I first went to NYC when I was 20 years old. Times Square was the manifestation of every cautionary tale from my fundamentalist upbringing brought to life and writ large; hookers, pimps, dealers, hustlers, junkies. It was dirty and dim and sketchy and I took those first steps along the yellow brick road toward my own Oz.
In the times I've returned throughout the years, I think back on that first impression and it makes me smile. Walking through the post St. Patrick's Day parade crowd in Times Square in heavy wet snow on Saturday night on my way uptown was nothing like that first encounter. (I got a high five from Batman, for christsake). New York, like all great cities of the world, gets under your skin and into your blood; and there is a part of me that is home there like nowhere else.
The Ides of March, James Austin Murray's solo show at Narthex Gallery did not disappoint. There will be more reflections on that in the weeks to come; it's still so new in my experience and so powerful in my memory. A friend said it best, "it is the perfect combination of art and space." The work belongs there. It inhabits the space in an intensely powerful way while somehow managing to coexist with it. It is solid, significant work, -by far the best painting I saw on the walls my whole visit.
I've spent the last 15 months or so shedding. Like Bird, I reached a point where I felt I had to withdraw for a time and find my voice. I may be no Charlie Parker to the visual art world, but I've got chops that ain't like nobody else's. It feels time to climb into the ring, to live or die by the intensity of personal vision and unyielding tenacity. I may get a few beat downs along the way, but the world will never see what I make no effort to show it. Now I know that it has to see it; that's why I'm here.
So I come back into the daily grind recharged and transcended. Good art always makes me want to paint. Being in artists' studios always makes me excited and on fire to return to my own. Shots in the pub and much bantering about art and paint and space and form, it's time well spent...always. But painting is what unites us. Time in the studio getting in and getting down; that is its own realness.
practice stillness
Althaea (in progress), oil on canvas, 48" x 60", Rico
I was able to get into the studio for a long session yesterday and made tremendous progress on two paintings I've been working on; one since last year and the other since February. I am fighting a cold I'd very much like to rid myself of before my NYC weekend.
I read one of my favorite art blogs and there's much to see in Chelsea, so I'll ask if anyone wants to make a day of it with me. Basquiat is top of my list.
The rare times when I'm able to log hours in the daytime make me wonder what my work would look like if I did this full time. As it stands, I can hardly keep up; I'm limited only by time and materials. Increasingly I can afford the materials and I keep myself well-stocked, but time is always against me. With oil, time is a medium in and of itself. I love that paintings take multiple sessions, because coming in and out of a picture enables me to see more than I would if I were able to plow through. Sometimes I miss acrylics for their immediacy, but mostly not. I'm interested in the Way of painting; the eternal journey towards perfection that manifests itself in daily practice. Keeping it slow means I spend most of my time looking in an attempt to see.
Something is reoccurring in the pictures as of late, these wide passages of emptiness; gaping orifices that recede into blackish void. They remind me of Caravaggio in the overt reference to the Nothingness; that backdrop of our conscious lives and the curtain that will eventually fall on each of us. Light and motion punctuated by eternal stillness. I think about the placid lake we hiked around on Paris Mountain last month. How ripples dissipate and stillness is itself a presence. Since the beginning of this body of work I have noticed references to the anatomical and the sensual. They often begin as gesture drawings, which of course also reference the body and nature. I don't think about these things in the studio when I'm painting. I attempt to clear my mind and paint with the non-mind. I'm interested in what the paint wants to do and I try to follow it. But here at home on a Sunday, I take a moment to consider.
11 days
In 11 days I'll be in NYC, attending the opening of the artist James Austin Murray. The show is a culmination of a year's work; a site-specific installation cum painting exhibition. I've watched the beginnings of this body or work through its evolution at the famous Bemis Center in Omaha, NE. Murray's work is menacing, beautiful, epic and powerful; it combines brutal physicality with a masterful dance with light and illumination. The deep grooves in his blacks bring associations of crowding around records in my teenage years; the ritual of taking in the album cover, the liner notes, the sleeve and the vinyl itself as visual and aesthetic experience. They are both terrible and wonderful to behold; and that's through reproduction.
