Red Geraniums, 2022-23, 56×50 inches,oil on linen

I am pleased to share this email interview with the painter Barbara Grossman. Last fall she gave me her delightful catalog, “Patterning Women”, from her July 2023 show at the Bowery Gallery. I wanted to find out more about her background, process and thoughts about artmaking so I asked her for this interview. I would like to thank her for her thoughtful answers to my questions. Since the 1980’s she has been making broadly painted artworks with a subject of invented interiors decorated with richly patterned floors and walls that flatten the space and harmonize with the groupings of women wearing patterned outfits. Andrew Forge has written of Grossman’s work, “It is what happens between the figures and the patterns that matters.”

Barbara Grossman is an American artist living & working in New York who has won several Awards: Fulbright Hayes Grant, Ingram Merrill Foundation, Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Ranger Prize (Nat’l Academy), Member National Academy of Design. Grossman has taught at Yale School of Art, Univ. of Pennsylvania, New York Studio School, Chautauqua Institution, Mt. Gretna School of Art, and more. She is represented by the Bowery Gallery in NYC and has exhibited widely.

Women Reading, 2022-23, 42×32 inches,oil on linen

Blue Shoes, 2019, 65×52 inches, oil on linen

Larry Groff: What inspired you to become a painter?

Barbara Grossman: It was not a matter of being ‘inspired’ but a way of being. As an only child with limited means much of my time was spent drawing with crayons or pencil. Fortunately, I went to the High School of Music and Art in NYC and that pretty much confirmed it for me. It came to me naturally that I was going to make art one way or another.

LG: What was your experience like as an art student? Could you share an important lesson from that time that remains crucial to your work today?

Barbara Grossman: Going to Cooper Union was another path toward my life as a working artist. Cooper was pretty straightforward; you took many classes in the visual art disciplines and worked hard, very hard. Many lessons were absorbed, but being rigorous in one’s field and not expecting rewards in the foreseeable future seemed to be at the forefront of what to expect.

Celadon Floor,, 2023, 26×19 inches, oil stick on paper

Gray Cat, 2021-22, 54×46 inches, oil on linen

LG: As a founding member of the Bowery Gallery since 1969, could you describe the early years? How did it come about? Who were some of the notable painters exhibiting there at the time, and what has sustained the gallery’s success for so long?

Barbara Grossman: The Bowery Gallery was a rag-tag group of young artists committed to their work. For us, missing was the opportunity to exhibit, so we provided ourselves with a venue, a derelict storefront on the Bowery. That allowed us to be a community and share our work with other artists. We were passionate, and sometimes we got pretty aggravated with each other, arguing about the better kind of painting/sculpture and who exemplified that ideal. We were all basically unknown, except to one another, and only got some recognition after years of exhibiting. The ethics and respect for each other, as well as the opportunity to exhibit, has been a thread that has held the gallery together for 54 years.

Chris, 1976, 27 x 27 inches, Oil on Linen

LG: Did your studies traditionally focus on figurative painting, working from models and observation? How has this influenced your current work?

Barbara Grossman: I worked directly from models, thus observation, from the time I graduated from Cooper until about 1980. However, figuration was not always my primary focus. There was a public drawing group on 14th St. & 6th Ave. that I went to several nights a week. I met a lot of artists there, including a few of the original Bowery members. My interest in the figure was steadfast, but it always included the environment in which the model resided. I would say that my current work is an evolution of my early work. The urgency of the human figure is still present, plus many other concepts and visual components that I now feel compelled to include.

Green Field, 2020, 44,x44 inches, oil on linen

LG: Matisse’s paintings seem to have had a significant influence on your work. Who are other painters who have greatly inspired you?

Barbara Grossman: Yes, Matisse has been a large influence throughout my career, but I spent almost a year copying Piero della Francesco, which I am sure was profound at the time. Others who have influenced me are Bonnard, John Graham, DeKooning, Soutine, Giacometti, Cezanne, Indian and Persian miniatures and often installation art. In more recent times Mondrian and contemporaries such as, Pat Pasloff, Brice Marden, Ruth Miller, Harriet Korman, Juane Quick to See Smith, and artists like Dana Schutz and Amy Sillman whose journeys and inventions are not predictable. Thus, the worlds they make are intriguing to me.

Mirrored Melody, 2002-2004, 30×24 inches, oil on linen

Red Stockings, 2019, 54×54 inches, oil on linen

LG: You’ve mentioned, “I think in color. Color and light are one.” Could you explain how this philosophy shapes your artistic process and compositions?

Barbara Grossman: That is a hard question to answer simply because the experience of color and light is inherent in my vision. It is not necessarily a philosophy alone but the way I believe I perceive the world. So, in my process, I try to incorporate light and color simultaneously as I make a picture. It is part knowledge, part visual, and part feeling that one is experiencing at any moment. Synergy might be a way to summarize the apprehension.

LG: In John Goodrich’s essay, Lightfall, Location, Gravity, for your latest exhibition catalog, he notes your view of naturalistic rendering as a “trap.” Could you elaborate on this perspective?

Barbara Grossman: It seems that ‘naturalistic rendering’ is distant from direct or imagined perception. It is purely conceptual and limited to an idea. When making a space that contains many things, one has to be open to any and all possibilities that will form the invented image. I want to bring it to life to the viewer so it becomes believable and ‘real’. Preconceived methods are not personal or formative.

Sisters Singing, 2002, 46×40 inches, oil on linen

LG: Your work emphasizes the flat picture plane, avoiding traditional perspective and tonal gradations. How do modernist notions of flatness and respecting the picture plane’s integrity benefit your work compared to conventional spatial illusions?

Barbara Grossman: That is true; the picture plane is skewed. I believe it is another way to present ‘near and far’ without the conventions of perspective, which is a concept and not at all how we human beings see. Tonal gradations are also a preconceived notion about how light falls on objects, planes or figures. Each painting is a new event. It is my experience that viewing a painting that offers this way of seeing is as convincing, if not more, than the traditional ‘spatial illusions.’ I believe that the known ways of describing are predictable and lifeless for the most part. Perception is more complicated because the eye and the mind are never at rest, so apprehending a space takes the constant motion of the eye. It is the interstices that brings a painting to life. When putting those moments of vision on a flat surface, one has to be in tune with that physical time-based experience. Everything is in flux until one ‘nails it’ to the canvas or paper.

Islamic Tiles, 2016, 20×30 inches, oil on linen

LG: Your recent travels in Morocco and Turkey seem to have influenced your work. What prompted these journeys, and could you describe any impactful moments that inspired your paintings?

Barbara Grossman: I have been fascinated by the artifacts and designs in tiles and architecture in the Near East and how they compress space, for a long time. I think it may have started with an interest in textiles. So, my recent trips to Morocco and Turkey were on my mind for some time. Being in such places was a thrill as it confirmed my sense that these were unique constructions for people to inhabit. In Istanbul, I discovered a modest-sized but spectacular Mosque hidden behind the Egyptian bazaar, which captivated all I had been feeling and dreaming about for years. Hours of drawing and being immersed in that space have given me a lifetime of ideas. It makes me want to paint images that viewers might want to enter.

Yellow Screen, 2004, 17×14 inches, monotype

LG: It appears that patterns in your paintings are less about defining perspective or precise geometry and more about creating a decorative repetition of color shapes. How does this approach facilitate movement through the painting and accentuate color harmony and design?

Barbara Grossman: Patterns are there to define the space and to figure out how it works in each particular situation. The geometry and repetition express and/or exaggerate that for me. This is a kind of all-over visual stimulation that I believe carries the eye throughout the painting. The color, figures, and accoutrements participate in the movement as they become one. The decorative is the harmony; it is never about perspective. That is the sensory and the tension that I want to achieve.

Rehearsal Trio, 2022, 24×18 inches, oil stick on paper

LG: Could you share more about your painting process? What factors influence your choice between using a brush or an oil stick? Do you use R&F Oil Pigment Sticks?

Barbara Grossman: Yes, they are R&F Oil Pigment Sticks. They are thick drawing tools that happen to have color as well. But because it is mostly linear, I think of them more as a drawing. There is no conscious choice between painting or drawing per se; it is about the immediacy and scale of what I feel like doing at the moment. For example, if I am testing an idea, I might start with a paper. Or, I might start a painting and, in trying to figure out what I am doing, go to oil stick for a quicker outcome. Paintings are started in a very direct manner. I mix up a few colors, maybe 5 or 6, using thinnish paint on the brush, and draw what I want in the color that it could be. I continue to paint with a kind of openness that may or may not stay on the canvas. I erase a lot with solvent. There are many layers over time. I redraw as I paint. I scrape and wash down paint so I can re-see the whole. So I keep going for as long as it takes, sometimes a year or more. The painting usually tells me when to stop, usually.

LG:  Do you predominantly work from invention and memory, or do you utilize drawings or photos in your process?

Barbara Grossman: Almost all of my work is invented. I will use drawing notations that I have done along the way for ideas and for an understanding of how something works in ‘real life’. I think of combinations of things that will end up as part of my compositions all the time. Nature and perception are my sources, even though they may not always appear that way. I rarely use or even consider using photos; it’s just not in my toolbox.

LG: Has there been an artistic idea or belief that you once held strongly but now reject?

Barbara Grossman: Artistic belief? Do you mean something I thought about philosophically rather than practically? I cannot think of something in my actual practice, in the making of paintings, since it has evolved over a long time, but I can think of something that I still ponder. That is Merleau-Ponty’s theory about ‘Cezanne’s Doubt’. Briefly, the notion that his mind was a blank slate receiving impulses from his actual perception seems impossible to me now. From an idealistic point of view, I loved that idea, but it does not seem credible to me, particularly since I did work directly from life for a long time. Transitioning from that experience to working from invention and sometimes memory has convinced me that it is not how humans apprehend their worlds, especially if they want to reproduce their experience on a flat surface, an abstraction.

A Cappella Trio, 2022,24×18 inches, oil stick on paper

LG: What are some artistic truths that you believe can only be expressed through painting, and how do you explore these in your work?

Barbara Grossman: I am interested in many visual arts disciplines. Great art goes right to one’s heart and soul. I am also curious about the meaning found in other ways of expression, like music, theatre, film, dance, literature, and even science. I think because painting is inherent in my being, it can affect me in the deepest way, as it is both visual and kinesthetic at once. I think I steal from other forms as they touch my sensibility. It flows when It happens.

LG: Could you name an art book in your collection that you could never part with?

Barbara Grossman: I own a copy of the first book about Matisse in which he chose the work that was printed. Cinquante Dessins, 1921. It was given to my husband, Charles Cajori, as a gift. He took it around to his classes and shared it with his students. Over time, it got worn, so I became concerned since it is not only a visual treasure, it has some monetary value. I had it conserved, and it lives in an archival shell, which I take out periodically and savor with friends. It is a true treasure.

LG: What book are you currently reading?

Barbara Grossman: I just finished Michael Brenson’s biography of David Smith. It is a terrific journey through Smith’s life and work and also a view of the time and other artists he consorted with. It is beautifully written as well. Often, when reading a long nonfiction book, I indulge in a story. The two I read were “Heat and Dust” by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and “Simple Passion” by Annie Ernaux.

Blue Rug, 2010, 48×42 inches, oil on linen

Golden Dog, 2016, 36×30 inches, oil on linen

The post Interview with Barbara Grossman appeared first on Painting Perceptions.

