Featured Artist of the Month : Eunika Rogers May. 2016 | TheArtList - Art & Photo Calls for Visual Artists and Photographers.

Eunika Rogers

Memphis, Tennessee

I was born and raised in a small Slovakian village near Trnava. At the age of 12, my family went on a vacation to former Yugoslavia and never returned home. We fled what was then communist bloc country and spent the next 4 months in refugee camps - eventually ended up in Canada. Seven years later, after graduating from high school, I packed my bags again and headed south to Mississippi Delta following a tennis and cross-country running scholarship at Delta State. I studied both graphic design and ceramics. It was there under the guidance of my professor and mentor (now very close friend) Marcella Small, I discovered passion for clay, not only as an art form but also as a spiritual experience through finding it, digging it and working with it – raw, unprocessed pure material. I entered MFA program at Univesity of Memphis thinking I was going to create beautiful functional vessels but graduated with something more personal – red-stained studio clothes that led me to my paintings.

How and when did you start creating art?

I’ve been creating something all my life. I started painting about 10 years ago; as a newly hired faculty staff at Northwest Mississippi Community College I needed to participate in faculty show. That is when I found my old clay and started painting with it. At first it was experimental, a fun thing to do, but eventually evolved into something bigger – now my new career.

What media and genres do you work in?

I work primarily with clay. I find and dig my own clay – different pigments of clay and add charcoal. I am currently experimenting with wine and olive oil stains. As for genre, most of my work is in self-portraiture painted in realism.

Who or what are your influences?

I take a lot of my inspirations from nature and its processes. I think about the connection I have with it and try to recreate it in my own vision. My influences come largely from artists who work with self-portraits, Ana Mendieta, Frida Kahlo and even Rembrandt. I also admire figurative artists as Magdalena Abakanowicz and Brooke Shaden.

What was your inspiration for Fluttering Intuition?

Fluttering intuition was painted in winter. I seem to go dark in winter – hibernate if you will. A lot of my concepts are dark and this reflects that mood. It was a time when I felt I was ready to take on Spring, I had the same feeling many of us do around that time, wishing for Spring to come. I think all of us have that feeling for many different reasons, for me it was a feeling of bursting out and flying into something new and being free. Interestingly, that is how it all ended up with lots of changes in my life.

Describe your creative process?

I have few reoccurring themes that I either repeat or they feed of each other in ideas and concepts. Mainly it’s a spiritual journey through time and how I process it. Transformations, migrations, rebirth … I work with natural clays that I collect on my travels. Wherever I go I am always on the lookout – that in itself is part of the process; a lot of it involves a journey, a hike or a run, so picking up clay is somewhat equivalent to someone picking up a rock to commemorate that moment in their life. Throughout these travels I often think about my work and a lot of times ideas pop up in my head. I then try to recreate them through photography and photo editing. Not all photo edits end up being paintings but overall that is the visual source for my paintings – I paint from photographs. As for clays, I have a big collection of earth color pigments but limited in color variety. I chose my clay palette on the theme of the painting or location where it will be hanging. If a piece calls for something that is close to the area where the clay was picked, then I will largely use clays from that area. For example, I’ve painted wine and olive oil labels for my friends in Italy, so those painting are painted with clays I picked up in Italy. Painting the way I do with clay is a technique that I invented – I researched, but as far as I know I am the only one painting this way. It is a combination of watercolor, fresco and somewhat acrylic painting. Clay dries fast, especially when on watercolor paper so I have to move fast, especially if I want to blend certain clays together. Wet clay, no mater what clay I use has a similar look to it so I cannot differentiate which color, or shade is what. I don’t see it all in its true color until it dries. As a result, to create the photorealism look, I have to ‘map out’ my painting – that is where my problem solving graphic design skills kick in. It’s a technical process but it suits me and who I am. A lot of people ask about archival quality of my work. Clay pigment does not fade. It can be in direct sun but it never loses its original pigment. It also sticks to both paper and canvas surfaces, so much so, that if I make a mistake I have to use a sander to erase it. For my canvas work I started using encaustic. It saturates the clay pigment by bringing out the color of it and it also protects the work.

What are you working on currently?

I have a solo show coming up in December in New York City at Artifact gallery. I am still deciding on the direction but it will probably be Monarch series, where my self-portraits will take on a life of a monarch butterfly, suggestive take - without the wings. I am also working on some photography projects, personal and collaborative and opening my creative business.

What are your near/long term goals as an artist?

I recently decided to go full time with my art. I am finishing up my last teaching semester at University of Mississippi. I plan on doing both painting and photography, as one feeds the other. I plan on opening up a studio, no sure where yet and plan on being a visiting artist in some of my favorite locations as Gulf coast Florida, Telluride, Las Vegas, Memphis and even Italy and Slovakia.