Lindsey Price and a Retrofuturist Revolution

We had the pleasure to speak to Lindsey Price, a Los Angeles-based artist and designer, who shares her visions of the future. Read more.
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Lindsey Price, Los Angeles-based artist and designer, shares her visions of the future with Tainted Magazine as she prepares for her first solo exhibition with ART IS in Malibu.

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California transplant by way of Boston, Lindsey Price draws on the vivacious energy of Los Angeles as she creates works of speculative female futures at the intersection of visual art and design. With a retro aesthetic that permeates her work, accented by hints of architecture and popular culture, we see Price channel her background working with photography, digital media, animation, and collage working together as she takes on the role of architect in her own form of world-building.

Continuing in this vein, she has expanded her work. Not only is Price orchestrating her exquisite collaged images, but pushing the limits of the worlds she creates through NFTs. As these two bodies of work come together in her first solo show opening this month in Malibu with decentralized art platform ART IS, her still and moving images enchant her viewers by cohesively bringing together different methods of art-making, different perspectives of our world around us, and different futures of what will come in the world of art. 

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Photo courtesy Kristin Gallegos

Dimensional Shifts

Experimentations to determine the perfect combinations of material, subject, color, and form, Price invites her viewers to reconceive our collective future. Taking from her own eclectic compiled collection of media in conjunction with her diverse skills as an artist, she brings her almost autobiographical visions of our world to life. Vibrant neon-like palettes are met with seemingly out-of-place architectural elements accented with women embracing a space that seems to be all their own. 

TM: Your work is an amalgamation of different people, places, and objects coming together and creating surreal environments. You introduce an array of elements from the vintage through the modern. How do you source the material that you use for these collaged works?

LP: I have a collection of magazines mostly vintage and some more contemporary and modern. Anywhere from National Geographic, French fashion, 80s surf catalogues, sci-fi, architecture, vintage pornography—the list goes on. I look for print material that’s out of the ordinary and you can’t find it on a regular basis. I often look on Etsy, eBay, Craigslist, random shops, anywhere really. 

I also use some of my own photography and search the web for copyright-free imagery and I incorporate some illustrations into my works as well. 

TM: The worlds you create are full of rich vibrant colors. What is the significance of color in the scenes and how do you decide on a palette to use?

LP: Color signifies a bright future. I enjoy working with color palettes as it is one of my stronger skills but it is also a challenge. It’s a process of trial and error and when it fits it fits. My work is a reflection of my current mindset. My environment and what happens in my life can often dictate how a piece comes out. In that way, they’re a development of my own psyche. I have a notion that I need to see through until the end. Once I work through it and see the visual outcome, it becomes clearer, but along the way, I’m not entirely sure. The pieces I put together guide the outcome.

TM: Throughout your work, we see various elements of architecture. What role do these architectural structures play in your work and what ignited your fascination with the field?

LP: If anyone ever asks me, “If you could do life over what would you do instead?” I always say I would have studied architecture instead of art. Architecture creates differentiation within a space, adding moments of quiet as well as juxtapositions to nature. There’s a push-and-pull in such spaces much like dreams. What do we have without structure? 

TM: As a Los Angeles-based artist, do you feel that the city has had an impact on your practice? If so, how?

LP: Yes, absolutely. I grew up in Boston, which is a traditional city. It’s a beautiful city with strong moral values, but it is also conservative. I’ve always loved to travel and experience different places and cultures. When I was younger, all I wanted to do was get out. I wanted to go somewhere that was the polar opposite of where I grew up and of course, that was the other side of the country. 

While I have a love-hate relationship with Los Angeles, the city has definitely brightened my spirits over the years. The weather and the environment have a massive impact on my mental health and allow me to feel lighter and happier. 

TM: You work between digital and physical forms of art, prints, and NFTs to create collage and relief paintings. Do you feel these two methods of artistic creation, especially in regards to your own work, have a different impact on the viewer? 

