Reflections on autumn at the New York Studio School

by Uday Banerjee, Fall 2024 Slade Exchange Student

I got to New York in late August, entirely unsure of what the next few months would be like—knowing just that I was to live in Brooklyn and attend the Studio School for a semester on exchange. I was excited to be living in the city where so much of the art that has inspired me was created in or based upon, the School itself being in the neighborhood where much of this creative output was historically centered.

The exchange was just before my third year at the Slade School, an institution with a significantly different approach. Though I’ve really enjoyed and learnt a lot from the Slade’s independent study-based program, I often felt that in terms of painting, I was lacking some of the basic familiarity with the medium that others around me had. I had jumped straight from developing an interest in painting towards the end of high school to going to a university where I was given complete freedom to structure the week, soon joining the media department where I started making films alongside images. I was exposed to the conceptual aspects of art and how it fit into wider frameworks, and in trying to learn as much as possible about this fascinating new world, never really got around to thinking about the basics—to taking the time to discover tactile aspects of how medium moves across a surface, how an image is formed, what kind of paintings I liked looking at and what processes could give rise to them. I felt myself moving into a set rigid pattern, of taking weeks with an idea to draw up an image and then using paint to ‘fill it in’—and the lack of synchronization between the execution of image and this original idea is largely what drove me to the Studio School—with the goal of being ‘trained.’

And so began the 10-day drawing Marathon (Liminal Drawing: Between Observation and Invention) led by Matt Philips. The Marathon acted not only as an ideal entry point into the world of the Studio School; it was for me also a re-entry point into what started my fascination with art as a child. The simple act of observing how a stick of carbon repeatedly leaves marks on a sheet of treated wood until an image appears—the fundamentals of drawing were showcased through the conditions of the Marathon, with elaborate props and unconventional modeling which forced us to break away from habits and common tropes. Through the course of the Marathon, I became more engaged with the process of creation, which gave me the freedom and excitement that undoubtedly resulted in many questionable drawings and paintings over the next few months yet opened the door to learning so much more through the process.

Matt Philips was encouraging and innovative not only within the studio and in structuring his program, but also in conversation with us about the art world, pushing us to take action in building community and creating opportunities without waiting to be ‘let in.’ He brought in visiting artist Michael Berryhill for 2 days of the marathon, switching the flow from large scale figurative works to small thumbnail sized images—which helped break up the structure as well as bring fresh perspective into going back to working with models in the following days. The energy of the Marathon (which I’d heard could be draining at times) was perhaps best retained by the presence of teaching assistant Sutton Allen—who would shuttle between the studios and the library at a pace that seemed humanly impossible, bringing back stacks of references to painters of the past and a consistent enthusiasm that stopped the long hours from ever feeling monotonous. It took me two days to realize he was simultaneously monitoring another studio (situated on another floor), because the amount of individual attention provided made him seem omnipresent for those 2 weeks.

By the end of the Marathon, it was clear to me that through repeated exercise with routine, and by working from life I was more engaged in the materials and processes of making. For this reason, I chose to be in Elisa Jensen and Sam Levy’s atelier—where we would be working from a model every day of the week—a full immersion into the format of the atelier system. What transpired in the following weeks changed what it meant to paint for me. It went from a passive act of filling in a pre-decided image to a journey of some kind, navigating a path through various obstacles and receiving occasional gifts or curses while in pursuit of a gradually defined end goal, a mixture of chance and skill lying somewhere in between snakes and ladders and Mariokart.

Through Elisa’s teaching, I came to see the act of painting as something not solely existing as means to an end, but rather an active engagement in some kind of ancient tradition, as she described on a Monday morning in the Big Painting studio while demonstrating a variety of surfaces to work on. Blake O’Brien’s incredibly helpful weekly demonstrations of various tools and techniques helped cement this belief—walking in on a session where a crowd gathered around a simmering pot of rabbit skin glue that was being gently stirred by a wooden ladle did well to contribute to this idea of painting as an ancient craft worthy of reverence.

I was put into the Library Studio, a quaint upstairs space that is easy to miss, but one I was happy to be in. I was lucky to share the space with two kind, talented and wise artists—with very distinct personal styles yet a shared discipline and passion for making. Each week I came to learn a great deal from them, of course about painting but so much more; often through daily conversation about the world around us. A rare quality of the Studio School is that it brings people from vastly different walks of life into a shared space with a shared set of tasks—a level of uniformity that breaks the shackles of conventional social distances. Both in and outside of atelier hours, the studio becomes a second home, and the building host to an amazing community.

