[Chad] Opens on January 13th. It’s called “Here Comes Sunshine.”
[Chad] And something that is maybe a brief escape from the everyday.
[Chad] And some of the differences in surfaces is just down to when you find anew material and you think: ‘I can use that in the work. What’s it gonna look like if instead of using children’s modeling clay, we use this crazy rainbow string that we found.’ Or it’s just down to finding a material that you get excited about.
[Chad] Creation stories.
[Chad] And different shows last, like this show at Corey Helford’s up for five weeks. I think there’s been other shows that have been up for three months. It just depends how long the show goes for. There’s been shows that have lasted a night.
[Chad] You know? So.
[Chad] We’ll go onto photos and we’ll take them during the de install.
[Chad] Color. Just crazy color combinations.
[Chad] Some of the houses like we were out in Silver Lake for the first week and some of those beautiful houses out there that were like combinations of pink and green.
[Chad] I think of it as your work and I’m your off starter. It’s definitely your practice.
[Chad] Yeah, but it definitely comes from your brain.
[Tanya] Hi, we’re Pip & Pop from Australia.We’re here in LA making our show for Corey Helford Gallery.
[Tanya] So, for this show, we’ve used about 300kg of sugar that we bought locally, and we’ve colored it all ourselves with pigments into probably 150different shades of colors and we’ve also bought lots of craft materials, we use a lot of glitter, what other kinds of things? Cakes. Mini artificial cakes that we buy on our travels like from Japan and Korea. It usually takes us two, sometimes three weeks to create an installation in the gallery and before that, in our studio back in Australia, we make lots of things. So, for probably a couple of months, we’ve been making different objects that are in the installation. Things out of air-dry clay and IFOAM and pom-poms and glitter –all sorts of art – and lots of sugar in the studio as well – gloopy, melted sugar. All sorts of colorful things. The worlds that we’re creating are kind of based on things that we’re interested in about utopia and places that exist in stories and mythologies and also in people’s imaginations, so there’s kind of landscapes that might exist or that might not, so we’re kind of trying to create our own kind of imagined landscape– kind of utopia landscape. It’s a happy place.
[Tanya] Yeah.
[Tanya] Yeah, I think our process driven by our materials and what we find on our travels. We’re always shopping every time we go to a new place. We checkout like the cheap stores and the flea markets and craft stores – anything. I guess I’m interested in creating a kind of utopia because they’re the stories that I’m really fascinated with that we read stories about mythologies from different cultures and-
[Tanya] Yeah, creation mythologies and sometimes children’s stories. Those kinds of places that people imagine and there’s one that I really love which is “La like a land[?]” or there’s a German [?] land and it’s like a place that’s created entirely of food. So, you can eat anything. Everything you can see, you can eat. So, these kinds of utopic places were created in medieval times when there wasn’t enough food, so people would imagine ‘Oh, what would a paradise be like?’ and then that, I think that’s kind of a mythology that is throughout time in lots of cultures, so I’m really fascinated with those kinds of stories. They also have this other side that there’s also a warning about excess and gluttony and what happens if you can have everything that you desire. So, I think that’s interesting for us as well like when we make the work, we think about where is that point where the work becomes too excessive, there’s too much color, or too many pretty, sparkly things. Is there a point where it pushes it into something that’s almost too hard to look at or to digest? The work is not permanent; it’s just temporary and only lasts for the duration of the exhibition, so we create it on site. People get to see it and then at the end, it gets returned to us and the rest of all the colored sugar gets swept away and that’s the end of the work, so you have to see it while you’re here and it’s gone. I guess which relates to some of these ideas about utopia and paradise, places that don’t actually exist or they’re fleeting. There’s lots of great stories about people finding a paradise and then leaving and when they come back, it’s disappeared, so they can’t ever find this place again and I love that idea of like, ‘Oh, did it actually exist? Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t.’ I like that the work is temporary, and people have to experience it and then that’s it, it’s gone.
[Tanya] Yep.
[Tanya] The first moment when you pull the first object out, it’s a little bit kind of heart breaking, but after that, it’s actually really fun to sweep the work and it’s almost like creating a new work like you start sweeping the colors together and you start seeing all these other kind of beautiful things happening, so, yeah –
[Tanya] Yeah, yeah. We always get a bit excited and start taking photos and going like “Aw, isn’t that beautiful?” I think it’s fun; it’s another part of the process, so I think we really enjoy it. Like, we’re influenced by stories and mythologies, ancient maps, kid’s TV shows –
[Tanya] Yeah, yeah. I think we’re driven by color a lot like in our work and the way we put colors together and looking at the colors of a place we go to. I think every work is really influenced by the place that it’s made, so when we arrive in a place, we always go shopping first and buy some new materials, but we’re also kind of looking at the city and picking up on things that we notice; they’re not necessarily major things, but sometimes it’s the color combinations, the type of colors that the city has or the light, or –
[Tanya] Pinks and greens. Great combos of colors, so that seeps into the work,I think.
[Tanya] Yeah. I feel like it’s more of a collaboration. I think I’m sort of the driver of the work and instigate things and projects and research and Chad comes up more in the studio and then during installation. Chad does all the like really detailed drawing parts of the work or where you see the rainbows going throughout the work in this work, that’s all Chad’s very fine handy work.
[Tanya] My brain? Yeah.
This interview was transcribed from Corey Helford Gallery's "[Interview] Pip & Pop Builds Amazing Candy Landscape in LA" on YouTube.
