Kellesimone Waits–on the heels of her new show Venus Fly Trap, sat down with me to discuss political S&M, strippers in doll houses, and the process behind her genius paintings.
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The Rumpus: When did you first get interested in painting?
Kellesimone Waits: I remember having strategies and caring about how I was painting as young as five or six. I focused on painting women even then. I had this strategy for painting the female form. I’d make a triangle for the bottom dress, a heart for the top, and a circle for the head. I felt I’d discovered something and was really possessive about my discovery and worried other children would take it from me. That’s when I became excited about problem solving in art.
Rumpus: Your mother, Kathleen Brennan, is an amazing painter.
Waits: She is. She’s always had a room that’s been totally hers. She’d take me in there and paint with me.
Rumpus: So she was your first teacher?
Waits: I guess so, yeah. Then school happened and all my friends were going to public school. I chose to go to an arts oriented school, choosing art over friends. Then at 13 I decided maybe I’d be a lawyer instead. That was my rebellion. I said I’d never paint again. Fuck you mom and dad. The bar was set so high with my parents and their artistic endeavors, plus they’re very hard to upset. The only way I could rebel was to go straight.
Rumpus: With Power Plays, your last show, you painted political figures as strippers or in compromising positions. The paintings are erotic and strong and sexual, and the swirls of paint verge on violent, yet the colors are soft pinks and grays. And then you can’t help smile at Margaret Thatcher with black tape across her nipples.
Waits: Yeah, the almost infantile femininity that those colors hold. That’s the meaning of pink, to me. To put that next to these scary men and women. It started with Rupert Murdoch. I kinda stumbled upon the idea naturally before I knew I was going to do a whole pile of them. I had Rupert painted on the canvas, then saw the pot of pink paint and knew that’s what I needed to do. That’s what happens – I get a loose idea of what I want to say, and then I try to let all the ideas go when I’m working.
Rumpus: I read that Power Plays was ‘recommended for political junkies and/or super creepy perv types.’ Do you like shocking people with your work?
Waits: I shock myself initially, and it keeps me going. I like to add humor to it – another level beyond the paint. I’m motivated by the desire to communicate and paint is my most effective form of communication.
Rumpus: Your latest show Venus Fly Trap features again voluptuous, desirable women, placed in hyper-feminine environments. Yet they are totally detached from their surroundings. The pieces are deliciously beautiful, yet you feel sad for the women at the same time.
Waits: Again, I’ve always been interested in the female form and how to execute it. Questioning will hopefully come from the discomfort. With my Condoleezza piece, where I painted her in a bikini, I mean we see women like that all the time, but in magazines we don’t see Condoleezza that way. Hopefully some questioning is born from the discomfort and it’s the same idea with this new show. The floral backgrounds are these safe little dollhouse rooms and then these adult women that are not quite fitting in their spaces. They know we’re looking at them though.
Rumpus: I can’t wait to see them. How does dad feel about the S&M vibes and the sexual content? Is he like ‘what happened to the triangle and hearts?’
Waits: He’s getting used to it, for sure. I want you to see them. My next show is in Mexico City, but come to the farmhouse in Sebastopol. It’s getting pretty full with my work.
Rumpus: This is your tenth show and you’re only twenty-six.
Waits: Crazy, right? Let’s go eat.
