Neal Vandenbergh – Figurative Power & Breaking Old Habits

Neal Vandenbergh appears to have broken free of stagnant life and theoretical shackles to locate a fresh approach in his studio practice. Currently, Vandenbergh is making spontaneous drawings and paintings that use imagery of well known entities, casual passersby and random cartoonish figures drawn from the mind layered with sinuous lines, translucent fields of color, and visual conundrums. This week the COMP Magazine traveled down to Back-of-the-Yards to discuss with Vandenbergh his early years growing up just south of the city, his tactile studio approach, the role music and literature play upon his investigations, and his recent exhibition at Adler & Floyd gallery.

You are from Chicagoland, grew up in New Lenox, studied at Illinois State University in Normal, and then completed your MFA at UIC. Can we step back a bit and discuss your early experiences with the visual arts? Were there any specific events or people whom you see as piquing your interest in pursuing a career as a painter?

Might be a minor distinction but I never wanted to be specifically a painter and I don’t think of myself as that now. 

I was always making stuff with my neighbor as a kid. I have some scorcher memories of seeing big abstract paintings at AIC as a child/teen. I was very good at photo-realistic drawing in high school, but I don’t think it was until my experience at Joliet Junior College that I knew I wanted to pursue art as a life thing. It was the first time I was socially participating in a community of artists and what a community! A team of disparate and talented freaks, an absolutely bonkers amount of laughs, manic amounts of quality work being made and not the least important, good adult role models.

One of the items you noted for the exhibit, New Work 2016 – Present, recently on view at Adler & Floyd gallery was that the materials stem due to a paradigm shift from previous investigations. Can you discuss what prompted this change? Where do you see yourself landing in terms of the current work?

It’s actually 2017-Present. Not your fault, I gave them the wrong info for the title of my first show in years. I’m really reducing a whole lot here, that shift came from approx.1 million places, but at the time there was a general brain nagging that my work was lacking this very non-academic quality of LIFE.Coincidentally around the same time I got stone cold sober cold turkey after a decade+ of being everybody’s favorite party boy and I needed somewhere to put a lot of energy. Those two things led me to making way more work than I had since that bonkers 3 years in community college I was just talking about. 

I see myself landing in a consistent practice that has a restorative role in my life. I’m trying to jettison the language of a cosmopolitan art education a bit in favor of something more lively and intuitive with more of a connection to the time and place I’m working. It’ll be personal! It’ll be political! It’ll be expressive! It’ll be critical! It will have literally everything.

In looking at past works, there was emphasis on formal aspects and representation rather than the figure. Today, you appear to be looking at and making works with more weight put upon people. At times, you render known persons (a young Nancy Reagan or a young Margaret Thatcher), while in other instances the figures appear like spontaneously characters pulled from the mind’s eye. What drew you to this approach and content? Also, what role do narrative elements play into these new investigations?

This answer also ties into the above question re: paradigm shift. This whole way of working started with the Nancy and Margaret drawings. A little while before they started I was a labor organizer while working at an art handling company. Working at those places you really get to see, in your face 5 days a week 8+ hours a day, how this blue chip art, what’s taught in Higher Ed to be the best art, is really just an economy belonging to the wealthy. The taste of the ultra-rich. So at the time I’m scratching my noggin wondering what a working class art would look like. Looking at some more populist conceptions of art, both conservative and progressive, there’s always this figurative element which I had ignored in the last decade of my art-making.

I started the young Nancy and Margaret drawings to start responding to those things and I was using photo references. To break up some old habits I wanted to move beyond just copying photos. I bought a bunch of Halloween masks of presidents so I could make still lifes while still working figuratively + politically.I was drawing from photos and drawing from life and so I thought I should make some from my head without a reference. I’m not horribly interested in the painting/photography conversation, I want to do figurative work outside of the Tuymans/Richter shadow while avoiding too much cartoon reference. 

I don’t ever really think about narrative.

Thank you for sharing your playlist, much appreciated. I see overlap in our tastes in experimental and Jazz music. Music was a recurring topic in the studio visit. I see this interest surfacing in some of the drawings and paintings. Specifically, rather than relying solely on realism, you apply forms, lines, patterns, etc., that become fluid, almost fantastical and illusory. How do you see this sonic interest intersecting with your visual application?

Two ways – 

Letting the aesthetic experience of other art forms influence my visual practice (literature and music being the biggest) rather than trying to make only about theories of art and politics in an objective language (Old Neal). (Cosmopolitan art education Neal).

The second is getting into character. I do need to be in a specific head space to make work and that specific type of music helps me get there. 

Can you walk us through your studio practice? Specifically, can you describe your method for initiating a drawing, painting or series? Is there a structure you try to follow to produce continuity? 

I’ve been leaning on the “make first analyze later” mantra in a big way to try and inject that “LIFE” so I really try not over-determine the process. Even when I come in with a specific idea, it’s always different than what’s on paper. So I try to take out that ego-attachment of what I wanted and try to clearly see what will be best for the thing that’s in front of me. Then I identify what I’m excited by, base the next piece of that and follow that line until I get tuckered out and want to work at a different scale or with different materials or whatever.

What do you value most in your artistic practice?

Quality me-time/personal growth. Time for some good Quiet. But also definitely time for Blastin’ Tunez.

In addition to your aesthetic practice you are currently teaching Contemporary Art Practices and Studio Arts (drawing and painting) at USF. You’ve been noted as “the Chill Prof.” of the department. This is a compliment for it’s apparent that you gain respect and quality results from your students through a relaxed and thoughtful approach. I’m wondering if you can share any specific items you regularly attempt to share with your students?

LOFL @ “chill prof.” It’s cause I wear shades and smoke cigs in class. And lets be real, I’m a lecturer. I guess one thing you could say I’m not chill about is labor relations.

I’ve found myself relying on Socratic method to figure what the problems are to making work. A big part of learning how to do something is learning how to identify the things that prevent you from doing it.

I’m always repping make first analyze later. 

With the recent exhibition put to bed. What’s the plan for the remainder of 2019? Do you have any new series of works in progress? Upcoming exhibitions?

New Neal (me rn) is trying to keep up a consistent practice where navigating my life/world is the main drive and I’m not necessarily making work for shows or applications. A few series started right before the show that are still developing. More big paintings on cardboard based on photos I’ve taken and more of the fantasy drawings done on colored construction paper. Those are scaling up a bit. Nothing upcoming show wise, which I like the most.

For additional information on the studio practice of Neal Vandenbergh, please visit:

Acre Artists Residency – https://www.acreresidency.org/artists-post/neal-vandenbergh/

The Visualist – https://www.thevisualist.org/2019/05/neal-vandenbergh-new-work-2016-present/

Vimeo – https://vimeo.com/nealvandenbergh

Exhibition document photographs by Evan Jenkins

Artist interview and portrait of artist by Chester Alamo-Costello