Telephone Wires, 40×30 inches, Oil on Board

I’ve recently been intrigued by the quiet and thoughtful work of Laura Vahlberg, an observation-based painter from Roanoke, Virginia. Her landscapes, in particular, are remarkable examples of how light and atmosphere can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Vahlberg’s broad paint handling summarizes the mundane particulars of her surroundings, close looking through a lens of formal abstraction engages her compressed limited palette with tonal schemes to capture a visual essence and atmospheric lyricism. Vahlberg celebrates the interface between the abstract and the real with works that are as much about the act of seeing as they are about the final image.

Laura Vahlberg’s work has been exhibited around the U.S. and internationally (in Italy, Alabama, and Virginia). She has studied under artists including Israel Hershberg, Elana Hagler, Sarah Rutherfoord, Susan Zurbrigg, Ken Szmagaj, and Susan Jane Walp. She was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1988 and now lives in Roanoke, Virginia. She received her Bachelors in Fine Arts at James Madison University. A selection of available works can be viewed online at Otomys Gallery, Steven Francis Fine Arts, and Reynolds Gallery.

Additionally, Vahlberg has interviewed painters on her blog. Her 2023 interview with Ken Kewley is a great read. I thank Laura Vahlberg for taking the time to answer my email interview questions.

January Pines, 14.75×18.75 inches, Oil on Linen on Board

Larry Groff:  What influences you to pursue a career in painting?

Laura Vahlberg:  I just love it. I love picture-making, the materials, the people, the business, and the packing and shipping. It all just appeals so much and is never boring.

LG: How did your studies at James Madison University shape your artistic perspective? Please share something of interest from that time.

Laura Vahlberg:  I had a wonderful teacher Susan Zurbrigg. My clearest memory of working with her was when she told me to make an abstract painting, breaking all the rules of what I knew would work in a picture. So, for example, a rule could be that one should not place a shape right in the middle of a picture- so she would say- put the shape in the middle- see what happens. And make decisions over and over again against what one knows best. I ended up really liking that painting.

Green and Gray, 11.25×15 inches, Oil on Canvas

Cat Window, 11.25×14.5 inches, Oil on Canvas on Board

LG:  How did the JSS in Civita program in Italy impact your approach to painting? Were there specific techniques or philosophies you adopted from that experience?

Laura Vahlberg:  The JSS in Civita program impacted my work in a big way. Here are some takeaways:

• The light world and shadow world are separate and encased in an envelope of air.
• Looking at a color out of the corner of one’s eye will give a more accurate read.
• Focus primarily on similarities.
• Copy the master works- it’s like taking a class with a master.
• Painting is all about color relationships.
• Hue is a trailhead leading to a nameless color in nature.

Orange Towel, 20×12.5 inches, Oil on Canvas

Foxy, 17×21.5 inches, Oil on Canvas on Board

Room of pictures, 12×12 inches, Oil on cardboard panel

Shelf, 35×26.5 inches, Oil on Canvas

Cutting Board, Oil on Canvas 11×14 inches,

LG: You paint both simplified natural landscapes and more complex, detailed interiors. How do you navigate these different approaches, and what challenges or joys do you find in each?

Laura Vahlberg: Sometimes I like to make fast outdoor paintings- the urgency in consolidating sensory information is fun.  If the painting doesn’t work, I make another one.

After making one- shots for a while I find myself wanting something slower and that’s when I know it’s time to switch to making long term paintings.

My long-term paintings are often interiors. I work on an interior over many short sittings, and the shapes get smaller and layered, and the compositions become more complicated. The long-term paintings are meditative and allow me to go deeper in exploring visual ideas.  After a while, I start to feel restless and impatient, and that’s when I know it’s time to paint some one-shots.

March Afternoon Sun, 11×15 inches, Oil on Canvas on Board

House in the Snow, 2 5.75×9.75 inches, Oil on Linen on Board

Vans, 11.125×18.325 inches, Oil on Canvas on Birch Panel

 LG:  Your paintings frequently operate within a narrow tonal range reminiscent of an overcast day’s light. How does this choice contribute to the atmosphere and mood you wish to evoke in your work?

Laura Vahlberg: I think a lot about how air touches everything in a picture and how one might paint that unifying air element.

I sometimes start mixing colors with a neutral gray and work outwards from there. The gray gives all of the colors something in common. I like to play with how close colors can be to each other and still be distinct from one another.
I see painting as a conversation between myself, the motif, and the painting. The resulting mood is the overall tone of the conversation.

Hotel, 11×15 inches, Oil on Linen on Board

Winter Sun in the Afternoon, 12×17.5 inches, Oil on Canvas on Board

LG: . Could you share your journey in advancing your painting career? What advice would you offer emerging artists about approaching galleries and showcasing their work?

Laura Vahlberg: Keep putting your work out there. If I’m not already busy with upcoming shows I apply to something once a month (a show/ grant/ residency).
Rejection is fuel to keep trying.

If you’re painting something that you “think will sell” take that as a warning that the painting won’t say what you want it to. Try to stay in touch with your inner voice.

Take classes, meet your heroes, ask a lot of questions, be ambitious, be curious, don’t be swayed from making the work you love to make.

LG: . Are there any books or articles about painting that have significantly influenced your approach or philosophy toward art?

Laura Vahlberg: Here are links to some books and information that have been important influences for me in some way:

1. Hawthorne on Painting
2.  Ken Kewley’s:  Notes on Color
3.  Camille Pissarro: Letters to his Son, Lucien
4. Art/ Work, by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber
5. IG account: @Praxiscenterforlearning
6. Interview with musician Devandra Banhart
7. Interview with Vinna Begin

Mid-Morning Sun, 19×17.25 inches, Oil on Canvas on Board

LG:  Since we both interview painters, I thought I’d ask your thoughts on the abundance of artist interviews. Do you feel they adequately capture the essence of visual art, or is there a risk of diluting the non-verbal nature of our craft?

Laura Vahlberg:
I see artist interviews as a  continued conversation started by pictures. Ideas translated into pictures translated into words. And hopefully then the words can again be translated into pictures. It’s human connection continuing on and on.

Nocturne, 5.25×6 inches, Oil on Canvas on Board

Morning Twilight, 37.25×42.5 inches, Oil on Canvas on Board

October Sun, 9.75×10.5 inches, Oil on Board

House in the Hills, 37.25×32.75 inches, Oil on Canvas on Board

The post Interview with Laura Vahlberg appeared first on Painting Perceptions.

Blue Marble, 18×18 inches, oil on board, 2024

Last October, I had the pleasure of meeting Marie Riccio at her solo exhibition, Still Echoes, at The Painting Center and the Small Works Invitational at First Street Gallery. Riccio’s work drew my attention for the sophistication of her compositions and subtle yet powerful use of color as tone that brings an exceptional depth and nuance to her modern still-life setups of commonplace objects, transforming them into subjects of contemplation and aesthetic significance. This ability to elevate the ordinary to something profound through the formal language of painting prompted me to ask her for an interview so that we could learn about her artistic methodology and background.

Riccio obtained her B.F.A from SUNY Purchase and her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied with Neil Welliver. Her curatorial projects include still life group exhibits at both The Washington Studio School, DC and at VisArts Rockville, MD. She has exhibited across New York, Maryland, and the Washington DC area and is represented by First Street Gallery, NYC and TAG/The Artists Gallery, Frederick, MD.

Perfect Diamond, 20×20 inches, oil on board, 2022

Larry Groff:   How has your approach to still-life painting evolved since your early days as an artist? Are there any pivotal moments or influences that have shaped this evolution?

Marie Riccio:  Like most artists, I have always loved drawing and spent much of my childhood drawing in my room. My love of color has always been present, and I have memories of colors and how they made me feel. However, I didn’t start to paint until after I left undergrad.

As an undergrad student at SUNY Purchase, there were two classes that really made a great impression on me. One was an art history class taught by art historian Irving Sandler, author of The Triumph of American Painting, who each Wednesday took us into NYC to the galleries. He introduced us to many gallery owners and artists and made visiting galleries less intimidating. That experience opened me up to a world of art beyond what I saw in the oversized book section of my local library. The other was a class based on the book, Interaction of Color, taught by Sewell Sillman, a student of Joseph Albers, that I took as an undergrad and then again as a grad student. The class changed my understanding and awareness of color and started me on the path I am still on today. However, it was in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania that I made the greatest change.

I arrived at Penn as an abstract painter, and Neil Welliver encouraged me to look at my surroundings and paint from life. I started with the objects in my studio. Those were my first still-life paintings. I could see colors that I could not imagine when painting abstractly. It was all very exciting.

I also started painting landscapes during that time and continue to do so, but the still life is where I feel I can explore color in the way that most interests me. I have continued to be an observational painter working in oil and sometimes gouache.

Falling Red, 30×30 inches, oil on linen, 2020

LG:  How has your early experience as an abstract painter influenced your current work?

Marie Riccio:  Several years ago, I started revisiting my abstract work roots within my still-life paintings. That interest has developed into evolving ideas about how light is described. My thoughts about light can be described in two different ways; the light within flat shapes of color that radiate light (from my abstract roots) and the light described by rendering value (realism).

I am inspired by painters who describe light in these different ways, especially Antonio Lopez Garcia’s exquisite ability to create form and atmosphere through value, Hans Hofmann’s abstract brush strokes and flat rectangles of color that waffle in and out of space, and Vermeer’s beautifully rendered soft, warm directional light. I also found inspiration in Joseph Albers’s Homage to the Square, where colors radiate the light of varying degrees, and bouncing color plays in the space, Fairfield Porter’s flat color shapes describing light, Euan Uglow’s color and shapes describing form, and Morandi’s exquisite, subtle color and compositions. I am fascinated by the possibility of having both approaches coexisting in my work.

Golden Ribbon, 10×10 inches, oil on board, 2022

Half Circle, 10×10 inches, oil on paper, 2024

Traveling Red, 20×20 inches, oil on board, 2023

Marie Riccio:   I usually begin my work with an intuitive approach. I have still-life objects scattered around my studio and will look for something that catches my eye; a color, a shape, or the curve of a bowl. I place the object on the table and start to add more objects. Slowly I begin to see a color tone develop and will add additional objects to help emphasize that color mood. I then start to visualize the composition and how I want the eye to move within the painting.

The addition of ribbons, sticks, marbles, etc reinforces these compositional decisions. I take into consideration which elements will play the dominant role in the composition, the objects that I want to steal the show. I also add patterned cloth or solid pieces of colored paper to activate the space.

An alternate approach for me is to start from some inspiration that has formed in my thoughts. That might be a color combination I have been daydreaming about or the re-creation of a composition from a work of art that inspired me. For example, while observing Wayne Thiebaud’s San Francisco painting, Two Streets Down, I was intrigued by how he placed the horizon line towards the top of the painting, how the area above draws you back into that space, and how the area below the horizon appears flat. This composition influenced my painting Traveling Red.

Cityscape, 12×24 inches, oil on board, 2020

Young Love, 16×16 inches, oil on board, 2020

Marie Riccio:   I don’t usually include objects in my paintings that would give you a sense of a particular time. For example, you probably won’t see a fashionable piece of clothing or references to pop culture. That’s not to say that they wouldn’t creep into a painting at times, though they would be used in a more modernist approach; for their shape, pattern, or color rather than to provide a direct narrative quality.

I started out as an abstract painter, and my interest in shapes of color interacting with adjacent colors has carried over into my still-life work. When I begin a painting, my touch is expressionistic and open as I draw and paint color notes on the surface with my brush and search for the placement of the elements. This expressive search begins the process of connecting to what I am looking at and eventually becomes buried as I work my way through the painting to a refinement of the main interests I am after.

