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22 December 2023
ARMED WITH A LIGHT METER, A CAMERA, AND A LIST OF BEAUTIFUL MODELS THAT WOULD MAKE HUGH HEFNER JEALOUS, THIS MONTH'S UNTAPPED TALENT, GYASI GILLESPIE, IS READY TO TAKE ON THE WORLD OF PHOTOGRAPHY. GILLESPIE SAT DOWN WITH INSANE WAYNE CHINSANG AND DEBBIE, AND HAD A FRONT PORCH CONVERSATION ABOUT GALLERIES, GRAFFITI, AND GRADUATING.
Wayne: Start by telling us how you got into art.
Gyasi: My first introduction to art was graffiti. That’s what I used to do and love. I would do photography on the side when I was in high school. I never really focused on it. But after coming to Columbus and going to school, and actually trying to find something to make a career out of and not go to jail for (laughs), I started doing photography. I felt like it was something that just came naturally. It was something I would do, regardless of whether or not I had homework for it. And the more I realized how far I could take it, with equipment and stuff like that, the more seriously I took it. I still consider myself a graffiti writer, but I don’t get out as much as I used to. But I just felt like this was a natural progression. Before, I took myself as a serious graffiti writer that would take pictures. Now I consider myself a serious photographer, and now I try and incorporate some of those same ideas of graffiti into my photography.
W: How are the two mediums similar to you?
G: They’re not. It’s like two different worlds, two different personalities. Graffiti writers are more, obviously, street. And photographers are more like, black shirts, black pants. (laughs) It’s two totally different worlds. And I don’t know that I fit into either one. I don’t like a lot of graffiti writers, and I don’t like a lot of photographers.
W: What kind of people or things do you find yourself being influenced by then?
G: Everything. People do, sometimes. Somebody I meet will be attractive, or a lot of times their personality makes me want to take pictures of them. I feel I get a better understanding of people when I take pictures of them.
W: I also majored in photography in college and I shoot portraiture. My main purpose in shooting portraiture is to document my relationship with the subject. Is that something you are trying to do with your photography, or are you trying to do something else?
G: I think it varies. Every time I shoot I am documenting the relationship between myself and that person. But sometimes I feel like it is going beyond that. And sometimes I just don’t know. I’m not afraid to say that sometimes I don’t have an agenda. I just try and do things that feel right.
W: Is there anything wrong with just a pretty picture? In an image that is successful in its aesthetic, but it doesn’t achieve anything beyond that?
G: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Some people may think of my photographs as just pretty pictures, and that’s fine.
W: As long as they buy it. (laughs)
G: (laughs) Yeah. But I don’t even know how I feel about selling stuff. Some pictures I don’t think I’d ever sell.
Debbie: They’re just too personal?
G: Yeah. And I just don’t want to say that they’re for sale. I like to hang my work in galleries and show them off, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I want to sell them. I want to do commercial work and fashion work, but with my personal work I just don’t want it hanging on someone’s wall that I don’t know.
W: Your sketchbooks are filled with prints of your work, and they have a very textural and handmade feel to them. Meanwhile, galleries can be very detached and sterile. Do you think showing in a gallery is just as important as showing your work in your portfolios and sketchbooks?
G: Honestly, I don’t really care. I feel like something is lost in a sterile environment, but I also feel like something is gained because the prints are able to be a lot larger. Also, I’m not always standing in the gallery, so I’m not able to hear what they feel about the photograph, and I see that as a plus. I see galleries as a blank sheet of print paper or film. You shouldn’t worry about the paper or film until you have an image on it.
W: What’s some of the most important stuff you learned at art school?
G: I don’t think I even really started learning until my junior year. Shit just starts to make sense around that time. I think that’s a time in general when you start figuring out what the fuck you’re about. I learned a lot of technical stuff, which is important. At school people press buttons by commenting on your work, but that’s not only in school. That’s something that comes from everyone I ask about my work. I haven’t really stepped back and looked at it, so I really can’t say. I mean, I definitely think I’ve gotten something from it. But I don’t know if it’s worth all the money I spent. (laughs) I don’t know how much I agree with it, but when I graduated high school I felt like I had to go to college. And I think it’s good that I went to college. But I don’t know if when I have kids I’ll make them feel like they have to go to college. Especially if they want to be artists.
D: It seems like when we were kids it was pushed on us that after high school you’ve got to go to college if you want to get a good job.
G: Right. And I graduated, but I don’t have a good job. (laughs)
W: Exactly. (laughs)
G: I want to work for myself. Whether or not I went to school, I think I’m still going to have to put in the same amount of work. But now I’ll just be able to say that I have a degree. And nobody cares about a degree.
D: Yeah. Your work speaks for itself.
