CRYSTAL FISCHETTI: @crystal_fischetti

M:

Crystal let’s start with how we met! Through the amazing world of KTW London! I’m so excited to talk about your exhibition!

C:

It is going very well. I have an exhibition next month on the 11th of February, and KTW is helping promote the show. I'm on my last work right now in the studio, it’s the last painting - of the 36! It's bringing up quite a lot of emotion as well. Today is the new moon in Capricorn as well. I'm very in tune with all of that. I think most women are in general. I'm coming to the end of my personal visual Journal of all of these 36 works and it's really overwhelming. The last painting is called The Sun!

M:
When did you begin creating the 36 paintings?

C:

It’s been a real journey, in one way or another. I’ve been to the States, Mexico – where I was in lockdown for a while. I was meant to go to LA, ended up in Detroit. I was painting in my room doing a mural and it really started from there. It came through the writings I was doing. My journal came through as titles for works. In terms of actually making work for the show… October last year. About 4 months solidly.

M:

Is it a kind of closure? But a happy closure, that you are feeling?

C:

That's it exactly. It’s very positive, and a hopeful closure. I’m doing up the little bow on the present I’ve been creating, and the audience are about to open it up. I have a disclaimer with the gallery and so I’m not going to be releasing the works online until the show happens.

M:

Is that difficult for Instagram fodder? You’re not able to post about this huge part of your life??

C:

Yeah, I’ve been reviewing a lot of my old works as well. It’s nice to see the beforehand. Especially with my experimental and site-specific work, and the murals all over the world. I also do teaser shots and sneak peaks.

M:

We love a sneak peek. We love a corner picture.

C:

Instagram is part of my studio practice now. It’s journal making and connections with people. People can contact me for conversations. But, there is a mystery in it as they haven’t seen me or the work.

M:

I feel that – I haven’t seen your work physically – YET! – but I’ve had a DEEP dive into you’re your Instagram and website, it looks like something you need to see in person. Just phenomenal. So, this is a question I always ask every artist I speak to: how would you describe your work in three words to someone that hasn’t seen it before?

C:

Spiritual or transcendental, divine and visually psychedelic! It is kind of like a cliche, but it is transcendental. You know, it deals with transcendental-ism.

M:

It’s interesting because I would have bet you would have said ‘colour’.

C:

Yeah, I needed to describe the colour. It’s psychedelic in the way that is it vibrating. That the light between is next to each other. Because it's so abstract, sometimes it can be quite difficult to actually focus on the main subject. Sometimes the main subject can actually be the frame itself! Which could be interpreted in many different ways - it can be interpreted as sexual bondage, it can mean in touches, like very sensual, it can be interpreted as fishing, and knots, then the metaphor of the tension and the release, and the surrender and the control. Then patriarchal aspects too. The masculine, and then the balance of that with the feminine.

Sometimes I do provide a subject with one main colour, for example, that may be in the top left corner or there's a line and it really sticks out, and then that could be the subject for people.

It's something that I've been learning how to ride the subject. But sometimes the subject is also me. That's why Instagram can be quite an interesting journal to where the figure is myself. That's being documented, doing the work in process.

M:

I think going back to the word psychedelic, that also brings up the movement in your work. I think if you just said colour you might think of it being flat, but there is a movement as a rhythm to it, which psychedelic brings in, in a very cool way?

C:

Absolutely, I wish I was hanging out during the 60’s, it would have been so radical. It's so amazing. That reclamation of, of the feminine, the respect for nature. Spiritually speaking, we've entered a new paradigm, which is the Age of Aquarius, and it really did spark during the 60’s and all this radical mindsets and thinking came through and new ways of seeing and music and art. And I guess maybe that's something that I like to bring forth in the canon of art in art history or art present today is how am I being a positive voice? But sometimes it's quite nice to be positively and competently exuding that feminine femininity. And that's something that I like to, to work with, within the work itself, and also in my impersonal life, as well.

M:

As in the difference between walking and pushing?

C:

Yes exactly. So, I fractured my foot in December. The body has a receptive side and active side. Right is active. So, being in the studio brought questions on: how do I construct the work? How do I paint: do I do it standing up? As a woman in society, we tend to overdo things, and there are massive self-confidence issues of worth, like if we do more than will I be accepted more. And interestingly, I actually feel like I did my best work during that month. Because I just sort of surrendered into it and just brought it all down, quite literally as well.

