People are always emailing me, asking about giclee prints of my large pieces. I’m just going to go ahead and say for the record, they will never exist.
I feel for people who can’t afford the expense, or space required for a large scale painting, but I want everything I put out to be a special, one of a kind, touched by human hands, piece of art. That leaves a couple options for people who want more affordable piece; reach out and ask me to make a small painting, or wait for the occasional screen print or wood block print.
For those of you that are into screen prints, I am about to give some away.
I just sent the last glitch painting to the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago for an exhibition called, “Freak Out.” The show opens Friday the 15th (that is tomorrow), with what will certainly be a big, fun, opening party. Additionally, the opening coincides with their monthly Third Fridays at the building, where all the galleries in the building host opening receptions, and artists open their studios for visitors. In other words, there will be a lot to see.
So here is the deal. The series I am currently working on is all about selfies (not really news for anyone reading this, I know). In the spirit of this series, I am asking anyone who wants a print to go find my piece in the show (which is in the main gallery on the second floor), take a selfie in front of the painting. If you do that, post it up on Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter (or whatever), and tag me in it so I can see it, I’ll send you a print. I am going to keep the image for the print under wraps for now, but since this game is all about selfies, it will be a screen printed interpretation of an image related to that part of this series.
(Miami, FL) October 2015 – Yeelen Gallery presents what’s INSIDE HER never dies…a Black Woman’s Legacy, a group exhibition curated by Karla Ferguson and in collaboration with Poets & Artists Magazine; on view through Art Basel Miami Beach week from November 30 to February 28, 2016. Bringing together a select group of like-minded artists, curators and cultural tastemakers, Yeelen celebrates the legacy and influence of the Black Woman.
“what’s INSIDE HER never dies…” will mark the three-year anniversary of Yeelen Gallery and will include a compelling body of 25 artist/activists including: Sylvia Parker Maier, Tim Okamura, Joseph Adolphe, Jerome Soimaud, and Numa Perrier. Yeelen’s annual Art Basel reception will be Saturday, December 5th from 10 pm-till attracting one of the largest constituencies of artists and influencers outside of the usual fair grounds; this gathering has become the ultimate expression of creativity during Miami Art Week.
“We are proud to pay homage to the beauty and resiliency of the Black Woman, we aim to continue to fight for her rights and equal respect,” said Karla Ferguson, gallery owner and director. The exhibit will present through portraiture, drawing, photography and installation, the beauty and the emotions of these heroines whom inspire us generation after generation.
Judith Peck – “Pulled Over” – oil and plaster on board
I have a bad habit of exploring ideas out loud. As I am thinking my way through problems, I will ask questions, spit out ideas, request feedback on half baked theories and generally allow most any thought that passes through my head to escape as sound. In the world of bad habits (even in my own world of bad habit), this one is fairly benign but, it does have a way of confusing, annoying and generally making me look foolish to anyone with the poor fortune of being within earshot at one of these moments.
I feel like I have allowed this habit to infect my writing lately as I have been publicly working my way through the pixelated private message paintings. In other words, it has been helpful to send my ideas out into the world, to receive the confused glances that come with bad ones, along with the excitement and support that come back from the good ones but, I expect that everyone is just about ready for me to shut up about it all ready.
With that in mind, I am sending my latest study for this series to a show at the Dorchester Art Project.
I am sending my piece to this show and I am telling you not to worry, you are not going to this show to see my latest exploration into this idea, you are going to DAP to see the other artists. You are going here to marvel at latest group of amazingly talented artists coattails that I have somehow managed to ride.
Here are a few teaser pieces from the show, keep reading below for official press release and dates.
The Dorchester Art Project is pleased to present its inaugural exhibition, B?etween You and Me: Resident Group Show. C?urated from work produced by DAP resident artists, B?etween You and Me locates the tenuous threads that bind together artists working within communal space.
In the front gallery, photographs consider how individuals relate to their worlds and constructed tableaus explore otherworldly scenes. Paintings of faces fall apart into pixelated squares, mimicking the failure of cellular communication between people, while in other works, intertwined figures emerge from abstraction. In the back gallery, a sitespecific installation of sculptures that reference painting recreates the artist’s studio within the gallery space. Collages made from phone books and other paper detritus sourced directly from the Dorchester environment are as much about absence of information and individuals as their presence. Across the paintings, sculptures, photographs and drawings, there is a commonality of artists engaged in critical discourse and thinking as the artists interpret their environments and interact with the surrounding communities.
