Discuss your current body of work in general, including larger-scale piece our collectors might consider.
My current body of work has really been a huge shift. For the past 6 years or so I have been focused mainly on how time and neglect allow the environment to retake man made structures. As of recent I have really shifted away from this and been mainly looking at nature strictly, with a focus on mainly forests and mountains. I mix both what I see and sketch here in Vaucluse valley and my memories of the Pacific Northwest. This has allowed me to broaden my palette and really start bringing in colors that I mainly stay away from and also allows me to play with perspective and push/pull relationships of the picture plane.
The painting themselves are not so much landscape paintings or even feelings of landscape paintings. They are more memories of feels of a landscape.
Limbo Huile sur Toile, Oil, Clay on Canvas 150cm x 120cm, 2020, View on Artsy
2. Comment on background, education and early experiences as an artist
I am originally from a small town in upstate New York (north of Albany), coming from there a person didn’t have a lot of movement in the world so I briefly attended the Pennsylvania School of the Arts in Philly which was to expensive so I had to drop out and returned to New York to attend State University of New York at Plattsburgh. Where I earned a B.A. in Painting and Ceramics. From there I moved to Oregon and worked as a potter until I decided to get my MFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Luckily at that point I was around 30 so I took graduate school very seriously. Throughout the time I was in Oregon I showed and produced work but in Savannah I really locked into trying to fully commit to my practice and career. From that point on I focused solely on pursuing a career.
3. Discuss your practice in general, use of color and materials
Frontiers Huile, Argile sur Toile, Oil, clay on canvas, 120cm x 150cm, 2020, View on Artsy
I am a complete creature of habit and I have a hard time breaking rituals. I have done the same routine since I was in my early 20’s. I always have to have a coffee with me in the studio and I always have a cigarette before I start to work. Especially since I have had a child and my time is limited, but even before that I never really meditated, or looked over work when I arrived in the studio. I have always just started working and dealt with what happens as it comes. My process is very typical I would assume. I generally start off with a vague outline of what I am thinking and slowly build and remove areas until I get the outcome I was hoping for or one that surprises me. I am not a big color painter; I prefer tone so I generally stick to a particular palette and don’t veer too far off course from that. I usually start working on four paintings at a time that way if I hit a issue with one that I can’t find the resolution for I just move to something else to not waste time. Again, it comes back to my ceramic background. A lot of painters will sit and try to figure out an issue for days sometimes even weeks. But I think since I had to create X amount of cups and X amount of bowls, and those could easily be destroyed in the kiln you learn to streamline everything you do; that in itself has made my practice the way it is. Also since I use dry clay as a finishing coat usually on my work to give it some form of age the ceramic influence is very present.
Untitled Huile, Argile sur Toile, Oil, clay on canvas, 60cm x 45cm, 2020
4. What are some milestone works in your career ( provide images)?
I couldn’t really name off any major milestones. I have work that I loved at the time that I am not such a big fan of now. But probably one piece from 2013 Funerary I. It was my first major work on paper using both clay and oil paint and was really the first piece I think I made that had a real soul. Also a tryptic If Man is Five, Then the Devil is Six, Then God is Seven, from 2016. Those were just fun to make and who doesn’t love the Pixies?
FUNERARY I is Oil, Clay on Paper, 52” x 80
5,6,7, charcoal, oil and clay on paper, 72”x 52” each.
5. Who and what has influenced you?
Rosemary Huile, Argile sur Toile, Oil, clay on canvas, 120cm x 150cm, 2020
Gore Huile, Argile sur Toile ,Oil, Clay on Canvas 50cm x 40cm
My number one influence is Gloversville NY, that city made my concept of what is my aesthetic. I have had a lot of people who have made an impact on me over the years and there are too many to name. But music is a huge influence. Depending on what I am listening to in the studio my work will change drastically. Also, film plays a big part, I would say Apocalypse Now has somehow influenced everything I have ever made as an adult. As did Dow Mossman’s book Stones of Summer.
Wilderness Huile sur Toile, Oil, clay on canvas, 120cm x 150cm, 2020