Artist Book Review: The American Painter Emma Dial

This book is a very good book for depressed young artists. It's about a studio assistant named Emma Dial working for a famous painter named Michael Freiburg (the author worked as a studio assistant for Jeff Koons) and her struggles to come into her own talent and make her own work. She makes good money working for the painter, but he's also a leach. He's reached a point where he no longer paints any of his paintings, simply composes them, gives her direction and books it out of town.

The tone of the book is somewhat self mocking, and wry. Our narrator is adrift in a sea of New York art. She's so directionless, that a lot of the reasons she does anything is in emulation of her idols. Emma's own painting studio, which she never visits was handed down to her from her mentor who left New York for LA, and as far as Emma is concerned, might as well be dead. Her job with the painter Michael Freiburg, she gets by him approaching her while she works on a mural. She has several artists friends her own age, and is supposed to be close to a filmmaker, Irene, who is a reflection of Emma herself- unable to complete work, move forward or care for anyone.

One thing that really struck me was the menance of the relationships between all the artists in the book. Until Emma meets Phillip Cleary, a rival of Michael's who lives a very different path in Miami, with people he actually likes, everyone else she comes into contact with are mixtures of friends and foes, mixing stinging insult with supposed friendliness. They're the mean girl clique of the art world, and they love and hate only each other. Emma's boss Michael is her queen bee, and the way she is trapped under him reminds me very much of a 6th grade girl who desperately wants to be popular.

As Emma's friendships with Phillip Cleary deepen, her bonds with Michael start to dissolve, and she starts to stand on her own two legs. This part of the book is very satisfying, and I think it may be especially satisfying for those artists who are still struggling to figure out how to do what they want to do. A lot of good meditation on the uneasy relationships that artists have with commerce and the craving for status, and the particular terror of facing a blank page.

Emma herself is a very interesting main character. She's not a very sympathetic person. You don't get your hands on her as a kindly person, or a hurting person, or even as a wounded person. She's not accessible to the reader, in a way that's pretty exciting. Its rare that a female main character is so walled off, so unenticing, so ruthlessly unavailable. I really liked the overall effect- she has this self loathing the bubbles up in the narration, but her joys, her happinesses, she keeps to herself, with the exception of a few small slivers at the end. She's not noble, just real.

If you are in the mood for a book pairing, I think this one would go very nicely with "Seven Days in the Art World" by Sarah Thorton. Especially if you skip to the chapter about Art Basel, before you read the middle to end of Emma Dial when she and Michael show his work at an art fair.