The Faces of ‘Visage’
In Conversation with Lacey Newhard and Katie Popeo on their Lower East Side Gallery Show
By Calli Ferguson
Photo by Matt Weinberger c/o Katie Popeo“We’re channeling the audacity,” says Lacey Newhard, reflecting on the decision she and fellow artist Katie Popeo made to create their own gallery show. “It’s been super uncomfortable. And really good.”
Opening tomorrow, February 1st, at Satellite Gallery in the Lower East Side, Visage brings together two intensely dynamic, yet distinct explorations of human portraiture. Through their exhibition, Newhard and Popeo make space for their work among the colorful downtown art scene, offering viewers a uniquely intimate look at self and societal perceptions, using portraiture as “both a mask and a mirror”.
Ahead of the opening reception on February 1st, I sat down with both artists to discuss the thematic and technical layers of their work, the complexities of being women portrait artists, and how they’ve turned their “audacity” into a gallery show authentic to their artistic intentions. One well worth celebrating.
Katie Popeo putting up a poster for Visage, open 02/01-02/14 at Satellite Gallery
Calli: So you guys are opening Visage this Saturday! So fucking cool. Let's start with what drew each of you to portraiture and how that became the theme for the show…
Lacey: Since I started doing art, I've always done art of women and female portraiture. So I feel like this was a natural evolution of that.
It's nice to focus on the face because it says more. You can capture more emotion, and it feels less voyeuristic, I guess, than capturing bodies.
Katie: I've always been drawn to the face because I feel like there's so much you can do with painting human anything, you know? I find it so interesting– and not even in an emotional or any context other than there's so many colors. You can just get lost in the actual dimensions of the face– the layers of the skin, seeing different skin tones… It's so fun to paint for me.
In that same vein, I think that faces in particular, kind of what [Lacey] said, show the most emotion.There is so much emotion and stories captured in the face. Even just the eyeball– you can do so much. Little tweaks here and there completely translate into different emotions. It just captivates me.
I love it so much. It's like a little exploration into anybody that I'm deciding to paint. I feel like I almost get to know them in a really creepy way. It's very intimate. And by painting them, I kind of make them my own, especially with what I do, which is a lot of distortion.
You can totally see your obsession with the colors and the layers [in your work].
Lacey: Totally! There's so much blue and pink and green…
Katie: I remember when I was first getting into painting, I was on some Reddit thread or something where I was looking at some oil painter whose work I really liked. And one of the comments was like,”what's the biggest piece of advice you can give?” And they said, “Don't be afraid of really ugly colors.” A lot of people who paint faces and mix skin tones are afraid of making colors that on the palette don't look like they could be part of a face. But you have no idea, so don't shy away from the ugliest, most putrid or unexpected colors. It creates so much dimension.
“portraiture as an invitation to look deeper and reconsider how we see and how we’re seen, and to reflect on the power of the portrait as both a mask and a mirror.”
How did you guys choose works for this show?
Katie: Because we both focus on faces, we kind of felt that it naturally came together just on its own. It's not like we even had to pick specific works, because all of our work goes well together, just with the themes and the things that we focus on.
We’re both interested in just portraiture as a way to explore our perceptions of ourselves and how the world perceives us.
Lacey:[We’re using] portraiture as an invitation to look deeper and reconsider how we see and how we're seen, and to reflect on the power of the portrait as both a mask and a mirror.
Oh, I love that. A mask and a mirror. I think there's something about being a woman artist and representing women or the idea of self-portrait (even if it's not of the self)- it's kind of a reclamation on the roles of the voyeur or the muse.
Lacey: Yeah. I'm really into The Gorilla Girls. And they have that protest art, which basically says, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met?” because all of the artists are men, and all of the nudes are of women. And so the idea is to do an all-female show –so it’s only female perception– as a way to take away the objectification of the female form or the male form. And invite a female perspective that's really in tune with emotion, and not just of capturing pretty faces, pretty dresses, pretty scenes.
“the ways that we change ourselves according to the external limitations put on us, and also how we can expand.”
