Opening print spread from Plazm, issue 30. Design by Susie Nielsen

In the Astral Plane with David Lynch

Interview by Stephanie Snyder

Plazm
Magazine - PLAZM
Published in
11 min readDec 11, 2018

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Originally published in the print edition of Plazm magazine, issue 30.

DAVID LYNCH: Hi Stephanie.

STEPHANIE SNYDER: Hello Mr. Lynch, thank you so much for doing this interview with me.

No problem, Stephanie.

Did you receive the list of questions?

No, I didn’t see them.

OK, would you like me to read through them?

You just ask me questions, Stephanie, and I’ll try to answer them.

That would be wonderful. I wrote you a little preamble in my notes and I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate and respect your advocacy for mediation in society.

Fantastic, Stephanie.

I’m a practitioner of meditation myself.

What kind of meditation do you do, Stephanie?

I’m moving more toward Transcendental Meditation but I was originally trained in Kabalistic meditation when I lived in New York City, with my Rabbi.

I see, right.

You know so much more about TM than I do, but I think what’s similar about these forms of meditation is that they both take place in the indeterminate moment between the inhale and the exhale and around a mantra. In Kabalistic meditation it’s usually the visualization of a Hebrew word or letter.

Well now, Stephanie, we could get into a real long talk, a real long talk …

So we should probably turn our attention to your paintings.

[laughter] OK, fantastic.

But I wanted you to know that from my perspective as the person interviewing you, that it’s impossible for me not to approach the whole world from this perspective.

OK, cool [laughter].

So I wanted to bring the intention of meditation and the joy of meditation into our conversation.

Right O, Stephanie, beautiful.

I have read your wonderful book about your journey and your practice.

Fantastic.

Spread 2, Plazm issue 30. Design by Susie Nielsen.

So, my first question is, “Do your works of art begin in the universal slip stream where the tiny fish dwell?”

The little fish are kind of on the surface and the big ones are down below. But when you expand consciousness and I mean truly expand consciousness — not information, not facts and figures — but consciousness, then you’re making the subconscious conscious and you are able to perceive ideas on a deeper level — deeper and deeper as you expand that consciousness. All of the ideas are there, we just have to catch them like fish; and so everything is based on an idea that came, everything, everything is.

Tell me if you think this is correct, but I feel that people have a hard time understanding the ways in which all of the things that you make and create are interrelated on this deeper level.

You know in a weird way, everything is related and they say that at the deepest level, the level of the transcendent, everything is one. We are all one.

I believe that.

Modern science now, quantum physics, says the same thing. They have discovered the unified field at the base of all matter and anything that exists, anything that is a thing — so it’s at the base of all matter and of all mind. There it is, unity. It’s all throughout diversity, and creation, but on the surface, we’re cut off from that deepest level — the unified field, ocean of consciousness. All meditation does is re-establish that contact. And once you re-establish the contact then you have the experience of that, not just the knowledge of that, but the experience. This experience is what is missing. When you experience the transcendent — the unified field — you unfold it; you start infusing it. With every experience, you infuse some of it. You grow consciousness. And it’s an “all positive” level. There is no negativity there. It’s infinite unbounded bliss — intelligence, creativity, love, and energy — all there within every human being.

I believe the view that if a large group of people could dwell in this space together that the world would change completely.

Yes, and on a permanent basis. The creating groups, the peace-enlivening groups; all of this is in the works. It’s getting established, but it’s not quite there yet.

Is there a way that the reader can enter your pieces here at Griffin from this perspective so that we don’t cut them off into entities that relate to the art world but that don’t relate to your core values and beliefs, and this perspective from which you work?

[laughter] That’s pretty difficult. I like ideas. They are the most important things. So you get an idea, and sometimes you get an idea that you fall in love with, and that drives you. It’s the love of the idea — and ideas come for everything. So sometimes you get a “painting” idea and you’re totally fired up to go and paint that idea. Sometimes you get a “cinema” idea and you’re totally fired up to go do cinema, and sometimes you get a musical idea and you go and you work on that in the studio; it goes like that. With these paintings, I’m really interested in a kind of a story. Not a long story, in the paintings; but they have, to me, a story. There are things to look at, and hopefully you go out on a thought or a dream.

