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M I CHA E L R EA02

INTERVIEW BY THOMAS NICHOLAS AND ANDREW ZEITERP H O T O S B Y S A S H A F O R N A R I

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Walking into Michael Rea’s studio on

Chicago’s West Side is like discover-

ing a secret government warehouse

full of classified artifacts. It is hard to believe that

everything you see before you actually does exist.

The giant robotic walkers and fantastical futuristic

weaponry were things that you gave up believing in

decades ago, around the time that you accepted

the fact that “Ghostbuster” wasn’t a realistic career

choice. But here you stand before contraptions that

you have convinced yourself were impossible feats

of engineering. Well, they are near impossible feats

of engineering. Especially considering the fact that

Michael crafts each piece by hand, from memory,

without the use of blueprints or in most cases even

sketches to plan in the fabrication process. That’s

part of the beauty of their creation. They don’t rep-

resent exact replicas of the vehicles from Star Wars

or the proton packs worn by Ray, Egon and the rest.

They are recreations of an entire golden generation

of summer blockbusters, often blurring the line be-

tween what inspired them. Some works reference

more than one film; part Return of the Jedi, part

Robocop, part Ghost in the Darkness. Recreating

the machines in this way, and echoing the fallacy of

our own memories, breathes new life into the work.

One of the many wonderful things about

Michael Rea’s work is that it appeals to the inner ad-

olescent in us all - that part of our history that still re-

sides deep down, left over from the age when sum-

mers were one long waking dream of sleepovers,

visits to the multiplex, soft serve ice cream and mini

golf under the lights. Michael’s pieces stir up these

nostalgic feelings of a time in our lives before self-

consciousness took over. His sculptures encapsulate

the kind of youthful excitement that we often spend

the rest of our lives trying to recapture. This is pos-

sibly why his work elicits such a strong gut reaction

with his audience. It’s as if we are rediscovering old

friends who we had long forgotten - the heroes and

villains that filled the long golden summers of our

childhood.

62 Tsavo Manhunters, Part 1, 2009

Michael Rea is a craftsman first and foremost. This is a large

part of how he is able to achieve what he does with his work. The atten-

tion to detail and care that is taken with each miniscule component is

mind-boggling. As with most woodworking, Michael does employ large

mounted saws and drills, but a huge portion is crafted by hand, through

molding, sanding and joining. It is this tactility in both process and prod-

uct that adds to the appeal of the final work. A lot of his pieces are

meant to be held (or wielded) which extends the mythology that he is

creating. One piece entitled, A Prosthetic Suit For Stephen Hawking w/

Japanese Steel, can be mounted and worn just as its subject might. In

the end Michael Rea’s work is just

as real if not more authentic than

what inspired each piece. The

only difference is in the material.

Michael works almost exclusively

with unfinished wood.

Rather than fully com-

pleting the fabrication process

Michael stops just shy of the mark,

allowing the audience to fill in the

rest. What is preserved through

this choice is the audience’s

feeling of nostalgia. After all, this

period that Michael captures so

perfectly is different to each one

of us, and although our memories

may be fallible, the emotions as-

sociated with them are as real as

can be.

New Heroes members

Thomas Nicholas and Andrew

Zeiter were given access to Mi-

chael Rea’s studio this summer

and were allowed to pick his brain

about his work, all things fantastic

in cinema, art and summertime in

Chicago. Correspondant Sasha

Fornari captured the visit with his camera.

THOMAS : One of the things I noticed about your work was the detail that

is apparent when seeing your it in person as opposed to in photos. It’s

just so intricate. Do you have a background in woodworking?

MIcHAel ReA : No my undergrad was in painting and art education ac-

tually. When I first moved to Chicago I was teaching elementary school

in Rolling Meadows and living in Bucktown when you could still afford

to live in Bucktown, like about seven years ago. I was just doing paint-

ings and through stretcher building for canvases I got into woodworking.

Someone invited me over to use a table saw to do some inlays for a

frame and I was like, this is fun, but it’s taking a while spending all this

time on the back of the picture. It started by just learning to stick wood

together.

ANDRew : The detail is unbelievable though. The fact that you’re mostly

self-taught is just astounding.