LP: I feel when a viewer sees a physical piece of art they can see the work that has gone into it. The same with NTFs but in a completely different way. With my physical works, you can see the textures of the paint, the paper, the gloss from the resin. You can see all the physical elements that have gone into it. With NFTs, it can be a little more complicated because not everyone understands digital art. I personally find that it’s still misunderstood. In terms of the impact on the viewer, my work physically and digitally follows the same theme of escapism. All my work takes you to another place. NFTs allow me to make my work move which I feel is a completely different experience. I feel it can take the viewer even deeper. 

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Vintage Reimagings

While it is easy to be captivated by the minute details that Price so deliberately inserts into each piece, her work resonates with a deeper gravity. These realms of Price’s exist in a divergent thread of linear time, an alternate reality, that mirrors our own. Women, time, and societal roles are rewritten as the past and future collide. We are able to witness the theoretical equalities and overcomings of gender injustice that are foundational to today’s greatest feminist goals realized as we journey through Price’s windows into new dimensions.

TM: A central element of your work is the role of women. Can you explain a bit more about why you focus on women and the new mythology surrounding the significance of women in your speculative futures?

LP: I identify as the women in my work, they’re a representation of me. By putting myself into my work, I  try to focus on feminism and a future where women are both valued and in charge. What if the world looked like this? What would that society be like? I went to an all girls boarding school for high school, and I grew up surrounded by strong women who taught us we could do anything. I want to explore a future where men and women are treated as equals. It’s an exploration of the divine concept where women have choice, control, and power. A place where we can all find beauty and diversity in the unexpected.

TM: A frequent term that arises when discussing your practice is ‘retrofuturism’. What exactly is ‘retrofuturism’ and how does your work embody this idea?

LP: Retrofuturism is a movement that combines the old and the new. Mixing old and new, future and vintage, is a way to both elicit and confront nostalgic thinking in a future context. It’s about turning “what we could have been” into “what we can become.” 

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Transcending the White Walls 

It is safe to say we are well within the age of the NFT. This art form has challenged everything from how art is made to who can be an artist. Now, as Lindsey Price prepares to open her first solo exhibition, we see her using the limitless nature of her work to break down the way we understand curatorial boundaries. 

With ART IS and their gallery space in Malibu, Price is producing a hybrid exhibition that allows her physical works to exist in dialogue with her new collection of NFTs. As she places the moving images alongside her dynamic collage works, these works fuse in a symbiotic experience representative of this boundless exhibitionary frontier of which Price is a pioneer. 

TM: You have your first solo show “Transcendental Spheres” coming up this month at ART IS in Malibu. Can you tell us more about this body of work and why it was selected?

LP: “Transcendental Spheres” is about envisioning a better future. When ART IS approached me about exhibiting both my physical and digital works, I felt right at home in that future. Together we’re creating an experience that is as forward-thinking and exciting as the dreamscapes I depict and the promises they hold.

The works in the exhibition depict an imaginary but attainable future in which women are at the forefront. While surreal, these dreamscapes represent an aspirational paradise deeply rooted in visual harmony and Sacred Femininity. These are worlds in which one can escape and reimagine oneself, where power is sourced from within, and our spheres of influence have no boundaries. 

TM: This exhibition is not only a selection of physical works but also your NFTs. Can you tell us more about the NFTs in this exhibition and what your thoughts are on this hybrid exhibition model?

LP: The physical works and NFTs that comprise this collection are meant to alter one’s perspective between still and moving images as well as various forms. As I focus on physical and digital art it will be interesting to see both forms in a space together, and ART IS has been wonderful about maintaining that dual vision of my work. I’m excited to see how people react to see the difference between the still and the moving image and the impact it has on the viewers. Whether it’s digitally or physically, it’s about visually bringing my fantasies into the world. 

TM: As an artist creating tangible works as well as embracing new technologies, where do you see the world of NFTs headed in the future? Where does your art fit into that trajectory?

LP: At this point, I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. I do feel with all these new tech companies coming up with different ways to display NFTs, they will become increasingly more popular. I think in the future people will want to display their NFT collections in their homes. I hope to see both types of art in the future. I want to see the physical and the digital.

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Lindsey Price

Lindsey Price and a Retrofuturist Revolution

 

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Photo courtesy Kristin Gallegos
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