Facebook has been on fire over the weekend with a posting by the online curator Art Orbiter of artists' studios from around the world. For me personally, to be included in any post with Miquel Barcelo, one of my major influences, is a tremendous honor and delight. It's so great to see all the different spaces in which artists practice. Before my current studio, I was reminded of the many studios I've had before; storage spaces, garage, extra bedroom, basement, subterranean tire warehouse, loft apartment. I stuck with it in the times between studios as well. Who is Art Orbiter? I may have a clue, but I'll never tell.
My own show opens next Thursday at Art & Light in Greenville. I ran into one of the other artists, a well-known printmaker whose work my wife and I have collected for years, and we found out we're in the same venue, the Hub, at ArtFields.
I submitted Jocasta to Carolina's Got Art this afternoon, so my potential reach in April extends far and wide across the Carolinas.
Tonight I'll brave the cold and sit on our front porch and smoke a nice maduro with my Japanese scotch. And still I rise.
Facebook has been on fire over the weekend with a posting by the online curator Art Orbiter of artists' studios from around the world. For me personally, to be included in any post with Miquel Barcelo, one of my major influences, is a tremendous honor and delight. It's so great to see all the different spaces in which artists practice. Before my current studio, I was reminded of the many studios I've had before; storage spaces, garage, extra bedroom, basement, subterranean tire warehouse, loft apartment. I stuck with it in the times between studios as well. Who is Art Orbiter? I may have a clue, but I'll never tell.
My own show opens next Thursday at Art & Light in Greenville. I ran into one of the other artists, a well-known printmaker whose work my wife and I have collected for years, and we found out we're in the same venue, the Hub, at ArtFields.
I submitted Jocasta to Carolina's Got Art this afternoon, so my potential reach in April extends far and wide across the Carolinas.
Tonight I'll brave the cold and sit on our front porch and smoke a nice maduro with my Japanese scotch. And still I rise.
ink
It's been slow going due to my personal travel and the cold nights. I have another 48 x 60 ready to receive paint, and hopefully I'll get in this Friday during the warmer daylight hours. My wife starts her rehearsal schedule this week, so I bought some white ink and black arches paper to be able to do some work at home.
I'll hear from the ArtFields venue this week and hopefully get some logistical details at that point.
The day job has me completely stressed to the point of losing sleep. Combined with not being able to get into the studio, my emotions and anxieties are close to the surface. But I have everything ready to go in the studio when I get that break of time and climate. I basically work outside, which is why I love the summers. If I can move some work in next week's show, I hope to begin some of the construction projects which will help me combat the cold months. I've noticed some discoloration of the whites if I try to paint below 40 degrees.
I'm excited about the ink drawings, -excited to embark on a period of drawing; period. I was looking through book of Richard Serra's drawings this weekend and they are superb. He is an artist who constantly draws, and it shows in everything he does. It's our brains' lifeline as artists.
This work is getting stronger. I finally feel I have the blacks right, which took the better part of year's worth of effort. I'm anxious to see where it takes me this year.
I'll hear from the ArtFields venue this week and hopefully get some logistical details at that point.
The day job has me completely stressed to the point of losing sleep. Combined with not being able to get into the studio, my emotions and anxieties are close to the surface. But I have everything ready to go in the studio when I get that break of time and climate. I basically work outside, which is why I love the summers. If I can move some work in next week's show, I hope to begin some of the construction projects which will help me combat the cold months. I've noticed some discoloration of the whites if I try to paint below 40 degrees.
I'm excited about the ink drawings, -excited to embark on a period of drawing; period. I was looking through book of Richard Serra's drawings this weekend and they are superb. He is an artist who constantly draws, and it shows in everything he does. It's our brains' lifeline as artists.
This work is getting stronger. I finally feel I have the blacks right, which took the better part of year's worth of effort. I'm anxious to see where it takes me this year.
Artfields notification
the mad hours; oil on canvas, 108" x 76", Rico '12
official entry to Artfields 2013
As I mentioned in a previous post, I submitted work to Artfields, an interesting and ambitious project in an eastern SC community called Lake City. It's potentially something to watch, both from the standpoint of how small, agricultural-based communities and towns are adapting to the ever-shifting cultural and fiscal landscape as well as how to build a respectable regional art show from the ground up.
I want this to go well. It's in my best interest that it does, and I love an underdog in the art world. So the questions going forward are, can a tiny rural community actually pull this off? Will they get regional and national press to bolster their efforts? Will they be taken seriously as a legitimate arts festival instead of a provincial crafts fair? Tough questions, all.
