painting radiant puberty as an island of subversion, erotic provocation, and emerging desires, encapsulated in an intensely colorful fairy-tale world.
BILL POWERS — I’m talking to you at your studio on Long Island. Do you plan to ride out the winter there?
LISA YUSKAVAGE — I’m definitely not a country girl. We’re trying to get back to New York City, but my husband’s studio in Chinatown was destroyed in a fire in October. Fortunately, he only lost one small work. All his stuff was on the North Fork [of Long Island], but it put a crimp in our plans.
BILL POWERS — This issue is about islands. Thomas More described Utopia as an imaginary island. Does that resonate with you?
LISA YUSKAVAGE — I’m not a subscriber to the idea of utopia. In fact, I’ve always bristled at anything of that sort.
BILL POWERS — Is your bristling in response to viewers wanting to apply that term to your paintings?
LISA YUSKAVAGE — If they do, I just ignore it. Other people’s interpretations are fair, but I don’t have to accept them. When I was a young artist, I was super clear about what I wanted to do. I was surprised when my work got traction in a way that I wasn’t prepared for. I got spun around. It was being used to promote ideologies and all these other agendas, from the left and the right, both negative and positive.
BILL POWERS — Do you like this period of confinement and isolation?
LISA YUSKAVAGE — For me, life is all about variations, about experiencing a range. I’m not the only one to use the Groundhog Day analogy this year, but we have to suck it up and do this a little longer. I’m not going to be the last person to die just before armistice is called. We’re almost there, so I’m trying to stay calm. I just bought some snowshoes, which I haven’t tried yet, but I plan to put them on later today and go traipsing around outside. I would like my old life back. I like being in the city and being able to get away to nature every once in a while.