MIcHAel : Well I did go to grad school for it. I got in and did a series of

rock and roll instruments as the first kind of project. I actually just rebuilt

those for a show, which was interesting to kind of cap that, like déjà vu,

I was like “God I didn’t even know

what I was doing the first time”.

But yeah I went to Madison for

Grad school and they were pretty

sophisticated out there as far as

fabrication. I worked with a guy

named Aris Giorgiadis who was

originally from Chicago and was

this big sculpture guy who makes

these mammoth metal sculptures

for public consumption that kids

can just beat the hell out of and

that will stay together. And the

other guy was named Tom Loeser

who was a furniture maker and

would measure his joints with a

piece of paper to see if they were

tight enough. So I got a lot of tips

and learned a lot from just watch-

ing other grad students and hit

the ground running. I think the

painting I used to do is pretty im-

portant in terms of how I build the

sculptures and everything.

THOMAS : It’s great to be in here.

I think its kind of a fantasyland for

our generation. There is stuff in

here from all of the movies that our generation grew up loving. To be

honest these movies are in some way responsible for me getting into art.

I mean the Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies.

MIcHAel : Yeah I kind of think that Indiana Jones was like the quintessen-

tial one. When Jaws came out I was a little too young, but as an adult I

kind of went back and just drooled over how cool it was.

ANDRew : So what would be your top movies growing up?

MIcHAel : Well you know of course Star Wars. I was in second grade and

my mom took me. The release of the movie kind of coincided with our

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last day of school. She took us over to Ford City Mall on the south side

of Chicago. Also, Return of the Jedi and of course Indiana Jones were

really important. Aliens, and Alien. I mean I was kind of a junkie for all

that stuff. Then Tarantino started to come out with movies and now you

have T.V. shows like Family Guy – and these things are actually so com-

plex. They reference so many things from that period of time. I mean you

have to have seen eight million things from that time to get the jokes.

THOMAS : But I wonder if that will play itself out in future generations.

Generations that won’t be as familiar with those specific references. I

mean it’s hilarious to us but it seems that the nature of that type of humor

might be too generational.

MIcHAel : Yeah. This younger generation seems kind of different. You

watch things like Avatar where now it’s a different kind of experience

than it used to be. I mean I argued for Avatar. But it’s kind of like going

to an amusement park in a way. So maybe that won’t necessarily have

a presence, an imprint on culture.

THOMAS : Well I think it’s extraordinary because it’s the first real leap in

the technology of motion pictures in quite some time. I mean you have

sound, color and now 3-D.

MIcHAel : I kind of miss the drive-ins. You put a mattress and two buck-

ets in the back of a flat bed. But now you also have the ability to sort of

watch whatever you want, whenever you want. VHS was kind of invent-

ed when I was in second or third grade. So before that you used to have

to go to the theater whenever something was playing that you wanted

to see because you never knew when it would come out again.

THOMAS : we used rent a VcR sometimes on the weekend and it was

this huge deal.

MIcHAel : Yeah, or someone you knew would get cable and you’d all

kind of congregate at that house. That’s how I saw Alien for the first time.

It was on HBO at my uncle’s house, and I saw it way too young. John

Carpenter’s The Thing was another one.

THOMAS : I love The Thing! (To Andrew) didn’t we just watch that a little

while ago?

ANDRew: Yeah I love The Thing. we rented it a few weeks ago but you

fell asleep right away.

MIcHAel : Yeah, Kurt Russell is so good in it. I just went back and watched

Deathproof, that Tarintino movie that has Kurt Russell in it. He’s so awe-

some. I was watching it, and it was kind of a nerdville kind of thing, I

noticed that one of scenes has a reference to Big Trouble In Little China

{another Kurt Russell 80’s movie}

THOMAS : I have vivid memories of seeing that when I was five.

MIcHAel : I like what Tarantino has done with film. He has like appropri-

ated this stuff and now he utilizes a common language.

THOMAS : So when you recreate these pieces do you use any type of

images from these movies you mentioned or are they just strictly from

memory?