As for me, I'm truly grateful to be included. I really want this work to get in front of people of all walks of life. This is a nice acknowledgement after years of flying beneath the radar in this state, while simultaneously continuing to receive critical accolades both coasts. I'm glad my work will be seen. This is my year, the ascent is already under way.
#secretshow
I made the decision to let some of the paintings from "the 50" be shown in a commercial gallery in SC. I dedicated all of 2011 to a very specific exploration of color and technique in the studio and "the50" are the result. At the suggestion of a friend from the West Coast, I hung all of them in an enormous grid in my studio; and I have to give it to her, it was fairly magnificent.
The work has been stored ever since, and at the end of 2011 I was already moving toward the black and white work that I'm doing now and plan to continue indefinately. So these paintings are unique to me, and likely to never be repeated. I've given one gallery exclusive access to the entire cache, the works have been selected, and they will be shown in Greenville, SC in March. I decided rather than to promote the show in the normal way of a flier, that I would take a very different approach and not tell anyone where it is until the last minute. So the idea of the "secret show" was hatched; replete with hashtag.
Another enticement for this show is that it is a chance to pick up one of my paintings for 3 figures. Think of it as akin to a low IPO on art futures, and don't wish you had gotten it when. So follow #secretshow for details and more teasers, including previews of the works included.
Follow me on Twitter as @ChristopherRico
St. Christopher
untitled study, 4" x 7", oil on canvas board, Rico '13
"Hang on St. Christopher through the
smoke and the oil, buckle down the rumble seat
let the radiator boil..." -Tom Waits
I submitted work to ArtFields, an interesting endeavor in the small town of Lake City, South Carolina. It is my first attempt in a very long time to exhibit work in the state in which I have lived for over a decade. The moment felt right, the work is ready to be seen and so I stuck my neck out. I'll update this blog in a couple of weeks when I hear the panel's decision. Either way, I will pull no punches about the process, the festival and the quality of work exhibited. They want to make some noise. So do I.
My head is in NYC at the moment. I found out there will be a large Basquiat exhibit going on while I'm there and I look forward to seeing what else is on the walls. My Greenville dealer is coming down next week for a studio visit, so that will be what it is. Always a pleasure to host Teresa, she is one of those rare people who genuinely loves, and I mean loves art and artists. There are times I wished we both lived in another part of the world; I feel we could move a tremendous amount of paintings.
I've been down with health issues all week, despite my overall healthy lifestyle. There are parts of growing old that don't bother me one bit and there are parts that completely stink. Death is the price of life, no one avoids the long march into night. I hope I go in my studio with stained fingers and the paint still wet on whatever I was working on.
Between the cold and illness I haven't worked in over a week, which causes tremendous internal stress. I've so much to do, several works in process and I need to get back in the studio for these things and my own sanity. I hope to catch a break this weekend. Until then I hold on.
drift
"Buffalo 2", in progress, oil on canvas
60" x 48", Rico '13
There's this sense of living with the work. I don't know how to explain it; I start a painting and it is like I'm searching for which note will come next as I play. That's the thing, -one feels the way through; it isn't prescribed or a picture in the head thing. It's organic. Paintings evolve and for me it is almost a call and response relationship for weeks or months or years. Paint is laid down. Sometimes in earnest, sometimes tentatively at first (though one has to overcome that immediately). I do a lot of looking. Eventually I see.
This one wouldn't let me go. Thought it was nearly done last year but it wasn't. I painted out huge swaths of it over the weekend because I wanted that openness in the composition. I wanted to take it right up to looking incomplete. Maybe that's how we are; that's the human condition.
I'm becoming more interested in gray.
New canvases arrived today, along with black gesso and tubes of Mars black. I can't stop now, I'm in deep.
voice
The rain came down on the tin roof of the studio last night and there was jazz, mournful and ethereal, filling the space. I had deemed a painting lost just before the New Year, but decided to go back into it and keep in it. It is slow going but it it coming. It feels like sculpting stone, as I've had to chip here and there and wait and look and try to see.
A cigar and a nice Roija and contemplation as the paint dried. I looked over some of the newer studies; I looked around the studio and I felt a sense of singularity -a sense of voice. There are those who say that there is nothing new. I say that when one is open and honest and seeks out their voice, that expression is unique in the universe. It has never been and it will never be again. I've no concern for novelty for its own sake. I try to stay open and to paint through.
