Name: Fidelis Joseph

City: Chicago

www.fidelisjoseph.com

Do you think that the goal of an artist is to discover something new in their time?

Yeah, I believe most artists, whose practices stretch over a very long period of time, are constantly trying to uncover something that we can't even explain. There's a belief that there is power in this. In each piece you make, you don't just feel like, "Oh, this is it. This is my bus stop." It makes you feel like there is still so much more that you haven't discovered yet. Take Rembrandt, for example, he painted till his old age, focusing a lot on portraitures. But with each portrait, there seemed to be some sort of research. An urge to dig in. A desire to get to the bottom of it.

That digging, is it more about the visual language? Or is it something higher than that, some kind of spiritual and existential thing?

They are kind of intertwined. That's how I understand it. It can be that you are using your technique to try and dig it out, but how you know you've found something is by how it feels when you're done. It's a mix of two things - the feeling and the technique. That's why some artists might think that "Oh, I made this work, and it doesn't look good." It looks good to people, but you, as an artist, don't feel that it's good.  

Currently, I'm reading Notes from the Woodshed by Jack Whitten. It's a book about notes from his diary and from his studio, starting from, I think, the 1950s and 1960s. Right now, I'm in the middle of the book, around the end of the 1980s, and what I've noticed from the beginning, which is the '60s to the '80s, is that all the notes he was keeping show that he was just trying to dig. He was digging. Some notes that you would see, he would be saying something like, "I think this is this..." Then after you read two to three chapters, you would see that he's confronting that again. And he's saying, "Oh, I think I'm wrong..." So, it's like, with Jack Whitten, he was more material-based, he wanted to use material to achieve the greatest art piece. He aspired to be like Mark Rothko, one of his heroes.

I think, basically, research is like - we are asking questions. Yeah. I mean, there are artists that have turned their practice into a factory kind of production. They are not necessarily digging. They are just reproducing.

But when you're in the middle of it, and if you're this unique voice that's ahead of your peers and different from everyone else in your time, isn't that lonely? And how do you know you're on the right path? 

Yes, the practice is lonely, to be honest. That's how I understand it, and I see Jack Whitten saying the same thing. You have to be lonely to make the best works. Because when you are lonely, your sensibilities and how you interrogate yourself in your studio are different from when you're outside or when you're not lonely, you know. Most of the great artists were lonely, most of them. I think when you're in your studio, loneliness helps.

For me personally, I cannot work when I have even a single person in my studio that I'm chatting with. I want to feel that quietness, that alone moment, which makes me forget my environment. It makes me forget what is outside my door. I am now in the zone where I'm just asking questions... Some people would say you are transcending. But there's really something special about those kinds of moments when you are about to create something.

Even if you are that person, you wouldn't become the genius of the time alone. Do you think one still need to be discovered? You still need other people to validate you and recognize you. And how does that happen?

I think there are a lot of geniuses that don't get discovered. That's my opinion. During the 20th century, Picasso is the person that the world or whoever decided to say, 'Okay, this guy is doing interesting stuff. Yeah, let's support him. Let's promote him.' He needed support to explore his full potential.

All the artists we are seeing today doing great stuff, showing in all these big spaces, those are artists who are fortunate. They are good. They are great. They are geniuses. But they are also fortunate to meet people who can make their work more visible to other people. We use the media very well in such a way where we just say, 'Yeah, nobody's like him, you know? Yeah, but there are so many untapped geniuses.' That's why Myles Munroe said something about 'When you go to the graveyard, that is where a lot of buried talents are.' Many people are doing amazing things, but you need people to help you bring it out. You need support.

I went to your website and read your artist statement. There is one part in your statement when you talk about how your work is about your lived experience, and a lot of it has to do with your growing up in northern Nigeria. You talk about the influence of folklore, mystery. Has it changed after the past two years that you're living in the US?

I think I'm getting what you are saying. Like, how is that thing I said in my statements still relevant in what I am doing right now?

Both that, and how is your recent experience getting into your work. 

So, one of the things I try to do...actually I really don't have to try. One of the things I think is there is the fact that my experience is my experience. It is there. Whether I'm here in the U.S. for the next 20 years, it will never take away what I experienced in the past 30 years of my life. The way I feel right now has not automatically changed because I am now in the US. Like, my personality, my sensibilities have not immediately switched. I'm still an embodiment of all that I've seen, all the shocks and excitement that I've seen or heard still shapes everything about me. But then, coming into the U.S. on its own has its own special experience that I go through.