MIcHAel : Well most of them are just from memory. I mean once in a

while I’ll Google search something just to remember what it looks like

and get a vague idea. Or I’ll just go back and watch the movie. For

these two Lions I watched Ghost in the Darkness. These were part of this

big Walker {from Star Wars/Robocop}. They kind of hang on the sides -

these two lifeless, captive lions. They were a pain in the ass to make.

ANDRew : And it’s a purposeful choice to leave it all unfinished?

MIcHAel : Yeah it’s just kind of raw. And also it leaves it open to make

adjustments if I don’t quite finish them. Also not making a copy of some-

thing, they’re raw, so that its not just an exact copy. If you start doing

that you get into a John Henry scenario of – I’m going to beat the train.

I mean it’s hard to beat digital recreations, and machine recreations.

And well, he died in that story. But you’ve got to kind of start thinking - ,

“what’s the point of making a copy? You could just buy the thing. What

makes it unique?” I kind of wanted it to be about the frailty of the hu-

man condition. So when I’m working and its starts to go awry you just

have to go with it and present those little embarrassments with the final

product.

THOMAS : I like that. You’re kind of leaving room for error.

MIcHAel : Yeah allowing it to be not perfect. There’s kind of a balance

of beauty there. I mean you can’t make something too shitty or you’ll

be up the creek. But there is kind of something poetic about leaving it

unfinished. Stopping short. Not killing the joke.

THOMAS : So are there any movies that you haven’t gotten around to

referencing?

MIcHAel : I’ve been wanting to do a piece about The Exorcist for years.

I just can’t figure out how to do it! Ughh! I was thinking I wanted to make

it kind of interactive, like with this gun {from Robocop/Star Wars} you can

put it on your arm. I was thinking maybe the bed would just face you so it

was like you were getting the above view. Or you could stick your head

in the face so you were kind of possessing the possessed. Also I’ve been

thinking about making like a Strawberry Shortcake car.

THOMAS : My wife would love that.

MIcHAel : Yeah when I look at all this stuff it’s all kind of boyish and I think

maybe I should do something more feminine, you know. That’s maybe

the one that I have to start building soon or think of something else – I

have a show coming up in November. I try not to think about it too much

– I just have to get in there and start doing it.

ANDRew : How long do these pieces take?

MIcHAel : About 6 months. Its hard to travel this large stuff too - that’s

kind of the tricky part.

THOMAS : Yeah I can’t imagine. The shipping must be insane. How has

your work evolved over the years?

MIcHAel : I guess it’s been about getting a narrative more involved.

Like Edward Kienholz or Charles Ray, where it is a little bit more about a

scene, or the sets, like your looking at the stage from a side view. So it’s a

A Prosthetic Suit For Stephen Hawking w/ Japanese Steel, 2007

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conversation about the suspension of belief through viewing

them in the round. Some of the first {pieces} were just perfor-

mative, like the rock band series. And then when I went to

grad school I thought I would just build something static that

would work, so people could have a similar experience with-

out me having to jump around in the exhibit like a jackass. To

see if the object could do the work without actors. And the

first couple were just solemn objects that sat quietly and then

I began trying to make them a little more dynamic. So there is

a story arc in the piece. And also to try and make the sources

a little more jumbled and fractured and create a jigsaw of like

six movies. Like what happens when I stick six movies together

– a little bit more cryptic. A little more ridiculous.

ANDRew : Is there ever a huge discrepancy between the final

project and where you start?

MIcHAel : Yeah sometimes. I don’t do a lot of sketching. So

they change around a lot. You have six months to do it so you

come in and think. ”Oh no, I have six months to work on this

thing.” I mean taking six months to fabricate something is….

horrible. You lose it.

ANDRew : But it also seems really mathematic.

MIcHAel : Well a lot of times the necessity for something to

hold more weight or balance something else will inform the

aesthetic. So I end up making changes as I get into it. You

have to kind of react to the actual object. If I was smarter I

guess I could visualize exactly what it would look like in my

head. It just turns in to such a marathon – I can’t quite pull the

trigger on this Strawberry Shortcake car though.

THOMAS : Do you have anybody to assist you with the work?