I've been in this studio for 5 years this month. It is a second home, a respite to a working father and husband and gentleman. It is my Byronic island where I detach myself from the world. There will be construction this month, a new wall on the south side. The space will change, but I am changing and my work is changing and evolution is fitting and natural to the sustained purpose of things.
A cigar and a nice Roija and contemplation as the paint dried. I looked over some of the newer studies; I looked around the studio and I felt a sense of singularity -a sense of voice. There are those who say that there is nothing new. I say that when one is open and honest and seeks out their voice, that expression is unique in the universe. It has never been and it will never be again. I've no concern for novelty for its own sake. I try to stay open and to paint through.
I've been in this studio for 5 years this month. It is a second home, a respite to a working father and husband and gentleman. It is my Byronic island where I detach myself from the world. There will be construction this month, a new wall on the south side. The space will change, but I am changing and my work is changing and evolution is fitting and natural to the sustained purpose of things.
the spiritual in art
currently untitled, oil on canvas, 60" x 48", Rico '13
It's not just about beauty. I'm interested in magnificence and wonder. The oceans and mountains stir in us the sensations of both admiration and fear. Nature, as anyone who spends time outdoors will tell you, must be respected; and there's a heavy price for not doing so. I have a deep love of the epic and vast landscapes of deserts and oceans and the arctic. They are to me the places of the gods, old and new. I'm concerned with the primordial and divine, even though I practice religious abstinence as a rule in my personal life.
I don't know that I've gotten to that place yet in my work, but I feel I'm getting close. I don't care about cleverness, -I loathe it in art to be brutally honest. I respect work that is powerful and muscular, or ethereal and fluid, and defies itself; whatever that self may be. I believe that so-called color field abstraction is the great unfulfilled promise of the Ab Ex movement. It was snuffed, -not because of the exhaustion of its ideas, but because of the fear of its mysticism. Hard edge and geometrical abstraction, -to my mind, won the day because it is far easier to be intellectual than to trade in matters of the soul. I have nothing against that kind of abstract painting, I have more friends and acquaintances that paint in those styles than paint like me. Being an exile, I have the freedom to associate with painters I respect, and that in fact don't seem immediately related to my aesthetic, even though they often are in subtle ways. I like good art. I hate bad art. The "style" has jack to do with whether a painting succeeds or fails; it's what's behind it and in it and what comes through it.
I'm an artist because I'm invested in working toward the perfection of my ideas. I may not get there, but it doesn't really matter. The journey will continue to transform me and perhaps a few others along the way. I may never sell another painting and there are times when that is so incredibly liberating. When work sells it gives voice to all those other aspects of self that try to come into the studio: the critic, the procrastinator, the naysayer and the conformist. The best work I've sold has sometimes been undocumented, and there's something fitting about that. I can't refer to it as a template. I can't ever look at it again and say, "yeah, I should do 20 of those." Working towards the perfection of my ideas means that the work leads the way. I follow it; sometimes unwillingly, sometimes in wild abandon. I don't paint like I did 8, 5 or even 1 year ago. There is a vernacular, -I suppose that's unavoidable and perhaps that is what people refer to when they refer to style. It's my manner of painting, but it isn't conscious. I repeat themes, but I attack them differently as I learn from each painting. I believe that every painting should be autonomous in the studio.
I was thinking today how fortunate I am to have to grapple with doubt as often as I do. Some never doubt themselves or question their existence, and so far in my experience I find them to be not very interesting people and often quite tedious. Fundamentalists of all persuasions are the worst; there are few traits more tiresome in a human being than certitude and self-righteousness. But to have to climb into the ring against yourself, that is to my mind the measure of man and the essence of an artist. You can't fake yourself out, and you can't really ever cheat your art because your soul will not give you comfort if you do. There is what Martha Graham called "that divine unrest" that drives the true artist to push through and beyond and to keep going when it feels like they are all alone in a place no one will ever see or know, much less understand. I believe one has to go to those places and bring it back and put it up on the wall, or on the page, or on stage. You have to take us as the audience on that great quest. It may be the closest some of them ever get to a real quest in their lives. That's the artist's charge.
tabula rasa
works in progress on the studio floor
There is nothing like working to opera in the studio. The brick and wood bounce the sound and build it into epic phonic presence, and I have found myself lost in an entire opera without realizing it; all the time painting away in the zone. I love the largeness of the medium.