Circle Play, 16×16 inches, oil on board, 2023

Introducing Soy, 10×8 inches, oil on board, 2023

Marie Riccio:    Each piece begins with a formal approach without any intent towards a particular meaning or narrative. The work changes through the process. I add things, remove objects, repaint an object a little to the left or to the right, making decisions to arrive at a painting that feels right, balanced.

This evolving process is very meditative for me. I get lost in thought and feel my way through the painting process. As I spend time with the painting, I develop a relationship with it, and the objects begin to take on personal qualities. I see the objects interacting with each other, and their environment and characters announce their presence to me. This sometimes happens through their proximity to each other, their interacting color reflections, or how an object dominates its surroundings.

Amongst the Turmoil, 12×12 inches, oil on board, 2022

When I have a sense of what the painting is about for me, I am able to name the painting, and I know I am done. I don’t expect the viewer to know what that meaning is, but I hope they get a sense that something is happening in the painting. For example, in Amongst the Turmoil, when I started this painting, I was interested in the formal idea of playing with contrast: two very dark objects that would connect as one shape and contrasted by translucent white tissue paper. During the process, the tissue paper was reshaped into a curve that leads your eye to the dark bottles. The curves of the patterned red cloth were moved to echo the opposite curve, a reflection of the tissue paper reinforcing the composition. A yellow ribbon was added to emphasize the curves in the painting, creating a sense of chaos.

During the time this painting was painted, our two children had moved home from college, and my husband was working at home due to Covid shutdowns. None of us were very happy being restricted to the house, and my husband and I had to stick together and hold down the fort during all the emotional turmoil. For me, this scenario is reflected in this painting. Many of my paintings have meaningful personal stories associated with them.

LG:   What can you say about the emotional qualities of your still-life paintings, and how does this relate to your compositional choices? Are there particular arrangements of shapes that you find more conducive to expression?

Cuddled in a Dream, 16×16 inches, oil on board, 2023

Marie Riccio:   The emotional qualities of my paintings are expressed through both color and composition. Different colors and color combinations, subtle color changes, and hard and soft edges create the emotional quality of the work.

The emotional content of a composition also concerns relationships, how patterns are repeated, how connections are made, and how different forms interact. A vase may touch its neighbor or appear alone and isolated from the others. A cloth may cuddle a bowl, comforting it from other unsettling elements.

Stripes, 10×10 inches, oil on board, 2023

Yellow Flutter, 12×12 inches, oil on board, 2022

Seesaw, 20×20 inches, oil on board, 2023

LG:   In your still-life work, you’ve described a balance between the solidity of objects and the ‘chaotic side of life,’ like unraveling ribbons or crooked sticks. How do you decide on the balance between these elements in a composition? Is there a symbolic significance to this interplay in your work?

Marie Riccio:   When my life feels chaotic, I seek comfort in paintings with a sense of stillness. They help ground me, and I find the quiet stillness of a painting to be calming. I am drawn to the grounded structure of things. Often, when I am painting, I feel objects from the inside out, as if I am inside them pushing outwards and working at understanding how much space they are occupying, how close they are to their neighbors, and that their feet are solid on the ground.

Those grounded objects are made up of ovals and straight lines. Ribbons, crooked sticks, and flowing fabric are not as easy to understand. They have the capacity to change and are unsettling. They are the spontaneity of life, the unpredictability, the fun, and I need stability to enjoy that unpredictability.

Crazy Times, 16×16 inches, oil on board, 2020

I often start by placing the stable objects first, and when I feel comfortable with their placement, I add more fluid objects to help add life to the composition and keep the image active. In my painting Crazy Times, the three centered objects were arranged first. I took care of their proximity to each other. Once established, the vines, ribbons, and flowers were added to express the whirlwind of craziness I was feeling from what was happening in the world at the time.

LG:   Color and composition play essential roles in your paintings. Can you discuss how you use these elements to enhance the interaction between objects in your still-life setups? How do you decide on the color palette for a particular piece?

The Valley, 24×24 inches, oil on board, 2023

Marie Riccio:   As I bring objects together, I begin to push the color mood in a direction so a dominate color family starts to emerge. In order for a strong color hue to have life I find it needs to be placed in an environment of greys or neutrals that I call “no-name colors” or “bending colors” because they have more changing power. They change their color depending on what they are next to. I find these colors exciting to paint since they involve a lot of color mixing and fine-tuning, add atmosphere to the environment, and enhance the stronger color hues. Often, they are neutral color objects, ribbons, or fabric. They can also be present in shadows or within the changing values of an element.

I frequently like to have an object or two that stands out from the crowd and the overall color tone. For me, these are the objects whose color “sings” in the painting. This can sometimes be a color that is complimentary to the overall color tone or that stands out through its value, placement, or size. For example, in the painting The Valley the orange vase towards the middle sings amongst the many no-name colors.

With composition, I am sensitive to how the objects group together, the spaces between them, and how they create connecting lines. I start to notice repeating angles, lines, and circular rhythms. I may work to emphasize aspects of the evolving structure by tweaking the composition to bring it to a stronger resolution.

Hidden Blues, 12×12 inches, oil on board, 2024

Through and Behind, 12×12 inches, oil on board, 2023

Seeking Shelter, 20×20 inches, oil on board, 2023

Marie Riccio:    I approach a still life as a clean slate. I get to choose the objects, the colors, the composition. I direct the process from start to finish which is very challenging but fits my personality since I enjoy problem solving.

I tend to favor a tabletop which acts as a stage for my still life. As I arrange objects, I think about how they will connect with each other as well as the space around them. I orchestrate what leads the eye into the picture plane from the wings, beginning when all the actors are on the stage. Often the characters move around and come and go until the painting is complete.

When I go outside to paint the landscape, I often see chaos in front of me that I want to calm down. So, I start by reducing what I am looking at. I group areas of value and eliminate what is not needed to create the painting I am after. This is a reductive process. In a way, I find it very freeing because the setup is there before me. This practice also helps to keep me open to new possibilities in the studio.

Both of these approaches are beneficial to my painting practice.

LG:   Finding the random and unexpected in nature–through a perceptual process–can bring new life to a painting. Please share an example of a moment in your painting that unexpectedly brought new realization and power to a painting. 

Orange You Great, 16×16 inches, oil on board, 2023

Marie Riccio:   When I set up the still life for the painting Orange You Great, my initial intention was to play with the two colors of orange tissue paper in the background. What I didn’t expect was what the effect would be on the other elements in the painting. I saw orange everywhere. On the blue-green bottle, the tabletop, the brown ribbon. The still life was bathed in a soft orange light brought out even more by the blue/gray field under the table.

It is the process of painting that excites me; noticing the unseen, problem solving, all coupled with inner feelings. Visual language is woven into my life, and I work at painting the paintings that connect the making of art to life with the hope that the result will connect with others.

The post Interview with Marie Riccio appeared first on Painting Perceptions.

I am delighted to share this email interview with New York City-based painter Paula Heisen. My interest with Heisen’s art began upon discovering her work on Facebook and was further enriched by a visit to her Long Island City studio a few years back.

The emotional resonance of her nature-inspired landscape and still life compositions, coupled with the richness and precision of her color palette, left a lasting impression on me. Her work demonstrates exceptional spatial clarity and a delicate mastery of paint application. Heisen’s artistry transforms everyday scenes into lyrical expressions that evoke the spirit of early modern landscape artists like Charles Burchfield.

In this conversation, Paula Heisen delves into her background, her approach to painting, and her perspectives on working from observation. I am deeply grateful for her willingness to share her time and insights for this interview.

Paula Heisen is a graduate of the Yale School of Art MFA program. Her art has been featured in solo exhibitions in New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Heisen’s artistic excellence has been recognized with several grants and awards, including an Elizabeth Foundation Grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, a Joan Mitchell Emergency Grant, and an Ingram Merrill Foundation Grant. Additionally, she has received scholarships to Yale, the Skowhegan School, the New York Studio School, and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Heisen’s commitment to the arts extends to her role as an educator. She has taught at various prestigious institutions, including the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City, Lehman College in the Bronx, NY, the Oxbow Summer Program in Michigan, Yale University’s Summer Program in New Haven, CT, and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

See more at PaulaHeisen.com.

Arch, oil on linen, 18 x 24 inches, 2021

Larry Groff:  Can you recall your earliest memory related to drawing and painting? Were there any specific experiences or influences in your early life that ignited your passion for painting?

Paula Heisen:  The earliest thing I remember is not about painting or drawing, but making a snake with Play-doh. I felt the magic of creating something out of inert material and how it became alive. Powerful sensation.

LG:  Did you have a particular professor or mentor at Yale who made a significant impact on your artistic development?

Paula Heisen:  For undergraduate work, I went to the College of Creative Studies, an independent program within UC Santa Barbara. This small school was for advanced, self-motivated students in the arts and sciences. Many of the students came from the East Coast – they were fast-talking and intense, which is probably why I became interested in coming East. Various artists came through to teach a semester or give lectures. Hank Pitcher was the teacher closest to my sensibility. He painted the local landscape, which he had grown up and surfed in. I think that his relationship to the landscape has always been in the back of my mind. Considering the state of the art world in the 70s in the U.S., landscape painting was both retro and brave. I learned a lot about how to think about color from him – both in classes and in seeing his work. He introduced me to the work of Fairfield Porter, whose work influenced me a lot. He admired Paul Georges and brought him out to the school. I remember being struck by his narrative paintings. In the regular art department, I took some drawing classes with Howard Warshaw. I discovered that my ideas about drawing were limited – he taught me to draw and think in three dimensions.

Ellen Painting, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches, circa 1974

The most important teacher for me there was Keisho Okayama, who was a guest instructor in my senior year. He was very intense and embodied the connection between one’s emotional life and art. I remained friends with him after college until his death in 2018. I admire his work, though our interests differ. He saw and painted an internalized, mystical light, while I am obsessed with how light sculpts and defines form.

At Yale, Natalie Charkow, Andrew Forge and William Bailey were important professors. I took sculpture with Charkow, and her direct way of talking about and critiquing art was both exciting and grounded. She was one of the few women teaching there then, and her presence was important to the female students. I was Andrew Forge’s teaching assistant in my second year, and that was an education in itself. A beginning drawing class for undergraduates, every class was an intellectual journey and revelation. I internalized so much about the way he thought about art – about the relationship between thinking, seeing, and doing, how complicated and wonderful it is. I also became friends with Forge’s wife, Ruth Miller, while at Yale. Her luminous presence and painting have shown me how to combine a womanly spirit with deep intelligence and devotion to art. Bill Bailey was brilliant in a particular way, as his paintings are. He had a wickedly good eye, and I learned so much hearing him talk me through a painting – whether it was my own or another student’s. Both Forge and Bailey revealed the magic of what painting could be. Bailey always said that every painting is abstract. It didn’t matter whether you painted representationally or non-representationally, from life or your imagination. What mattered was that a painting lived an independent life – that it became more than a sum of its parts.

Self Portrait with Blue Shirt, 15 x 13 inches, oil on canvas, 1982

Through my teaching and study, I realized that an interesting painting has a certain balance of unity and contrast. Style is unimportant in this equation since that balance can be achieved in many different ways. For years, I described paintings that reached this level of accomplishment as “perpetual motion machines for the mind.” That doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, so I reduced it to “mechanism” or “contraption”. Reading a book of essays, Observation: Notation, by Andrew Forge, I came across this quote in an essay about Giacometti: “The achievement of the Forties and Fifties is unthinkable without the Surrealist experience at the back of it – without the notion, that is, of the work of art as an infernal machine.” Infernal mechanism is about right.

LG:  How much did Yale’s network and reputation help you in your transition from student to professional artist?

