Best Friends, Black Swans
On our call, they’re immediately lighthearted and candid, and it’s easy to feel how close and effortless their dynamic is. Right before we spoke, they signed the lease for their newly shared studio space, and have been inseperable lately, playfully dubbing each other “the best boyfriend they never had."
The pair spoke to office about being each other's soulmates, their separate practices, and the art world.
Okay, first, I want to hear about how you met!
Ariane Herloise Hughes一 It's a bit of an origin story. We were sort of Instagram admirers of one another through lockdown because openings weren't happening and people were working from home. Our careers parallel one another in that sense because neither of us had the time or the space to just focus on painting until lockdown happened. So, we were making work, we were talking through Instagram, and then the world opened back up again. Vilte thinks we met organically, but I had just been sort of stalking her on Instagram, trying to figure out when she was going to have her next opening, and just sort of inserted myself and tried to play it off super cool. I approached her and complimented her outfit and her work.
Did it work?
Vilte Fuller— Yeah, it worked ‘cause I thought it was an organic meeting ‘cause I was like, She's way too cool to want to speak to me. And she's just being polite. My trousers are really not very cool. And she said, Your trousers are so cool.
AHH一 We hung out loosely since then — but we had lives, we both had boyfriends — and then it was only the end of last year that…
VF一 We've talked everyday 24/7 since September 1st.
AHH一 Vilte’s the only person I trust to give me advice on my work.
What do you think makes you such close friends?
AHH— Our work is quite different, and we have had quite different upbringings, but we have met various milestones at similar times, and in our own various ways had parallel existences.
VF— This doesn't usually happen with people our age — and particularly with painting. We are having incredibly parallel situations where we can speak to each other in a way where there's never any jealousy, or any like, I can't believe you got this and I didn't get this. Everything is different enough. But then we're also on such similar levels.
AHH一 That's how I know that you’re the love of my life and my best friend in the whole wide world because I'm never jealous of you. When you tell me something, I'm actually genuinely so happy. But I also guess it's kind of out of a needs-must situation because the way the art world operates is it's not transparent at all.
VF一 There are great people and galleries, but it's not everywhere. It kind of feels like people are maybe doing certain things because they wanna get something out of it rather than like a genuine human experience.
AHH一 Yeah, and it's difficult to know who to trust and what advice to take. And especially through art school — I feel like that's where you're really let down. There's no education surrounding how to operate as a small business, or how to get into shows, or what to do. And you just have to pick this up along the way through trial and error. Trust me, we've both had our fair shares of absolutely horrendous business decisions.
VF一 That part of it I still struggle with. We're getting better honestly. I think because we've gone through the kind of cliches of everything they say don't get into, we've gotten into. I've managed to come out the other end of it. It's fine.
What advice do you have that you've taken away from what you’ve gone through in that sense?
AHH— Well, the first show that I ever had, it was during lockdown and I saw an open call, which I applied for and I got, and it was in Japan. A very small gallery no one had ever heard of. I had to pay for my own work to get shipped there, and then the gallery very quickly went bankrupt, and those paintings are nowhere to be found. I think the Japanese government at some point got in touch with me, but I feel like that was also a scam — I don't know.
VF一 All the commissions with galleries most of the time are 50/50, so understand what is your 50% and what is theirs. You pay for your studio; you pay for materials; you make the work. You shouldn't be paying for your own transportation; you shouldn't be paying for photography. Have a payment contract. Nothing operates with anything really written down apart from WhatsApp messages and emails. And you don't see money for six months. The gallery has that money, and they're keeping their money 'cause they need to deal with their own stuff, And then you’re always at the bottom end of the barrel, even though it's your work that’s being showcased. The show is supposed to be about you, and you're the last person to see those funds. So many artists never get the money that they’re owed because people go under, and all of a sudden it doesn't exist, and it's literal theft.
AHH— Contracts are really important. When I have time — and I'm hoping to make it a yearly thing — I've also been curating shows. The first show that I curated a few years ago, I had no contract with them. Nothing about payment was in writing. It was always a phone call.
VF一 Get everything in writing.
AHH一 I took a phone call, and the gallerist of this space that I used to curate the show talked me into selling a piece of mine that wasn't in the show, that a collector wanted. I didn't want to sell it in the first place, and didn't need to sell at the time. I was holding onto it for nostalgic reasons. He guilt tripped me with his own financial issues, so I agreed to it over the phone. He sold the work, and I still haven't been paid for it. That was years ago now, and it was a decent amount of money as well. This guy is still out there doing this.
VF一 I think artists are really scared to talk about money 'cause it's seen as just being ungrateful for the opportunity. But opportunity doesn't pay your bills; it doesn't pay your rent. We need to be collectively transparent about money and discuss when things are not going right 'cause so many people are getting away with so much because nobody's talking about it.
AHH一 It's essentially money laundering.
How would you describe each other's paintings?
AHH一 My USP (unique selling point) is “creepy, sad, sexy” paintings.
VF一 You prime five layers, and sand things, and are almost so physically violent with the surfaces to make them as smooth and as perfect as possible. The process is so laborious and work intensive, but making it look effortless. It’s like that saying, “there's no beauty without pain,” that's what your work feels like.
Does that feel intentional? Did you make the choice to focus on this part of yourself that you consider “difficult”?
