Karl X. Hauser
Failed Repression: I Tried to Make This Pleasant
Failed Repression: I Tried to Make This Pleasant
April 7 - May 20, 2017
Transmission Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Karl X. Hauser’s work. Perhaps best known for the intense quality of his graphite drawings, which are the foundation of his creative enterprise, Hauser also works with bronze, aluminum, ceramics and glass, as well as watercolor and digital processes. A full range of Hauser's work will be on hand for this exhibition at Transmission Gallery.
Karl X. Hauser sat down to discuss his work with Transmission Gallery:
TG: Your exhibit, Failed Repression: I Tried to Make This Pleasant, opens April 7th at Transmission Gallery in Oakland. Can you explain the title of the show? I knew what my work was about so I made a list of all those things. I tried to make it a short title by combining words from the list. So I wrote down “Failed Repression” and then I wrote down a sort of smart-aleck remark about it and I put the list away. Later, when I went back to it, I read this note I had jotted down and laughed out loud. So that was it.
TG: You are most well known for your drawings involving nightmarishly comical beast-like characters. How do these beasts emerge? Are you thinking of anyone in particular as you draw? My work is generated by my psyche and I give it free rein. We’re all kind of shoved around by these unseen beasts inside of us that we may not even think about. The guise of “acceptability” or “cuteness” or whatever that emerges along with the beasts is a by-product.
TG: They have a certain appeal. I used to be upset when people saw them as endearing or cute even, now I think, “That’s their problem.” (laughing) "I’m stuck with the horror. It’s their problem they can't see it, the horror that lies ever so shallowly below the surface."
TG: One series of drawings is called the Puppet Show, what does the phrase “Puppet Show” mean to you? The Puppet Show is really baffling to me. I do a lot of drawing and somehow I know when I’m working on a drawing that it is a Puppet Show drawing. When I do these, I don't know, there’s a darkness that bubbles to the surface. I employ as many different strategies as I can to discover the true meaning hinted at by the scenes, settings and characters and that meaning transforms over time, which is exactly what my work is about – the evolution of meaning. Ultimately, The Puppet Show becomes a tragicomedy rendered in distorted perspectives and uncomfortable characters.
TG: How do you get started on a drawing? Please describe your process: I don't have a problem starting a drawing. I can just sit down with a blank piece of paper and make some marks and something suggests something else and it goes from there. Sometimes I set out to see if I can make a bad drawing, if I do, I’m successful and if I can't, well then I have made a successful drawing. The drawings tend to happen very fast, very immediate. I want to get it over with and find out what happened.
TG: Recently you’ve started casting sculpture. The pieces look like they are climbing right out of your drawings. Are they? Yes, my ideas about sculpture arrive fully formed in my head, essentially from the drawing. If I try to draw from a sculpture, I just don't like it. Eventually I give up because it’s not expressing what I want to express.
The difficulty for me with the sculpture is the time it takes to make it happen so now I like doing the sculpture from wax because, like the drawings, they can be very immediate. Working in wax leaves room for experimentation. I can make 5 copies from my mold library, cut them up and use them over and over again. It doesn't matter to me if I have access to a foundry right away. I can still work.
TG: You also work in watercolor and collage, what leads you to pursue one medium over another at the time? Boredom mostly. If I’ve done something for a while, I’ll switch to another medium. It’s about wanting to stay engaged, but drawing with a pencil is always there, always accessible, I always return to that.
TG: No matter what medium you use, the work is highly connected: The drawing is the foundation but I work back and forth. For instance, the drawings are the basis of the watercolors and then I use images of the watercolors in my collages. I’ll take a photo of a sculpture and cut that up and use it in a collage too.
TG: It’s been a while but you went to art school in Chicago, how did your experience there influence you? I learned I wasn’t that good a painter but I could make sculpture, I could draw.
Do you feel a connection to a certain art movement? I really like figurative work. Most of my influences come from outsiders, “Art Brut” – the emotional rawness. They don't have that feel of “I went to art school so I know how to make some interesting marks.”
