The COMP Magazine Dan Rizzo-Orr - IGF & Alternative States of Being

Simultaneously drawing from while subverting common visual language embedded in art history and quotidian activities, Dan Rizzo-Orr has cultivated a rather refined voice in his fledgling career. The COMP Magazine recently visited Rizzo-Orr’s west Ukranian Village studio to discuss the transition from an academic setting to a self-perpetuating practice, what he enjoys in the art making process, the exhibit, “Room with a View”, presented last spring at Heaven Gallery, and what the plan is for 2016.

Dan Rizzo-Orr
Horse Statuette Northeast
Oil on Fabric, clay vase fragments
110”x76”
2015

Can we begin with a introduction to your personal history. Yes, you are at the inception of your career, however this can perhaps set a tone. You grew up in the southwest, Phoenix, Arizona, I believe? You completed your studies in painting at SAIC in 2013. Were there any specific early experiences or people who you’ve worked with that have informed your current aesthetic efforts?

I grew up in Phoenix. I started my formal art training as a teenager with a wonderful artist, Adria Pecora, who had previously been teaching at NYU, Skidmore, and Cooper Union. This encounter was a strong hand of luck that I was able to have a mentor like that at an early age especially in a city that can be pretty wanting as a place for fostering contemporary art. At the SAIC I worked with a large gamut of artists (probably too many to start name dropping). Many of whom had major impacts on how I started to think about painting and being an artist.

View With a Room Installation 2
Mika Horibuchi and Dan Rizzo-Orr
2015

Lets talk about the show, “View with a Room” at Heaven Gallery with Mika Horibuchi last spring. What prompted this effort? Where do you see your works intersecting and diverging with Mika’s?

“View with a Room” was a project Mika and I had been thinking of doing together for awhile. Basically the show itself was an arrangement of paintings that functioned in the traditional sense of a standalone two dimensional objects and paintings that mimicked specific aspects of the architectural space and functioned as domestic type sculptures. This show was an extra exciting one to do because in thinking of it as a stand alone project I had room to move as far away from my normal visual language and do some hard to pin down weird works. A few pieces I did took motifs or specific images from sources on opposite spectrums, like Japanese animation, small house sculptures, and an Edward Hopper painting and make very different physical manifestations of those ideas tailored to the dimensions of Heaven Gallery. Mika and I both share an admiration for painting that is a reflection of its environment as an object and a window to a different space. Her work sharply diverges from my own in that it is more like a physical illustration of an idea wether that be something like a painting/sculpture of a screen, rug, or optical illusion. My own work is more narrative and figuratively driven though the materials and structure hold a significant foundation for what I think is important. In short, our work pairs well together but in “View with a Room” the lines were more blurry because each piece we made was a few steps outside of our regular boundaries.

View with a Room Installation
Mika Horibuchi and Dan Rizzo-Orr
2015

How are you handling the transition from working in an academic setting to being completely reliant upon your on motivations and network of peers? Are you seeing any changes in your working practice?

Since graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago my studio practice or whatever the term for it is has been organically moving and I have great comfort in that. There are things that I have to give up in order to juggle doing the day job with the studio work every day but it feels like I’m narrowing down the things I need to do in order to spend a much time in the studio a possible. There are times when I will have a blank day and not know what to do, however lately when that has happened I work on physical projects like tiling things or reupholstering furniture, I don’t know where that comes from but it’s nice. Sharing a studio with Mika Horibuchi has been an extra motivation for the day to day of coming to the studio, I don’t need solitude to make my work and its encouraging to have a partner there in the room with me. More generally though I have a solid set of peers who take their art careers very seriously and though most of us are young, a lot of good things have been happening which i think is propelled by our proximity to one another and the kinship of being part of a community.

Dan Rizzo-Orr
Himself being here
Acrylic on Cotton, Ceramic Tile Pedestal
38”x60”
2015

I want to discuss a specific work that piques my interest. The painting, It could be easier together, acrylic on cotton, measures 36”x60”, and was produced this year. This densely arranged composition is packed with symbolic, figurative and formal (textural) elements. Can you share with us the intent of the work and an overview on the process?

It could be easier together was a piece that I made for a show I had at 4th ward project space called “IGF (IT’S GREAT FUN) (IN GOOD FAITH) (I GOT FIRED)” earlier this year. The painting is a more narrow human sized painting that sits on a tiled pedestal elevating it so the figures are at an average standing height. This piece was done on raw cotton using a process that alternates staining the canvas and using an airbrush to make linear marks with. There is also collaging of the cotton in sort of draping strips stained and marked swell that go across the painting. The start for this painting came from thinking about the origin story of the bible with Eve eating and sharing the fruit from the tree of knowledge resulting in banishment. In this painting I thought the two figures could work together to get the fruit acknowledging the consequence but relishing that they chose to share that act.

Dan Rizzo-Orr
It could be easier together
Acrylic on Cotton, Ceramic Tile Pedestal
36”x60

What do you value in the art-making process?

In the actual process of art-making I value room for intuitive decision making within the framework of a well decided and conceptually developed project. A big part of what I think makes my work my own is my hand and painting process but I don’t like working in a sort of free range no beginning or end type of way. I do however prefer to have surprises in the work wether or not that means I have to start over.

Dan Rizo-Orr
IGF Installation
2015

What are you currently working upon? Are there any shows or projects for 2016 that you can share?

For 2016 I’ll be starting the year off with a two person exhibition at LVL3 gallery I’m excited to announce! The show is titled “We no longer see it” and i’m showing with Baltimore based artist Ginevra Shay.