Paula Heisen:  Yale was a mixed bag. It did help with grants, short-term teaching gigs, and some shows. But I didn’t want to teach full-time. I enjoy it, but I find institutional situations difficult to tolerate. So, I never used the degree to advance myself in that direction. The best thing about it was the serious artists who were my fellow students. I learned a lot from them.

LG:  Can you share a specific early success or breakthrough that was particularly meaningful to you?

Paula Heisen:  In the summer of 1977, I went to Skowhegan, which was life-changing in many ways. It was a year after I’d graduated from college. I spent that year heading up the advertising graphic design section of a local newspaper. I was lost in terms of painting – I did paint, but my efforts had no cohesion. I was excited to have two months to just paint with no distractions. Food prepared for us, studio provided. I shared a studio out in a cow pasture with a few other artists. They mostly painted in the landscape, and I had this great isolated space to myself. I wasn’t ready for the East Coast landscape, though. The greens seemed to be all the same. Coming from California, with such a wide variety of greens and with hills that were golden in the summer, it was a bit of a shock. I started to paint night paintings to avoid the whole issue, working from sketches. I developed a body of work there, the first time I’d done that.

Untitled, oil on paper, 16 x 17 inches, 1977

Maine Night, 12 x 10 inches, oil on paper, 1977

Then I got a scholarship from Skowhegan to the NY Studio School – it was the first time I lived in New York City. That was a difficult year, I had no money, no winter clothes–can’t say I’d thought things out very carefully! I stayed for a year in New York, went back to Los Angeles for a few years, then to Yale, and finally back to New York City again. It had gotten into my blood.

Torrance Houses #3, oil on board, 9 x 12 inches, 1979

LG:  As I understand it, for some time now, you’ve been dividing your time between being in the Catskills making landscape drawings and the still-life paintings you make in your studio in Long Island City. Can you tell us a little about how you arrived at this workflow?

Paula Heisen:  I started to work mostly from the still life when I returned to the city in 1982. Trying to deal with the weather and working freelance jobs made landscape painting impossible. My first apartment overlooked Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. It faced south, and I used the living room as a studio. It was filled with warm southern light, which I like. I was also doing narrative figure compositions. I was there for four years and eventually stopped doing the figure work. The interest was just not there anymore. Looking back, I think those paintings were dreadful! I need the energy that comes from looking at something interesting or emotionally engaging. I met my future husband in 1985 and later moved into his apt, using the extra bedroom as a studio. It was a lot smaller and had north light. The paintings completely changed, they got darker and thicker and more abstract. I continued with these still lifes for a few years until we bought a small house upstate in the town of Lexington, NY. For some reason, I became passionate about gardening – and I started to paint the landscape again. I use an old garage as my studio there, and for years, I had a graphic job that allowed me to take the summers off. Although I’d created the garden to paint from, I couldn’t look at it without thinking of weeds, and I returned to still life painting to escape the outdoors…

Montauk Club, oil on linen, 22 x 25 inches, 1986

Around 1998, I started my own graphic design business from home – which meant I no longer had summers off and still life painting was again my modus operandi. I rented a studio in the city for the first time outside of our apartment – and have cycled through many spaces since then. Still lifes continued to be my dominant subject in my NYC studios. I collected lots of objects and used them to create narratives. This was really fun, and I always despaired that I had too many ideas and not enough time to paint. I started to
do small landscapes upstate again in 2010. I have a powerful feeling for this Catskill landscape – I feel overtaken by it. I’m not sure I’ve reconciled the landscape work I do with my paintings in my current studio in Long Island City. I feel guilty about the two bodies of work not being connected enough. But they both satisfy something essential. Recently, the still lifes have taken a turn, with only the fabric remaining in the set-ups. This has opened up an exciting new path.

Morning Glories on Trellis, oil on linen, 49 x 39 inches, 1989

Still Life with Yellow Cloth, oil on linen, 42 x 54 inches, 1989

LG:  In both your landscapes and still lives, you find ways to limit your views in order to concentrate on certain aspects of your motif and subject matter. I’m curious if you can talk about what ways you see your landscapes and still lives are going after similar things.

Paula Heisen:  I can’t say whether they are going after similar things – maybe I’m too close to them, but the experience of working in each mode feels quite different. For one, I usually look for some type of deep space in the landscapes. Even if I have a large area of darkened foliage taking up a lot of space, I will be able to escape somewhere into deeper space. The still lifes have a much shallower space and are more intimate. The experience of painting them is not as encompassing as being outside, where there are countless elements to contend with – the weather, the heat, the wind, the insects, etc. All those things, even when annoying, add to the intensity of painting outdoors and are part of the reason I love it. I feel alive. I am calmer working from the still life. I can control the light better, I don’t have to deal with the weather, I can luxuriate in what I’m looking at. The still lifes are more introspective – and colors other than GREEN can be used. There are commonalities. I always think about atmospheric perspective – I just use it differently when painting from a set-up. Mostly I feel the two endeavors are distinct in intention and execution.

Yellow Mum and Lavender Cloth, oil on linen,
16 x 12 inches, 2018

On the Brink, oil on linen, 2007

LG:  Your landscapes seem to respect the specific qualities of a place and are carefully observed but you also bring an expressive, lyrical simplicity that avoids being too literal. What are the most important aspects for you in this painterly approach?

Paula Heisen:  This question kind of answers itself. I do love to draw, to capture the sensation of an object in space. But I don’t want to be slavish, to render every little thing. Some painters can do that; it makes sense with their sensibilities. I’ve developed a sort of individual shorthand over the years. The trick is not to let it become schematic, which I consider a non-thinking way of painting. I always want to be responding to what I see or a memory of what I see. When you look closely at things, there is so much there; it’s always fascinating. Especially trees and shrubs, I have never seen a boring shape or line in a tree! Fractal growth.

Distant Green Field, oil on board, 12 x 16 inches, 2019

LG:  Can you say something about getting simplicity from the chaos of nature?

Paula Heisen:  The simplicity comes from the initial emotional response to a motif. I try to hold on to that throughout the long process of making a painting, distilling it and deleting any extraneous elements in the work.

White Roof, oil on linen, 18 x 24, 2023

LG:  Would you say that your landscapes reflect your inner thoughts or philosophy in some way? If so please explain.

Paula Heisen:  I would say that instead of thoughts or philosophy, I have an emotional kinship with the spaces I paint in Lexington. And with how the light falls on what I’m looking at. Every year I feel more embedded in the landscape. Recently, I watched a Swedish TV police procedural called Jordskott, in which a side plot involved the child of the head detective. He was slowly being transformed into plant matter. In the last episode, he is swallowed by the earth. I’m afraid I feel like that at times! I suppose it’s a paganistic/pantheistic mental space – everything is alive.

The Green Fade, oil on linen, 14 x 18 inches, 2021

LG:  Charles Burchfield, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, the Canadian Group of Seven, and similarly landscape-focused early modern abstract painters would seem to have inspired you to some degree. What painting concerns might you have that these landscape painters might have also had?

Paula Heisen:  When it comes to landscape painting, my heroes are Fairfield Porter, Marsden Hartley and Charles Burchfield. Porter for his subtle and beautiful palette and for the flat shapes in his paintings. I looked at him a lot earlier in my career. I feel Hartley’s ties to the landscape he loved, and he was able to come up with a painting language that was simple and potent – I especially love the later paintings. Burchfield is an interesting case! Sometimes the drawing tends toward the illustrative, but he usually pulls it off with his use of color and light. The Burchfield Penney Center posts a painting a day on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/burchfieldpenney/), with an excerpt from his writing. I love it. He’s a great writer, and you get a sense of how much he loved looking at and walking through the countryside.

Split Sky, oil on linen, 16 x 20 inches, 2023

LG:  Can you describe a moment when a particular landscape grabbed you, and you knew you had to paint it? What was the emotional connection?

Paula Heisen:  At the beginning of the season and throughout the summer, as the light changes, I walk the circuit in my Catskill neighborhood. I try not to impose anything on what I’m looking at, just try to be receptive – almost in a trance-like state. There’s no rhyme or reason, though I have several motifs that I return to. Usually, it happens when I’m not thinking at all; turn my head, and bam. It’s about being able to be surprised by well-known surroundings.

Three Trees, oil on linen, 18 x 24 inches, 2023

LG:  I was watching a video talk about the Van Gogh Cypresses exhibition at the Met. I’m curious if you’ve seen this show and if you might share your thoughts about this show. I’m particularly interested in how Van Gogh’s expressive, stylistically swirling linear strokes for the cypresses, sky, hills, etc. hold up for you today after years of being on tote bags, coffee mugs, and dorm room walls. Or does the power of his vision and painting chops transcend all the art world hoopla?  Can today’s landscape artists painting similarly still be taken seriously?

Paula Heisen:  Terrible to say – I missed that show! I came to the city for dental appointments and went right back upstate. It has been a rough summer, with so much rain, and I had to be there when the sun was out.

I love the cypress paintings. I am never put off by all the merch in relation to painters. It’s just silly stuff, and sometimes I buy it as a joke. But a great painting is a great painting, and seeing it in person is always an incredible experience. I saw the Munch show at the Clark Art Institute, Trembling Earth, last summer. I thought about van Gogh, and felt Munch had the same intense bond with the landscape. But van Gogh was a more exacting painter in every way: composition, scale, drawing, color. I have immense respect for him.

In terms of “painting in a similar manner” – I don’t think anything is off-limits in terms of inspiration. That’s one great thing about the crazy time we are living in right now. People are free to follow what interests them. It doesn’t matter what someone paints, but it has to have an emotional core.

The Magic Hour, oil on linen, 16 x 20 inches, 2023

LG:  In some of your landscape drawings, the inventive ways of organizing the tones and marks remind me a little of Van Gogh’s later drawings. Do you consider your drawing studies or stand-alone drawings for their own sake? What can you tell us about how you go about drawing the landscape?

Paula Heisen:  I mentioned my motif hunting earlier…I photograph the things I’m struck by, and organize the images by time of day and weather. I let them sit. Usually, there are a few that I know I want to do, and I will look at the photos to see if I’m right. That’s the first step. The drawings are a way to organize my thoughts. I think of them as studies, but they are satisfying as stand-alone pieces. I’ve started sitting on a stool because that gets me to the sight-line I will have when I stand to paint. I sketch first in pencil and then start with a nearly spent Pigma Graphic pen and move on to a newer, darker pen. I have a lot of these pens, and they only last one or two drawings before they get too dark or run out of ink. I used to do these painstaking ink washes. I layered light washes, gradually moving to the darks as I worked. I loved doing them, very calming. I did a lot of them the year after 9/11 – helpful in terms of my mental health. I think of the pen drawings in the same way, going from light to dark, bit by bit.

The Magic Hour, Pigma Graphic pen on paper, 7 x 9 inches, 2023

Tangle, Pigma Graphic pen on Strathmore paper, 8.75 x 7 inches, 2022

Paula Heisen:  Many of my images are backlit – that’s when the personality of the tree or shrub pops out like a star on a stage, with their arms out, belting a song.

In terms of the changing light – often, the moment I’m interested in does not last very long. It remains in my mind, but you must go with the flow. I usually paint for about 3 hours, and things change a lot in that time. I find that I like the way the sun hits different parts of a motif at different times, so every painting is a collection of moments. Whatever makes sense with the painting.

Barn, Early Morning, oil on linen, 14 x 18 inches, 2020

Color – it’s a complicated subject! The best way to describe how I think about it is the Munsell Color Solid, which is a sort of 3-dimensional color wheel, with colors moving from dark to light vertically and hues arranged around the central spine that move from desaturation to full saturation horizontally. It’s the concept of this that interests me, not his particular pigments. I have a simple double-primary palette, with warm and cool versions of each primary. I also use cadmium green because it does something no mixed green could do. I rarely use it straight, but it’s handy. Black, yellow ochre, white. I’m always thinking about where a particular color might be regarding value and hue on my internalized Color Solid. This palette is versatile enough to get me whatever I want or need.

