q+a: danny sobor

Tchotchke Gallery: What is your process for finding and selecting the imagery that you incorporate into your work?

Danny Sobor: I keep thousands of images in folders of varying organization on my laptop. I fall in love with some; some possess me. Obsessing over how to use them while driving or in the shower. I source from anywhere I can: magazine scans, my own photos, phone screenshots, forum posts, Google, stock photo sites, Yandex, arena. Saving anything that has emotional resonance or serves as a slick entry point. I scroll through folders looking for things that stick out, it’s different all the time which is interesting to me. The images fluctuate in resonance with my mood. I think Luc Tuymans described his process as something similar. If I like an image a lot I’ll run it through multiple similar image search engines to see if I can flesh it out for a series. Archaeological. The nature of net images is massive and sprawling and free, when I find something great it’s a discovery. Part of my collection, use it, however, I can. I get a kick out of recognizing images I have saved in other painters’ paintings. Oh cool, you used it that way. I had fun with this show mashing together a lot of different image sources: 80’s fashion ads, soviet war cartoons, vector icons, stock photos of doves, ceramic figurines. A mirror of my recent browsing history. 

TG: What messages do you present in your paintings? What do you hope people receive from them?

DS: A good image is a portal to something expanding. I’m not a big proclamation guy. This is how it is. This is what is known. I respect that energy but it’s not me. I doubt the veracity of an image and the veracity of the news. These paintings work through those inputs. Are my tech anxieties justified? What is the role of painting right now? Should I ham it up and fully paint Photoshop files? That’s kind of funny right? But also isn’t it accurate? Is AI going to overtake visual culture? In that case, I should use it to paint my backgrounds. It probably won’t. How would I know, I don’t work in CS. All this swirling around, I painted these with self-aware conviction: absurd and genuine. Another reflection of what I’ve been taking in. I don’t think you should frame how people view images but I hope people know with these paintings I’m kidding and dead serious at the same time. 

TG: What does a typical studio day look like for you? What makes a day in the studio ideal for you?

DS: I start by brewing a ten-bag thermos of black tea. I like knowing what stimulant works best for me. Sworn-off coffee, makes me crash. Strong black tea with honey keeps me at a clear productive hum all day. For the last six months, I’ve started most studio days by listening to “Carry Me Ohio” by Sun Kil Moon 2-4 times in a row. Midwest zen song. Places me. I try to be painting as I’m having my first cup of tea. At my sharpest from 10 am to 2 pm. Good time for touch-ups and final edits with fresh eyes. If I have writing to do I do it then. When the sun shifts around 3/5 I get cloudy. Maybe try to slog through a few more hours of painting. Then I take a long walk. At least one hour sometimes two. With thoughts back in order I pick up around 6/7 and hit my best strides around 8-9 then anytime after midnight. I paint more fluidly when the sun goes down. Maybe it’s hormonal or the placement of the moon but I can reliably track my level of focus and mood at every hour of a studio day having spent this much time with myself painting.  A good day is 10-14 hours of painting. I have daily goals for what I want rendered then stretch goals, like if everything goes perfect, try to tackle this today. I can do usually 3-4 days in a row at this clip. By the end of the fourth or fifth day, my eyes get tired and I get grumpy. Sometimes this is good. Makes me a sharper editor and helps me tighten the screws on certain elements. Finish things. I’ll take a day or two off from the studio to recharge/do anything else then start the cycle again. 

TG: How do your works generally evolve from start to finish?

DS: Photoshop is my sketchbook, I experiment with different compositions and use it to mock up full series. I think I designed the rough compositions of Icons over two nights in Detroit last April. Painted other tangents but kept coming back to the folder it was in titled “peacekeepers” and started the series in June. From early on my work has been wed to the screen. I taught myself to paint using the color picker in Photoshop. A mac screen is cold and made of liquid crystals, I built my palette around that. I never print out photos, enjoy working back and forth between the canvas and the comp. I want the paintings to look like photoshop files so I paint them thin and matte. I’ll usually render off a mock-up for a week or two and when I reach a compositional decision point I’ll photo the painting in progress, put it into photoshop and tinker with different options. Feels faster than painting something and then realizing I don’t like it. Can test 50 ideas in 10 minutes, layering different elements. When I’ve made a final decision I’ll paint the edit. Sometimes on a tough piece, I’ll do this two or three times. Paint a new element, photo it, put it in photoshop, tinker, add a new element, repeat. I think about how the piece will look in person and photo’d on the screen, which is where probably 95% of people will see it. Both are valid and inform each other of something complete. When the piece looks good in person and on my phone it’s done, although I’m beginning to value how the piece looks in person more.  

TG: How do you think your friends and family would describe your work?

DS: For a long time probably a muttered “we’re worried.” I grew up in a Polish immigrant community in Chicago, a painting career is seen as impractical. I’d get pulled aside at parties by drunken family friends “are you sure about this? Is it too late to become an engineer?” That was my late teens. I sort of ran away to Detroit, created some distance. That community matters to me and I carried their doubt more than I should have. I spent most of my 20’s in Detroit teaching myself how to paint. Outside of a holiday here and there we disappeared from each other’s lives. They vaguely knew I was painting. This last summer I moved back to the heart of the community in a small town in Michigan. In the 70’s some Poles bought a plot of land with a century-old hotel. Hundreds of Poles spanning four maybe five generations that have known each other their whole lives all in one place. I felt stronger and confident in painting, showed them finished works in my house and works in progress in the studio. It really started with one woman, Basia, a beautiful old hippy. She fell in love with my swans and every time I walked by a group or entered a room she’d comment to everyone how beautiful my swans were and how people must go see them. Everyone started visiting my studio, they hadn’t seen my work in years and it was stronger now. There was an outpouring of praise and when I got this “show in new york” suddenly I was wonderful. Now they would describe my work as “beautiful” or “very talented.” It shouldn’t but this acceptance has mattered to me more than anything. I have a role, seen and understood. I’m asked earnest questions about what I’m working on now. It’s a loop I needed to close, whether I admitted it to myself or not, before moving.