As this year draws to a close I find myself considering a move to acrylic paint. I've used oil exclusively for about 8 years now; I love so many nuances of the medium, -especially its unforgiving nature. But there are times when my studio time is so limited, and for the sake of expediency I find myself wishing I could stay in a painting for longer at one sitting than I am able to with oil.
It won't be an inexpensive transition to be sure. But I've found that changing one's medium often changes one's perspective and attack, and by doing so may drill down into the work to discover something fundamental about it. I feel the need to do this for a bit.
I was out with my daughters the other day and found these 8" x 10" canvases and bought a pack of 10 on a whim. I decided to try it and see what happened. There are wonderful things about this work writ large, but there are equally compelling things about it small, so I'm opening myself to the exploration. I can go buy another 10, some acrylic paint and essentially lose nothing but time. As I heard an acquaintance say, "paint's never wasted." It means if you embark on an honest creative exploration with integrity of idea and fullness of spirit, you do good work; even if the work itself fails, you have learned something, maybe opened something up.
It's been a amazing year for the work. I go into 2013 strong and optimistic, and largely peaceful about life and art. I'm not one for resolutions, but I hope to give less time and ear to the news about how messed up the world is and to spend that time making it better the only way I know how.
no fear of flying
The relations have left, the house is quiet and slowly getting back to order. The tooth fairy is paying a double visit tonight. The after-christmas crash hit with full force and all my wonderful girls are sleeping upstairs.
So damn much going on and so little I can talk about. Breaking points have been reached, changes are being made, so it goes. I've tried for years to compartmentalize my life; allowing some people access to some parts and others to an avatar persona I maintain for my day job. I've realized that this can no longer be; that it sequesters the beautiful, true, powerful aspects of my soul and hides my work from the light of day. That avatar will soon be dead; good riddance. I cannot wait to be free of him.
The work in the studio is amazing and true and a painting sold from the Greenville condo model. There's always that momentary affirmation after a sale, then you cash the check and go back to work and try to push the experience from your mind. I want desperately to stay on the epic scale, -to make another 3 the same size as the previous ones. I see it in my mind; all of them in a room, and it is profound. But there is the pressure to work on a smaller scale, to make works for the smaller budget clients and when the dust settles after the New Year perhaps I will be able to see these options more clearly.
I booked my flight and hotel for NYC in March to see this artist's exhibition. Just knowing I will be in the city so soon gives my soul wings at a time when I desperately need it. There will be good art and good times with friends old and new.
I'm in the sweet spot of the calendar year; those days and nights between holidays where everything just feels suspended. I've been flattening out the blacks on the two 5' x 4' canvases and I'm intrigued by the sense of downward drag of the composition in one of them. There's something thematic going on, and I am trying to both understand it and not over-analyze it.
I'm attending an Icarus Session on January 2nd in Greenville. Everything in my life feels as if it is moving toward significant and profound change. As in art, I feel I don't know what is going to happen next...and I love it.
So damn much going on and so little I can talk about. Breaking points have been reached, changes are being made, so it goes. I've tried for years to compartmentalize my life; allowing some people access to some parts and others to an avatar persona I maintain for my day job. I've realized that this can no longer be; that it sequesters the beautiful, true, powerful aspects of my soul and hides my work from the light of day. That avatar will soon be dead; good riddance. I cannot wait to be free of him.
The work in the studio is amazing and true and a painting sold from the Greenville condo model. There's always that momentary affirmation after a sale, then you cash the check and go back to work and try to push the experience from your mind. I want desperately to stay on the epic scale, -to make another 3 the same size as the previous ones. I see it in my mind; all of them in a room, and it is profound. But there is the pressure to work on a smaller scale, to make works for the smaller budget clients and when the dust settles after the New Year perhaps I will be able to see these options more clearly.
I booked my flight and hotel for NYC in March to see this artist's exhibition. Just knowing I will be in the city so soon gives my soul wings at a time when I desperately need it. There will be good art and good times with friends old and new.
I'm in the sweet spot of the calendar year; those days and nights between holidays where everything just feels suspended. I've been flattening out the blacks on the two 5' x 4' canvases and I'm intrigued by the sense of downward drag of the composition in one of them. There's something thematic going on, and I am trying to both understand it and not over-analyze it.
I'm attending an Icarus Session on January 2nd in Greenville. Everything in my life feels as if it is moving toward significant and profound change. As in art, I feel I don't know what is going to happen next...and I love it.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)