LG:  Do you decide on your main color scheme or harmony and mix accordingly before painting or mix your colors as the painting progresses?

Paula Heisen:  I do small color studies for each painting, which are the same size as the drawings, about 7 x 9 inches. Then, I mix the palette from the color study. Usually, it takes a few hours to do that. I will also have a sketch on the canvas before I go out to paint with the full palette. This helps me to relax, since the changing light and all the other distracting things about landscape painting are crazy-making. I want to have fun out there and feel free with the mark-making. Having the color worked out helps with that. Of course, a lot of improvisation still goes on.

color study for Three Trees, oil on gessoed paper, 7 x 8.75 inches, 2023

color study for Dark, oil on gessoed paper, 8.75 x 7 inches, 2023

Paula Heisen:  Shadows are really important to me! I watched endless film noir movies when I was a kid. I loved them. Black and white, simple shapes – deep space and foreground in conversation. You’re able to do so much with that!

A lot of my still lifes in the last few years have shadows larger than the lit objects, and I consciously want a sense of something looming. In Darkness Above, this was the prominent way I thought about the setup. It was after a year and a half of Covid, and I felt all the disorientation and fear of that time. A few years ago, I titled a painting Doppelganger. That conveys the metaphorical sense I have about shadows: they are ghosts, twins, memories, traces… Of course, where there’s a shadow, there is glorious light, gilding objects with gold or moonshine.

Darkness Above, oil on linen, 26 x 20 inches, 2022

LG:  In your approach to still-life painting, you’ve eloquently stated in your Zeuxis interview “Conversations with Paula Heisen, Sydney Licht and Rachel Youens”, restricting your setups to just a few elements, such as a flower, patterned drapery, and shadows, you paradoxically expand what you can do. This notion of simplicity leading to complexity is both intriguing and counterintuitive. Could you elaborate on this philosophy and explain how this approach informs your creative process? If you can, maybe you could point to a specific example.

Paula Heisen:  The progression of my still life imagery is strange even to me. Originally I was excited with the idea of the objects infused with some narrative, either a personal one, or one based on world events. Often, a change of place has caused a change in imagery, and when I moved to my studio in Long Island City from Brooklyn, I lost interest in the narratives. I struggled for about a year before concentrating on the patterned fabrics and flowers – an endless source of exciting ideas. As with film noir, I have a childhood love of fabrics. When I was 5, I hypnotized myself by looking at the women’s dresses in the pews in front of me to relieve the boredom of Mass. This was in the 50s, and there were a lot of colorful patterns. I learned to sew when I was older, and the fabric aisles were heaven. I wanted pieces of them all! When I started using fabric more in my still lifes, I relived that experience. Eventually, I moved away from the tabletop as a structure for the paintings. It may seem that just having fabric and flower is reductive, but it opened up the space in an interesting way. There’s an openness and a floating sensation that I’m moving toward now. It seems more related to the landscapes.

Astroemeria and Shadow, oil on linen, 18 x 14 inches, 2020

Barn and Mountain, oil on linen, 16 x 20 inches, 2023

Paula Heisen:  Like sex, I think painting will always be around! We need it. Is something dead when people want to do it? When there is a community of like-minded artists who share the same interests and obsessions?

In 2019, we went to two caves in France with prehistoric paintings: Peche Merle and Niaux. It was awe-inspiring – the power and the energy of the drawings are still vital today. Seeing that, who wouldn’t want to do something like it?!

There’s a freedom today that I alluded to earlier. People can do anything, think anything, when it comes to “art.” I don’t begrudge anyone whatever direction they take, even though I might not be personally interested. I like being closely connected to the rich tradition and history of Western painting and enjoying the intelligence of artists working in different times and places.

Crazy Trees, oil on linen, 18 x 24 inches, 2022

LG:  Can you talk about your experiences navigating the dichotomy between making good paintings and the demands of promoting your work? How do you stay focused on your artistic vision and maintain your passion for painting amidst the complexities of the New York City art market? Has this dynamic influenced or changed your approach to your work in any way?

Paula Heisen:  I found it nearly impossible to finish this interview while painting this summer. It interfered with my absorption in the landscape. That’s the problem with using language for a non-verbal activity – it takes you away from the essence of the work, as your question implies. I’m sure we all feel that. Speaking of doppelgangers, right now, I’m reading Doppelganger by Naomi Klein (not Naomi Wolf!) A major theme is how the presentation of the self on, say, social media creates a ghost self. And how that ghost self takes on its energy and trajectory. I’ve been pretty active on Facebook and Instagram and have certainly felt that happening. But when you have a show, you must let that devil in the room. You go into salesperson mode and face the attendant vulnerabilities and indignities. Perhaps because I’m older, it doesn’t affect me as much as it used to. We are bound by the conventions available to us and have to navigate between their demands and our deepest needs.

Field of Green, oil on board, 14 x 11 inches, 2017

The post Interview with Paula Heisen appeared first on Painting Perceptions.

I’ve been captivated by John Lee’s meticulous observational study and innovative approaches to color in his paintings. I’ve long followed his work’s impressive evolution through his social media updates. So, when John agreed to an email interview from his home in Williamsburg, Virginia, I was thrilled. In our conversation, we delve into his background, but the spotlight is primarily on his insights regarding color and his methodical approach to observational painting. A few years ago Antrese Wood interviewed him in her podcast on Savvy Painter which offers a detailed look at his past influences and inspirations. Our discussion here further expands on several aspects about his creative use of color and compositional ideas. A heartfelt thanks to John for sharing his time and insights so openly in this interview.

Eyelash, 20 x 16 inches, Oil on Linen, 2018

John Lee, based in Williamsburg, Virginia, is an Associate Professor of Painting at William & Mary, is a graduate of the certificate program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, holds a BFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and received his MFA from the University of Indiana in Bloomington. John is an oil painter who works directly from life with an interest in color, light, space, and weight. He has worked in traditional genres such as still life and self-portraiture, but his primary subject matter is interior spaces. John has shown at various venues nationally, but primarily in the northeast region, including a 2019 solo show at First Street Gallery in New York. He is a past member of the Zeuxis Still Life Association and has shown with the Midwest Paint Group. He recently served as a juror for the Bethesda Painting Awards in Bethesda, MD (Serving Virginia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C.). From the artist’s CV on his website

Larry Groff: What were your early pre-painter years like? Was there something in particular that made you want to become a painter?

John Lee: Larry, thank you for this opportunity. People often say they’ve always drawn since childhood, and I’m no exception. Throughout school, I was the ‘school artist,’ in my youth, I crafted things from everyday materials—dragons from milk cartons and objects with popsicle sticks, paper cups, scotch tape, paper plates, etc. I created numerous puppets, masks, costumes, spaceships, and props for action figures. Perhaps that was when my creativity truly flourished.

I was born to artsy parents who met in art school. My father taught studio art at the college level, exposing me to the art world, museums, galleries, classrooms, and art books. In the mid-1980s, during high school, I developed a deep fascination with hip-hop, sketching graffiti in notebooks and on walls. I delved into graffiti as an art form, which led me to the New York Art World, pop art, and neo-expressionist painting. This sparked my interest in the broader art world. I explored Pop artists, their reactions to Abstract Expressionists, and the influences stretching back to Picasso. Despite this, I initially resisted studying art in college, not wanting to merely follow in my father’s footsteps.

Rubik’s Wedge, 34 x 42 inches, Oil on Linen, 2015

Additionally, a pivotal moment occurred while I perused Nicholas Fox Weber’s book on Leland Bell. Sitting in an art history class, I was captivated by the color and movement of a figure’s leg in one of Bell’s ‘Morning’ series paintings. It appeared flat yet felt solid and alive. This revelation deepened my obsession with Bell’s work, leading me to scour Philadelphia for his book. Bell’s insights resonated with me, and his words have been a recurring source of wisdom. Understanding Bell opened my eyes to Matisse, Picasso, Cezanne, and eventually Corot, Titian, and Chardin, among others. Bell taught me to perceive the ‘music’ in painting, enabling me to appreciate the harmony in the masterpieces that preceded him.

Cereal Bowl, 30 x 36 inches, Oil on Linen, 2012

John Lee: The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) was significant for various reasons. Still, looking back, I’ve always regarded my initial art classes at the local college in my hometown as the most influential. A few core concepts were instilled in me, such as seeing color and gesture drawing, stemming mainly from art books. Kimon Nicolaides’s ‘The Natural Way to Draw‘ emphasized gesture as a form of empathy, capturing the movements and weight of the world. Painting ideas from Charles Hawthorne, gleaned from his book and Arthur Stern’s color book, taught me to perceive in terms of gestural and spatial movements and to see the world as surprising color relationships. These concepts resonated with me instantly; they are why I paint and am drawn to the thrill of seeing. This passion carried over to PAFA, where some instructors recognized my knack for color,working across the whole composition simultaneously, and my ability to discern underlying abstract relationships.

I chose PAFA for its studio art courses (with a model), the less daunting prospect of living in Philadelphia compared to NYC, and a curiosity about the city where I was born (though I had no memory of it, having moved to Arkansas at one year old). At PAFA, I grew fascinated with academic art training, delving into books on French academic training and anatomy. My earlier education focused on broad gestures, so I taught myself to work ‘on point’ with a charcoal pencil, mastering contours and cross-hatching, and making numerous drawings from casts and skeletons. I memorized the names of muscles and bones. I immersed myself in this academic style for a couple of years, thinking it was what the Academy epitomized.

Yet, deep down, I knew this wasn’t the direction my heart was truly drawn to in art. When I painted a still life, it inherently took on an abstract quality. Jan Baltzell, a painter and teacher, recognized this, often showcasing my work alongside her class’s. I resonated with Baltzell’s teaching, particularly her inclusion of Matisse and a memorable Lennart Anderson postcard, an image of the painting with the pile of nails and hammer. Anderson’s work. I felt very connected to Lennart Anderson’s work as I knew it from the ‘Art of the Real’ book I saw in my first painting class. Both Anderson’s and Leland Bell’s, work was a longstanding obsession of mine, though I felt a closer affinity to Anderson’s temperament. In my final year at PAFA, I met Scott Noel and felt an immediate connection. He became an influential figure in my life, especially around 1996 before his rise in popularity.

Post-graduation, while working and painting, I constantly imagined Scott observing my work, pondering his potential feedback. Over time, I disagreed with some of his teachings, which felt restrictive, akin to playing basketball with professionals. I wasn’t interested in completing a painting (or section) in one session. However, Scott’s insights on ‘tone’ helped me reconcile my earlier academic training’s limited palette with my initial education, which was rooted in primary and secondary mixtures. This melded my understanding of value, dull temperature, and spectrum colors. Scott served as a bridge, harmonizing my previously disparate ideas about color.

Still Life with Lemons, 30 x 36 inches, Oil on Linen, 2000

LG: You got your BFA at Penn and then your MFA at the University of Indiana. What was that like? Who did you primarily study with, and what might you say about how they influenced your direction in painting?

John Lee: I attended Penn at night while holding a day job, leaving no time for painting during those two years. My coursework primarily focused on art history and literature, with poetry and short story classes particularly enjoyable. During this time, I developed a confidence in writing that I later applied to relate painting with liberal arts students. I took a class called Urban Sociology that explained the city of Chicago in terms of social zones, such as the downtown entertainment district, surrounded by the skyscrapers of the business district, surrounded by the industrial, and then the suburban zone. I saw this as a traditional still-life setup, with the skyscrapers as the bottles and the factories as the apples. Perhaps this relates to what Erle Loran discusses in his book that dissects Cezanne’s compositions.

