A week ago, I had the pleasure of going with Allure Magazine’s Picture Editor, Nadine McCarthy, to Marilyn Minter’s studio for a pizza lunch. Nadine had commissioned Minter before, and as alert readers will remember I have already raved about Minter’s work. (Click here) but I had never met the artist and Nadine had never been to her studio.
It was quite an experience! The minute you walk into the studio, you feel you’ve gone through the looking glass and entered an artsy version of Santa’s workshop. There’s a merry bustle of activity as young assistants and painters go about their work.
It wouldn’t be giving anything away to say that much of the painting is done by assistants (mostly her former students) who Minter has trained in her specific painting technique which consists of layering enamel paint on aluminum and then finishing it off with fingertips to soften the paintbrush lines. But the basis of all of Minter’s recent work is all photography and her trademark pop color images of mud splashed stilettos, glittery facial features and body parts are pinned up all around the large studio.
It takes a particular talent to come up with something as fresh and distinctive and timely as Minter’s work and the more I look at it, the more important and accomplished I feel it is.
Minter, meanwhile, is a bundle of energy, charm, intelligence, and extroversion. Completely without pretension or vanity – when I asked if she felt any kind of association with that other famous alliterated Marilyn she replied – “I was born in 1948 when nobody even knew who Monroe was!”. I asked if she would autograph a skateboard of my daughter’s – one of three she designed for Supreme – and she immediately zoomed off to find just the right red marker with which to sign it in a way that was both beautiful and personal.
She was also happy to let me snap away, so I can share these pictures with you.
Marilyn Minter and Nadine McCarthy.