[We’re] kind of trying to flip that narrative on its head, where I feel like a lot of male artists are kind of unintentionally voyeuristic when it comes to portraiture. And like Katie said, make it a really, purposefully intimate experience. What’s that Margaret Atwood quote? Like, “You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman…”? So [we’re] bringing that intention and awareness back to it.
Yeah, the feeling of whether you are the perceiver or the perceived runs so deep. I want to talk more about the show’s context, but first, are there any other themes or motifs in the works you guys are showing, beyond portraiture itself, that people could look out for at the show?
Katie: I would say with what I do, distorting the faces is kind of the motif. It [speaks to] the ways in which we kind of change ourselves to fit in according to the places that we inhabit.
Kind of the ways that we change ourselves according to the external limitations put on us, and also how we can expand.
Lacey: I think the common theme that ties us together is obviously– the show is called Visage– so on the very base level it's about faces. But what's cool is Katie's [work], is more focused on self-perception and self-awareness (how we change and how we fill up different spaces depending on context), and I think the thread that runs through mine is more about societal perceptions.
It's kind of dark, but the common thread that runs through all my paintings is the theme of sexual violence and exploitation. So in each of my pieces, there's the base picture, which is how things are perceived. And then I have this blue layer, which is the shadow, which is actually behind the scenes.
“On the outside, I use pretty colors and pretty pictures... But then if you didn’t know the backstory, you might never realize that it was dark. That is kind of the larger thing... we put on such a pretty face.”
So for example, I had one of an old portrait of Brooke Shields when she was like 13 and was being super sexualized by the media. All these news outlets like CNN and Fox had countdowns to her 18th birthday when she was 13. That piece is called Pretty Baby cause when she was 13, she played a prostitute in a movie. She also had this great documentary about the exploitation of female public figures. So on that one, you see her face, and then the shadow is a hand. Because she was saying her director would grab at her all the time, so she really feared male touch and male hands.
So on the outside, I used all pretty colors and pretty pictures. But then if you didn't know the backstory, you might never realize that it was dark. That is kind of the larger thing. Most women, I would say, have to deal with assault in some form, and you just never know. Because we put on such a pretty face – to be brave and strong, or else we're being victims.
It’s taking what you see and what you actually are and put them both together. But what I do is I [paint] the first portrait under, and then I use a layer of resin so that the shadow self and the image that you project are on two different planes, literally. So it's kind of like what Katie was saying– the layers are different forms of perception. This is the face, and then this is me when I fit into this space. The face I project and the undercurrent.
Man, I'm so glad I asked. I noticed the hands coming up in some of your new paintings and I was wondering.
Lacey: It’s cause I’m a misandrist, Calli.
Right right. I think it’s interesting even when we talk about dark things, we have to almost find ways to make them “pretty”.
Lacey: Yeah, “Oh, this happened to me, but don't worry, it's totally fine. I don’t want to make you feel weird." It's a bizarre thing that we all have to socially adhere to it, even for each other. Women, I think, are taught to be more sociable than men, because we kind of have to be. Even if a man does something, you kind of have to play it off like it's not a big deal, so he doesn't make it worse.
Like you're in a mask.
Oh guys I have chills.
I'm also obsessed with the idea of an artist-run gallery show. With the climate of the art world in New York City and in general, there's something so powerful about the DIY attitude of what you guys are doing. But I also know it's a shit ton of work, so I'm curious what inspired you to build yourself a show?
Lacey: Well, Katie and I have known each other for years. And I've been such a huge fan of her work. When we lived together we papered our entire apartment. So I feel like it's a great opportunity to, rather than waiting and being more passive, to meet up with an artist that I already really admire and choose my own surroundings that way.
This way neither of us is being put into a context that we don't [want to be]. Or bullshitting to some gallery about how we fit into the theme. We built the theme around what it actually was. It’s more authentic, which was really nice.
I think collaboration is a huge part of the arts community in general. Two minds always make better things happen than one.
Is there anything that surprised you, or that’s been hard about putting the show together?
Katie Popeo - Photo by Matt Weinberger
Katie: I love to throw a party. I love to host, and I feel like these things kind of go hand in hand. The only difference is… we were both just saying, “Uh oh– this is literally all about us, huh?” We’re solely responsible for this thing that we're doing. It's empowering, but it's a lot of pressure and responsibility.