Upon completing my studies at Penn, I immediately enrolled in an MFA program at Indiana University, drawn by its respect for figurative work and its affordability, as I was self-financing my education. Before attending Indiana, I researched the program online, a relatively new tool. I discovered Tim Kennedy and Eve Mansdorf, both IU’s painting instructors and former Lennart Anderson students, whose work I admired. My research also led me to Maureen Mullarkey’s website, where I encountered the works of Ken Kewley, Dik Liu, and Catherine Kehoe.

Further research revealed that many painters from the Kansas City Art Institute continued their studies at Indiana University for their MFA, including students of Wilbur Niewald, another lifelong fascination of mine. This suggested a potential connection to IU. However, I found that some faculty members at IU didn’t share my admiration for certain painters like Porter, Sickert, Lopez, and Uglow, which led to some disagreements during my tenure. Despite this, I received support from all the teaching faculty.

One of the most valuable takeaways from my time at IU was a piece of advice I overheard from Eve Mansdorf. She advised that whatever part of a painting you’re working on should be at eye level. This revelation has been crucial to my practice, leading me to prefer easels that allow for such adjustments, even for small panel paintings.

Hello Yellow Moon Landing, 34 x 42 inches, Oil on Linen, 2015

LG: You describe yourself as a ‘Responsive painter’ who engages with ‘visual stuff.’ How is what you do different than what might be called a perceptual painter?

John Lee: During my time at IU, I experimented with different approaches to painting. I ventured into creating abstract figures (breakdancers), preceded by extensive drawing studies, and a large figure painting featuring myself and a friend, focusing on the life within the figures. While these projects pushed the boundaries of my previous work and garnered positive feedback from faculty, two other paintings resonated more deeply with me. One was a still-life from my studio; the other depicted a tranquil hallway in a 19th-century schoolhouse’s basement. Both captured what I instinctively sought in my art: attention to light, nuanced surprises, discovered colors, tactile quality, and a sense of forms sitting in space.

This approach is what I mean by ‘Responsive,’ a term I adopted from the classic drawing textbook Nathan Goldstein’s ‘The Art of Responsive Drawing.’  In responsive painting, one is moved by the act of looking. It transcends mere depiction or representation. It’s not about conveying information or subject matter through paint. Instead, it’s about being stirred by the light, color, movement, gravity, and the unexpected connections and disconnections. It’s about sensing something beyond the subject and its apparent factuality.

This perspective could, or perhaps should, inform our understanding of ‘perceptual painting.’ It seems self-evident that a painter working directly from life should be excited by their visual experience. However, I’m not convinced that this is always the case. For me, the meaning has little to do with the inherent significance of objects. The subject matter doesn’t hold personal or social importance for me. Yet, I wonder if aspects of my work, like color, might stem from familial connections. My mother, an amateur interior decorator, painted our living room ceiling an earthy violet. An older painting of my father featured a cardboard box. Over time, earthy violets and cardboard hues have become significant to me. Whether this preference is inherited or coincidental remains unclear.

I’m not interested in the subject matter for its own sake nor necessarily fixated on the paint. However, I delight in both when they connect deeply with light, color, gravity, and movements. It’s about more than just rendering the subject convincingly. The subject matter serves merely as a conduit for this exhilaration. Goldstein emphasized that all drawings (and paintings) should originate from excitement about the subject’s potential expressive energy and how it might coalesce in the artwork.

Acid Bath, 30 x 40 inches, Oil on Linen, 2011

Eerie Basement, 28 x 36 inches, Oil on Linen, 2008

Himalayan Pink, 12 x 15 inches, Oil on Board, 2017

John Lee: Thank you. Why is color so vital to me? That’s a challenging question. I find myself captivated by color moments. Just today, walking through a new campus building, I was struck by the colors inside the door jambs down a hallway. I might pass a vacant storefront and be drawn to the hues inside or the colors cast by a shadowy porch. A color event might stop me when walking down the hallways in some building. In the mornings, I wake to the colors near the ceiling corners in my bedroom. These experiences have been a part of my life forever. It’s akin to being ensnared in a delightful realm. I’ve painted basements, attracted to their dark hues. Basements, often sites of entrapment in fiction and reality, intrigue me.

Some basement paintings I titled “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” inspired by a 1950s sci-fi film where a man, shrunk to an insect’s size, ends up trapped in a basement. But as a painter, I’d relish being ‘trapped’ in a basement! Even waiting in a bank, I fantasize about spending a year painting the colors around the edges of the bank’s interior. If a painter isn’t trained to perceive color and light, they might venture out searching for subjects. But a color-trained painter sees hues right in their front yard, their home, or upon waking. Fairfield Porter once said, ‘An artist who can’t paint without the right subject matter is like someone who can’t get out of bed in the morning because they haven’t found life’s meaning.’ That’s not a direct quote but a recollection.

Octopus’s Garden, 40 x 50 inches, Oil on Linen, 2022

LG: You often work within a narrow range of color values, which helps create a harmonious feel to your palette. How did you develop this approach, and what do you believe it adds to the overall impact of your paintings?

John Lee: I’m not sure if this was a deliberate choice, but both consciously and subconsciously, I’ve shied away from strong contrasts of light and shadow, as that’s often expected. I’ve intentionally avoided windows or doors in my paintings, openings that could lead to spaces with more intense light. Instead of embracing a broad variety, I’m drawn to focusing intently on a particular passage or challenge. When we navigate between two realms, like light and shadow, it’s too easy to fall back on certain generalizations. Light might only need to make sense in relation to the shadows, and the reverse is also true. With a general strong light juxtaposed against a strong dark, one might get away with merely suggesting everything. However, I’m always intrigued by the notion of painting a wall where the values are subtly varied, yet there’s a rich diversity of colors and hues within that wall. A painter often simplifies the wall and then concentrates on a glaring beam of sunlight hitting it. To me, drama can be easier to capture, and there’s more to discover when we look beyond the drama.

Old movies, especially those filmed in New York City during the ’70s or ’80s, hold a certain charm. I often find myself gazing past the actors and characters, looking around the edges of the scene to observe the weathered, hazy atmosphere of NYC from that era. Similarly, during department meetings, I might find my gaze drifting to the colors surrounding my colleagues as we sit around the table. I recall Jan Baltzell, the PAFA teacher I mentioned earlier, advising someone to “Pay attention to floors in paintings and how different artists handle floors.” That advice has resonated with me. I’m captivated by floors in Dutch paintings, as seen with Saenredam’s cathedrals, Gerard Ter Borch’s interiors, Rackstraw Downes, and many others. . This relates to your question about a quieter drama, not so much the overt drama at the center of the painting, whether narrative action or contrast of light and shadow. Bonnard’s bathtub paintings, with their colors reflected in floors, tubs, and tiles, come to mind, as does Morandi’s still lifes, where objects cluster tightly at the painting’s nucleus, akin to an Albers square.

Brontosaurus, 14 x 12 inches, Oil on Linen, 2014

Compressed colors are fascinating. Ingres once remarked that the most beautiful thing in art is two juxtaposed colors of the same value but different temperatures. I used to refer to this as ‘Simultaneous Contrast.’ I appreciate the sense of compression in color, a feeling of gravity: close colors, a sense of density. Looking back, I wonder if this preference indicates a deeper desire for more frequent hugs.

LG: Your painting is an ‘attempt to unify observed color divisions’ without relying on chiaroscuro. What do you mean by this?

John Lee: My response to your last question touched upon this. However, regarding the development of my approach, I primarily perceive color as something discovered through mixing paint. I can’t simply select a color and use it directly. While I find numerous captivating colors from brands like Williamsburg Paint, it’s not a matter of picking a tube of color and applying it straight or with minimal alteration, such as creating a tint. Instead, color must emerge from a foundation of prismatic primary and secondary paint mixing. Consequently, I often find myself toning down colors more than not, perhaps contributing to unity within my palette.

Innertube, 20 x 24 inches, Oil on Linen, 2018

John Lee: I think part of what makes this question interesting is that by ‘restricted color range,’ one could be referring to the restricted colors of the setup, or one could be referring to the restricted colors on my palette (the range of color paint mixtures). Regarding the color in the setup, the observed colors are so close together that it could be a bit like walking on ice; one false move and one loses the unity of the plane. I want to get the strength of the color, which is to be bold, but also to temper the color to find a value and intensity that allows the color to sit and lock together with the other colors.This is to be contemplative.So, it’s about trying to find my way between the boldness, which is related to the dance and the gesture, and then to the contemplative side, which can kill that felt response to the color. It’s like Fauvism; that is also not Fauvism. It’s perhaps self-defeating. I see this as an instinct, a natural part of my sensibility, and for this reason, I feel connected to several 20th-century British painters who seem to have a similar, related sense of color.Uglow, Harold Gilman, Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, and Gwen John, among others.

So, I can think that I have the color, but then when I bring the painting into another light, I may feel very different, or if I back up a bit more from the painting, it may not feel as correct as it did when I was closer to the painting.I want the colors to unify, on the one hand, but on the other hand, I can often enjoy it when they sort of ‘slip out of gear’ a bit, and there is something a bit jarring. But the jarring quality is something that I feel I arrived at in hopefully a more sincere way than would be the case if I was too consciously pushing a dramatic color-intensity contrast. I want the painting to find itself organically, the poetry to be a by-product of working on the color relationships.

I may seek out situations, lighting situations, or events based on something other than deep shadows and strong contrasts.I may like contrasts of temperature or intensity over value.As I think about it, I cannot even think about or recall any recent paintable moments for me that were based on strong value contrasts. Those situations (with strong value contrasts) are usually seen in classroom situations where the studio is darkened with no overhead lighting, and then a clamp light is shone on a set-up of all-white still-life objects.Beginning students often work with the desire to fill in extremes, blacks and whites, that are preconceived and then can be placed into the drawing, whereas painters, on the other end of that spectrum, are pushing the color into place.I am thinking about how a 1980s-era Wolf Kahn mixes the paint on canvas, so the color is conjured and tuned in an open manner rather than being understood and placed. I want to paint between these two extremes, looking for satisfying notes and chords of color.

Lay and Bay, 34 x 40 inches, Oil on Linen, 2018

LG: How does your observational painting process influence your color choices? How faithfully do you respond to the colors you’re looking at? Why is (or isn’t) that important to you?

John Lee: I follow the colors I see, knowing that the colors are elusive.I don’t think I can be completely faithful to what is there.The color can always be something else from what I initially saw or expected.I see the potential for differing colors almost everywhere.I don’t consciously invent colors that knowingly depart from observation.With some paintings, I can be in a mindset where the colors are stronger in how I see or paint them.I see those colors ‘in’ the subject, within the view I am painting, and attempt to pull them out.I want to be true to what is there, to be respectful of what is there.Yet it can also feel irresponsible to the painting as a whole.It’s like life, perhaps.I am not a very good liar, I don’t like to tell lies.But I also realize that to make something happen, it may be necessary to be dishonest on some level.Making a painting involves composing all the large parts with some sense of resolution. I think I let myself get bogged down with the many little colors I see in an area.I avoid simplifying passages.How broken up should the plane be?It seems there is always more to see within any given area.This color exploration is more important than delivering a certain subject or object.I am less interested in telling you something about the subject and more interested in looking closely at the color I see.