W: So, you like to shoot a bunch of different formats.
G: Yeah.
W: You shoot from 35mm all the way up to 8x10. What do you like using the most?
G: I like all of them. But the one that I use the most now is 4x5, because I can move around with a 4x5 camera. But if an 8x10 wasn’t so fucking heavy, I’d use that all the time.
W: How large do you print?
G: The largest I’ve printed is 30-inches by 36-inches. But if I can land this show at this gallery in Chicago, I have a plan to make huge prints.
D: What do you love about printing big?
G: I just like big shit. (laughs) It’s not the idea that bigger is better, because I like having small prints and small books. But I want to do both. But as far as a gallery goes, I like to be able to step back and look at it.
W: You’re from Chicago originally. Was it a culture shock going from Chicago to Columbus, Ohio?
G: Yeah.
W: Why didn’t you go to school in Chicago?
G: Because I had to get out of Chicago. (laughs)
W: Do you think your work would be different if you hadn’t left Chicago?
G: I probably wouldn’t even have been a photographer if I had stayed in Chicago. I’d probably just still be fucking around, doing graffiti.
W: Do you miss the old days of fucking around and doing graffiti?
G: No. When I go home I still paint sometimes, but not much.
D: Have things changed a lot with the graffiti scene back home?
G: Yeah. It’s not as good as it used to be. There’s just not as many people doing it. After my year graduated high school, nobody fucking bombed anymore.
W: I think one of the main problems is that all the wrong people are bombing. They’ve got a weird idea of what graffiti is.
G: Yeah. I think the writers in Columbus have a really fucked up idea of what graffiti is. They can be pissed off all they want, but they need to fucking check themselves.
W: Anything coming up for you that you want to talk about?
G: I’ve hopefully got that show coming up at Tigerman Himmel in Chicago, and I’m working on a website for my work. But I don’t have a URL yet. Other than that, just taking more pictures.
W: Are you more nervous shooting people you know, or people you don’t know?
G: I’m more nervous when I’m getting paid for it, because you can’t fuck up. Last year I showed my book at this place and they liked my book. But I was so scared of fucking up that I didn’t do the things I normally do. So I ended up with these boring ass pictures. I always mess with the color, and I didn’t want to mess with the color. But I just let what the rest of the magazine looked like compromise what I did.
D: Do you ever get something back and are surprised at what you got?
G: That happens a lot. I go in and shoot something, and after the shot I get nervous because I think that I didn’t shoot what I had in my head. But when I get them back, I end up surprising myself.
GET IN TOUCH WITH GYASI AT 312.986.9195 OR VISIT HIS WEBSITE HERE.
Wayne: Start by telling us how you got into art.
Gyasi: My first introduction to art was graffiti. That’s what I used to do and love. I would do photography on the side when I was in high school. I never really focused on it. But after coming to Columbus and going to school, and actually trying to find something to make a career out of and not go to jail for (laughs), I started doing photography. I felt like it was something that just came naturally. It was something I would do, regardless of whether or not I had homework for it. And the more I realized how far I could take it, with equipment and stuff like that, the more seriously I took it. I still consider myself a graffiti writer, but I don’t get out as much as I used to. But I just felt like this was a natural progression. Before, I took myself as a serious graffiti writer that would take pictures. Now I consider myself a serious photographer, and now I try and incorporate some of those same ideas of graffiti into my photography.
W: How are the two mediums similar to you?
G: They’re not. It’s like two different worlds, two different personalities. Graffiti writers are more, obviously, street. And photographers are more like, black shirts, black pants. (laughs) It’s two totally different worlds. And I don’t know that I fit into either one. I don’t like a lot of graffiti writers, and I don’t like a lot of photographers.
W: What kind of people or things do you find yourself being influenced by then?
G: Everything. People do, sometimes. Somebody I meet will be attractive, or a lot of times their personality makes me want to take pictures of them. I feel I get a better understanding of people when I take pictures of them.
W: I also majored in photography in college and I shoot portraiture. My main purpose in shooting portraiture is to document my relationship with the subject. Is that something you are trying to do with your photography, or are you trying to do something else?
G: I think it varies. Every time I shoot I am documenting the relationship between myself and that person. But sometimes I feel like it is going beyond that. And sometimes I just don’t know. I’m not afraid to say that sometimes I don’t have an agenda. I just try and do things that feel right.
W: Is there anything wrong with just a pretty picture? In an image that is successful in its aesthetic, but it doesn’t achieve anything beyond that?
G: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Some people may think of my photographs as just pretty pictures, and that’s fine.
W: As long as they buy it. (laughs)
G: (laughs) Yeah. But I don’t even know how I feel about selling stuff. Some pictures I don’t think I’d ever sell.
Debbie: They’re just too personal?
