Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 22, 2012
FARRELL BRICKHOUSE: INTERVIEW
Mast I- Wind for the Sail Solid Air, 2012, oil on canvas, approx. 12 x 8 inches |
Struggle #5- Dancing Bear, 2009, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 inches |
New World Type 1, 2012, oil on canvas, 14 x 11 inches |
Painter's Form Again, 2011, oil on canvas, 16 x 12 inches |
The tangibility of paint and a certain loose-handedness with the brush
are the prominent traits found in the work of Farrell Brickhouse. There’s the
sense that each painting is strived for, worked out …hard won. But not only is
he contending with paint in the painterly tradition, Brickhouse is also dealing
with the enchanting qualities that his pieces exude; it’s as if he’s imbuing
his subjects with lightness and grace. It’s that aspect of his work that has me
hooked, not just how the paint appears. In trying to pin down the specific
quality that I’ve felt, I want to use the word “charming,” but another part of
me says that I should embrace terms like: captivating, beguiling and
mesmerizing when trying to assess the thoughts and feelings that his works
induce.
PB: What I like about your work is the paint handling, coupled
with a color usage that’s wide open—the same things I appreciate in the work of
Soutine and Avery. Can you tell me a bit about your influences?
FB: I greatly appreciate the
effort you've put in to become familiar with my work and I think you've made
perceptive observations of what is important to me, especially about achieving
grace in my painting. A fellow artist used the term "tertiary palette"
in describing recent work of mine. I liked that. Influences are many as they
are for most of us. First, I remember as a child, going to the Museum of
Natural History in NYC and seeing those dioramas, these worlds cast in a dark
corridor—each one opening on something "mesmerizing," to quote you.
I've sought that in my work, each painting is to be this illuminated world/object.
Soutine did that with this gritty light and those jewel-like moments that come
out of paint being pushed into paint. There was that great group show awhile
back at Cheim & Read of Soutine and
His Influences. Georges Rouault’s Christ
Before Pilate - 7.25 x 5.2 inches is just sublime. At Queens College,
Charles Cajori was a wonderful instructor to me.
As a young man, my friend Ralph Hilton and I were roped together, sort of
to say, working on each other's paintings and sharing what it was to live the
life of an artist. There was something so exciting about what two can do next
to a solitary painter. Also, spending several years fishing off Montauk in the
late 70’s before deciding to return to NYC and give it another shot …Joseph
Conrad said, “If you would know the age of the Earth, look upon the sea in a
storm.” As I matured, art history offered different lessons and my influences
would sound like the usual suspects.
There are also the early paintings of Eva Hesse, the humanity of early
Greek and Roman frescoes and also African American vernacular art mostly seen in
a book called Souls Grown Deep.
Influences are also those that confirm one is on the right path, not
necessarily something one is drawing from formally, but as a territory worth
inhabiting—someone like early Peter Saul. And NYC in the 70’s was quite a
unique world and the city still is such an influence, this vibrant community of
artists making such a passionate commitment to a life in the arts …one had
better make the best thing possible. Of course, traveling a bit and seeing
something of the world excited and expanded my art.
PB: The specific way in which you work—which feels like an
exploration with paint—is evident. Can you shed some light on your studio
practice and your experiences there?
FB: I was about to quote myself
here but then thought better of it. When one has worked so hard to craft a
document that is accurate about such an illusory process, there is the
temptation to repeat it. Yes, at best it is certainly an exploration and I like
your distinction between practice and experience. One question I ask when
entering the studio is, “what needs to be said, what can my art contain?”
My studio time is not unique, it runs the whole gamut: from the workman-like
strokes that one makes until something more significant can happen, to the
terrible certainty that it is all collapsing and one should just buy a boat and
be done with it. There are the moments when I come alive; the marks seem
determined, as if they always existed, and I am witnessing the process unfold—and
all that one knows seems to be available in this illuminated moment. One also
learns when to stop and step out of the trenches and look for a while to see
what has been achieved, especially after the novelty wears off. Sometimes it’s
a way forward that’s been rendered and sometimes one is rewarded with a decent
work.
My practice is one of having multiple paintings going at once. I may
focus on just one thing, but usually there is this leapfrogging going on, where
one work liberates the other to take the next step. I’m often amazed at how a
casual three-minute sketch on a small piece of paper can inform a painting. I
putter around and I have lots of visual sources lying about, as well as my own
drawings, gouaches and such. I’m very organized, but in the immortal words of
Patti Smith, “one has to lose control to gain control.”
PB: You’re on the faculty at SVA (School of Visual Art). How do
you approach teaching?
FB: SVA has provided me with a wonderful place to
work. I’ve been there since 1980 in the Undergraduate Fine Arts Department.
Teaching is about being a conduit for the student, to provide a route to him-
or herself. We offer a safe place for them to learn and to fail and make what
they need to make at this time in their emerging careers. We endeavor to turn
them into Students worthy of the name. I offer them my passion, my knowledge of
how to work, the belief that art is a language, that the function of language
is to allow us to speak, and that art comes from a life lived.
Students learn
when they realize that the tools we are offering will enable them to get to
where it is they want to be. It happens on all fronts, the entire expanse of
being an artist—and faculty members can be an example that it can be done, that
a life in the arts is possible. It’s such a privilege to share one’s hard won
experience and be in a dialogue with young people, to be relevant. It is a
vibrant part of my life and informs my own practice. We are all eternally
students if we are artists.
PB:
Who are some other artists whose work you’re excited about right now?
FB: There is the beloved Kathy
Bradford… I believe there are synchronicities in the air, shared stories and
images born of what it is to be alive now and that her work is terrific. Jennifer
Wynne Reeves makes me feel like a barbarian, in a good way. Peter Acheson,
Peter Gallo… so many younger artists are excited about paint, what it allows
and what it can speak to and that is encouraging. My Facebook community is
really rewarding. I know I am leaving out many fellow travelers. I like what
John Yau is writing about too.
PB: What other things out there fuel your work and progression?
FB: I am not sure about “out there.” At this
point in my life there seems to be a turning inward, a focusing on my work that
keeps unfolding and a censorship on what I let in, even as I feel more
connected than at any time in quite awhile. The miracle of a life with my wife—my
muse, the upstate NY land we go to as a sanctuary… traveling and seeing the
courage that people all over the world display in seeking justice makes me
believe my task is to be as courageous as possible in the studio. I do want to
see what the scope of my art can speak to: personal experiences, current events
and history.
Recently, I feel that good work is somewhat like a time machine. It
opens up one’s past body of work to new interpretations and significance, and
allows one to claim new territory for the future. My career has been up and down and then
some. With the new technology of sharing and a turn in the currents, I have
another run going. I feel painting now is crisscrossing old borders with
passion, wisdom and abandon to make work that resonates. Our political,
financial, religious and even scientific leadership has mostly failed us at
this moment in history. I think the re-emergence of painting today is tied to
the need to create our own mythologies and to document the depth of wonder at the terrible beauty of this existence. Thanks Mike.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
KATY MORAN
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
JIM & GYAN SHROSBREE AT MAHARISHI UNIVERSITY OF MANAGEMENT
Saturday, December 1, 2012
SUZAN FRECON
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