Operating in the space formerly occupied by the Howard Art Project, the Dorchester Art Project is dedicated to fostering a collaborative environment for critical discourse and creative engagement for emerging artists. Located in the Fields Corner neighborhood of Dorchester, DAP provides studio and communal space to artists, while programming our gallery space with regular exhibitions of critically engaged, emerging local artists, as well as artist talks and lectures. DAP aims to engage a wide audience, and bridge the gap between urban residents and the critical art establishment.
Immortality & Vulnerability is a collaborative effort between co-curators Didi Menendez and Sergio Gomez (who runs the gallery at the Zhou B Art Center, along with his own space 33 Contemporary), and the artists involved. The way they tell it, Sergio came up with the concept, As luck would have it, this meshed with a new series that Didi had been discussing with artist Nadine Robbins.
The title Immortality and Vulnerability was given to all the invited artists about one year in advance. Artists and poets were selected from across the country to participate. Each artist and poet was asked to respond to this theme from their own point of view and with their own visual language and writing style. The ideas of Immortality and Vulnerability have been part of the human experience for millennia and have been subjects of exploration by numerous artists throughout time.
I don’t want to give too much away, because the show looks great and I want you to check out the magazine to see it all, but here are a couple more teasers:
Cesar Conde‘s piece for Immortality & Vulnerability
Here in Boston, we have been spending a lot of time the last few weeks shoveling snow and complaining about the weather (even more than normal) so, I am looking forward to heading south for a little warm weather. I will be in Florida for the opening reception of The Artists Gaze at Sirona Fine Art and plan on checking out as much art as possible while I am in town.
If anyone knows about Miami galleries or interesting things going on, I would love some recommendations!
Now, on to the important business. What about the show.
Artist’s Gaze, Seeing Women in the Twenty-first Century
Curated by Victoria Selbach
At Sirona Fine Art
Dates: February 21 to March 22, 2015
Opening Reception: February 21, 2015
It is always exciting to participate in big shows with like minded figurative artists and this exhibition looks like it will really deliver. Victoria Selbach has pulled together a huge group of world class artists and it will be great to have a chance to see all these paintings, let alone have my work included in the show. The show opens February 21st, if you are in the Miami area, be sure to have a look for yourself and, be sure to introduce yourself at the opening reception.
For those of you who are not lucky enough to be spending this winter in the warm embrace of southern Florida, you can learn more about the show and check out the work online in a couple places.
Poets and Artists magazine has put out an issue in tandem with the show. It features images of all the work, bios on the artists along with statements from the collectors, curators and other folks involved in the development of the show.
You can download the issue on Itunes or Magster. There are also old fashioned paper copies available on the Blurb.
Recently, I finished a piece that I have been keeping under wraps a bit longer than normal. I think I have mentioned before that this piece is headed to Florida for a show organized by Victoria Selbach for Poets and Artists Magazine, that will be held at Sirona Fine Art this February. I am working on framing and packing the piece this week and I wanted to talk a little about my process behind making the painting. If you can’t sit through a little art talk, feel free skip to the end and just get the details about the show.
It is no secret that what separates bad art (and mediocre art) from the good stuff is often (always?) some element of suffering. Just like riding a roller coaster, a song that tells the story of pain that we can relate to (or glamorizes pain that we will never feel) lights up our brains in the most pleasurable ways. Something about facing suffering, in a controlled manner, is just extremely satisfying. I won’t pretend to understand why this is, but if you have ever faced two similar works of art and tried to understand why one makes an impact, while the other falls flat, this is usually a big part of the answer. Good artists have a (sometime unconscious) fundamental understanding of this and that is where “the rules” come into play.
First off, it should go without saying but I am going to say it anyway, good artists are good at making art. Seriously. I am going to go out on a limb and just say that every good artist has gotten to a point in their art making where making art got fairly easy. They got to a certain level of technical proficiency, they started to understand the aesthetics of their particular artistic language, whatever… making art started to become second nature. This is where “the rules” come into play.
If good art is about allowing people to safely suffer, to face difficult subjects, and it is coming out easily, you have a problem, you are not pushing hard enough, and the final product (art) is not going to be effective. If you do not feel anything when you make it, people are not going to feel anything when they look at/interact with your art. Hobbyists enjoy making art, artists work hard. When making art starts getting easy, when there is not enough suffering in the studio anymore, artists start creating barriers for themselves — they invent rules for their art work and process to follow. Ultimately, understanding the rules that an artist has set for the creation of the art can reveal a lot about the final piece.
Are you still with me? Am I completely wrong here? If you are an artist, do you not work within a set of (ever tightening) regulations?
