Femme

Blaine Bacchiocchi

Interview by L. Valena
January 14, 2024

Can you start by describing the prompt that you responded to?

It was a digital drawing, which looked like it was done on Procreate. It was an image of a female-type figure that looked like it was on... I couldn't tell if it was water or ground. It was very brightly colored. Very bright greens, with a very intense contrasting violet that was outlining the figure. The figure looked very serene, and there were flowers covering the bits, if you will. There were some circular movement lines around her.

What were your first thoughts and feelings about it?

I just wasn't sure what to do with it. It felt like a big departure, but every prompt you've ever given me has felt like a big departure. I feel like the female figure is alive, but there was just a death in my family, which is probably why it seemed possible that it was a dead person. Is this person just relaxing? Is this about self love? Is this Ophelia? I didn't have a good answer, so my brain got kind of stuck. I decided to riff on the movement I was getting from it, and merge it with a series I had started this Fall.

Talk to me about this series. I love how geometric they are. Is that the right word for this?

That's the best I've got so far. Yes, there are geometric shapes, but also organic shapes. I started a drawing at one point during Covid, and then I put it away. When I moved into this studio space this summer, I was unearthing some stuff, and trying to figure out where to start. I found that old drawing, and decided to finish it. I like this circular thing that's happening, it's symmetrical but it's not, because I didn't use a ruler, I just eyeballed everything. It has this perfect-but-not-perfect aspect to it, which I really like. It gives it movement that is subtle, but it's there. I wanted to play with those types of shapes and colors again, and see where it goes.

People see mouths and other things in them, and I'm fine with that. A friend of mine said one of them is very vaginal, which I thought was hilarious. The responses I've been getting from people have been that it is giving this movement and space thing, which brings up the idea of femininity to me. I've always had a very strange relationship with the concept of femininity, but people always seem to find it in my work. I feel like this piece is very figurative, even though it's completely abstract. There's a lot of very feminine qualities to it: the color palette, the curves of the lines, the movements of the circular shapes. Maybe that's just because I struggle with it.

I also see them tied to this idea of human history. They feel very spiritual to me, even though I'm not a spiritual person. We live in this country where our gods are Capitalism, brands and money. It's meaningless, and maybe these meaningless types of images could become meaningful, and speak to that hole that a lot of us have because of a lack of community. Maybe these are like religious icons, but they're not referencing anything specific that we know of. Since the death of God, there has been a vacuum, and we try to fill it with all of these things. I'm not trying to start a cult or anything, it's more like a comment about our society. I also really like playing with the idea of flatness, but also the idea of deep space.

Are you planning to do more with this?

Yes, I will be playing with this some more. I've been using tracing paper to make multiples, make larger versions, and play with different color and shape combinations. The figure for this piece evolved out of a shape from another piece, and picked up the breast and pubic area of the figure from the prompt. Kind of repeating this motif on the edge. I'm going to make this into another big boy.

Is there anything related to this piece or your process that we haven't talked about yet?

I'm not a huge pre-planner. I did a couple of sketches. I investigated the color scheme of the prompt by throwing it into Adobe Color. I wasn't super stoked about what it gave back to me, but it felt like a good jumping-off point. It was a lot of trial and error. The process of mixing colors is also part of that spiritually adjacent journey. Getting the colors to talk to each other the way you want them to.

You've participated in Bait/Switch several times over the years. Do you have any advice for someone approaching this project for the first time, or for the second, third or fourth time?

Every time I've done this, I've created something completely different from what I've done in the past. If you put my four submissions next to each other, I seem like four different people. That's partially because of the way I make art anyways, but it's always a direct response to where I am at that time, as well as the prompt that I'm given. Get outside your comfort zone. It's part of this thing called creative exploration that we're all trying to do. Don't let what you think should happen, or what you think should come next, be the ruin of you making something pretty cool.

Call Number: Y121VA | Y123VA.baFe

Blaine Bacchiocchi is an Artist and Educator from Southeastern MA. They received their BFA in Fine Arts from The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University and their MEd. in Visual Art Education from Lesley University's Graduate School of Education. Blaine has always identified as an interdisciplinary artist, choosing their materials based upon the needs or themes of the project at hand.