AHH一 It's definitely personality driven. I grew up Catholic — masochism sort of comes with the territory. I paint an oil — again, a masochistic process. I hold very high standards for myself and for the people that I let into my close circle, which is why my close circle basically consists of Vilte and my mom. It lends itself to my creative work ethic, and the fact that I think I make work that separates itself from the more fast-paced approach that the contemporary and emerging arts scene takes.
VF一 There have been many cases where people have suggested for her to take shortcuts to what they think would be the same image, but it wouldn't be. A lot of people assume if Arianne started using airbrush and acrylic paint that dries really quickly, she could do this 10 times faster, but it would not look like her work without her technique.
AHH一 The whole point of my practice is the process and the fact that it takes time and the way I source my imagery, the way I put together a composition, and then the way it takes weeks to execute. I'm commenting on this fast-paced digital age and the age of narcissism and the spectacle and the way we view things through online spaces in a traditional medium to poke fun at and critique it. What I would say about Vilte’s work is… Vilte is going through a bit of a rebrand. A “cultural reset.”
VF一 It's basically very reduced form. I'm doing less figuration. The colors are more muted. I'm trying to make it slightly less garish and maybe a bit more classy. It still has elements of sci-fi and all that stuff.
What made you decide to make that shift?
VF一 My work has always been slightly dark, creepy things with humorous elements. That was great at the time for my interests, but when I was looking at other works by other artists that I like, or just narratives that I'm interested in, my preferred tastes are a lot more muted and more abstract. It's not like the work is now serious, but before everything was very facetious and in joke. It got to a point where it felt like I was just recycling the same stuff. I started to really focus on asking myself what my actual personal tastes are and what I like.
AHH一 What I love most about Vilte’s work is her process and how she actually apply paints and creates the surface — how playful she is with how she puts together her surfaces. We're polar opposites. During lockdown, she was sewing bits of canvas together when things were closed. Now she’s carried that through, and I love seeing that in her work still. There is a DIY element, which I generally hate in artwork, but she has such a good eye for it, and understands the history behind it. It's not just messiness for messiness sake. The work now is not as in your face and figurative, but it's not serious or boring. It's still her, and there's still the element of play and the element of critique, which I think is so important to her practice.
What are some of your current references?
VF一 It's like Succession meets David Cronenberg. Being around London, there are a lot of metal buildings. I have this obsession with work in general. For the past year and a half, just fully sustaining myself from painting and kind of getting everything I would've ever wanted as a child to be like, Wow, I can sustain myself purely from painting. There's been elements where I really miss normal work and I miss routine and I miss being a part of a community where you go in and you see these people all the time. I got obsessed with the idea of work culture through spending a year and a half purely painting since it's so lonely. You have to be so determined and self-motivated and have so much belief in yourself that I do think you have to be a certain level of a narcissist. And I always thought that I was narcissistic enough, but I don't think I am. My new body of work has been very much based on the idea of work and then me being me. I love a little sci-fi horror narrative going into it. I’ve been looking at the popularity of financial and political dramas in film and television. Similarly to my other previous work, I reference movie tropes. The new work is very gray, very corporate — slightly fleshy and slimy — a little bit gross, but not too gross.
AHH一 The way my practice operates is I turned a bad habit of mine — which is incessantly scrolling through Instagram, consuming unnecessary visual media, and death scrolling on any and all social media platforms all the time — into a creative outlet. I end up in these weird rabbit holes on someone's profile; I don't know who they are, I don’t know where they came from. Generally, these people will only have a few hundred followers and I'm still creeping on their stuff — taking screenshots. On my notes app, I write down thoughts that I have; titles; things that have been happening or have happened to me. It’s this combination of narratives that are personal to me, and then these images that I found, but don’t relate to me. Mixing very mundane shots, which are completely distant for me, with these very personal memories of mine, and merging them together into these compositions that make sense, but don't make sense — that are familiar, yet out of reach. There’s sort of a Lychian, uneasy feeling to them.
Lately, I’ve been looking at dog mouths. I’m really interested in dog teeth and fleshy gums. I think the juxtaposition of the soft fleshiness with the hard teeth is really interesting. And obviously all the sort of symbolism around teeth and your teeth falling out in your dreams. Something that's always on my mind is traditional religious iconography and religious themes, and merging them with more modern ideologies and images.
I wanted to ask you about the swan motif in your paintings too because I love swans.
AHH一 I am obsessed with swans. In Australia, they have the black swan. You don't see them so much in London, but we have the white swan, which is the queen's bird. When I'm feeling sad, but still able to leave my bed, I'll go and watch the swans. I literally have a folder on my phone of over 5,000 images and videos of swans from Hyde Park. So, I always have these references that I can return to whenever I need a swan reference. Symbolically, what I love about swans is obviously they're the picturesque symbol of love. You see them on postcards; they mate for life; all that sort of imagery, but then compared to the fact that they're quite a violent bird. I like this juxtaposition of eternal and forever, but also aggressive. In terms of the shape, they're quite phallic looking, so it's this idea of something so hard against something so eternal yet ephemeral. That's why I love a swan. Also, if you really watch a swan, they are magnificent creatures. You can't buy the white swans, but you can buy the black swans, and a pair is around £600, which is totally affordable, but obviously in order to properly house them, you need to have an estate with swamp. If I ever make it big time, I’m going to have an estate somewhere out in the country and breed black swans — that's my plan.
