Cindy Hinant’s installations are luridly colorful collections of objects that seem to gather and spill out of otherwise ignored corners. Some of her materials are masses of bright and shiny stickers, girliness with the volume on ten. Some of her locations are behind the half-and-half and sweet-n-low at a coffee shop, or above an institutional wainscoting. I asked Cindy a few questions about her process:

Gala Bent: Did you collect or trade stickers when you were young? If so, does this feed into your work with massive amounts of stickers now?

Cindy Hinant: Lisa Frank was really popular in the early 90’s and I was the sticker queen. I started a sticker club at my grade school. Our sticker club meetings mostly consisted of me giving stickers to the other members because I had tons of them. I never really stopped collecting, but it took me a long time to consider them as a medium.

GB: Where would you most enjoy having an installation of yours pop up?

CH: I think I enjoy these installations most when they are in unexpected places. Gallery work is going to help push my career but some of my favorite installations have been in spaces like grocery stores.

GB: You’ve called your own work cute and psychedelic. When do you think cuteness crosses over into psychedelia?

CH: I think one bunny rabbit is cute, thousands of them layered together is something else.

GB: Do you love or hate cute things in their usual intention? Cat posters, baby food ads, Bratz™?

CH: I actually have a cat poster in my room, but I’m not really obsessed with all things cute. Sometimes I’m bothered by the intentions of these products, and what messages they might give to the public, especially little girls. There are a lot of artists making work that tries to contrast with ultra-cuteness who make pictures of unicorns vomiting and stuff like that. Generally I focus more on nostalgia and how these images open up space for imagination and play.

GB: Who or what do you name as some of your influences or inspiration?

CH: Living in the Midwest has been important to me. I have lived in Indiana my entire life and my work reflects my perception of other spaces. I started making mountains after my first trip to the west coast. My plane connected in Colorado and I was overwhelmed by seeing mountains for the first time. In my drawings from childhood there was always one mountain, alone with a zigzag snowcap. In real life there are tons of them. Since then I have been making work that describes abstract relationships to environment. My sticker work generally takes on a mountain or hill shape to create strange dreamscapes.

As far as other artists I like Fred Tomaselli’s collages a lot and also Sue de Beer’s video/installation work.

Filed under: art, interview

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