Rob Pruitt paints his multiple personalities

Glittery panda paintings. Cocaine buffets. A spot on Martha Stewart's TV show. The career of New York based artist Rob Pruitt has certainly been eclectic. Ostracised by the art world for an early 90s collaboration with Jack Early that featured images of famous African-Americans splashed with paint, Pruitt has since rebuilt his reputation with a unique brand of post-pop extravagance and social critique. For his latest show at NYC-based Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Pruitt is turning inward to explore the multiple personalities that have defined his markedly different work. The centrepiece is a new body of paintings based on automatic drawings he made during therapy sessions. For an artist renowned for his use of pop culture imagery, this is as personal as it gets. Here Pruitt chats to Jack Hutchinson about opening up, taking stock and how time changes everything.

Can you explain why you chose the title of your new show Multiple Personalities?

Rob Pruitt: I was thinking about my Attention Deficit Disorder and how easily distracted I generally am. When I’m on the Internet I always end up deep in a Google k-hole reading about something without any idea of how I got there. Or when I read a novel I’ll jump to the end of each chapter because I don’t have the patience to read it through. When I watch TV I’m constantly channel surfing, or when I’m in my car I leave my radio on scan mode. Sometimes this can drive other people crazy. I decided not to block that out of my art making practice, but rather embrace it. This is not necessarily a new thing – when I look at my output for the last 25 years it seems to be guided by a short attention span.

The show also has to do with mental health issues. Multiple personality disorder is a very well known (sometimes overly simplified) condition, and because the show features endless doodles on plywood and cheap IKEA loveseats made by eight or nine individual studio assistants there is, literally, a display of multiple personalities.

The exhibition features a body of work called "Suicide Paintings". What’s the significance of this title?

Rob Pruitt: I was sick and tired of my old patterns and work habits – mainly trolling the Internet for images of panda bears to rework and insert into new painting compositions. I thought about how great it would feel to create a painting that could somehow erase all of the imagery I’d grown accustomed to using – leaving nothing but a void. The paintings simulate a door or window into that new place, and the act of voluntarily exiting the space one is currently in seemed akin to the idea of suicide.

The show also features paintings based on automated drawings created during therapy sessions. How did these come about?

Rob Pruitt: I love therapy and I love going to my therapist, but I also know that my mind has always functioned in a way that works best if I'm doing more than one thing at a time. For instance, I used to take my notebook into a multiplex and spend the whole day writing and drawing as I was seeing the different movies. These ideas I ended up with were not necessarily triggered by the narratives of the films but came about simply by doing something else at the same time.

How does it feel laying such a private experience bare?

Rob Pruitt: Because the drawings are of such a private, abstract language, it's not like reading my diary. Rather, my hope is that the scribbles have an emotional charge or emotional residue coming from whatever I was talking about at that particular moment. It doesn’t feel vulnerable in any way.

“With these pieces it was like planting a garden – I set up the activity and just came back later to see how it turned out” – Rob Pruitt

The automated drawings contrast heavily with the other work in the show, namely the sofa and table top pieces. How did these come about?

Rob Pruitt: Four years ago I noticed my assistants were drawing on the studio lunch tables as a way to unwind during breaks. After seeing this go on for a couple of weeks, I realised the doodles were more interesting and even more beautiful than some of the projects that I had devised and was paying them to come in and produce. So I thought, why not just foster this as a project? The truth of the matter is, I’m such a control freak that I really only like collaboration when I have the upper hand or get to do whatever I want. With these pieces it was like planting a garden – I set up the activity and just came back later to see how it turned out.

You recently had your 50th birthday. Has this milestone altered your approach to making work?

Rob Pruitt: I’ve been thinking about all the things I’ve done more than I have in the past. Usually I just move forward to the next project that interests me. I’m thinking about what I would like to do in the next 20, 30 or 40 years and taking steps towards getting there. Of course, all of this might change tomorrow.

What’s next?

Rob Pruitt: I felt a sense of resolve and completion when the show opened, but now I’m back in the studio experimenting again. I’m making some paintings with paint remover instead of paint. I have a big show coming up at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit next year, as well as a show coming up at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, CT.

Multiple Personalities runs at Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York from September 13th to October 25th, 2014.