It’s always fascinating to pore over a photograph of an artist’s studio. The feeling of a space–its architectural style; its decor; its general level of tidiness–can help fill in our understanding of an artist and by extension his or her work. Details, too, take on great significance. Every little trinket or souvenir reflects back on its owner, giving us some insight–accurate or not–into where that person has been and what they value enough to keep around.
Joe Fig, a New York-based painter and sculptor, has been documenting the studios of fellow artists for years, but he does one better than simple snapshots. Instead, Fig reproduces the spaces in the round.
Fig’s been making his dollhouse-sized models–tiny, expressive, meticulous things–for more than 10 years. He started in 2000, making sculptures of famous artists’ work spaces as part of “a study on artistic process.” In time, he felt the need for more immediate access to that process and began writing letters to contemporary artists, asking for permission to visit them in their studios. The first taker was Michael Goldberg, the celebrated abstract expressionist painter.