I keep going back to Leonardo De Vinci: he wrote with his left hand, and Michelangelo had the same thing as well. There’s something about balancing the masculine and feminine. Maybe it’s intuitive. Once when I had carpal tunnel in my wrist, I had to reprogram my brain and use the other side. It definitely helps to take the other route to take the other path and see things differently in a different perspective. And to see things in the perspective of a child basically: just seeing things completely new.

M:

That's really interesting. And did you find that your work was different when painting with your predominantly left side?

C:

The work was more gestural and became more lyrical in the sense you know, like Kandinsky. There's lots of movement.

M:

KTW mentioned to me, you have some fascinating influences for this new body of work that you've been doing. Could you tell me a bit about them?

C:

I mentioned Kandinsky. His work is very lyrical. I really love his work a lot. And he talks about this music of the spheres as well. Then Helen Frankenthaler who's just also a very cool women. Very cool. Even though she was part of this very kind of aristocratic background, and she was an Upper East Side girl…. I think she had a rebellious nature, and that really speaks to me. Because I'm a little bit of a rebel, I think. Soaking in that receptivity that we were talking about earlier in terms of the feminine and that quiet confidence when you see her work. It's just so expansive, and quietly confident. It's like an embrace and it just takes a hold.

I love Lee Krasner as well. Who's amazing. I have a print of hers called The Eye is the First Circle. I loved her show at the Barbican. The Vesica Pisces can be seen in her work, which is the crossing of the shapes…. It is very symbolic spiritually. It's also actually the third eye. I just love the gesture in her work so much. Then Mark Rothko. I mean, honestly, it is mainly based my influences are mainly based on the New York school people. Frank Bowling, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons.

M:
Obviously a passion of mine, but are there any other female artists who stick out to you? Helen and Lee are incredible of course…

C:

I was just thinking about that. Lucio Fontana (male artist) – Italian. Reclaiming the slit, the vagina, the Vesica Pisces, the portal. I’ve been doing that recently. Obviously, Eva Hesse who I don’t mention much but have loved since being a teenager. I fell in love with her spirit and soul. There’s also Laura, Lara Merrett. You may have heard her name, but she's kind of like a slightly unknown artist. She's based in Australia. She has this really wonderful connection with the audience.

M:

Incredible. So, Crystal, what does a day look like for you?

C:

I'll take yesterday as the day. I get to the studio. I received my stretches. I stretch the frame. I made two frames yesterday with the stretches. Then the material I have on the floor already with works and soak. The materials kind of soak into the cloth, or bedsheets or bed throws or silk or Calico, whatever I have on the floor. I'll pick one that really sticks out and then take that off, peel it off and then start to stretch it, which is very physical and very demanding. Then I'll paint and I stare at the work a lot. I take photographs on my phone, then turn it around to see new angles. Sometimes I realize I need to turn it around. So, there's a lot of that. Yesterday I did my cataloguing and admin… I'm actually very organized, which is good.

Then I do a lot of writing usually. Yesterday my brain was just going crazy with information and ideas. And it was because of this last painting, I spoke about The Sun painting. I meditated, and I just thought, okay, I just need to empty my brain. And then the idea came after it was like, that's it, that's the Eureka moment. And then I came out of meditation, I put notes down. And that was at 10 o'clock at night, the information was still filtering through. Every day is different!

M:

I suppose you can’t predict the creative process.

C:

I tend to I tend to go with the first few these as one-shot painting. Instagram is helpful in documenting the process. It's just documenting the process in one shot, it's very theatrical. It's very kind of ad hoc, improvisational, automatic.

M:

How do you deal with artistic block?

C:

I'll read something, or I'll consult the cards. I've got a collection of Tarot decks and Oracle decks, and I consult the cards, or I just go for a walk. But lately, I haven't, I haven't been able to as much because of my foot. It's quite nice. I've been able to walk around my neighborhood. I listen to music as well and just comes through like some banal TV programme I’m watching.

M:

It’s interesting that creativity, or being absorbed by something creative, helps stop creative block. A few artists I speak to re-watch or read comfortable creative things like Harry Potter.

C:

I think of that in terms of the magic, that's where the magic is! Harry Potter or go to church go for a walk. The eureka moment during the conversation, it's like that's the magic, again to surrender. You make space, for it to come through. For the information to come through, for God's answers to come through, however you want to see it. It is it being that vessel because artists are vessels of information and imagination and inspiration. There is a magic in art. There needs to be a balance of inquiry for the audience.

A successful painting is one where there's just about enough information for the viewer to be interested. They make their own information, and they make their own inquiry or they see something totally unique to their perspective.

