Luie Had a Terrible Accident

    Five o’clock this evening, in a frigid computer lab, I had to great privilege of talking with and getting to know Emily Kohl-Mattingley. She is a fellow Fine Arts major at Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University, and her concentrations are in sculpture and photography. Here's how the conversation went! Enjoy :D

me: So, you mentioned that you chose to concentrate in both photography as well as sculpture! How did you decide on those two?
EKM: Yes. I am concentrating in photography and sculpture. Well, I actually transferred here from a school in South Jersey and by then I had already known that I wanted to be a photographer. But, when I first transferred into Rutgers I wasn’t allowed to take any Photo classes so, in the meantime while i was trying to fulfill other BFA requirements I took sculpture. I didn’t really know what to expect, but taking sculpture made me realize that I really did like working in more than one medium. So, I decided I would also concentrate in sculpture!
me: Oh wow! Okay, so do you have a preference for either one?
EKM: Hrm... well photography has always been what I wanted to do and I’ve been doing it for longer so I’m definitely more comfortable with photo as a medium. However, sculpture is extremely important to  me as another outlet to express an idea. Sometimes photography doesn’t necessarily describe what I’m going for as adequately as I’d like, so instead I end up using sculpture, and vice versa.
    I also find that I’m really interested in installation. That’s really where the two of my concentrations merge. I like the idea that a viewer can participate in the space. It’s an experience and I think I really like that.
me: So describe your work to me a little bit more.
EKM: For my photo class I created an album of photos. None of these photos are mine. They are all found images that might have somehow gotten lost, and then ended up getting sold at some antique store. Some of these images are of families, vacations... they were probably left behind when a family moved out, or maybe they were thrown out, but now they are objects that were once treasured and are up for sale!
    I also did a couple interventions in these photographs. I painted over a couple things, bleached them, epoxied... I liked finding similarities between photographs, and I liked finding common photo mistakes in them too. Like, well you know... some people accidentally photographed their fingers so you see a blurry shape in the corner, some people messed up the focus so you really can’t see whoever is in the foreground.... these photos break a lot of rules that I like to break as well! Those are all things I’m interested in.
me: What’s going on here?
EKM: Oh yeah, so I was thinking about these photos of monuments and sometimes there were people posing in the picture of the monument too. A lot of times, though, the person isn’t actually the important part. The monument is. So, I found all of these photos of the golden gate bridge and then there’s this picture of a lady posing in the foreground of this bridge. But she isn’t important so I painted over her as my way of photoshopping her out.
    For this particular project, I implemented a little bit of sculpture. It’s displayed in an album. I like that the album serves as an object  that someone can hold and be intimate with.
Me: What else have you been working on?
EKM: I really like road signs. And scaffolding. I have a few photos uploaded onto my website: emilykohlmattingley.com.
    To me, signs are weird monuments, which are sort of part of the environment. It participates in  nature, they don’t consume it.
Me: Oh! I recognize that motorlodge in Edison!
EKM: Yeah its really this weird architectural structure that a lot of people take for granted. There’s scaffolding and this giant sign that’s actually strangely attached so that it branches off the roof. But no one will ever notice it because its just a sign on the road.
    I also forgot to mention that I work with film. Always. 35mm slides... and then I develop them here. There’s a lot of things that I haven’t had the chance to develop yet because the photography labs were not open over the summer.

Me: You mentioned you went to Germany for a short while over the summer?

EKM: Yes. I did a series of photos there. The colors in Germany are out of this world! I mean... so yeah I titled each of the photos so that when its installed the viewer can walk across and read the titles as “Will You Be My German Sweet Heart?”.
    Also, this summer, I’ve been working on a series of images at the beach with my family in South Jersey. Well... I don’t even know. I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about those I don’t know what I’m doing with that.
    And I have this thing... this is also from Germany, for girls in pink tutus. I have two photos of this girl. It was kind of funny she looked straight at me and then she ran off. Its kind of ridiculous you’re just wearing this princess pink dress...
Also, another thing pretty in pink... I really like irony. Look at these its these bags of dog poop in these plastic pink bags and you can’t even really tell what it is at first... and they were right next to the garbage can! I mean, really? Who does that? Pretty in Pink: 35mm C-41, 2012Luie: 35mm C-41, 2012
Me: Oh look! A cat!
EKM: Haha well I do take animal photos. I try not to put too many of them up, but it happens. This is Luie. This is funny because I was introduced to this cat with “This is Luie. Luie had a terrible accident.” It was funny because I was never told what the accident was, even though I can tell he doesn’t have a tail. It’s sort of like, this cat has a very human name and just like a human, we won’t gossip about what happened to Luie.
Me: Can I see some of your sculptures?

EKM: This is a photo of a sculpture installation I made. This particular one is made to resemble the inner workings of a camera, and both the installations deal with self indulgence. If you stand inside the front one, you can either see yourself or the person on the other side. In the back, you can look into and you’d see yourself. None of that is what I’m doing right now.
Me: So, what are you thinking about now then?
EKM: Billboards... I don’t really know. Satire, language, symbols, I like billboards without advertisements I think those are really interesting. I’m not trying to lock myself down into something. I’m always constantly thinking about how the viewer can interact with my artwork on more than one level.