A Minute With Corey Presha
Hi! This is a newsletter about artists I like.
I began acquiring art through some friends that worked in galleries. I started small, working on a limited budget, for stuff I could afford. As time passed, my collection grew, and it was exciting to watch many of the artists I'd collected go on to bigger shows and critical acclaim.
My goal with this newsletter is to make a digestible resource for anyone interested in artists that are making great (and still affordable!) work, whom you haven't heard about... yet.
Corey Presha is a Brooklyn based artist that almost makes it look easy to produce such high quality work. I appreciate how frequently he posts new work with one day showing these word type paintings and the next being something abstract but I guess when you have the skills, you don’t have to just focus on one style. Corey seems to stay busy as the interview will show but still manage to stay focused and create great work. Thanks Corey for your time.
We have some mutual friends and saw you have a collab planned, can you tell us about what’s cookin with you and Visitor?
Corey: David from Visitor has been a friend and collector for a couple of years now. When they started the company we began talking about doing a t-shirt collaboration for the launch and that will be dropping very soon.
How has the summer been treating you and what’s going on for fall? Any shows planned ?
Corey: Summer has been pretty uneventful. Wish I got to see more Dead shows and had to work less at my day (night) job. I’m in-between studios at the moment so getting into the swing of working at home again.
Things will be picking up a bit in the fall. I have a solo show at my buddy B. Thom’s gallery, Paradise, opening September 10th. I’ll also be showing two paintings with my friends Young Coffee in their new storefront opening soon here in Brooklyn. In October I’ll be releasing a new book with my friend Robert Aiki Løwe and his partners Aventures LTD. Been making the work for that recently and am excited about where it’s going. It’s a departure and pretty far out there, exploring inner earth theories, myths and early civilizations. That should be releasing at Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair if all goes smoothly. This will be my first publication not self released through SUN.
You are one of my favorite follows because it seems that you are painting and cranking out great work at an insane speed. What’s your routine like ? A painting a day?
Corey: I tend to use my Instagram as a sketchbook a lot of the time. I’m not one of these artists that think everything needs to be sacred and held close till it’s “ready” for the public. I like sharing my ideas and what I’m working on even if it’s only up for a little while because I post and delete tons of things.
The work I’ve been making over the last year began as a series called ‘Better Paintings’. It’s highly influenced by Jim Shaw’s ‘Thrift Store Paintings’ and Martin Kippenberger’s series of works ‘Lieber Maler, male mir’(Dear Painter, Paint for Me). The works all begin as screenshots from eBay. I find either a color palette or shape that I like while searching for vintage(“thrift store”) paintings, something I can manipulate to my own ends. It’s a similar to when you try to find shapes or images in clouds. I then bring the screenshot into Procreate where I draw and paint on top of them to create a new image, a “better” painting. I finish the work by sending the image I create off to a fabricator to be made into an oil painting. I’ve always been uncomfortable with calling myself a painter since I’m self taught (badly) so the works speak to my own insecurities and inadequacies as they are better then what I could produce myself while also being ‘better’ than what they were in their original form. The work plays with the idea of authorship as the original image is being appropriated and my hand never touches the finished product and it’s also a commentary on the preciousness of certain materials over others and the idea of the highly skilled vs. unskilled artist.
‘Better Paintings’ has now morphed from a specific process based project to just a process I use to create my new work. Kind of a slow, dumb AI. I’m now exploring new ideas where it doesn’t matter as much how I get to the finished product as the story I’m trying to tell and world I’m trying to create. So while I may not be making a painting a day, I may come up with 5 to 10 drafts/mock ups of paintings in a night, so it can feel that way from my posting.
I always love to see inside a painters studio/home, any pics you can share ?
For our readers, me included, that aren’t in a big city, what are some recs for you can give us that a time can benefit from? Online sources, artists you like on IG, etc.
Corey: I read the Martin Kippenberger biography recently which was very inspiring and I’d suggest for any artists out there. His sister wrote it and it’s a fun read and non pretentious. Glenn Ligon’s 2004 Art Forum article “Black Light: David Hammons and the Poetics of Empitness (https://www.artforum.com/print/200407/black-light-david-hammons-and-the-poetics-of-emptiness-7400 ), this 2014 Interview article on Leigh Ledare (https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/leigh-ledare-in-public-and-private), Chris Burden’s UbuWeb page (https://www.ubu.com/film/burden.html), Brad Phillip’s recent tribute to John Wesley after his death earlier this year (http://officemagazine.net/john-wesley-president). My algorithm is completely fucked right now because of the conspiracy videos I’ve been watching for research for my new project but some of my favorite Instagram accounts are @looneytunesbackgrounds and @archeologyart, @mepaintsme posts some great art, as well @petershear, @rimanellidavid and @brad_phillips_group_show.
Who should we have on next?
My girl Sasha Zirulnik. She’s one of my favorite up and coming painters and will be showing with my Zurich gallery Post in the fall.
No Linkage This Week!