Blog Archives
Q: Would you talk about your early art exhibitions? (Question from “Culture Focus Magazine”)
Review of my first exhibition at Brewster Arts, New York City!
A: Certainly! My very first group exhibition was in a juried show in the late 1980s at the Art League Gallery in Alexandria, VA. This was a gallery that offered monthly juried shows for members. I applied regularly, had work accepted many times, and frequently won first prize for my pastel paintings.
Early exhibitions at the Art League were followed by group and solo exhibitions at nonprofit and university spaces in Virginia, Washington, D.C., Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York; more or less up and down the mid-Atlantic states and the northeast, which were all places I could drive my truck to hand-deliver fragile pastel paintings.
My very first solo exhibition at a commercial gallery was at 479 Gallery in SoHo (New York City) in July 1996. In 1995 I had submitted work to a juried group show and was awarded first prize, which was a solo exhibition at 479 the following year.
My exhibition with 479 Gallery was quickly followed by representation at a prestigious New York gallery, Brewster Arts Ltd., which specialized in Latin American masters such as Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, and many others. I was awarded my first two-person exhibition there in October 1996 and got to meet fellow gallery artist Leonora Carrington when she came to the opening. I could hardly believe my good fortune at gaining representation at such a revered and elegant gallery!
Comments are welcome!
Q: What makes you just want to run back to the studio and start something new?
View of Lower Manhattan
A: I always work in series, which means that one pastel painting generally leads into the next. Considerable thought and planning go into each one before I begin, so it would be rare for me to just start something new out of the blue.
Sometimes on days off from the studio when we have beautiful weather, I can can hardly wait to go outside for a walk. I grab my iPad Pro and search for new sights to photograph. After a couple of hours, I usually return home with a handful of interesting images. Photography is such a departure from the slowness of my work in the studio, considering that in a good year I make 3 or 4 pastel paintings.
Comments are welcome!
Q: How important is the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think about who will enjoy your Art when you conceive it?
Painting, subject, reference photo
A: I can’t say that I think at all about audience reaction while I’m creating a painting in my studio. Although, of course I want people to respond favorably to the work.
Generally, I’m thinking about technical problems – making something that is exciting to look at, well-composed, vibrant, up to my exacting standards, etc. When I finish a painting, it is the best thing I am capable of making at that moment in time.
I think about a painting and look at it for so long and with such intensity, that it could hardly have turned out any differently. There is an inevitability to the whole lengthy process that goes all the way back to when I first laid eyes on the folk art figures in a dusty shop in a third world country. Looking at a newly-finished painting on my easel I often think, “Of course! I was drawn to this figure so that it could serve this unique function in this painting.”
Comments are welcome!
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