Mixed Heritage and Its Impact on Creative Expression
Initiated and organized by The Bridge Arts Foundation, the 'SOLILOQUY' Open Call Exhibition is currently being held at The Scholart Selection Gallery in San Gabriel, California, and will run until August 17th, 2024.
Bridge Arts Foundation's Art Director, Tia Xu, engaged in a conversation about the exhibition and art with several artists participating in this exhibition. In this interview, we have the pleasure of speaking with artist Christopher Lloyd Tucker.
—— Q&A ——
Tia Xu: Could you please share your background and what inspired you to pursue a career in art?
Christopher Lloyd Tucker: I have been an artist my entire life. Growing up I always loved comic books, and I can remember demanding that my parents and babysitters draw comic book heroes for me - and when they weren’t very good at it, I decided I had to start doing it myself. I thought I’d grow up to be a comic book illustrator, but once I got to art school, I found so many different kinds of art and craft practices that I gave up on the singular path of an illustrator, and tried a bunch of different things. It turns out, I really like learning a new technique.
Almost every job I’ve had in my life has been art adjacent - freelance animation, metal shop tech at an art center, apprentice jeweler. These days, in addition to making and showing art, I also teach woodworking and 3D printing. Pursuing art never felt like a choice, it was just the only path that made sense to me.
Christopher Lloyd Tucker, Exhaustion, 2021, Wood, Acrylic Sheet, Paint, 44 x 25 x 3 in (111.76 x 63.50 x 7.62 cm). Photo courtesy of artist.
Tia Xu: What does "SOLILOQUY" mean to you, and how does your artwork explore this theme? Can you tell us the story behind your artwork from the exhibition?
Christopher Lloyd Tucker: Soliloquy feels like the inner monologue that we all have, and sometimes struggle with, that constantly runs through our minds. That voice that can feed you, or hold you back, but mostly just narrates the day.
“Exhaustion” was created, and references, the most severe moments of the Covid lockdown. The time when each of us were about as alone-with-your-thoughts as we have ever been. It was a weird time for everyone, and I really tried to capture that feeling of exhaustion, without effort or cause, that seemed to fill up all those days of waiting.
Photo courtesy of artist.
Tia Xu: How does your cultural background influence your art?
Christopher Lloyd Tucker: I come from a mixed race family in Chicago. My dad is black, and from Belize, and my mom is white, from the suburbs of Chicago, but her grandparents come from Bohemia. I identify as black, because where I’m from, everybody is a little bit mixed race - and Chicago, the neighborhood I grew up in, was among the most diverse in the country. Every color, every language, all the time - it was the exact American melting pot that I learned about in kindergarten. But every time I left the city, it felt like something else.
My wife and I moved to San Diego about seven years ago, and while this is still a very diverse city, it’s got nothing on Chicago. I don’t see too many black people, and I found that I was making up for that lack in my artwork. I’m sure some of it is just about missing my family, and some of it is about the rich colors of the wood. One day, someone at the woodshop came up to me and asked me if I was the one making all of the Black Art that they had been seeing on the walls lately, and I was pretty happy to say - Yes, I’m the one making the Black Art.
Photo courtesy of artist.
Tia Xu: What materials and techniques do you prefer to use in your art, and could you explain your choices?
Christopher Lloyd Tucker: As an artist, I have found that I really enjoy learning a new technique or tool. My comfort zone is the process of going from beginner to intermediate. The fine tuning towards mastery interests me a lot less. I’ve picked up a lot of skills, and I like combining them in surprising ways.
The work I’ve been doing lately begins as a digital sculpture. I have a background in 3D animation, and I’ve found that some of those tools are still my favorite way to draw. Once I get an image I like, I flatten it out, and break it up into simplified colors and shapes. I assign a type of wood to each of those shapes, and laser cut them. Then I reassemble them, just like a puzzle. If that’s a difficult process to visualize, I’ve made a short video of my process that you can see here: https://youtu.be/OW5Hk4LEAsU
Photo courtesy of artist.
Tia Xu: Can you describe a challenging moment or obstacle you've encountered during your artistic journey and how you successfully overcame it?
Christopher Lloyd Tucker: I’ve never had a problem with inspiration or anything like that. Even when I don’t have a good idea for a project, I just doodle - expecting nothing - and ideas show up in the process, or I look at older work and collage it together into something new. So I’ve really only had two obstacles - time and resources - and they are ever present.
I feel like this is super common, especially for artists, because our labor doesn’t translate into money the same way it does with other work. We labor, and occasionally someone will trade us some money for some of that labor, but it’s never a one to one ratio.
I’ve been able to overcome this issue, here and there, and never permanently. And a lot of it has been through luck. I was lucky enough to find some teaching work that paid well, and was attached to the school year, leaving me with long stretches of vacation time. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to show and sometimes sell my work. Most of all, I’ve been lucky enough to have a loving partner who understands that my primary job is to make art, whether it makes money or not.
The Bridge Arts Foundation's "SOLILOQUY" Open Call Exhibition Installation View, Photo: ©The Bridge Arts Foundation / Luna Hao
ABOUT OPEN CALL EXHIBITION PROGRAM
The Bridge Arts Foundation's "SOLILOQUY" Open Call Exhibition Installation View, Photo: ©The Bridge Arts Foundation / Luna Hao
Bridge Arts Foundation's Open Call Exhibition Program is designed to provide support for early-career artists. The "SOLILOQUY" Open Call Exhibition has thoughtfully selected 18 talented artists from over 500 submissions, employing a selection process that involves art professionals. "SOLILOQUY" opens from July 13th to August 17th, 2024.
ABOUT ARTIST
Christopher Lloyd Tucker
Lives and Works in San Diego, California
Christopher Lloyd Tucker is a San Diego-based multimedia artist who specializes in combining woodwork, metalwork, and digital art. Tucker thrives in situations that involve hands-on problem solving and exploring new materials, and his body of work reflects that, integrating new approaches and new media with each new phase of life.