MIcHAel : Sometimes, yeah like the last time I had a couple

friends come in. It was January or December and I was still

trying to finish these wooden chain links that I was working

on for the Lions, and it just took forever and it was getting to

the point where I just couldn’t do it anymore, my hands were

getting arthritis. Like, “Awww shit I can only do ten of these a

day!” so if I had to do seventy or something… Some friends

would come in and be like, “What are you working on?” and

I’d show them and they’d say, ” Aww I want to try that can

I come in and do it?” And I’d say “Suuuure, you know, sand

away here you go”… Sometimes I need help lifting things too.

Also its kind if lonely… just sitting here with music, alone.

THOMAS : well thank you so much for letting us visit. It’s really

wonderful to get to be in an artist’s creative space.

MIcHAel : Yeah no problem, come by anytime, like I said it

gets lonely.

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KELSEY BROOKES MAKES HIGH VOLUME ART I don’t mean that he is especially prolific but rather that his paintings are a cacaphony of intense colors and imagery that threaten to burn the retina. His style is a mash-up of global cultures that incorporate elements of Hindu-ism, African textiles and graffiti. Many of his works seem to be cellular in form, which may be a residual of his previous occupation as a biochemist. Kelsey Brookes is an ultra-aesthet-ic artist, to be sure. But what he presents in his work doesn’t exist for this purpose alone. In-

Opposite Page:

Felix

(2009)

stead, it is intended to initiate a conversation about what we are drawn to visually as human beings and what that says about our nature. Recently Kelsey’s paintings have been explor-ing Eastern ideas of beauty as represented in pop culture. Many of his new pieces share the cartoonishly-large eyes that are common in Japanese Manga. The New Heroes spoke to Kelsey while in his studio about microbiol-ogy, cellular engineering, Mozart and a little bit about art.

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THOMAS : One of the most amazing things about

your whole story is that you went to school to be-

come a biologist. what motivated you to go into

that in the first place and then what made you start

a new journey into art?

KelSeY : To be honest I feel like a lot of my own self-

direction led me to science. I wasn’t too decisive

and it just seemed to be the path that opened up

in front of me. In school if you do well in science

then that’s the place you’re encouraged to go so

I followed science and math because that’s what

I did well in school and that’s what interested me.

To be honest that still interests me. Just from a differ-

ent perspective, I guess. So it was just kind of going

through life doing what I was told and that got me

into science. It wasn’t until I matured a little bit and

started practicing in my career as a scientist that

I realized, ‘You know, this is really no fun. Let’s do

something else.’

THOMAS : Do you feel that you always had artistic

tendencies growing up, or was that something you

began to discover once you were a little older?

KelSeY : I think as a child everyone does have ar-

tistic tendancies - it’s just whether or not they are

encouraged as you develop. I remember drawing

and stuff, of course, but then that was all left behind

in elementary school. I remember my buddy in third

grade was able to draw a plane in perspective.

Back then everyone was very interested in draw-

ing planes and he all of a sudden drew a plane in

perspective. I remember it kind of being a big deal.

I was like, ‘great I can’t do that’, and then I kind

of told myself, ‘okay, well you’re not an artist.’ So I

didn’t even really take the idea of art seriously until

probably a couple years after I graduated from col-

lege, maybe 6 or 7 years ago. Then I started finding

it to be a really interesting thing. I wanted to learn

more about it and in the process of trying to learn

more about it, I ended up actually doing it to un-

derstand it. I think to really try and learn about any-

thing you have to just do it. And I got hooked. It was

pretty simple.

THOMAS : It seems like biology is still something

that is reflected in your work. The circular and the

Hindu type paintings also have this cellular element

Above: Kelsey in his Natural HabitiatPhotos by Ross Morrison

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to them. like microorganisms. Is that a conscious

choice or is it something that is now just part of you

that comes out in your work?

KelSeY : I guess people do try to make that con-

nection. I don’t really see too much of that in there.

Whether it is conscious or not I don’t know. I really

appreciate detai - really small minute little details

in things and in parts of larger paintings, so I can

see how certain paintings can look like microscopic

organisms. But realistically what I am aesthetically

interested in is what goes with the composition of

a painting or what finishes off a certain painting.

