Sad Mag’s Family: Kristina Fiedrich

This week in my blog about Van­cou­ver artists, I bring you Kristina Fiedrich. She gra­ciously accepted our offer to illus­trate our debut cover and is one of our fea­tured con­trib­u­tors of in the first issue

When I first met Kristina at Vancouver’s Odd­ball, she was dressed in a feather head­dress and had lips like glossy cherries.

Kristina Fiedrich, feather head­dress and all. The Opu­lence Ball 2009. Pho­to­graph by Bran­don Gaukel.

I was cap­ti­vated, and thought, ‘who is this girl? And why are we not friends yet?’ When I asked mutual friends about her, I dis­cov­ered that Kristina is so much more than girl with great stems—she is a bril­liant artist.

I had the plea­sure of col­lab­o­rat­ing with her on our cover, while get­ting to know Kristina more and under­stand her work better.

For the blog, we talked Sad Mag, illus­tra­tion, and how her home­town Kam­loops just doesn’t do it for her.

Sad Mag: Tell me how you ended up in Van­cou­ver from Kamloops?

Kristina Fiedrich:Via the Coqui­halla Highway.

Sad: Does Kam­loops and the inte­rior still influ­ence your work today?

KF: I don’t feel that grow­ing up in Kam­loops has ever had any bear­ing on my work. In fact, there is only one place in the Thomp­son Okana­gan that ever influ­enced me, and that’s Salmon Arm; not the town itself, but the fact that my grand­mother lived there. I grew up idol­iz­ing my grand­mother, and the mem­o­ries I have from our time together have really stuck with me. I some­times use imagery from those moments to express a sense of curios­ity, open­ness, fragility, and disconnect.

Sad: Tell me about your col­lab­o­ra­tion with me. Did you take your ref­er­ences from my photo or the sub­ject Isolde?

KF: In this case, I think the pho­to­graph and the sub­ject are one and the same—that speaks to the tal­ent of the pho­tog­ra­pher. [Bran­don: I gush!] When I saw the pho­to­graph, I thought, “Oh my god, I’m going to ruin this man’s work.” Hav­ing met Isolde once, or at least been in her pres­ence, I had an idea of how I wanted to make the cover look, with­out see­ing the other half of the col­lab­o­ra­tion. Work­ing more-or-less blindly appealed to me and the free­dom you—as the photographer—and Sad Mag gave me, was at once excit­ing and eff­ing ter­ri­fy­ing. I haven’t, as of yet, seen the fin­ished piece. I’m wait­ing with bated breath for the results.

Sad: What do you think of draw­ing in the art world today?

KF: I think it’s really excit­ing; the pos­si­bil­i­ties for cre­ativ­ity are end­less. I’d like to think that we are part of a gen­er­a­tion of artists and cre­atives who believe that any­thing goes. Draw­ing is a medium that has never gone out of style, or dropped out of favour, it just doesn’t always get the atten­tion it deserves. Over the last few years, there is a resur­gence of inter­est in art shows, graphic design, fash­ion illus­tra­tion, dig­i­tal media and museum ret­ro­spec­tives. There is such a vari­ety achieved with draw­ing: the mark-making, the tools, the sur­faces… all you have to do is pick up Vit­a­min D, and it’s all right there. Draw­ing is beautiful.

Autopsy from Kristina’s solo show at the On The Rise Artist Artist Collective.

Sad: Who are some of your favourite visual artists?

KF:Kiki Smith, Mar­cel Dzama, Egon Schiele, Mar­lene Dumas, Amy Cut­ler, Paul Klee, Ai Yam­aguchi, Yoshit­omo Nara, Michael Sowa, Jo Ann Cal­lis, Henry Darger, Peter Doig.

Sad: Any show or gallery that you enjoyed going to in the past summer?

KF: Well, if i were a shame­less self-promoter, I would say my favorite show was my own (Back to the Draw­ing Board, On The Rise Artist Artist Col­lec­tive). But, to be fair, I also enjoyed Karin Bubas’ show With Friends Like These… at the Charles H. Scott Gallery, and see­ing Cai Guo-Qiang’s piece Inop­por­tune: Stage One at the SAM.

Sad: Sum­mer has escaped us. What are you high­lights of the sum­mer? If not one thing you regret miss­ing this sum­mer? Or some­thing that you feel was lack­ing from your summer?

Elphant. Illus­tra­tion by Kristina Fiedrich.

KF: Some high­lights from the sum­mer: my first FUSE event at the VAG (May 2009). I was blown away by the turnout and the per­for­mances. Why haven’t I gone to this event before? I also went to the Decem­berists con­cert at the Vogue The­atre. Some regrets from this sum­mer: not get­ting enough work done. I had this Big Plan to get all kinds of art work fin­ished. Where does the time go?

Sad: What are some things you are look­ing for­ward to this sea­son? Movies, books, art shows?

KF:I haven’t been watch­ing many movies lately, but I did hap­pen across an advert for a movie star­ring Adam Gold­berg called (Unti­tled). That’s so PoMo, I just have to see it. I’m read­ing Merleau-Ponty’s Phe­nom­e­nol­ogy of Per­cep­tion, in an attempt to make myself smarter. So far I think it’s hav­ing the oppo­site effect. I also bought Art Now Vol­ume 3, and it promises a “cut­ting edge col­lec­tion of today’s most excit­ing artists.” I’m expect­ing to be in Vol­ume 5…6 at the lat­est. As for art shows, I’m look­ing for­ward to see­ing Anna Plesset’s new show Head­lines at the Jef­frey Boone Gallery, and attend­ing the Cheaper Show.

Sad: What are you work­ing on?

KF: I’m work­ing on a cou­ple pieces for friends, as well as a new port­fo­lio of work for my upcom­ing appli­ca­tion to Emily Carr’s MAA pro­gram. I’m also work­ing on grow­ing out my hair.

Come to our launch tomor­row and say hello to Kristina. She is a visual force to reckon and a beauty.

–Bran­don