Untethered

After moving to Spain, painter Jeremy Mann enjoys the freedom of a new environment and fresh subject.

By Michael Clawson

Last year, Jeremy Mann uprooted his entire life, trimmed some of the excess and moved the whole thing 6,000 miles away to Spain. Needless to say, he’s been busy.

There was certainly some agony that came with moving out of his Bay Area home, but the ecstasy hit him when he saw another way to live in a distant and beautiful place. He and his wife, the painter Nadezda, are still trying to sort out their full studios and they have some unpacked boxes here and there, but their work has barely stopped. Mann has been turning his attention to plein air work in his new surroundings, but he also has completed new oils and been very active in his sketchbook. He also just recently released MANN: Vol. 3, a new entry to his popular art books showcasing his work across numerous media. He also has a documentary, A Solitary Mann, directed by artist Loic Zimmermann.

NACRE, January 2024, oil on panel, 36 x 36”

I caught up with Mann for our podcast, the American Art Collective, during which he talked in-depth about the last several years of his life, what he’s working on and the state of his still-in-the-works studio. Afterward, we corresponded further. Our second interview, none of which aired on the podcast, appears below. Enjoy!

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Sketchbook pages, summer 2023, graphite on Moleskin, 8 x 10”

What ultimately led to your move to Spain? Were you worried your work would change at all? Or was change the point?
Life is change! And yes, I needed some intense change…especially one with less gunshots in the din of my sleepless nights. Aside from the continuous stream of inspiration coming from the Barcelona Academy of Art and the multitudes of nearby cultures to add to my life experience, I needed what I considered to be the most important technique required for artistic growth: time. The work ethic which I was raised in prepared me well to never to give up, and now it was the moment to sell everything and live a debt-free life which opens a more pure path for whatever creative outlets one yearns to express.

Evening on the Rocks, December 2023, oil on panel, 26 x 36"

When you decided to pack up and move to Europe, I imagine you had to make some tough decisions as far as what to pack and take with you. Did you make any major sacrifices on any studio items or materials? And what is the state of the new studio, workspace and darkroom?

It was an amazing revelation, how tight the grip which “stuff” has on us, and how difficult it was to get rid of it properly, too. It cost me over $500 just to dispose of the hundred pounds of old paint piles I thought were cool to keep in the corner of the studio, ha! We only packed our art supplies—which alone filled a shipping container—and my dresses and accessories collection, one of those of most importance. Perhaps I [will] miss the ridiculous amount of Victorian couches I used in all my paintings…but again, just stuff, and time for a change. While I knew it was possible to move an entire life across the globe, I didn’t expect the pushback, which cost us dearly in not only delays and all my savings but the life of my best friend for 16 years, my cat. While currently the studios are only bare bones, I’ve built many before, and will build these as well when the time comes. The great thing about limitations is the resulting exhilaration of other unforeseen challenges, and I’ve taken to the sea, the countryside and my own back yard to reacquaint myself with the most important inspiration our current society is losing touch with: reality…life. I’m learning more from plein air painting the rolling seas alone than any class has ever provided me with, and not just about painting.

A place I like to sit, more downstream, May 2024, oil on papered panel, 4 x 5"

Also, did you lose access to all your models in the move?

Life’s coincidences could make us think there’s some sort of plan to it all, and I find that the more you follow your passions you simply seem to end up in the right places without trying to predict some perfect future. It’s how I found my art life, my wife and my new home. One of the first models I ever worked with—and ended up travelling across Europe, Ukraine and Russia to see the great masterworks in distant museums with—was inspired herself once the war broke out to study sculpture at the Barcelona Academy. Now my wife, her and our friends swim naked in the sea and all I have to do is chauffeur, bring cold drinks and paint! We’ll be having more life session parties like I used to as seen in Loic [Zimmerman’s film] A Solitary Mann, and there are many beautiful people I see in the summer streets of Catalunya I am inspired by. The muses who inspire me are more becoming a valued participant of my life than just mere paid pretenders, and I see similarities in this mode of combined inspiration in the inspiring tales of the figures in the oily masterworks of those museums.

All plein air paintings, 2024, oil on papered panel or panel, each 4 x 5"

Now that you are a bit more settled in Spain, where do you feel you are being pulled creatively? Toward paintings, or drawings, or photography? Or all of the above? Are there certain subjects that are calling to you?

