"I like the beating metal can take" — Ken Marshall's candy-coated angst

Ken took time out from working on his latest series to talk with Convozine about creating his mixed-media work. We discussed his formative years in Japan, the powerful influence of Delacroix, the totemization of metal and the unparalleled coolness of early locomotives.

When I first looked at your work, I reacted as I imagine a lot of people do: "Oh, here's a sculptor who's painting." But maybe you see yourself as a painter who works with a metal sculptor's materials. How do you define yourself as an artist?

I can answer this way: I think the nuts and bolts of it is that I'm trying to complete the same thing in different media. I use the same metal shapes in the paintings as in the flat scuptures. So I end up trying to explore the same thing from different views. It kind drives me to a point of exhaustion — I think OK, I have exhausted this, now it's on to the next series, and it just keeps going like that.

The actual work of making my art is very loud and INDUSTRIAL. This is my medium — I feel metalic inside!

How did you arrive at your singular process?

I stumbled on the process of working on metal paintings with grinders and wire brushes on my own. Each painting is finished with a different texture, so they are all different.  The metal paintings to me are in-between sculpting and painting. The grinder carves the body out, and then different wire brushes help tame the violence of the grinder.

One critic said your work is in "L.A.'s grand tradition of industrial processes being applied to fine arts." You do grinders and wire brushes on aluminum, and auto paint in candy colors — are you conscious of that influence? Do you have connections in the world of car customization?

I like that comment very much and think it's right on.  I do love motorcycles and cars.  I have friends in that industry. I like the fanatical process they use with paint and metal, how they have to reshape and grind and all that — but it kinda ends there. 

Your "Drive" series certainly explores LA car culture. But not through the kustom/dream-car fantasy, but rather "driving angst" — that very LA angst of driving, driving, driving on freeways through an endless city. What inspired those paintings? (And do you call them paintings?)

Yes that's it exactly, I felt it was a universal image of driving through cities until ultimately buildings and cars all seem to form the same thing, and with that comes that metal fatigue — it all feels heavy and toxic and you feel like you're just gonna pull over and die.  

And I do call them metal paintings. 

You moved to your mother's native Japan when you were young. Did the Japanese milieu shape your style? And if so, how?

We experieced so much art there. The temples in Kyoto and the rock gardens cannot be explained unless you have seen them.  

As a young kid in Japan I started building a lot of plastic models.  And I know that building all those models was a direct link to the flat scuptures. Plastic models were like blueprints of how I fabricate today, using screws and bolts to secure the the pieces. That process is an industiral act by itself.  I read about the early locomotives that were built without welds! Metal was bent and shaped by hand with they used these huge bolts and rivets to secure behemoth structures.  What craftsmanship! And they had the coolest designs.  Nothing hidden like today's designs, it was all in the open — valves, shafts, cranks and levers. And all that metal.

It was in Japan that you were exposed to Munakata Shiko — who I can really see in your work — but also to Eugène Delacroix. You've said Delacroix was a very important influence. That surprised me at first. Then I thought about the muscularity of your figures, and their heroic, physical struggle, and it began to make sense. Tell me about that connection.

My parents to took us to this show in Tokyo in 1969 or 70 and it was a big deal. (I wasn't scared to wear a Nehru jacket to the show, either.) I didn't know who he was [but] Delacroix's paintings were so dense with this heavy feeling of just surviving — physical struggle, as you've said.  When you look at the subject and then to the background in his paintings, there is a real presence,as if the background is an audience to what is on center stage in the foreground. There is a wonderful, dramatic, romantic feeling in all his work.  Look at "Massacre at Chios" — the perfect example of a theatrical event. "Mephistopheles" still scares the daylights outta me.  So yes, seeing that show, not having known anything about that kind of greatness, was tremendous. 

Who were some of your other big influences?

Brancusi, Fernand Léger, Picasso, Tamara.

We talked about the physical struggle your work shows. The "Fist a Cuffs" series, both in its subject and its style, reminds me of the world of boxing — particularly the tradition of Mexican fighters coming out of LA. The attitude, the colors, maybe the tattoos. Am I wrong? 

Well, I like it to be open to interpretation. But it was more symbolic of everyday stresses or angst dressed up as fighters. 

I'm really interested in the "Metal Rogue" series. Is that more recent work? What's behind the Metal Rogues" It seems like you're leaving painterly concerns and doing something that intertwines metal sculpture and mosaic. The way you use and show the materials also feels a lot more organic. 

Thank you, Most of them started out as just heads, and the bodies were added later. 

You've obviously got a special feeling for metal. Do you work in materials besides aluminum? What is it about metal that inspires you as an artist?

I like the beating metal can take. And it does so much of the work for you. In good sunlight [metal sculptures] become gigantic shadow monsters. 

I know that once upon a time animal hide was used for shelter. Now we have sheets of metal.  The Metal Rogue series was really giving a spirtual animation to the material, like Native Americans did with buffalo, with all the wildlife that they depended on for food and shelter. They spritualized them. Metal Rogues were a way of embracing metal, which is so dear to us, and spiritualizing it — naively, probably…

What's next for Ken Marshall? Do you have a show coming up? Are you still working on the Metal Rogues series or are you exploring something new?

I am working on some new sculptures, and have some paintings to send to a collector back east.

More on Ken Marshall:

http://convozine.com/zine/556-the-luster-of-steel/c/14285 

http://kenmarshallmetalworks.com/