As I was working on the piece that I would ultimately decide to send to this show, I was posting a lot of images of my progress on my website, on Instagram, on Facebook, and I got a lot of interesting feedback. Mostly, it could be separated into two distinct groupings:
The people that think my paintings are kind of weird (in a good way) thought I had pushed it too far towards realism, therefore I had created a somewhat less interesting piece.
The people that think I am a pretty good realistic painter thought this was a step forward in my ability to paint things that look like the thing I am painting, and therefore this was a more interesting piece.
In my mind, both of these groups of people are missing something. I am not intending to paint people as entirely weird caricatures, I am not trying to accurately render things to the best of my ability. What I am trying to do is create interesting paintings that communicate something, while working within my own set of artistic rules, and there is one rule that all my pieces follow. One rule that really defines the look of my paintings, even this one.
If there is one thing that really makes painting images worthwhile in a world where photography is so prevalent, it is the act of painting itself. The fact that some foolish human took the time to painstakingly create an image, gives paintings a weight that photography can not achieve. With that in mind, I go out of my way to make my paintings as labor intensive as possible. I use a small brush and mix every stroke individually. I spend more time than is necessary on pieces and try to leave obvious evidence of this in the finished product. I want to push the fact that some idiot human (that’s me) just spent a month creating something that a camera could have done better in 5 minutes. Painting this way is not the right way to do it, it does not produce the most realistic results, it distorts colors and adds strange textures, it complicates things. If I was more successful, this is the part where I would make a stink about doing it all myself and not using studio assistants, but I think at this point in my career that goes without saying.
In this piece, I have toned down the textures that are normally created by working this way, and people seem to have noticed. I did this so that other distortions could take the stage. I wanted the piece to feel unstable. The skin is not as textured and the colors are more even, but I tried to play with cool and warm areas within the body, allowing some parts to push back into the blues of the background and then shifted the lines of the blanket so the figure felt as though it may also be in danger of falling forward. I wanted the figure to feel pushed back into a corner, while still maintaining a strong gaze toward the viewer. There are a lot of small things happening in a simple composition and allowing too much texture in the skin made the piece feel overly busy.
The painting is being sent off to Florida, so be sure to check out the show if you are in the area, or in Poets and Artists Magazine, if you are not. The show has an amazing array of artists, all with a unique way of looking at women in their art. Best of all, it gives me a good excuse to get out of frozen Boston and work on my sunburn in Miami.
If you follow me on Instagram, you might have noticed that I have been acting a bit out of character lately, working on small paintings. In the past, I really struggled to translate the process and feeling of the large paintings into a smaller, more affordable package. I have a very particular way of working, and I just can’t seem to convince myself to paint any other way.
When a lot of painters work, they are editing out a lot of visual information. They are taking the complex real world and simplifying it, deciding what is important, and including only what is necessary to create a nice clean image. This is a great way to work. I don’t do it.
When I work, I generally take the biggest canvas, and the smallest brush I can find. I like to pack in as much information as possible. Instead of taking a complex area and simplifying it, I am taking simple things and breaking out every possible color that might possibly exist there. This is a bad way to work. It takes a long time and it just doesn’t work at anything less than large scale. I do it anyways.
The thing is, I really think it makes interesting paintings.
I want anyone who buys one of my paintings, whether they spend thousands of dollars on a large piece, or tens of dollars on a tiny one, to come home with a piece that I think is good and interesting. If someone buys one of my paintings, I want it to have the things that make a painting mine, no matter what size it may be. Because of this, I have not sent out many small paintings lately.
Recently, my friends at Sloane Merrill Gallery asked me to create a few small paintings for their December show. So, I headed into the pathetic small spare bedroom that is my current temporary studio, determined to come up with some paintings that I would be happy showing.
I think I finally found the right balance. Instead of trying to scale down my techniques, I just painted with the same intensity and scale of strokes that I would use on a large piece. In the case of these smaller pieces, there is just less of it. So, for the first time, if you like the large pieces, you should see a lot of what you like in the small ones.
I am interested to see how people respond to these pieces so, please head on over to Sloane Merrill Gallery for their 10×10 show next week (or any time in December), have a look at the pieces and let me know what you think. They will be hung along side a lot of other great pieces, including a few by my old studio-mate (from the infamous studio 11), Tony Bevilacqua. Official show details along with information about the opening reception below.
