AVERY MEI SKILLIN
Avery Mei Skillin is an artist born and based in Brooklyn, New York.
Starting as an animator, they turned to fine arts and currently paint, illustrate, make zines and write.
Starting as an animator, they turned to fine arts and currently paint, illustrate, make zines and write.
All photos of Avery were taken by Nella on 35mm.
All photos of artwork are credit to
Avery Mei Skillin.
All photos of artwork are credit to
Avery Mei Skillin.
I’m going to start new work soon, but I just try to do something every day so that I don't go crazy. I just got a new studio too, so I’m just trying to go there every day to get back into a schedule.
What activities are you enjoying/not enjoying ?
I’m like a dog that needs to take myself for walks outside so I don't get the zoomies.
I started drawing again for the first time in a long while. I also started working on a painting that I haven't touched in 4 months, but I might start a new one soon. It’s just weird to get back into it because after being in school for art [where] it’s like you have someone breathing down your neck to do something a certain way all the time, now, there’s no pressure for me to do something or get it done.
It’s nice, but I don't have security in the same way.
I have a lot of freedom, but that freedom is kinda scary.
How do you feel out of school ?
It’s nice to not have the pressure to make art in a certain way, but it feels hard to start again somehow. I'm not sure why.
Does it feel like you need a prompt, or are you just exhausted and/or feel like you don’t have a need [to create] ?
I feel like overthinking stops me from making stuff.
If I feel like something forces me to do it, it's easier to complete.
What have you been working on recently ?
*laughs*
I feel like I need to naturally feel like I want to make something.
I don't know if it’s because I'm really tired and need to force myself to do something, but maybe the way I want to let out my energy right now is not through art.
I’ve been writing a lot and journaling... That’s gonna come into it later.
When I went back to work on a painting recently, I got excited about painting again because I physically got to use paint, but it is also kind of like when you don't exercise for a long time and you have to start from the beginning again.
I’m a perfectionist when I start to do something, and if it doesn't live up to the expectation I have in my head of what it should look like, then I just won’t do it.
How do you feel about writing right now, and what have you been writing about ?
I journal mostly when I feel like saying something other people shouldn't hear.
I do it most days. It’s like self-reflection and free writing.
I have a lot of thoughts and get nervous about losing an idea or stressed out about other thoughts, so I just write about it and work it out. That goes for everything, not just personally how I'm doing in my relationships or my relationship with my artwork.
Your direction changed earlier this year: [Avery was making a lot of collage-like work that was based on information, surveillance, and targeted advertisement.] Do you feel like it's changing again ?
Now, I’m realising that I think I was doing that stuff because I was in a fine arts environment.
A lot of the sort of artwork we were talking about [in school] was making a statement about something relevant. I feel like that was what preoccupied and worried me the most at that time and I had the space to do that.
It was a cool experiment but it felt like people could tell it was forced versus my paintings which were more like what I wanted to do.
I still think about those things, but I think I should write an essay or something about it instead.
I'm taking a break from making a concise body of work where everything has to go with each other.
I feel like I'm going to have a change again. My artwork comes from what I feel in the moment and I don't need to make that in this moment. I also feel like I don't want to make paintings about hating myself as a little girl anymore...
Are you concerned with making art about specific topics right now ?
Right now, it's just as I go. I doodle a lot in my sketchbook, but nothing is really intentional and I kinda wanna start being intentional again. It's really hard to be intentional...
I don't know what I want but I know how I feel, and I have to figure out a way to put that into something else that someone can understand.
*a kid walks by with a tampon up their nose (to stop a nosebleed.)
then Avery proceeds up to show me a picture of a tampon up their own nose, because of their chronic nosebleeds*
*laughter*
*everyone takes a moment to regroup*
What’s ur diss on the current state of art ?
I hate everything so much.
Why ?
In art school it's like you're in a bubble of other people and what they're making.
Even though I trusted my major to be a place where I could make whatever I wanted, I feel like I still wasn't making whatever I wanted, because I didn't feel encouraged by the environment that I was in.
I’m realising I didn't feel that good about the art I was making when I was making it.
Since a lot of the same things just keep on being recycled within a bubble on Instagram or something too, I’m just like: ‘Ive seen this shit before’, but I don’t know if that’s just because I’m jaded in general.
I feel more inspired by writing, movies and narrative things right now.
How do you feel about the state of social media right now ?
Bad.
When did you start becoming a habitual Internet user ?
When I was like five *laughs.* Not good...
What about social media ?
I remember blogging platforms before like MySpace, which was a completely different way of communicating ‘cause it’s your own space... MY space... *laughter.*
But now, like Twitter and Instagram... but I'm not in control of anything I see any more. Instagram is just like Facebook for people our age, and I use it mainly to keep up with people... but I’m not in charge of what I see at all.
It’s just like infinite content to see that is just... bad. It feels like no one was meant to process information that much.
I feel similarly about that right now. I feel like I don’t want to see any of it anymore...
Yeah, it’s hard because it is engineered to make it literally as addictive as possible.
I delete it or try not to use it, but I can’t do that because I have to use it to keep in contact with a lot of people, like texting. That’s how a lot of people use stories too etc. If I’m not seeing these people physically in certain spaces often it’s a good thing, but yeah...
That’s why I only usually use close friends anyways.
What would an Internet utopia look like ?
Blow it up. *laughs*
This is so controversial to say but like the dark web or something... which people use to do illegal things of course, but I’m only saying that because it’s unfiltered, but honestly no.