TG: Are you willing to reveal what the “X” stands for in your name? "X" marks the spot!
TG: Thank you Karl. Congratulations on a terrific show!
Karl X. Hauser sat down to discuss his work with Transmission Gallery:
TG: Your exhibit, Failed Repression: I Tried to Make This Pleasant, opens April 7th at Transmission Gallery in Oakland. Can you explain the title of the show? I knew what my work was about so I made a list of all those things. I tried to make it a short title by combining words from the list. So I wrote down “Failed Repression” and then I wrote down a sort of smart-aleck remark about it and I put the list away. Later, when I went back to it, I read this note I had jotted down and laughed out loud. So that was it.
TG: You are most well known for your drawings involving nightmarishly comical beast-like characters. How do these beasts emerge? Are you thinking of anyone in particular as you draw? My work is generated by my psyche and I give it free rein. We’re all kind of shoved around by these unseen beasts inside of us that we may not even think about. The guise of “acceptability” or “cuteness” or whatever that emerges along with the beasts is a by-product.
TG: They have a certain appeal. I used to be upset when people saw them as endearing or cute even, now I think, “That’s their problem.” (laughing) "I’m stuck with the horror. It’s their problem they can't see it, the horror that lies ever so shallowly below the surface."
TG: One series of drawings is called the Puppet Show, what does the phrase “Puppet Show” mean to you? The Puppet Show is really baffling to me. I do a lot of drawing and somehow I know when I’m working on a drawing that it is a Puppet Show drawing. When I do these, I don't know, there’s a darkness that bubbles to the surface. I employ as many different strategies as I can to discover the true meaning hinted at by the scenes, settings and characters and that meaning transforms over time, which is exactly what my work is about – the evolution of meaning. Ultimately, The Puppet Show becomes a tragicomedy rendered in distorted perspectives and uncomfortable characters.
TG: How do you get started on a drawing? Please describe your process: I don't have a problem starting a drawing. I can just sit down with a blank piece of paper and make some marks and something suggests something else and it goes from there. Sometimes I set out to see if I can make a bad drawing, if I do, I’m successful and if I can't, well then I have made a successful drawing. The drawings tend to happen very fast, very immediate. I want to get it over with and find out what happened.
TG: Recently you’ve started casting sculpture. The pieces look like they are climbing right out of your drawings. Are they? Yes, my ideas about sculpture arrive fully formed in my head, essentially from the drawing. If I try to draw from a sculpture, I just don't like it. Eventually I give up because it’s not expressing what I want to express.
The difficulty for me with the sculpture is the time it takes to make it happen so now I like doing the sculpture from wax because, like the drawings, they can be very immediate. Working in wax leaves room for experimentation. I can make 5 copies from my mold library, cut them up and use them over and over again. It doesn't matter to me if I have access to a foundry right away. I can still work.
TG: You also work in watercolor and collage, what leads you to pursue one medium over another at the time? Boredom mostly. If I’ve done something for a while, I’ll switch to another medium. It’s about wanting to stay engaged, but drawing with a pencil is always there, always accessible, I always return to that.
TG: No matter what medium you use, the work is highly connected: The drawing is the foundation but I work back and forth. For instance, the drawings are the basis of the watercolors and then I use images of the watercolors in my collages. I’ll take a photo of a sculpture and cut that up and use it in a collage too.
TG: It’s been a while but you went to art school in Chicago, how did your experience there influence you? I learned I wasn’t that good a painter but I could make sculpture, I could draw.
Do you feel a connection to a certain art movement? I really like figurative work. Most of my influences come from outsiders, “Art Brut” – the emotional rawness. They don't have that feel of “I went to art school so I know how to make some interesting marks.”
TG: Are you willing to reveal what the “X” stands for in your name? "X" marks the spot!
TG: Thank you Karl. Congratulations on a terrific show!
