A very large 3-D printed bell hangs from the ceiling of Mosie Romney’s East Williamsburg studio. Their space is airy and decorated with talismans, curio, and a fig tree that has suddenly come back to life. Oopsie, Mosie’s lab-pit mix walks around carrying a croissant squeak toy, nudging me to play. A few big, blank canvases line a far wall, prepped for work that will appear in May in Los Angeles at Nicodim Gallery.
I first met Mosie as a writer when we shared a reading bill at Codex in the East Village. Their new work is currently on view at Gern en Regalia in New York City.
—Ben Fama
Ben Fama
When looking at paintings, it’s common to confront the gaze of a figure looking back at you, but one of your paintings has a figure that you characterize as regarding the other paintings in your current show, Old, Used & New. Can you tell me how you came up with this concept for the arrangement?
Mosie Romney
No Parking has a figure reclining, holding a book, witnessing something. It might be the start of a vision; it might be a memory coming into clarity or dissipating beyond the picture plane. They are viewing you and possibly the other paintings at Gern en Regalia. I intentionally placed this painting in front of I’ll be your mirror to create a relationship between the figures in the paintings and the viewers in the space. I’ve been thinking about visibility and its complications, the satisfaction and limited subjectivity of seeing and being seen.
BF
It’s exciting, sometimes unnerving, to be looked back at by paintings, especially at a smaller gallery such as Gern en Regalia where that effect becomes immersive. And yet with the text in the paintings there is a sense the viewer is being called into the painting. I think that push and pull is a big part of the power of your work. Could you talk a little about how you use text in painting?
MR
Text in a painting is a great way to softly guide the viewers to an idea—it can be very decorative and directional. When I see text in work, I feel compelled to make sense of the language to understand the piece. I became aware of my pleasure for painting text when I worked as a set painter for theater and film. In the theater I found the text had a way of offering location and context; also, hand-painted signs offer so much charm to an atmosphere. Text is a great way to offer clues beyond the title.
BF
symbiopsychotaxiplasm is the title of the group show you curated at Nicodim Gallery’s New York City space. That title, as text, seems to push out in several directions. Can you talk a little about that name and show and how it relates to your solo show at Gern en Regalia?
MR
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One is the name of a movie directed by William Greaves made in 1968. The majority of this “fictional documentary” film took place in Central Park where passersby become characters, and Greaves’s role as a director in the movie is a mindful performance. The movie starts out with a scene about a lovers quarrel that unfolds into so much more. There is not much clarity about where it ends, but the movie has great energy. Curating felt a lot like Greaves’s performative practice. I asked artists to contribute work that made them think of “cross-contact”—whatever that may mean to them—and what the artists submitted created a cacophony of visuals that emulates NYC. I saw the movie after Nicodim Gallery asked me to curate the show, and I found the title to be an intriguing and fitting mouthful. My solo show, Old, Used, & New, is about a twenty-minute walk away from the group show in Nicodim Gallery’s New York City space. My solo show relates to the group show through time and space, and with symbiopsychotaxiplasm, periphery is somehow enough.
BF
I noticed lots of books in your studio, and you mentioned Samuel Delany in an interview with Brooklyn Rail, specifically his ideas of cross-contact in his iconic book Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. What else are you reading?
MR
I’m on a Samuel Delany kick right now; he’s so horny and funny—it really keeps me going. I’m reading Babel-17 at the moment. It’s about an interstellar war, which feels fitting. I’m praying for Ukraine and our world during this senseless war as global warming calls for peace and collaboration.
BF
You mentioned chaos magick to me briefly during my studio visit, and I have this image of the chaos star, the circle with the arrows pointing out in all directions. Seems like an accurate sense of your practice, not because of the chaos but because of the polyvocality.
MR
The chaos star reminds me of the Gemini. The body part associated with the Gemini is the hands, particularly the fingers—reaching far and wide but sometimes only making contact at the tips. That’s a part of what being an artist is for me: touching the tips of everything to gain inspiration and understanding to reflect the times in my work.
BF
How would you characterize the times we’re living in right now?
MR
There’s a meme going around: “I’m tired of living through historical events.” Our world is a clusterfuck of grief. While the girls are getting their flowers, I’m thinking of Ceyenne Doroshow making enough money to fund GLITS Inc. within a larger vacuum or void, and yet there’s a sense that these things always happen too late.
BF
The sense that the right things happen too late and that the world’s not just. That’s a melancholy thought. Do you see that in your work at all?
MR
It’s not melancholic; it’s solemn.
BF
Is that why you aren’t smiling anymore? Because you mentioned that...
MR
Not smiling anymore because ain’t shit funny! I have a friend named Karlo who told me he stopped smiling in pictures years ago so that he wouldn’t be commemorated as a happy-go-lucky person. As someone who has dealt with things in the world, I realized in the past I had been smiling as a way to comfort people, to comfort them to the point my gums were bleeding.
BF
You’ve also mentioned to me that people have characterized your work as dreamy, but you think that’s inaccurate.
MR
The pictures are visions. I’m awake. They’re memories collaged with images from my eBay archive. There’s an intentional surrender and also a new willingness with letting things be nebulous in my paintings, because I have no choice in life.
BF
You said “new.” Is this a different ethos compared to the way you approached painting before?
MR
God is change, and change is good.