Charlie White
Getting Lindsay Linton, from the series Understanding Joshua, 2000, Chomogenic print, 5 x 3 feet.

The interview was conducted by Dana Sunshine of TheArtBiz.com.

How did your education at the School of Visual Arts (NYC) and The Art Center College of Design (LA) affect your career?

Attending SVA in NYC was an enormous shift in my life. The chance to experience the art world and the city itself was as great an education as school. I was able to work as an assistant for artists, an experience that SVA really promoted and helped make happen for its students. As an assistant for established artists I was able to demystify many of the tasks and responsibilities of being a working artist. The experience as a whole helped me take what began as a very personal goal and transform it into a career goal. SVA offered an incredible faculty, which allowed me to study with such artists as Marilyn Minter, Jennifer Bolande and Barbara Bloom. This is a huge learning experience when you are only 20 or 21 years old.

My move to Los Angeles to attend Art Center College of Design was also a pivotal shift, both personally and for my artwork. The graduate program offered me an opportunity to study with the likes of Mike Kelly and Steven Prina, while also focusing on new media technology. The intensive studio time and the freedom to utilize all of Art Center’s digital facilities allowed me to make the pictures and produce the projects that realized my ideas.

Why photography?

I actually didn’t start making pictures until late in my undergraduate career. I never formally studied photography and I was first painting and then combining sculptures and snapshots up until my senior year. As a forth year student at SVA you have your own studio, and it was at this point that I focused entirely on making pictures. I think that all of the mediums-- painting, drawing and sculpture--could converge in pictures for me. Although neither the surface nor the space is affected in the same manner, the thought process of the mediums played a role regarding both what was in the frame and how the picture was composed. At this stage I think that painting plays a large role in how I consider the task of going from idea to image. Photography allows me to create a portal--this is important when the central idea in a photograph does not truly exist.

How did Andrea Rosen (White’s gallery representative) first get to know your work? How has your affiliation with the gallery positively or negatively supported you as an artist?

As a graduate student in 1996 I returned to NYC to produce a pornographic pictorial for CHERI magazine. This was a project I had been working on for about a year. I had created the set for the shoot in Carrol Dunham’s studio and the entire event seemed to be a merger of both art world people and porn industry folks--it was very fun. On the first of two days of shooting I invited Andrea over to see what was going on, and we talked about what my intentions with the project were. When the issue of CHERI was released with the “Femalien” pictorial in December of 1999 the gallery sent out invitations and press releases for a show that was really only a magazine rack and a poster. People were able to buy a copy of the magazine at the newsstand price-- it was nice.

Having the support of the gallery has made my life much better. I do not like the idea of not having them--that seems a bit too lonely.

How has the meaning of aliens and humanoids in your work evolved over time?

Over the past four years I have dealt with the idea of aliens, demons, monsters and, currently, the convergence of all three in one humanoid character. I think that my work has slowly moved from an outside notion of aliens to a more personal understanding of the “other.” The “other” that I have created is Joshua, a living, breathing, person completely destroyed by insecurity. In my previous project [In a Matter of Days, 1999] I wanted a vehicle to deal with the city of Los Angeles and the people and landscapes that define it. The task of making LA the location of an urban apocalypse seemed natural, and as a result, the monsters that set out to devour it only made the obvious more clear. With the current work I was interested in moving closer to the subjects, into the homes, lives, and social gatherings of people, and to do this I needed another vehicle--Joshua. Joshua allowed me to deal with a few major concerns regarding how people exist, both privately and publicly, in the world. I am interested in people and the animals that we become.

What the hell is going on in “Getting Lindsay Linton”?

Revenge. This is an image about rage, hatred, and the discomfort of experiencing those emotions. In “Understanding Joshua” the world is, among other things, divided between blondes and brunettes. The brunettes exist (in the mind of Joshua) on a similar plain as he does, while the blondes inhabit a superior world of cleanliness, beauty, and organization. “Getting Lindsay Linton” illustrates a violent outburst against a blonde, maybe for Joshua’s entertainment, maybe his torture--it is unclear as they hold him and force him to watch. I feel that the image “Fantasy” helps further explain Joshua’s position on such acts against those he perceives as socially superior--at least his repressed urges. “Getting Lindsay Linton” is important because it helps to destabilize reading the events and actions within the image as literal, that is to say, Lindsay does not have milk on her face, and this gang of young men is not just holding her.

Any words of advice to students and hopefuls?

Pay attention to the ideas of other artists, but look inside yourself to find your own ideas. That sounds a bit simple but I think that it is good advise. I use it everyday.

This article was originally created for TheArtBiz.com. It appears on NYFA Interactive courtesy of the Abigail Rebecca Cohen Library.