G: Yeah. And I just don’t want to say that they’re for sale. I like to hang my work in galleries and show them off, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I want to sell them. I want to do commercial work and fashion work, but with my personal work I just don’t want it hanging on someone’s wall that I don’t know.
W: Your sketchbooks are filled with prints of your work, and they have a very textural and handmade feel to them. Meanwhile, galleries can be very detached and sterile. Do you think showing in a gallery is just as important as showing your work in your portfolios and sketchbooks?
G: Honestly, I don’t really care. I feel like something is lost in a sterile environment, but I also feel like something is gained because the prints are able to be a lot larger. Also, I’m not always standing in the gallery, so I’m not able to hear what they feel about the photograph, and I see that as a plus. I see galleries as a blank sheet of print paper or film. You shouldn’t worry about the paper or film until you have an image on it.
W: What’s some of the most important stuff you learned at art school?
G: I don’t think I even really started learning until my junior year. Shit just starts to make sense around that time. I think that’s a time in general when you start figuring out what the fuck you’re about. I learned a lot of technical stuff, which is important. At school people press buttons by commenting on your work, but that’s not only in school. That’s something that comes from everyone I ask about my work. I haven’t really stepped back and looked at it, so I really can’t say. I mean, I definitely think I’ve gotten something from it. But I don’t know if it’s worth all the money I spent. (laughs) I don’t know how much I agree with it, but when I graduated high school I felt like I had to go to college. And I think it’s good that I went to college. But I don’t know if when I have kids I’ll make them feel like they have to go to college. Especially if they want to be artists.
D: It seems like when we were kids it was pushed on us that after high school you’ve got to go to college if you want to get a good job.
G: Right. And I graduated, but I don’t have a good job. (laughs)
W: Exactly. (laughs)
G: I want to work for myself. Whether or not I went to school, I think I’m still going to have to put in the same amount of work. But now I’ll just be able to say that I have a degree. And nobody cares about a degree.
D: Yeah. Your work speaks for itself.
W: So, you like to shoot a bunch of different formats.
G: Yeah.
W: You shoot from 35mm all the way up to 8x10. What do you like using the most?
G: I like all of them. But the one that I use the most now is 4x5, because I can move around with a 4x5 camera. But if an 8x10 wasn’t so fucking heavy, I’d use that all the time.
W: How large do you print?
G: The largest I’ve printed is 30-inches by 36-inches. But if I can land this show at this gallery in Chicago, I have a plan to make huge prints.
D: What do you love about printing big?
G: I just like big shit. (laughs) It’s not the idea that bigger is better, because I like having small prints and small books. But I want to do both. But as far as a gallery goes, I like to be able to step back and look at it.
W: You’re from Chicago originally. Was it a culture shock going from Chicago to Columbus, Ohio?
G: Yeah.
W: Why didn’t you go to school in Chicago?
G: Because I had to get out of Chicago. (laughs)
W: Do you think your work would be different if you hadn’t left Chicago?
G: I probably wouldn’t even have been a photographer if I had stayed in Chicago. I’d probably just still be fucking around, doing graffiti.
W: Do you miss the old days of fucking around and doing graffiti?
G: No. When I go home I still paint sometimes, but not much.
D: Have things changed a lot with the graffiti scene back home?
G: Yeah. It’s not as good as it used to be. There’s just not as many people doing it. After my year graduated high school, nobody fucking bombed anymore.
W: I think one of the main problems is that all the wrong people are bombing. They’ve got a weird idea of what graffiti is.
G: Yeah. I think the writers in Columbus have a really fucked up idea of what graffiti is. They can be pissed off all they want, but they need to fucking check themselves.
W: Anything coming up for you that you want to talk about?
G: I’ve hopefully got that show coming up at Tigerman Himmel in Chicago, and I’m working on a website for my work. But I don’t have a URL yet. Other than that, just taking more pictures.
W: Are you more nervous shooting people you know, or people you don’t know?
G: I’m more nervous when I’m getting paid for it, because you can’t fuck up. Last year I showed my book at this place and they liked my book. But I was so scared of fucking up that I didn’t do the things I normally do. So I ended up with these boring ass pictures. I always mess with the color, and I didn’t want to mess with the color. But I just let what the rest of the magazine looked like compromise what I did.
D: Do you ever get something back and are surprised at what you got?
G: That happens a lot. I go in and shoot something, and after the shot I get nervous because I think that I didn’t shoot what I had in my head. But when I get them back, I end up surprising myself.
GET IN TOUCH WITH GYASI AT 312.986.9195 OR VISIT HIS WEBSITE HERE.
artid
788
Old Image
4_11_untapped.swf
issue
vol 4 - issue 11 (aug 2002)
section
untapped