The bi-weekly critiques were simple in their format. At every crit everyone goes, and everyone must listen (and can choose to speak). Because the initial weeks in the atelier were split into assignments, I would be hanging work alongside my peers, all of whom approached the set color palettes or common compositions with incredible nuance and individuality. It was daunting to put work up alongside the others, yet a source of motivation as the shortcomings or fears in my work were made more evident when displayed in that collective salon-style display. The hardest part of the critiques was sitting through the people going after; not because it was uninteresting or repetitive—but because the feedback from the atelier leaders, visiting artists or other students were specific and constructive in a way that prompted you to get straight back to the studio and re-enter the image, striving to be better.

I had 3 classes outside of the atelier after having dropped one over the weekend, and was taught by Linda Darling, Kaitlin McDonough and Clintel Steed.

Linda Darling’s drawing class centered on focused practice, with curated references to start each session—I always looked forward to seeing the spread of artists’ books laid out on the model stand in the Big Drawing studio. A memory that stands out from the class is working with a model outdoors, sitting around Washington Square park drawing her sitting by a tree, creating a tiny oasis of learning within a cacophony of noise from several live music acts (across genres), chants, sirens and NYU influencers doing street interviews—a setting that allowed one to fully recognize the privilege and beautiful absurdity of a 4.5 hour drawing class amidst one of the world’s busiest cities.

Kaitlin McDonough in our first class encouraged me to abandon the practice of sketching with a pencil altogether—to draw directly with paint; to slowly build a painting solely out of paint itself—something I found difficult and seemingly antithetical to all the drawing I’d done in the weeks before—but that came to open many doors in the work that followed. This seemed important in the Studio School’s program; (in my short sampling of it) to constantly reexamine patterns and habits, keeping innovation alive both within process and outcomes.

The highlight of my time at the school was Clintel Steed’s Friday class at the MET. I had heard about this class from past Slade students that had been on the exchange, each of whom felt similarly about it. Though I could list praises, there is not much to say about the MET as a resource or Clintel as a teacher that hasn’t been said already, but there are specific moments from his class that still stand out.

During one session, walking through the MET for a quick post-class crit, Clintel held up a student’s drawing and put it on the walls of the museum, next to much-talked about masterworks from the Western canon. He asked us how we would feel seeing our drawings up next to the rest, whether we felt they belonged, whether we felt we were contributing anything to this lineage of artists, and whether we were using our voice to truly get to something new. This was a subject he touched upon often, and something that the format of his course encouraged us to think about—seeing art in a lineage drawn from the Egyptians. We all watched in silence, the day ending with him asking us what we were adding to the conversation, and whether we truly meant it. Though watched with suspicious eyes from the MET invigilators, this was one of the most impactful moments I’ve experienced in an educational setting. I often try to remind myself of his monologue that day, and how I felt getting on the subway back to the studio straight after.

Much of the studio school experience for me was rooted in the building, the history within it as well as the area it was in. Every time I tried giving a friend a tour of the building, I stumbled into a new section—I never learnt which staircase goes where, but that was part of the charm. Late nights in the studio school, especially when alone (Raymond and Anita at the front desk, who quickly became familiar faces, would always let me know when I was the only one in) felt like entering a portal at times. You are centrally located enough to get a quick coffee or walk around well into the night, but also working in a space that is strange and historic enough that when you want, it is well fit for complete escapism; the studio becomes your world and the outside briefly fades until you become just one among the many painters/sculptors before you who have worked in those rooms.

If there’s anything I regret during my time there, it’s not being fully present during many of my days at the atelier—a side effect of a failed but dedicated attempt to do as much as possible in New York City in around 3 months while attending a full time program, but there is still lots I’ve learned, perhaps more of it still to materialize through looking back at my time in hindsight, and how things develop going forward.

Though I missed being taught by Graham Nickson by a year, his presence was strongly echoed through the building—whether through quotes, stories or even physically through his monumental paintings that hung on the ground floor of the school during my time there. In the school’s promotional video (which I went over several times before my flight to the US,) Mr. Nickson speaks of the School’s long term aim to change the way one sees the world, a tough claim no matter how grand the institution. Looking out the window on the flight back and walking through cities in the months since, it seems that there is a depth, color and intensity to the built environment that I previously hadn’t noticed—which leads me to believe his mission is being well looked after. I hope the magic of the school continues to exist in the way it does—and I hope to be back to see more of it someday.

The exchange program with Slade is available for NYSS Certificate students in their second or third year or Post-Graduate Certificate students for attendance in the second year undergraduate program at Slade. Requests for fall participation must be completed by February 15. Please see Director of Admissions and Student Services, Anki King or contact Slade for more information.