We've been working really hard to put this together. And it's definitely brought us closer together. It's been really fun, and I think it'll continue to be fun for the two weeks that we have it up.
“Channeling the audacity is a really healthy exercise, especially as emerging women artists. It’s been super uncomfortable. And really good.”
Lacey: Yeah, we’ve been having a blast, popping Prosecco every time we meet, because we're like, “We're doing the art show!”
But you just remind me of something which I actually think has been the hardest part…
Katie and I were joking about how we both know male artists our age, who have the same levels of success and notoriety as I do, (meaning, very emerging artists) and the idea that when you're in another person's gallery, it's like they chose you. So you're almost deserving of that space. As for when you're doing it yourself, it’s so awkward and so cringe to be like, “Hey guys, I made something. I think we should all gather to celebrate it.” I'm going to invite people I haven't spoken to in three years to tell them to come look at this thing that I made and make them compliment it to my face! There's something super awkward about not being invited to take that space and just taking it anyway.
And so we've been saying that we are channeling male audacity.
Katie: Yeah. So many of the men that we both know who are artists they're like, “Yeah, why would I feel weird?” You know what I mean?
Lacey: They'll draw on a cocktail napkin and be like, “This is worth $12,000”.
Kaite: It's a very different attitude about celebrating yourself.
It feels weird but I also think it’s the coolest thing to not wait to be invited, and build your platform yourself.
Lacey: They say you have to climb “cringe mountain”. It's like exposure therapy. Even though it's awkward and weird, you do it anyway. Because the only people judging you are going to be the people who don't have the courage to put themselves out there creatively. It's a very intimate weird thing to be, like, “I made this, look at it”. And so even if nobody shows, I feel like that's such a win in itself.
Channeling the audacity is a really healthy exercise, especially as emerging women artists. It's been super uncomfortable. And really good.
“ You can kind of get lost in any one piece that you give yourself to.”
Well said. Is there anything else you want people to kind of get out of the experience of the show?
Katie: I would say take your time looking at each piece. Every single one has something different to offer. And they're all very dimensional. You can kind of get lost in any one piece that you give yourself to. So take your time. And come by anytime!
Lacey: And the other thing is that Katie and I both have pieces that we are auctioning off to support Los Angeles wildfire relief. And so when people come, there will be QR codes up on the wall. So if people just donate, we'll enter them in a raffle to win art that's valued at 700 bucks or more.
I think Arts is so much about community. So it's a good way for the community in New York to come together and support our sister city of LA. But also for art to be a part of a larger cultural conversation, and contribute something quite tangible. So bring your phones and keep your Venmo funds up, because hopefully, we'll get some good donations out of the experience as well.
And we have prints! You can buy our prints as well.
We're gonna have receptions on each Thursday where people can come in and drink wine and talk art. We will both be there to discuss the pieces. So if people can't make it on Saturday, Thursday's a great option. Or we'll be open every day from 10-5.
Okay one more fun question: What inspires you lately? In or outside of art, anything big or small?
Lacey: Adam Lupton is a cool printmaker. I've been really into artists who play with texture and don't just rely on color and form. I really like the idea that when you stamp something, you can't replicate that. It's like a fingerprint.
And then I would say Hannah Traore, because she just did an exhibit with Gorilla Girls, and it's been consuming my brain.
Katie: I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts—- that's been kind of driving me to keep going.
My cats inspire me every day.
Music inspires me. I've been listening to a lot of Tash Sultana. Specifically the album, Flow State is my jam.
Lacey: Oh also, weirdly, sobriety… Not smoking and boozing that much has really opened up my brain's ability to not be stupid. It keeps me so clear. And I feel like that's been really, really nice.
RSVP for VISAGE’s opening Saturday, February 1st at Satellite Gallery at 279 Broome St in the Lower East Side here!!!
Or visit the space from 10am to 5pm from February 1st through the 14th, with receptions on the 6th and 13th where both artists will be present.
💻 Check out Lacey Newhard and Katie Popeo online: at www.laceynewhard.com and katiepopeo.art
📸 And keep up with their work and future shows on Instagram: here and here