LG: When I studied with George Nick, he stressed to students the importance of careful observation and getting the exact color tone. I loved his work, but I often felt his colors weren’t the same as what I saw. I thought his colors were often more interesting than I saw in nature. He discouraged slavish copying of nature, instead to work parallel to it. With this in mind, what more can you say about getting “accuracy,” perfect pitch, and individual expression in color?

Pickin’ and Grinnin’, 16 x 14 inches, Oil on Linen, 2016

Summer Brown Head, 10 x 7 inches, Oil on Board, 2017

John Lee: A few years ago, I conducted an experiment where I completed two quick small self-portrait head paintings in just over an hour each. Starting with a quick pencil drawing, I laid down large color shapes, mixing them just once and painting them cleanly without later alterations. I focused on approximating the value, allowing the hues to be as exaggerated as needed. This was to gauge feedback on social media, with some painters who studied with Nick in mind. I wondered whether I over-analyze colors in my work, pondering, “Why can’t I just put it down and let it be?” While I received positive online feedback, I couldn’t adopt this approach regularly. I need to trust and believe in what I make, which means slowing down and meditating on the painting as I work.

I’ve long admired George Nick’s work and followed his career. When I turned 41, I realized from a Nick catalog that his career seemed to take off around 43, his age when I was born. This observation was based on his output as I perceived it. From what little I could glean, his teaching seemed to emphasize value and tonal relationships, possibly instructing his class to create paintings with only three values. While I wasn’t a Nick student and may be mistaken, it seems hue might be more flexible as long as it aligns with relative value. Value appears more justifiable than a variety of hues in nature.

Chardin’s Tin Can, 36 x 38 inches, Oil on Linen, 2022

I consider Fauvism as a movement where painters might have thought, “What if value (tone) is less important?” The Fauvists amplified hues, letting their intensity be as needed, often diminishing light and dark relationships, which could flatten forms and space. This flatness might be a byproduct of their focus on enhancing colors. (Regarding Fauvism, I’ve heard arguments that Matisse’s color works due to tonal structure, a viewpoint I don’t necessarily share.)

I was taught to view all color properties as equal players; no single aspect like value or intensity is more important than another. Color is an open, evolving concept. Sometimes, it’s thought that correct value relationships allow color to be applied almost decoratively. I see color as an interwoven aspect, constantly finding itself. Adjusting one element affects the others.
Color is overwhelming, akin to an introvert faced with myriad choices. It stops me, keeping me focused on a corner of my painting, reminiscent of the paradox of halving the distance to a wall without reaching it. I aspire to be broadly decisive, but that often feels forced. I admire Gabriel Laderman’s still life paintings, which use a single color for the floor. I seek unity, like an ant trying to comprehend the entire room, in contrast to a painter in a spaceship viewing the entire painting as a continent.

Lately, I’ve been painting mostly while seated. This perspective sacrifices some aspects of standing up to paint, but I appreciate the child-like viewpoint it offers. Rather than dominating tables from above, I explore under tables and into shadows, like peering into caves or observing porches across the street. They become architectural spaces rather than mere furniture to pass by. I want my paintings to be like exploring a foreign city, especially on those days without an agenda, discovering intriguing areas. I aim to replicate this exploratory experience alone in my studio.

Below Sea Level, 40 x 34 inches, Oil on Linen, 2022

John Lee: I often strive to capture or create a mood in my paintings, but this is a reflection I make in hindsight. I perceive ‘mood’ in two aspects. ‘Mood’ for me typically signifies an overall feeling conveyed by the color or, more precisely, the light. I aim for an overarching sentiment, yet I don’t consciously focus on it while painting. I find myself drawn to darker, more subdued scenes in terms of color. Examples include the rear of a quiet thrift shop during a weekday, a vacated storefront in a strip mall, a dark hallway, or a basement. These settings usually lack human presence, which is often when I find color most intriguing. My paintings have been described as ‘melancholy’ or ‘sad’. There’s some truth in that, but it’s not my intention to deliberately depict specific human emotions through my work.

Quiet Zoo, 36 x 38 inches, Oil on Linen, 2022

LG: Your subject matter often depicts cluttered spaces, jam-packed with books, supplies, tools, tables, beat-up couches, and filing cabinets; your color orchestration helps transcend the mundane complexity into a visually cohesive composition. Do you consider these objects and space just the scaffold for the real show, which is the color/shape/light interaction? Or do you see the geometry and drawing of the setup as being equally important to the composition and meaning of the painting?

John Lee: I’ve thought about this off and on for some time. Occasionally, I feel the urge to sketch the subject with pencil to capture the fluid, intuitive connection between shapes and values, objects and light. However, it’s usually the color that initially captivates me, making it an essential element of the image. This leads to a necessary disconnect between drawing and painting. It’s unsatisfying to respond to color without having it firmly situated in space, to see it lock in. I sometimes fantasize about being a pure abstract painter who can focus solely on color, free from the constraints of drawing. Yet, I need the composition to convey a sense of space and a grounding plane. It’s paradoxical because while I want the painting to emphasize color and geometry, I also need a tangible sense of the floor. Consequently, the painting might veer towards a more conventional space, potentially accommodating a figure, something I prefer to avoid in my work.

Nudged, 34 x 42 inches, Oil on Linen, 2022

LG: Many painters who work from life use a spot-color technique taught by painters like Edwin Dickinson and Charles Hawthorne. How do you see your approach as different or similar to theirs? Are these artists an influence in your work, and if so, how have you adapted or diverged from their methods to suit your artistic vision?

John Lee: Charles Hawthorne’s book, “Hawthorne on Painting,” was one of the first I read in a painting class, given to me by my teacher. Ever since, I’ve paid close attention to painters connected to the teachings of Hawthorne and Dickinson in their painting lineage. In my mind, I’ve constructed an imaginary ‘Hawthorne family tree’ comprising painters who studied with Hawthorne, Dickinson, Hensche, and Nick, or those possibly influenced by their teaching. I love the concept in its purest form: observing the world visually through color relationships. It’s more than a technique; it’s a sensibility, a way of seeing. Henry Hensche’s color studies and demos, with their vibrant colors, excite me, though his completed works and overall aesthetic appeal less to me. However, the notion of building with color, prioritizing it to the extent of spending considerable time mixing individual colors that captivate me, is fundamental to my painting. While I’m not sure if Hawthorne himself directly influences me, the concept of perceiving the world as color spots, shapes, and planes is vital.

I greatly appreciate Dickinson’s paintings but don’t often think about them. His work had developed a cult-like following, which might have initially put me off. Appreciating Dickinson’s work through art book images is challenging; there are fewer books on his work, and the images are often dark and difficult to decipher. This doesn’t diminish the quality of his work, which I find terrific. His ‘At First Strike’ paintings, created without preliminary drawing or a preconceived final product, painted in response to an initial impulse or emotion, remind me of de Kooning’s working method. I see a connection between the blurriness and unstable footing in Dickinson’s work and photography, with the desire to grab something in the moment. My paintings don’t embrace that level of openness; I require more structure and gravity. However, I do relate to Dickinson in terms of color, as he reportedly mixed his colors down extensively, involving a lot of paint mixing to achieve his hues.

Revolver, 10 x 14 inches, Oil on Board, 2008

LG: What colors do you put on your palette these days? Do you usually mix your colors individually as the painting progresses, or do you mix large batches of colors you think you’ll want before you start?

John Lee: I mix the colors one by one as I go. Color can only be found in the moment. The basis for my palette has been cadmium orange, permanent green, and Mars violet.A secondary triad is just something that I stumbled upon, but I have liked the colors that I achieve when mixing them. Ultramarine Blue is the blue that I use the most, but sometimes Phthalo Blue is used as well. I use Cadmium Red and Yellow in the deep form; I prefer the ‘deep’ to the medium I’ve used for years.I use Alizarin Crimson, Phthalo Green, and Ivory Black.I have a few other colors on the palette that I may use on occasion, as the painting calls for, but I mainly use forms of secondary and primary colors.I don’t think they are like spectrum colors, but they are colors I can mix with.The colors on my palette include Venetian Red, Cadmium Red medium, Cadmium Red Deep, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Naples Yellow Grumbacher, Yellow Ochre, Titanium White, Ultramarine Blue, Phthalo Blue, Permanent Green, Cadmium Green, Phthalo Green, Alizarin Crimson, Mars Violet, Ivory Black.

LG: I read that you use Utrecht and Williamsburg paints. I heard some people dislike Utrecht’s paint, saying it had too much filler. I think Lennart Anderson once said, ‘Good painters can use cheap paint and make something wonderful, but students should buy the most expensive paint they can get. Care to comment on this?

John Lee: I don’t see a problem with the Utrecht paint in that I go through large tubes of my colors (in both Utrecht and Williamsburg), but I have several smaller tubes of Williamsburg and Holbein colors around that I never use!Expensive paint may be arguably stronger in a way, but it’s also akin to a sense of materials and materiality that I don’t relate to.I don’t look too long at the tools and materials.

Pam’s Medieval Palace, 12 x 9 inches, Oil on Board, 2014

Soapstone, 9 x 12 inches, Oil on Panel, 2013

LG: Can you describe the techniques you employ to create the illusion of spatial recession in your paintings? Accurate angles and perspective would seem important in your work. Does color play a more or less important role in the illusion of spatial recession than the traditional perspective in your work?

John Lee: I have always liked the idea that if you paint the relationships, the space takes care of itself.I don’t use something like a vanishing point or do something purposely to make the space recede.When I see something not sitting spatially, I adjust it, of course, but it has to do with the color not being correct or the sharpness of an edge or a transition being too jarring.I like the idea that it’s just painting color relationships correctly to make the painting work.But correctly may not mean copying nature.The angles are naturally part of making it work. Everything is both a color and a shape.The shape has an axis and edges.It goes back to the earlier question about the geometry of the drawing in relation to the color. I think it’s all important (like the color and the drawing) and organically intertwined.We dissect composition for convenience to discuss paintings and teach painting to others.

Study for Teeth like a Brit, 30 x 26 inches, Oil on Linen, 2021

Teeth Like a Brit, 30 x 40 inches, Oil on Linen, 2022

LG: Your paintings often emphasize diagonals or orthogonal lines; you don’t seem to stress the vertical/horizontal grid-like relationships. Is this something you think about?

John Lee: In hindsight, I realize that when I get an idea for a painting, I prefer to be positioned slightly off to the side to create a diagonal composition. It’s not an overly dramatic diagonal, but it’s not a direct frontal view either. I believe that a frontal view might appear too flat or symmetrical, whereas a diagonal view creates a sense of depth and discovery. When viewed from an oblique angle, the planes in the painting appear to rise upwards, yet they still seem grounded and in line with gravity.

LG: What would you say is most critical for your compositions to get right?

John Lee: After giving it some thought, I have concluded that everything must feel right. It may sound vague, but composition is about achieving that sense of harmony. A perfect painting for me creates an open and grounded space, but doesn’t necessarily invite someone in. The color must be unique and interesting, yet it should also blend seamlessly with the spatial plane of the painting. In other words, I want the unique quality and weirdness of the color, but I also want the color to feel like it exists within the space of the painting.

The painting should strike a balance between functionality, storytelling, and abstraction. I don’t want it to be too abstract or too grounded in reality. It must exist somewhere in the middle, negating those two extremes. Although it is an abstract painting, I want it to be based on observation.

Not for Domestic Use, 44 x 34 inches, Oil on Linen, 2022

LG: Has there been some idea or practice in painting you once strongly believed in that you’ve changed your mind about?