Twenty painters given the same dimensions
10×10 Inches
Opening Saturday, December 6th from 3-8pm! Artists include Carlo Russo, Jeremy Durling, Adam Vinson, Leo Mancini-Hresko, Matthew Saba, Jeremy Miranda, Tony Bevilacqua, Kyle Bartlett, Kelly Carmody, Nicholas Mancini, Margaret Langford Sweet, Brett Gamache, Andrew Fish, Michelle Arnold Paine, Nick Ward, Michael Compton, Aurélie Galois, Frank Strazzulla, and Jonathon Nix.
At Sloane Merrill Gallery, 75 Charles Street Boston, MA
Help spread the word, share the event page on Facebook.
South Boston Open Studios is happening on Sunday June 1st and, despite the fact that I am in the middle of moving my studio to Dorchester, I will be set up and open for visitors. This will, most likely, be the last time that I participate in one of these events for a while so, if you are interested in seeing the paintings and talking with me about art, be sure to come out!
Postcard image by Dana Woulfe
This spring, the whole neighborhood is joining in the fun, with artists opening up in The Distillery, and King Terminal building, along with a few of the neighborhood galleries (including Thomas Young Gallery and the newly opened 555 Gallery).
For more information, and a full list of participating artists and galleries, visit southbostonopenstudios.com.
There will also be a neighborhood art stroll hosted by New Art Love. They will lead a group of visitors through the galleries and artist studios of Southie and talk with artists, curators, gallerists and more. Afterwords there will be a reception at LaMontagne Gallery. It sounds like a great way to experience South Boston Open Studios so, if you are interested, be sure to check out the Facebook event page, or go to www.southbostonartcrawl.eventbrite.com for more information.
I have a habit of over reaching in my life as an artist. Attempting paintings that are just a little bit beyond what I can possibly pull off, getting involved in projects with tight deadlines and, showing up to ask for the impossible has become common place at this point. While I have grown used to hearing the word no, most of the time these gambles find a way to miraculously pay off.
Preparing for this show was not one of those times.
A while back Didi Menendez did a nice profile of my work in her magazine, Poets & Artists. Not only did this profile lead to one of my first big sales, it has also lead to my work being included in a few of her other projects, including what has become and annual show at the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago. These shows (along with her magazine) do an amazing job of combining promising newer artists alongside bigger established names and, I am trying to work with her on a portrait show here in Boston. In other words, when she calls, I want to send her something good.
Unfortunately, something good just did not want to happen without a fight. I scaled back my original plan, then scrapped the backup plan, only to end up finishing a piece that I had nearly abandoned. In the end, all the frustration was worth it. I am happy with the finished piece and the show will, without a doubt, be great.
I think everyone has seen enough of my new piece for this show so, scroll down for the official information and a few of the early arrivals for the show from some other cool artists.
Fixation is an exhibition and a publication of art and poetry focused on the physical or psychological preoccupation or obsession over an object or subject. Also as a focus of something that will capture our attention.
Fixation takes place in a gallery setting, print and digital formats. The exhibition is curated by Sergio Gomez of Chicago’s Zhou B Art Center and Didi Menendez of PoetsArtists Magazine.
For those of you that think I stink, but like Margaux. This video featuring a poem by Nin Andrews will be playing at the gallery. See if you can spot her.
As usual, still refining this painting, but good enough for 1080 pixels. I feel like this composition is finally working with this attempt, third times the charm, I guess. Visually, it feels the most interesting and refined I have managed. Beyond that, the glitchieness is really starting to play an integral role in the piece, which feels important. Source image is just what it sounds like – I cut in some audio of the model saying the word “no” – as if it was another piece of video. That unexpected piece of information confuses the video player and gives us this moment of destructive chaos.
Anyways, let me know what you think, even if (especially if) you think this whole idea is garbage. It feels good to make one of these work, feels even better to finally make an interesting painting while devoting most of my mental energy to organizing a five-year old’s Zoom meeting schedule… More thoughts to come on this painting and the direction of this series as a whole.
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Around Boston
In order for artists to thrive in any particular place, they need three elements. They need to be near institutions on higher learning and culture – museums, universities, theaters – places where they can develop a foundation of history, expand their knowledge, and enjoy the great work that already exists. They need people interested in supporting the arts – collectors, patrons and others that can support the work financially, but also an audience. Finally, they need space to live and do their work. This includes work spaces, but also space to support the sales, performances, and community engagement that is crucial to creation. Small galleries, Artist run collectives, project spaces, performance halls – places that can support and nurture entire networks of artists.
At this point, my city is clearly lacking one of these elements, and it was uplifting to see the Boston City Council stepping up and calling a hearing to discuss affordable housing and work spaces for artists.
