{"id":105310,"date":"2024-06-21T09:21:22","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T13:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=105310"},"modified":"2024-06-21T09:21:22","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T13:21:22","slug":"interview-artist-nigel-nolan-talks-about-triple-slash-a-multimedia-project-that-will-launch-june-28-for-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2024\/06\/21\/interview-artist-nigel-nolan-talks-about-triple-slash-a-multimedia-project-that-will-launch-june-28-for-pride\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW | Artist Nigel Nolan Talks About Triple Slash: \/\/\/, A Multimedia Project That Will Launch June 28 For Pride"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"L:
L: Painting by Canadian visual artist Nigel Nolan; R: poem by American poet Cody Laplante (Images courtesy of the artists)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Canadian visual artist Nigel Nolan and American poet Cody Laplante began an online friendship and collaboration that would become a multimedia art project. Triple Slash: \/\/\/\u00a0 will be unveiled in full on Pride Weekend, June 28, at IDFK gallery in Toronto, and in Dover, New Hampshire at Wrong Brain, a semiannual pop up celebration.<\/p>\n

The painter and poet\u2019s friendship and collaboration unfolds on screen, in a doom scrolling format that fits the time. Interspersed with their text communications are poetry, paintings, and videos that combine imagery and electronic music by various artists.<\/p>\n

The conversation begins in the middle of the collaboration, then moves back and forth, as the two move around the world separately. It\u2019s an intimate portrayal of queer friendship that exposes vulnerabilities, and deals with love, death, addiction, sex, fear, and other themes that weave themselves in and out of both their conversations and their work.<\/p>\n

It takes 2 hours-plus to experience all of it. At the launch event in Toronto, a 360-degree projection of the work will scroll by on the walls. After the launch event, it will be available to view online free here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"L:
L: Artist Nigel Nolan; R: Poet Cody Laplante (Photos courtesy of the artists)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nigel Nolan: The Interview<\/h3>\n

\u201cIt started with Cody reaching out to me to do a collaboration,\u201d Nolan recalls. \u201cI was wary about jumping into a collaboration right away.\u201d But, Laplante\u2019s work sealed the deal. \u201cI liked his poetry, and he seems to like my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deal was to correspond and gather content during the course of a year. And gather they did. The piece juxtaposes their conversations with the poetry, paintings and video, offering a glimpse inside the creative process.<\/p>\n

The content in the piece was actually culled over a two year period, although most of it came from the second year of their collaboration. In an era when public personas are carefully cultivated, the raw intimacy and realism of their relationship comes as striking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that us being connected, but not being part of each other\u2019s social circles, it allowed for […] intimacy,\u201d Nigel says. There was no fear of exposure. \u201cThere\u2019s also a lack of judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was something that didn\u2019t necessarily come easily to the artist. \u201cI\u2019m typically a very private person,\u201d he says. It was Cody\u2019s willingness to expose his vulnerability and disclose his real life experiences that encouraged him to do the same. \u201cIt added a kind of one upmanship between us,\u201d he laughs. \u201cIt also allows for shame to dissolve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"L:
L: Painting by Canadian visual artist Nigel Nolan; R: poem by American poet Cody Laplante (Images courtesy of the artists)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Doom Scrolling<\/h3>\n

The format is definitely of the times, and meant to be viewer-friendly. \u201cI wanted to kind of also make a friend of the reader,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Scrolling, as he points out, is a constant detail of everyday life. The project gives viewers the impression they\u2019re simply taking in the digital timelines of someone\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to align with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was something of a challenge to put together in technical terms, including all the multimedia elements, and the videos in particular. \u201cThe closest thing that is to is a book, but it\u2019s not a book.\u201d<\/p>\n

It does serve as a kind of documentation of a queer friendship. If viewed on a laptop or desktop, the outline of the pages is apparent, in a combination of document\/scrolling timeline. The effect is quite absorbing, and striking visually, in a way that is organic and sometimes messy \u2014 like real life, rather than the shiny Photoshopped (or AI) images we\u2019ve become used to seeing on a daily basis in contemporary culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a culture of sharing that\u2019s quite curated,\u201d he points out. \u201cWe show highlights of our lives.\u201d Triple Slash \/\/\/ aims to show it all. \u201cThese are actual correspondences going back and forth.\u201d It\u2019s a chronicle, as he calls it, of actually three lives during the two-year period. The third is Kate, who interacts with both of them. The messiness and gritty bits are the point. \u201cThat really shows a truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

That truth is not just the piece itself, but a look at what goes on behind the curtain to produce it. \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in the life experiences, the true life experiences that make the art.\u201d Experience, as he notes, is the catalyst to making art. \u201cIn a way, it offers a window behind the making of the art.\u201d It\u2019s also the kind of candour and intimacy that can only happen when people are on opposite sides of the world.<\/p>\n

Nolan\u2019s paintings are colourful and full of motion. \u201cThe paintings are based in expressionism, and they\u2019re based in colour. They\u2019re a response in many ways to my own life experiences, but also to Cody\u2019s life and voice,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m a big fan of mark making, to see the hand. The return to the mark and the individualism associated to the mark, it\u2019s important to me,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

As the two friend go from South America to Europe to North America, exchanging messages and their art, the communication takes on a life of its own. \u201cIn many ways, it\u2019s how the works speak together, or could speak to each other, but they never come together,\u201d Nolan says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe project is really in the creative aspect \u2014 the poetry and the painting \u2014 the video work has a foundation in painting and paint.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very contemporary format for expression that centres the humanity and creativity of its participants.<\/p>\n

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Canadian artist Nigel Nolan and American poet Cody Laplante began an online collaboration that would become a multimedia art project: Triple Slash: \/\/\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":105311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40967,4967,29,63,66,69],"tags":[41275,2295,41274,2677],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/Copy-of-Copy-of-INTERVIEW-37.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-roy","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105310"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105316,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105310\/revisions\/105316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105310"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=105310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}