D. All of the above of course! I can’t constrain myself to one thing, one medium, one subject, one style. That, to me, was a great part of the production lifestyle of art I was taught in our contemporary art circles and is perpetuated still, infecting the mind of young and old artists to think of the end product first. Art is what results from being in a creative state, and that “state” is what I’m working on preparing for myself. A stage of uninterrupted free time to explore, experiment and express. What will come of that, I don’t know! It will for sure involve paint, cameras, filmmaking, poetry, sculpture, literature…who knows, maybe I’ll find some me in music and dance, too. Currently, I’m studying the sea from life with my little cigar box oils and incorporating that knowledge into a new realm of my figure paintings and photography until I can unpack the studio I boxed up two years ago. I desire to return to the mode of creating I was perusing before I received formal education, a re-evolution of the child spiced with the awareness and skills I’ve gained growing old.

Stretching paper in the studio.

The new book, MANN: Vol. 3, really paints a picture of how productive you are in the studio, and also how productive you were during the Covid years. Do you prefer a schedule, or do you just let the work you’re doing dictate how, where and when you complete it?

That’s one of the hardest things for me to endure during these times, not having that studio in which I habitually spent most of my waking hours. My creative schedule was only skewed by those unwelcome interjections from the outer world of responsibilities. An open schedule is one of those factors necessary in the distraction-free approach to creativity and I’m actively engaging with conditioning that lifestyle in an attempt to create a body of work “before” scheduling a solo exhibition, whereas the other way around adds a bit of pressure to the system and can cause one to hesitate at the moment they need to experiment. The hounds of the public demanding from [outside] the studio window for “more of the same.”

Lilith Progenitrix, February 2024, oil on panel, 40 x 29"

On our podcast episode, I mentioned you were sometimes seen as “reclusive” and “private.” These qualities add to some of the mystery as to who you are and what you may do next. Both your book, which has no text other than image captions, and your move to Spain seem to add to the mystery. Are these fair things to say?

Man, if I’m mysterious, I’m sure not getting the mystery! I believe it may appear that way because of my addiction to the catharsis which creativity brings to one’s soul. It opens us to so much in life I never realized was just below the surface of what we all endure. I thoroughly believe there is a self-empowerment which comes from the creative process, and wisdom garnered which tastes the bigger picture we dance around through our existence, crucial to our survival and a sense of which many are at odds with. One knows themselves when they struggle alone in a room to express their deepest emotions, even more so when its plastered on the public walls for all to judge, and I wish that was a common-practice education in all children trying to make sense of anything in this horrifying and beautiful world of us humans. If I’m reclusive, it’s only because I enjoy being focused on trying to make sense of my spirit which inhabits this brief world. Mountains are peaceful, full of animals, my hair grows long because…well, I don’t know what to do with that man in the mirror, and I love much of this world, and people, truly I do! Yet, I find my time absorbed by my addiction to a quiet explosive sanctuary of creativity, protected from a noisy world careening toward a direction which I am morally at odds with.

EL16, 2022, expired Polaroid negative from homemade camera

What’s next for you? Are you planning a show or a project we should mention?

To be honest, right now I’m just trying daily to get better at painting the movement and spirit of life, incorporating what I glean from her while releasing the personal doubts of my creative experiments. Once recuperated from the great transition, with studio built and back where I left off, we wish to open the other half of the property to a long-term artist residency program, but that will take some time. Meanwhile, I’ll be teaching a bit at the Barcelona Academy of Art, spending a week in Portugal mentoring, lecturing and teaching at the THU (Trojan Horse was a Unicorn) event this fall, and revisiting the 18th-century isolation hospital on the island of Lazaretto in Menorca, Spain, in April for the next Quarantine workshop, a cellphone-free expansion of the creative spirit. Maxwell Alexander Gallery will be releasing a new handmade, 50-color serigraph cityscape and we revisit the Utah artists’ retreat with many of the gallery’s artists painting the deserts of the American West together. I’ll be having a talk and signing of MANN: Vol. 3 at Principle Gallery, there’s an exhibition opening of cityscapes at the European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona that I will be participating in, and I just became a member of my local analog photography association where we geek out about chemicals, experiments and light in 17th-century cow barns. And trying to learn Spanish…and Catalan…and taking care of the animals who come visit me on the mountain, but that’s about it, for now!