Assembly Line Collective Interview, 2009

Back in 2009 AssemblyLine Collective did an interview with me about my work and my process. However for one reason or another, the article was never finished by the original writer. Though it’s rough and incomplete, I wanted to share this anyway because I feel like it describes my work pretty well. Enjoy!

??PROCESS

Torneros the Designer & Torneros the Artist
The two main sides of work for Allison Torneros, the designer, and AT, the artist, share a subtle, but fundamental difference.

At Circledot, Torneros methodically executes a client’s desire – provides solutions – by communicating an image or identity as an active and calculated persuasion of public perception. As AT, she visually dumps her internalization of ideas drawn from the real world, almost like a mental exercise, as a conditioned reaction to very particular catalysts: the colors, motion, form, and texture of ink and paint. In Design, Allison maintains control; in Art, she gives it up (temporarily, anyway).

“You know those Rorschach inkblots? My approach is usually to just throw some paint down, wait a while, a day or two, and let ideas come out on their own. I don’t know what they’re going to be, but they’re usually based on what’s in my head at that moment.”

In throwing paint down, AT’s first layer is fundamentally Abstract (Expressionist) – a nascent, unfiltered, and unconscious mood. But instead of declaring completion, she half-waits/half-searches for meaning, and by analyzing this “dream” and allowing it to access ideas drawn heavily from what she reads, she reacts in a semi-conscious manner, building an image that is, at once, rational and random.

Looking at Allison’s work is like watching her have a dialogue with herself in order to find out what she feels about why people do the things they do. Conscious and subconscious, rational on top of random, her artwork reps for both sides of the brain. This result, when looking at the facts and driving interests of her life, doesn’t seem entirely surprising.
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WC: Where do you draw influence from? Original question, I know.

AT: I think that I get a lot of ideas just from the things I read. Like right now I’m reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being . Sometimes books, sometimes articles. Like… do you remember the concept behind my solo show (Face Value)?

WC: Please remind us.

AT: The idea behind Face Value was influenced by this article I read called “Narcissism in the Digital Age”. I did a series of pieces inspired by real photographs put up by people on their social networking profiles, to kind of examine how people create a perception of themselves.
I mean, on FB and Mysp, you have all kinds of people showing themselves off in very intentional ways. If you want to show you’re a party person, you share pictures of yourself drinking. Or the opposite, if you want to seem elusive, you put up very little. The thing is that it’s all still intentional.

…

Do you know the play Equus? (No) Radcliffe from Harry Potter was in it, he actually got naked for the part (laughs). The story was that this kid had this infatuation with horses, almost like a religious worship, so much that he would actually get naked and ride them bareback. He tries to have sex with this girl in the stable where the horses are, but because he thinks they’re all watching him, and because they’re almost like gods to him, he’s really insecure and can’t get it up and gets embarrassed, so he stabs all of the horses in their eyes. That was the inspiration for my YRB illustration spread.

WC: Interesting.

AT: Yeah, I’m really into the psychology of why people do things. Like, how do they get this way? There was that crazy story in Austria. Did you hear about that guy that locked his daughter in a cellar, raped her and had 7 children with her?

WC: Hmm. No…

AT: Waylan. You need to get up on your current events.

WC: Sorry. Yes I do.

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AT: I met this chick online, she had a pretty strong following, including me–I liked her work. She just knew how to present herself; everything she said or did seemed so… well thought out, she just seemed so cool. But when I met her, she was nothing like what she seemed. Nothing. And I felt a little jipped! But damn, she knew how to create an image of herself online. Everything was so…

WC: Calculated?

AT: Yeah!

…

In talking about her intense interest in sociological critique and disturbing domestic crimes, we realize a very core aspect of her work – her interest in the psychology and reasons behind human action.

“UCLA was the only school that I applied to as a Design or Arts major. The rest I applied as Psychology.”

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THEN AND NOW

Since Paperboogie, Allison’s sense of self has evolved in significant ways appreciable by those in commercial art and design, and this is evident when you compare a piece such as “The City” (2005) to “Handgun” (ARTillery, 2008) and those found in Face Value (2009). The difference: Concept driven artwork.

AT’s recent work is overtly concept driven, showing a matured focus undoubtedly influenced by academic education and the business of freelance graphic design. This rising conceptual requirement in her work parallels the desire to also brand under her own name, as opposed to an alias.