Can I tell you one of the stories that I saw in one of the large works that has been haunting me?

Sure.

It’s in the piece entitled “Holding Onto the Relative with One Hand in Heaven,” which I love so much, and it’s the story of the relationship between what feels like an intense wind swishing and pushing the woman’s hair and flattening it against the canvas and then paired with the gesture of her tiny little hand which is almost touching the little red light bulb but not touching the red light bulb.

That’s the relative, and she doesn’t want to let go of that.

But she hasn’t grabbed it.

But both of her hands are close. The whole thing is kind of the relative.

Down in that nestled red area.

Yeah.

These pieces are so large that I feel like I can walk inside of them.

That’s really great, and you know, they need to live in those frames.

Yeah, tell me about those frames. They remind me of Bacon’s early frames.

That’s what inspired them. I saw a show of Bacon’s paintings framed this way at Marlborough Gallery, I think in 1966, and I said, “Whoa. Oh my goodness, that is the way.” And then because they’re behind glass — in my mind I go in there. And it’s like a jewel box. And they’re set apart and they have a home, and you can go into that. And I really really love that. And Jane the framer understands these things and the frames are such beautiful homes.

They are, they’re exquisite. Are the little openings in the trim so that the work can breathe?

Exactly.

They’re so beautiful, as part of the piece.

I know. They’re incredible.

I also was so struck by the presence of electricity in the work. And because of the size of the pieces I feel that I can walk right in, and I feel like you are really inviting us to walk in, right, there’s no ambivalence whether you want us to walk in, I feel very invited to walk in.

That’s very good, Stephanie.

The electrical bulbs remind me of the earliest forms of theater — of the stage, where you have moments of light that illuminate the entirety.

Right. There is something magical about a stage. I like the idea that you think they’re like little stages.

I want to stay with the paintings and not just move into talking about cinema, but I will say that the work really reminds me of being a teenager in downtown Portland, and going to a ratty old theater which no longer exists and seeing Eraserhead for the first time.

Very cool, Stephanie.

The moment of the stage in that film has never ever left me. The presence of the stage is always in your work, whether Dorothy Valence is on it or the woman in Eraserhead is on it. Clearly that space is important to you.

Right. Very important. I am not happy with flat paintings anymore. I don’t know where it will go, but I am interested in more three dimensional work.

That’s one thing that strikes the viewer so much about the paintings in the Figures series, Mr. Lynch. Those figures are manifest through the material. They are not just representations, they are constructions of “being” and they remind me of a Gollum, the Jewish mystical figure that is made out of clay to defend the community, to go from matter through magic into physical form when its powers are needed by the community. I wanted to ask you about the color — this crazy aged caramel color — and how did you arrive at this astonishing material that you are using in so many different ways?

Well, this is a secret formula. Sometimes it’s a combo of things but it’s something that helps me get that more 3-D thing.

You use it in so many different ways, and that is really inspiring — for instance, the soft roundness of Figure #4 as opposed to the man laughing, where there is this infinite variety of texture.

Right-O. Texture is another key word. Texture is a magical, magical thing, and I like organic phenomenon. I would say I love, with a capital “L” organic phenomenon.

Me too. I’m finishing my dissertation on the work of Daniel Spoerri.

I don’t know his work. I’ll have to read your dissertation.

I’ll send some catalogs to your studio. Texture and organic phenomenon are totally what he is about. He was a colleague of Yves Klein’s. And he’s still alive. He is going to be 80 on March 27. Man, you guys are so connected on the astral plane I can’t tell you.

OK, but back to the paintings; the “Figures” paintings remind me of the work of Manet and Velasquez in that the figures are fairly isolated against a deep dark infinite space. How did you choose to position these figures on this black ground?