M

That transcends to books as well: showing not telling.

C:

I think so. I feel so, and I think that's why that's why these artists that I mentioned have something of magic about their work, mystery or transcendental-ism or there's something. Helen Frankenthaler talks about the landscape. And there's something magical about being in the landscape. It's like when I was painting in California a few years ago, I was in the forest in the middle of nowhere with no Wi Fi. I knew that there were bears roaming around… I remember hearing one and it does something kind of magical to you. Being in the studio I do feel like a magician and maybe that's why I revert back to Leonardo da Vinci all the time because I feel like he was a magician.

M
Ahead of his time

C:

I think so. But then also like Michelangelo, and Gentileschi Oh, my God, I just wanted to cry when I finally went to see her work before the before the lockdown happened. She's very important to my work. My experience as a woman as well, and also reclaiming my body as well. There's something about that in terms of my documentation. I'll do life modelling for people as well it's something about her inquiry of the material. There is her inquiry of the of the disorder. The textile; the silk or satin, just her. Her approach to that is so sensorial, so sensitive, but it's also obviously indicative of the abundance that she did have, and then she was able, she was born into as well.

I had a Mentor - Alan - and he mentored me for about 10 years. He only worked with female curators, you know, he was a feminist. With her work, he saw that inner strength and diligence, and just unapologetic Renaissance attitude, I guess. He really helps me and for it to come from a man who's an artist was very important for me during those early years of my career. I have a painting called Thank You Alan.

M:

Did he see the work before he died?

C:

He didn't, he died during the first lockdown. I honestly feel like he's been guiding me the whole way through still. The month after he died, I was walking into galleries with my friend. We just decided to have a look. We were originally buying materials from Russell and Chappell Bloomsbury.  We just started chatting to the director Serena. We bounced off really well, talking about the work. The next minute, she's sending us emails. Then I had a studio visit. For someone like me who believes in the energy of the spirit continuing post the physical, is what my work is about, really. It's about the bridging of worlds. And I therefore believe that there is guidance out there as well. I just can't help but think that's a huge coincidence, too. And there's been many others since as well without him.

M:

And you find that obviously constant reassurance and as well, because I think losing it losing a mentor losing so many things, isn't it

C:

It’s very comforting. He was Scottish, but he lived in Japan. He was very influenced by the Eastern philosophies; he wouldn't necessarily say that he was spiritual or religious or even political. He spoke about that a lot, and about the evidence of the non-evidential and just different realities. He was just a very fascinating person to talk to, and it just kind of rubbed off. And then of course, along with my own shamanic lineage as well and my father as well also being quite similar to Alan in the sense that he is a nature lover. It's very, very comforting. When I spoke to my dad, he always says, I'm not scared of death. It's just like closing a door and then opening a window.

Mollie:

Just incredible. So, going full cycle, do you remember what your first experience in the art world was? Did you have a eureka moment?

C;

My uncles were painters so that helps! I was surrounded by it. One of them was a painter - portraiture. And the other one was a painter – an amazing painter. A painter for cincitta in Rome. I would constantly paint on the family walls at home. I think it came from there from my Uncle, Zio Mario.

M:

Painting on the walls! So scale has always been a factor

C:

It has always been a factor! It’s all around me.

M:

Like Helen’s studios. Full, all consuming, ceiling to floor artwork!

C:

Yeah, exactly. There's something about Jackson Pollock as well - painting outside in nature as well as like being in nature. There is air in my studio too, which is nice. I could never have a studio like Francis Bacon.

M:
You feel his would be claustrophobic?

C:

Yes, exactly. Yes, claustrophobia. There needs to be air in my studio in one way or another… it needs to be white needs to be light and have space. I’m very good at keeping it tidy – keeping it neat!

M:

I love hearing about studio spaces. Finally, Crystal, who are you favourite female artists currently, and their Instagram handles?

C:

Allison Kunath- a friend from when I was living in Los Angeles  https://www.instagram.com/allisonkunath/

Heather Day (her friend) https://www.instagram.com/heatherday/

Lara Merrett https://www.instagram.com/laramerrett/

Camden arts centre 

Annie Morris https://www.instagram.com/annie_morris_studio/

Katharina Grosse https://www.instagram.com/katharina_grosse/

Erin Lawlor https://www.instagram.com/theerinlawlor/

Cecily Brown https://www.instagram.com/aujourdhuirose/

Michael Yearwood Dan https://www.instagram.com/artistandgal/

Chae from my MA at Chelsea College of Arts https://www.instagram.com/art_chae/