And for me, the way I sort of tied everything together, something that unifies everything for me is that I am this person that is not settled. I am this person that still feels displaced in a way. That has been my experience even back home in Nigeria. I didn't feel settled. I'm here right now and I still feel the same way. If I have to connect anything about how things were for me back then and how things are for me right now, that stands as a linking point.

And regarding folktales and folklore that I learned from my grandmother, I think they influence how I make gestures or human figures. Because when I learned about those stories, I was put in a mental image of those things that I was hearing. And today when I'm making a painting, I am not extracting from a live human being that I've seen around me. I'm extracting from a constructed image that's in my head.

I don't know if that makes sense. If I'm talking about migration, I'm talking about displacement of people, I'm not necessarily drawing the people that we see. I'm drawing my own structured figures in my head. In a way, I'm also telling this story through my own lens, through my own construction. Because at the end of the day, the picture that I've made is not a real exact event of this specific space. It is an event that I've constructed in my head, due to a true event that happened. But it's special and unique on its own. It's like me translating something to how I see it.

You're painting from your heart, not from your eyes.

Exactly, I think you see the reason why it's important to do it when I'm alone and quiet.

Is it hard to get into that zone? Because that's a special moment and space you have to make for yourself, but you also have your everyday life. How do you switch between these two worlds so easily?

Funny enough, the question you just asked is the same one I had to answer in an interview with Numéro magazine. I'm still finding the best way to answer it. If I say I don't have some sort of ritual or preparation before going into the work, I'm not entirely telling the truth. But if I say I do, then I would also be inconsistent because there have been times when I haven't had to do anything specific to get in the zone.

There was a time when I told myself that I don't need to be in the zone before I start working. I had spent weeks or even months waiting for that feeling, realizing later that it was wasted time. So, I adopted a principle of just getting started, without waiting for the perfect mindset.

That doesn't mean I always just dive right in. Sometimes, there's a gap that holds me back from approaching an empty canvas. I'll sit there and fall into the trap of trying to get into the zone before starting.

But, in my experience, the heaviness that comes with the anticipation of starting fades away once I start painting. I think it's this fear, this hesitance, that can make artists feel lazy. They worry they might produce something substandard if they're not 'in the zone.' But in reality, some of the greatest works come from just starting without any ritual or preparation.

How do you assess your own work? Which pieces are good, which ones are not?

As I mentioned earlier when discussing great artists, I believe it's a feeling. There's a sense of accomplishment when you've created something great, and you're excited to share it. The confirmation from others and their positive reaction provides even more satisfaction. But sometimes, I make works that aren't universally understood, and I'm okay with that. I look forward to the day that the one person who will understand it sees the work. 

I recently shared a piece with a collector, and I knew it was at a stage where I could still push it further. Yet, I chose to leave it as is to see who would get it. The collector told me they thought a previous piece was stronger, but I was fine with that, because I was confident in what I'd done. A few days later, a gallerist told me someone else was interested in the piece. When I found out who it was, it made sense – they were also a gallerist, and I could tell from the kind of work they exhibited that they would understand and appreciate the piece. So, in the end, it's all about a feeling.

Have you always been certain about your feelings, or was there an early stage when you were still trying to figure out what you were doing with your painting?

In the beginning, I was confused. I started to understand when people said they didn't know when to stop. I couldn't figure out where to stop or how to know if a piece was great. At that early stage, I was still learning how to control colors and play with forms and contrasts.

Understanding balance and knowing how to disrupt that balance are two different things. Once you disrupt the balance, you can push your work in a more interesting direction. A professor might look at it and say there's no balance here, but it's good. It's like you disrupt the balance, but it still satisfies. If you don't understand balance well, you might not know how to disrupt it. That's one of the things I started doing in my work.

Why do you feel the need to disrupt? Is that somehow connected to how you view the world? What drives this need to disrupt?

People might link the disruption to narrative, context, or meaning. For me, as an artist, it's simply an interesting thing to do. It's like creating a problem and wanting to solve it. There's a certain enjoyment in that process. If you don't disrupt and push the work somewhere, the fun isn't there. By doing this, you uncover something, and that revelation is what interests me. I want to be surprised and excited by something I haven't seen before.