There is a thing, and I’m sure every painter has this. There are fast and slow areas and a relationship between fast and slow … there are no rules but there is this feel for how much fast goes with how much slow. I say, always intuition drives the boat — a feel — it goes, not in an intellectual way at all; it just goes because it feels correct that way.

continued …

Spread 3, Plazm issue 30. Design by Susie Nielsen.
Spread 4, Plazm issue 30. Design by Susie Nielsen.
Spread 5, Plazm magazine issue 30. Design by Susie Nielsen.

I was trying to come up with language to describe it. There is so much oppositional language that is used to describe art, as opposed to the language of love, or the language of desire, or entry … and the language of the figure resisting the ground came up, but I don’t think it’s ma resistance.

No, no, no. It’s all love. When it feels right, there is a burst of happiness and a burst of love. It’s incredible.

I see these figures as undergoing transformation, but they are so one with their material selves and their organic selves … that they are themselves.

They are themselves, yes.

Are they a group of characters or beings that you feel have appeared before? Are they part of a community of characters or is each one unique to each painting as it’s created?

They are part of a series that came about, but, you know, there are things that are timeless, but these are really more people of today, in a way. I mean, people spat in mediaeval times, but there is something about spitting that people have more of in modern times — for me.

When I see these figures it seems to me that you are not trying to make a distinction between an inner and an outer state, that these figures are simply what they are.

Yeah, exactly.

It’s not like an existential drama.

[laughter] I don’t even know what that is ...

[laughter] In other words, they are not meant to be primarily psychological.

No, but whenever you do anything, not whenever you do anything, but sometimes, when it gets magical, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, so you don’t know what it will conjure in people. I always say that as soon as things get a little bit more abstract, the interpretations and the feelings while looking at the work vary — a lot. So everyone that comes up in front of a thing gets a different thing, the more abstract it is.

You’re sending these paintings out into the world. Do you have visions of where you would ideally like them to be?

Spread 6, Plazm issue 30. Design by Susie Nielsen.

I don’t have a special spot in mind, but they look very good in the William Griffin Gallery. You know I like this painter Baselitz, and he said that a gallery space is really supposed to be built for the paintings. So I think a lot of times paintings end up being in places where the surroundings disturb the paintings. Some things putrefy the environment. I like minimal environments with little disturbance around the paintings so that it comes out and you want to go in there.

Would you like to see one of them hanging in the White House?

No, I don’t like the early American architecture or furniture. I wouldn’t want these there unless they took all the furniture out and it was an off-white space. Because with white — real white — your eye kind of closes down, and so the name White House is disturbing. If it were the Gray House, it would be beautiful.

Or the Green House.

[laughter] Not the Green House. That would be worse.

[laughter] What have I not asked you that you would like to talk about?

You have not asked me almost an infinite number of things, Stephanie, so we’d be talking for a long, long time.

When I wrote down the list of artists who have been present in my mind in relationship to your work, Baselitz was on it. My list was: Goya, Baselitz, Ensor, Dubuffet, and Bacon.

And Ed Kienholtz. Kienholtz I love. And I like almost every Surrealist. I like Magritte a lot. I’m having a show at the Max Ernst Museum. I like Max Ernst.

How about Jean Tinguely?

I like his work.

Do you know about the contraption he made that self-destructed in front of the Museum of Modern Art in 1960?

I think I heard about that.

“The Self-Destructing Machine.”

A lot of people are that way.

[laughter] Genevieve says we have to stop, but I hope that one day we can have a longer conversation.

Stephanie, that would be great and I would look forward to that.

Thank you so much, Mr. Lynch.

Thanks a lot, Stephanie, and thank you, Genevieve.

Photos of David’s work by Robert Wedemeyer. An edited version of this interview was commissioned for and originally appeared in the 500 Words column on Artforum.com.

For more information on Plazm 30 or to purchase one of the few remaining copies of the print edition, go to Plazm.com.

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Founded in 1991 by Portland artists, Plazm magazine publishes challenging & innovative art, design, cultural, and literary works.