relation to each other. Not only just in terms of color, but the story they’re telling and perhaps even how their stylistic differences relate to one other. I definitely have a narrative sense in all of my work.
ML: Are you ever interested in doing more installation-based work?
AB: I could imagine doing just a sculpture show. That would be interesting in terms of creating a scene. I would love to do it. The installation would involve sculpture and perhaps my two-dimensional work. I'd want it to all be hand made by me.
ML: Do you want to talk about what you’re working on now and what the near future holds for you?
AB: I'm working on a solo show that’s going to be in Stockholm in November. As I mentioned, it’s a continuation of the last solo show I had, but it’s a bit more magical and fantastical. It's mostly paintings but there are a few drawings as well. I'm also going to be working with some print shops in the coming year that are based in New York. I'm excited for that. I’m going to go to Miami in December for Art Basel, as some of my paintings will be on display there. The main thing I'm focusing on right now is this solo show, though.
Ana’s newest show: ‘Beneath The Paper Moon’ opens at Carl Kostyál Gallery in Stockholm on November 18, 2022. It will be on view until January 4, 2023. You can listen to Ana’s Playlist of songs she listened to while creating work for the show here.
Kiss Me More, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
Benaroya’s studio photographed by Philo Cohen for Speciwomen.
It’s Judy’s Turn To Cry, 2022.
Moonshadow, 2022.
Stairway To Heaven, 2022.