How do you keep finding the next new problem to solve, a new challenge?

The key is not repeating what you've already done.

But how do you know what the next step is? You might have your techniques and themes figured out to a point where it gets comfortable. How do you continue pushing beyond that?

That's a very good question. Honestly, I sometimes struggle with that. There are moments when I'm pushing and disrupting, and I start to get lost. Then I use a familiar technique to bring it back, so I don't lose it entirely. But there are also pieces that I just let go of. I've even torn up a canvas or trashed a piece. Artists need to be willing to lose a piece entirely, to be ready to throw it away. That's one of the best ways to create a masterpiece. You can't make a masterpiece by repeating the same thing you already know how to do. Everything will end up looking uniform. We need the courage to let go.

Someone once told me that when you make a piece you're excited about, you should do something that changes your excitement. You're excited because you understand it, but pushing it and challenging it might make you feel like you're losing it. You need to let your mind go through the process of creating. 

How do you navigate this? From an artist's internal perspective, the need to keep pushing, disrupting, and exploring different directions versus the gallery world, the marketing side where they want to package you in a certain way.

That's a good question. For me, it took a while to find that balance, and I'm still questioning the answer I have for myself. A gallery might tell you they want a certain size of about ten works, all uniform. They might prefer a certain technique. Fortunately, in my practice, I've never come across a gallery that said that to me. I think it's because of the way I work. Each piece is original on its own, not a replica of the one I just finished.

So, if you want to work with me, you already understand that. Don't come to me saying: 'Oh, the series you did two months ago? People bought a lot of it. I want you to do that again, and we'll put it in a show.' I don't think that's going to work for me. It's not deliberate; it's just how I am wired. It's a struggle for me to want to repeat the same thing.

In my experimentation, I still have boundaries. I'm not going to use a material that doesn't work for me in the name of “experiment”. And if I do it that way, I wouldn't have confidence in letting the work exist. So why would I even want to put something out if it's failed? Fortunately, I make my work the way I make it, and I'm happy that galleries, art dealers, and collectors see them and want them.

Perhaps I'm also playing the game in a way, I don't know, to be honest. I'm exploring within my own understanding of exploration, challenging myself in my own way. But that could still be within a circle, it could still be within a box.

Are you content with the current stage of your life now? Or what does an ideal dream life look like for you?

I'm just getting started. I'm really just getting started. At the beginning of my career, before going for an MFA program, I wanted to do a lot of residencies, especially international residencies. But after my MFA, I got into this residency, and I'm now telling myself that I have two more residencies to go. Coming down from my MFA made me realize that while it's good to experience different communities and cultures, one of the best ways to make an impact is to just work in the studio.

I now decided that I don't have to do twenty or thirty residencies. I just need to pick a few of the best ones. Everything should just go back to how much work I'm doing in my studio. If I don't get the residency I want, I won't feel down at all. Because I feel like I need to go to my studio and do the thing I wanted to do in the residency. I can just go and rent my own space, rent a big studio. So, my perspective has changed. If I'm doing a residency now, it would be because I want to experience a different culture, food, meet the people, and maybe something might inspire me to work in a certain way.

So, yeah, residencies are part of the goals for me in terms of the ladder that I'm trying to climb to get to my full potential. But right now, I feel like I can still reach my full potential without necessarily doing 20, 30, or 50 residencies. I don't feel like that is necessary to make you a great artist.

And when I say I think I'm just getting started, it's because a few years ago, I had this image in my head of how far I would go with my career and where my starting point would be. I had an image, a vision. And right now, I'm sitting at a position where I feel like I'm just taking the second step. And there are a lot of steps ahead.

What does that ultimate image look like?

I don't want to have or identify or pinpoint exactly what that's going to look like. Because that would be so limiting. My knowledge right now is not enough, and I feel like as I learn every day, as time goes on, I will have a clearer view of what the ultimate image is like.  

Because your biggest dream when you were in your twenties is different from your biggest dream in your 30s. And your dream in your 40s is going to be different than your biggest dream in your 50s. So, our goals, our aspirations, everything changes over time. But what you should just keep in mind is there are ladders that you just have to keep climbing.

Interviewed on 2023.6.28, Chicago