Conceptually, I hope to incorperate biology one

day. I think there is a general curiosity that led me

into science about the world and larger questions

about life and what we’re doing here. Not only

what we’re doing here but what’s happening to us

and ideas about consciousness and stuff like that.

Those things kind of get put into my work; they’re

kind of a conceptual base for a lot of these paint-

ings. So I can see a parallel in the sense that science

is basically just questioning and looking for answers

and my art is sort of reflecting that questioning. In

that sense I can see a direct relation to science, but

not in the actual technique yet, maybe one day.

For right now I haven’t been able to put it together

yet.

THOMAS : I was looking at your work all day on my

computer and then I logged into another site and

saw that there is a scientist who was just able to

synthesize life in cellular form and kind of bypass

evolution by controlling the compounds of life. Did

you see that in the news?

KELSEY : No that’s crazy I haven’t looked into that

research at all. I still try and keep in touch with what

is happening in a larger perspective; I mean in the

field I was in it was so so specific I kind of left that

behind. That’s crazy though.

Above:Goofball Gobbeldy Gook (2009)

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and symobols and things they use to communicate are all very childlike

– that has always interested me. I have also always liked that in other

people’s work - when they reference that goofy kind of imagery. But it’s

looked at as a lesser form of communication in our society because it’s

used in children’s books and cartoons. In eastern society it’s everywhere.

It’s ubiquitous in the way they communicate. So when I came back from

Japan I thought, ‘ok that’s a legitimate way to communicate.’ I wanted

to utilize these cartoony, exaggerated caricatures of the human figure

and try to use that to communicate my ideas. So a lot of the new stuff

that I have been doing incorporates those ideas. A lot of the figures now

have these big cartoonish eyes or goofy looking hands.

THOMAS : That’s interesting. I have always felt that all human beings are

kind of attracted to that super-colorful aesthetic based work. I feel like

everyone deep down gravitates toward that and yet it seems like a lot of

highbrow art is about denying that impulse that we have in us anyway.

It seems as if there are two art camps; the aesthetic based visceral art

camp and the conceptual camp and they are always at war with each

other and refuse to merge and become something. whether or not you

want to incorporate aesthetics, they should still be acknowledged for

their importance.

THOMAS : Yeah I will forward you the link. It kind of blew my mind. The

ethics involved are staggering.

KelSeY : Yeah definitely forward that. That’ll be awesome.

THOMAS : If you don’t necessarily feel that science has a direct repre-

sentation in your work what influences would you credit? I see a lot of

eastern religion. Is that something you’re exploring?

KelSeY : Definitely. It was more so in the past. It’s not so much a direct

influence now. At this point I’m trying to combine this idea of pure aes-

thetic and concept in my art - trying to tie those things together. I’m

trying to come up with things that I like to paint and things that look

beautiful and painting them in ways that are pleasing to the eye. I’m

trying to take those things and add a conceptual basis to them - like

what are my thoughts on this world or what purpose do we have here

or just larger meditations and trying to put that into these canvases. Lots

of philosophical things, sort of poetic verses and things like that. So in the

new paintings that I am working on right now the Eastern religious influ-

ences have kind of fallen away. I went to Japan about a year ago and

I was really amazed by the way they communicate – many of the figures

Explosion Blue(2009)

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KelSeY : Yeah, a lot of what I am trying to do is

about reconciling those ideas. This might be totally

creating the wrong analogy or extending a meta-

phor too far but it’s as if you play a beautiful Mozart

sonata to a bunch of inner city kids anywhere in the

world. Maybe they wouldn’t really connect with it

too much because they’re in a different place or

have a different mindset. But if you give them a re-

ally great, visceral sort of drum music they

will connect with it right away. If you take

those same kids and you pile on the artistic

education they will eventually start appreci-

ating other types of art. The more time you

take with something or the more allowance

you give to it the greater your appreciation

can grow.

THOMAS : Its kind of the difference between

what exists on the most basic level and then

what we can grow to appreciate in our life-

times as we evolve as people.

KELSEY : You can appreciate anything if you

give it enough time. But then again you

don’t want to go too far because then you

just get into bullshitting… you have to draw

the line at something. For me its about ap-

preciating more and being open to more.

Above: The Storm

(2009)