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Since the 1990s, Elizabeth Peyton has been celebrated for her small-scale portraits of artists and musicians—often her friends—as well as historical figures from a grander past. She’s exhibited widely in both the U.S. and abroad, especially in some of New York’s major galleries and museums. (She was the subject of a New Museum retrospective in 2008.) Regarding her current solo exhibition at Gladstone 64 Gallery on the Upper East Side (as well as a recently closed a show at Lincoln Center’s Met Gallery), Peyton spoke with Time Out New York from a taxi in Berlin. With the city rolling by, she revealed her process for capturing the creative spirit of her subjects, and noted how David Bowie’s death helped to inspire her latest show.
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery New York/Brussels
The title of your show is “Speed Power Time Heart.” What does that mean?
It came from taking some working photos while I was on a treadmill with Wi-Fi. It was the day after Bowie died, and the screen was playing film and interviews of him. While I was shooting some of those, I noticed the bottom of the machine’s control panel had the words speed, power, blood and heart. It seemed like a good title.
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery New York/Brussels
What kinds of people attract your attention as subjects?
It all begins with me. That’s my interest. I’m very inspired by people who are artists and musicians—people who touch me, people who help me feel my feelings, that describe my feelings in a way, if you know what I mean.
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery New York/Brussels
The paintings in the show are consistent with your other work in that they feature personal, famous and historical subjects, yet they seem unrelated. What’s the glue that holds them together?
I don’t know if I can say or even if I want to, because I want the paintings to have that transformational magic that doesn’t need to be explained. But I would say that all of the paintings are about individuals—very extreme individuals with a vision for making something.
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery New York/Brussels
You mentioned Bowie, and you have a painting of him in the show. Could you talk about that?
I wanted to make a picture in the year that he died. His music has helped me through all of my life. I admire him as an artist, enormously. But I found him actually very hard to paint. I kept trying and trying, but it wasn’t until about five years ago that I finally made something that I liked.
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery New York/Brussels
How many brushstrokes do you think it takes to capture the likeness or spirit of someone?
What a great question! I’ve never been asked that before, and I guess I’ve never really thought about it. When I make a picture there’s a lot of paint being added and subtracted. There’s paint getting smudged around. All kinds of stuff goes into the making. But I think that if you’re really good and you’re having a flow, you could probably do it in 10 brushstrokes. If you get the gesture right, you’ll nail it.
“SPEED POWER TIME HEART: New Paintings by Elizabeth Peyton” is at Gladstone 64 through Dec 21.