I think actually, like the old internet before corporate ownership, because now [the internet] is just recreating ownership structures that we have in our society today.
The ideal would be... If we all... Revert to... a Hunter Gatherer Society...
Yeah...
Yeah...
How do you feel about being a New Yorker ?
It sucks. I like it, but everything sucks now.
Dude... they’re asking me for my job if I can drive a car, and they wanna save me a parking space.
I can’t drive... I can’t drive a car... I don’t know.
I hope Bushwick blows up... it’s just it’s very weird, because I feel like navigating everything feels so fake with people our age, and I don’t really like that.
It just feels like a different place, but also ‘cause I’m navigating as an adult, and almost everything is very surface-level in relationships or with meeting people.
I feel like people just judge you based on how hot you look, or how cool you are and just want to keep you around for that reason or what they can gain from you.
Do you think that this is a very 21st-century problem ?
I feel like people from here are generally just like that but I don’t really know if it’s just a New York thing, or an everybody thing, or just a New York art school thing to treat other people like that.
I think its also because I’m in nightlife spaces a lot and everyone tries too hard to be a certain kind of person. Whereas, when you get out of that, it all seems dumb and stupid: everyone is trying to look cool or something.
How do you feel about being an artist in America right now ?
I don’t know what it’s like to be somewhere else, but I don’t really have faith in anything right now. Even people I see that are “up,” or doing something successful, are not actually doing that well. I don’t have faith that anything can work out for me which sounds depressing and bad but it’s just being realistic.
It’s not a good outlook to have, but if I have no expectations I can’t be disappointed in things not working out.
It’s hard to be a genuine person.
What is something that feels genuine ?
Art made by cavemen like a million years ago...
They didn’t have any reason to make art other than wanting to. They didn’t know if it would end up in a museum.
Because we’ve created technology to take care of fundamental functions, in turn kind of rendering our own performance of them irrelevant: Do you think that affects the current outlook on life ?
Yeah, completely, because the way you navigate spaces with other people now is through your phone or literally like being watched all the time as a post-9/11, and post-COVID-19 society. But, if I were a bug, all of it wouldn’t matter.
I don’t think people are supposed to be in direct contact all the time or as accessible as we are now.
It’s like I’m not working, but still have to think about work and all of these things all the time.
Like, I don’t know... is that why I’m so stressed out all the time or is everyone also feeling like that ?
I think everyone is because we weren’t made for all of this.
I’m going to move to the middle of the woods somewhere. I’m so dead fucking serious.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been here for so long. I just wanna move somewhere with a different environment, but I think that I’m just having a bad day today... *laughter*
I think I’m just over everything in general and want to feel like I’m having a fresh start.
If there was somewhere else you could go, where would it be ?
A. walk-ab-le. city...
It’s just like every time I go somewhere here, I just know where I am at all times. I’ve been coming here [Sarah D. Roosevelt Park] since I was 5 years old.
You take it for granted, but it’s also like a certain culture of navigating based on how other people act here. Like if I’m in Manhattan, it’s different than if I were in Brooklyn because people walking on the street would say hi to me there, but people don’t do that here [Manhattan.]
I think I am just tired of image consciousness.
What is something undervalued in society ?
The post office... but I don’t know. I think everything is undervalued.
Having running water is the number one thing. I think about this all the time.
You can press a button and water comes out and it’s something expected, when it’s not meant to be like that at all, and other people don’t have that privilege. Like when you flip a switch and the light comes on because of technology from before, coming from someone else somewhere/time else; that’s why we end up worrying about all this other stupid stuff.
Yeah, I feel like humans need to always have an issue to try and fix, but we’ve already fixed so many of the fundamental things and are just now finding problems with very unsubstantial things.
Examples?
How social media and instant messaging were created to make socialisation/contact easier etc, but before all of that we would fulfil our immediate social needs by actually interacting more, and waiting for contacts that would take longer.
YEAH... I had a friend who switched to a flip phone, and every time I needed to talk to her I had to call her and sit through a conversation.
I think I’m just very overwhelmed by everything and the possibilities of everything all the time.
Any hot takes ?
Brat is not that good...
I think it was good... but every day I see the Market Hotel post their flyer about it, and like they said it would be the last time, and then they say there’s gonna be brat autumn... and the word demure... and internet buzzwords.
Pick one: Past, Present or future and elaborate.
I don’t see the future as very good, I don’t know. I’m trying to live in the moment more, but also, it’s like you have to have a plan and it’s really weird to not have a plan.
I try to not ruminate on the past too much. You can learn from the past, but I’ve been dwelling too much in my past states lately.
AVERY RECOMMENDS.
TO DO:
I think that everybody should read a book... I think that everyone should go to the library.
Go and get a library card.
TO SEE:
Read a book. You see words and you read them...
TO WATCH:
The Agressives.
TO LISTEN:
Black Metal 2 by Dean Blunt.
TO READ:
I’m reading this right now: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. It’s really good so far. I usually only read depressing or philosophical books. I really like his writing style, and I got this at the library... I have a library card, I have my library card on my keys...
AN OBJECT:
I have these guys: I have my beans. Stress beans.
TO THINK ABOUT:
I think that everybody should sit and think about how we have running water, and how privileged we are to have running water and electricity.
I feel like I think about it all the time, and nobody else thinks about it.
I feel like I have way too much guilt and think about it way too often.
Avery is @aveemei on instagram
and was interviewed in September 2024.