You can watch the hearing on YouTube here:
Like a lot of people, I was unable to make it to the hearing but, for reasons that I will assume are obvious, I care about this stuff. Since I couldn’t stand up and speak in the room, I wanted to write my thoughts about these issues here, in hopes that it would encourage some more of you to do the same.
In order for a city to thrive, everyone needs to have an affordable place to live, and the city leadership should really be doing everything they can to make that happen. That means building more houses, as well as developing programs that ensure current residents are able to remain in the places they call home. This city really needs to find ways to encourage both of those things to happen so that everyone that wants to call this city home – including artists – has a place to live. However, allowing private developers to chose to dedicate subsidized housing units to artists, while excluding other people who would otherwise be qualified, creates a system that is ripe for abuse. All that is to say, I am going to focus this on advocating for the other spaces that artists need. While it is not as fundamental as having a place to live, it is the area of this issue that is more intertwined with supporting the arts.
Based on the testimonies at the hearing, it would appear that this issue was brought to the attention of the city council by the artists that have recently received eviction notices from the Boston Center for the Arts. Before I go any further, I think its important to say that my initial reaction was to side with the BCA here. We know that there is a very limited number studio spaces available in this city. At the BCA there is apparently a group of established artists that have testified that they have the resources to pay market rate for work space, and they have instead stayed in highly subsidized spaces for decades. In my view, the BCA’s decision to restructure their studio program to force higher turnover in highly subsidized work spaces is fair in that situation. However, the real issue here is that we should not have to chose between supporting established artists in a way that helps sustain their work, or supporting less established artists in a way that helps them get their career started. There should be opportunities within this city for both to thrive.
There are more galleries in Boston now, than there have been at any other time in the last decade – but fewer project spaces, artist run galleries, spaces dedicated to experimental or difficult to sell work.
This is not a uniquely Boston problem, as cities have boomed, real estate prices have gone up, traditional galleries have struggled. They are able to take less risks, the work they support has become more conservative and easier to sell. We have seen most of the traditional galleries that attempted to support younger and more innovative artists – Samson Projects, Anthony Greaney Gallery, Carroll & Sons – dramatically downsize their efforts, or give up their spaces all together. At the same time, the artist run efforts that support those working even further out on the fringes have all but disappeared (for now, we know that artists always find a way).
I don’t have the solution to this problem, but I do know that without this support network, artists will leave.
I personally do not want to live in a city where there is no space for experimental and innovative art. I want to see new media installations that take on the internet. I want to stumble into performances that make me uncomfortable. I want to listen to local musicians without risking life and limb in some sketchy Allston basement. Obviously, I also want to have space to find some interesting paintings (and maybe even show my own). In short, I want this city to start supporting the sort of artistic conversations that lead to work that will one day find its way into museums, even if it is not quite ready yet. Right now, the kinds of spaces that support this kind of work, and give community to these artists, can not sustain themselves in this city.
Quite frankly, the current plan of giving some zoning relief to developers willing to maybe include some space dedicated for cultural use (that can also be rented by a tech startup) is just not going to cut it.
I am tempted to dig deeper into this but, ultimately I think the best approach is to encourage everyone to weigh in on this and speak up for the kind of art you make and the kinds of spaces you need. There was not a very wide demographic of artists represented at the hearing (and honestly nobody seemed to be pushing for the kind of work that I will miss seeing in this city) so, hopefully I can convince a few more people to join the conversation. Artists need space to work. We need space to come together and see what our peers are working on. We need places to get our work out for larger audiences to see. How to we make sure that Boston has a network of those spaces?
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Not the greatest picture but, full composition of a new one that is nearing completion.
In Progress
I intended this to be a quick portrait study but, I got a little carried away. Instead, I am just going to try as hard as I can on this one. Not that I don’t always try as hard as I can when I am painting. Even when a painting turns out looking like utter garbage, I am still working as hard as I can manage to make it right. I am just not always overly concerned with actually making the painting look super realistic. So, for this one I am going all in on the realism. Whenever this is done, it is going to be about as realistic as I can manage (without totally abandoning the way I like to paint). Not sure where this is going to take me but, it seems important to occasionally reset to some kind of baseline, if only to keep from getting too lost when you start off again in a new direction from there. In any case, don’t let me act like I know how to paint any better – in terms of realism – than this one. It actually feels pretty good to just make a nice portrait without worrying too much about some greater artistic mission. Maybe I will try to find some demand for these portraits. Potentially portraits priced on a sliding scale. I spend about 2 weeks making the best portrait I can, charge about what you make in 2 weeks. We will see. I am 4 days in, with a fair amount of painting left to do here. There is still time for this one to get weird.
“Double Gulp” by 