John Lee: No, but I have spent time thinking about artists and genres coming from a different perspective.I read a few books about Frank Stella, for instance.As mentioned earlier, while at the Pennsylvania Academy, I got into researching academic teaching for a couple of years and was a bit obsessive about anatomy for a year.I tried some crosshatching. In the past, I was an avid researcher of the 1980s art world and the painters they were influenced by.As a researcher, I got into Pop, Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Expressionism, and Neo-Conceptualism.In retrospect, it was all just curiosity and trying to understand particular art worlds
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But really, everything clicked for me in the beginning due to the excitement of observed color and light.I immediately fell in love with painters like Fairfield Porter and Lennart Anderson, who were immediately available.The love of color soon led me to see that left leg in Leland Bell’s 1976 ‘Morning’ painting (in Fox Weber’s book).The understanding of space and movement that I got from Bell opened the world of painting for me, alongside the eye for color and light from the color spot ideas, and it has built upon this foundation ever since.

Under the Fitted Sheet, 56 x 56 inches, Oil on Canvas, 2022

LG: In your teaching, do you ever find that students and faculty today are more concerned with issues of social relevance, narrative meaning, and the student’s intent, important concerns to discuss in critiques? Have the more traditional criteria about where painting can go wrong visually taken a lesser role? Are the measures for evaluating ‘good’ and ‘bad’ art different today than what you experienced as a student? Does that matter?

John Lee: Students somewhat understandably want to make something meaningful, and they know that social or personal subjects are meaningful.They make an image or form that depicts that meaningful subject, either directly or indirectly.Whether they work figuratively or non-figuratively, from observation, photo, imagination, or memory, they understand a particular subject and want to communicate their ideas.They want to tell their story, whereas I want them to hear one: that of Matisse, Picasso, Morandi, or Mondrian.Artists communicate through the types of marks, the interaction, and the color interaction.For example, there is meaning in where the horizon line is located in a landscape painting. The visual form tells a story; it’s not about pointing outside of itself to find meaning.But those types of concerns with teaching have always been there!They go back as far as I can personally remember.I can recall many examples of badly painted images that are supposed to have meaning because of their subject matter, that one might see in studio classrooms or galleries.Mercedes Matter wrote that article about teaching art in 1971, I think. And I have always held the New York Studio School in the highest regard.I can remember the first time I saw the school’s catalog in the spring of 1990 and how it spoke to me.
But does it matter?I am hopeful with my teaching and want everyone to get it.I want them to see the color and feel the gravity, empathize with the subject visually, feel the movements and counter-movements, and understand something about visual dynamics and how they have inherent meaning.

Submariner, 22 x 24 inches, Oil on Canvas, 2004

LG: To what extent can irony and conceptual aspects turn what might have traditionally been considered a ‘bad painting’ into a ‘good painting’?

John Lee: I have heard of an infamous art exhibition around 1979 or 81, a NY show titled ‘Bad Painting’ (I believe that was the title).I could look it up, but from my memory, painters like David Salle were included.I think I read that Leland Bell saw Salle’s work and didn’t understand why it was painted the way it was (when you think of a classic Salle painting).Someone attempted to explain to Bell that the painting was painted badly on purpose, and Bell remarked, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ This is just my memory from reading this in the late 1980s.I showed this interchange (from an art magazine) to my painting instructor then and said that Bell doesn’t understand the irony of making art from that perspective.But I was also 20 years old and interested in the 80s art world and painters that Warhol influenced.I hadn’t developed an interest yet in painters like Cezanne or Matisse.It takes time and development through some depth of immersion to appreciate the quality and feeling in painting.At the same time, there were things about painting that I instantly gravitated towards (like color).

I suppose I am saying that if you don’t see the interaction of form, you will more likely gravitate towards another interpretation, such as irony or conceptual.Perhaps a standup comedian can mock someone else’s life and get a laugh only because the comedian and the audience have not lived that (mocked) person’s life.They are not inside that person’s life.I tend to think that painters appreciate painting because they look at it and are living the life of the painting.The painter can see and imagine the thinking and the feeling that went on to make that painting; they can see what the painter was responding to and how they are shaping it.Fairfield Porter talked about the idea that the person looking at the painting lives the painter’s life ‘vicariously.’The painter can see into the painting and discover the impulse and the motivation of the painting.

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I’m pleased to present this email interview with the Long Island based painter Bruce Lieberman who has been painted landscapes, figure compositions, still life and more since the 1970’s. He recently had paintings showing in work in the group show, “MASTERWORKS OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTING” at the Center for Figurative Painting in New York where Lieberman exhibited along with an incredible array of stellar artists such as Lois Dodd, Lennart Anderson, Paul Georges, Wolf Kahn, Louisa Matthíasdóttir, Neil Welliver and many more. Bruce Lieberman, in his early days as a painter, participated in many of the Figurative Painter’s Alliance meetings in NYC where the leading figurative painters gathered for boisterous discourse on a wide range and often heated art topics. I thank Lieberman for sharing his memories and thoughts about this and for his comprehensive discussion about his background, process and thoughts on artmaking. Bruce Lieberman is represented by Gallery North in Setauket on Long Island and Ross Contemporary, Chicago

Artist’s Bio:

Bruce Lieberman was born in 1958 in Brooklyn, New York and in the late 70’s and early 80’s he studied with the Mel Pekarsky and the sculptor Robert White at Stony Brook University. Robert (Bobby) White introduced him to Paul Georges and in turn the figurative art world and the Figurative Artist Alliance. Lieberman went on to study at Brandeis with Georges and received an MFA from Brooklyn College in 1983 studying with Lennart Anderson.

His first one-man show was at Pene Du Bois Gallery on the Lower East Side in 1982. He exhibited with A.M. Sachs Gallery and was represented by Gotham Fine Art until a major theft caused the gallery to close in 1988. At that time a landscape painting was included in the book, 20th century Long Island Landscape Painting, by Ronald G. Pisano and subsequently Bruce became associated with the Long Island landscape tradition and movement.

Bruce Lieberman’s work is in numerous museum and private collections worldwide. His paintings have been exhibited in many galleries and museums in New York and on Long Island. Critical review and commentary have appeared in books, newspapers, journals and magazines, including: The New York Times, Newsday, Huffington Post, and El Diario for example. For several decades he has given workshops, lectured and taught. Currently his work is on exhibit as part of the collection at the Center for Figurative Painting, New York.

Since 1993 Lieberman’s studio has been full time, on the eastern end of Long Island where he resides in Water Mill with his wife and two dogs.

Excerpt from a catalog essay by Jennifer Samet:

“Bruce Lieberman doesn’t shy away from “no-nos” imposed by the contemporary art world. He paints flowers, butts, and leftover Chinese food. He has a sense of humor that rings loudly in his painting, like when he punctuates a scene of blooming zinnias with a “birdy” rather than a real bird (a slightly askew garden stake), or a lumpy, awkward piggy bank in the middle of a breakfast table still life. He knows the rules and he also knows that life is short. His is a land of plenty — not shallow materialism — but of the sensual pleasures of tamed nature, sun, sea, and flesh.

Lieberman almost never paints one tree – he paints the thicket. These repeating vertical forms, (relatively) bare in his winter paintings, become a kind of drumbeat for this recent body of work. The insistence on serial, repeated forms make it hard not to think of Minimalism, even though Lieberman’s work couldn’t be more antithetical to this aesthetic movement. While the Minimalist artists used seriality to articulate space, commercial manufacture, and an impersonal objecthood, Lieberman is determined to show the artist’s hand, the painterly gesture, and the effects of natural phenomenon — sunlight and air — on these forms.”

COVID 19 Spring, 50×40 inches, oil, 2020, Collection of The Center for Figurative Painting, NYC

Larry Groff:   In your talks and interviews, you talked about studying with Paul Georges at Brandeis University as a special student. Later, you studied with Lennart Anderson in the Brooklyn College’s MFA program.

I’m curious to hear how the ways Paul Georges and Lennart Anderson approached teaching and painting played out for you as a young student. I see their styles as being quite different, even contradictory at times, with Georges’ monumental large-scale paintings, sometimes with confrontational subject matter, he painted with bold flatter, higher chroma, and value contrasts vs. the more gentile, intimate, naturalistic, and harmonious close-toned and soft atmospheric edges of Lennart Anderson. 

Pool thru the Green Bushes, 48×52 inches, oil, 2020, Collection of The Center for Figurative Painting, NYC

Wall of Green, 60×48 inches, oil, 2017

Bruce Lieberman:    I was aware of, but not focusing on, any of those contradictions. To Paul, every problem had a formal solution. There might be many solutions, many roads, and it was always about color. He was loud, big, bold, fun, and seemed freer and looser than Lennart. I saw Lennart as free and loose in his own way, albeit slower and more deliberate. They both shared a concern for capturing what you perceive in the real world. But Lennart dug deeper. With Georges, it was composition and structure.

In the late 70’s, I studied with Robert White, the sculptor, who felt he had given me all he could, so he introduced me to his old friend Paul Georges. So, when I went to Georges’ studio for the first time, my girlfriend and my mother had nagged me to put my work into one of those big black portfolios and put on my little blue sports jacket. I was digging clams and farming oysters then, and it was an understatement to say I felt awkward. Paul looked at my work and my sports jacket and said I looked like a dentist. He said, “Frankly, I don’t see what Bobby White sees in you, but I don’t take a recommendation from Bobby lightly.” So, we confessed to him the mom/girlfriend story. Paul said if we go with him to the Alliance the next day, we can talk more; if not, Not. So, we went. That was his style. 

Commedia-dell’Arte, 46×58, oil, 1998 – 2010 Private Collection

Paul, much later, pushed me to get an MFA with Lennart. I went to Brooklyn only for Lennart. I already knew him from the Alliance and openings. And I was already showing in NY and arrogant, which was a byproduct of the Alliance and Georges. Still, anything Lennart said was gospel. While at Brooklyn, I did find Bob Henry, who, like Paul, was a Hoffmann student. He was tough and fantastic. A great painter married to another painter, Salina Trieff, whose work I adored.  

Paul was hypercritical of other artists but had this deep and great respect for Lennart. Because of Georges’ praise, Lennart was now godlike in my book and had magical powers. So, I paid attention. That said, the Georges’ stuff was already in my blood by this time. But I was committed to this whole thing being a marriage of sorts. 

Lennart always amused himself by calling me, “A Georges’ Guy.” Back then, I was sort of enamored with expressionism. From over his glasses, Lennart looked and lowered his voice. He said that he, too, started out as, or once was, sort of an expressionist. He had found it too lazy and too easy. Deep down, I must have agreed, and I threw it off. 

Compost, 16×16, oil, 2017

Garlic and Seeds, 20×16 inches, oil, 2016

LG:     How did you reconcile these differences in style and teaching methods, and how that helped form you into the painter you are today?

Bruce Lieberman:   I was looking for a way to understand my painting and improve as a painter. I was a blank slate when I met Paul, so I embraced everything. We had a lot in common, so it was easy. He spoke of composition in a way I had never heard before, relating it always to how Titian, Bruegel, or De Kooning for example, constructed and organized work. It was about the surface structure and the unity. Or simply, how did or how would Rembrandt, for example, handle this or that particular problem? 

His work method was approachable to me, and how he taught these things appealed to my nature. Just dive in and take off on a big wave. With both guys, there was no pussy footing around. No schooly exercises. There it is, and paint it.

What was similar and different about them? Everything and nothing. Georges was like Gandalf taking you along on a journey, and Lennart was the sage on the mountain who slowly imparted  knowledge. But the differences between Lennart and Paul were more minor than the similarities. I chose to see it that way. I married it all by finding the similarities and allowing the differences to become semantics to me. Color vs. Tone is just words. I chose to see no argument with the men’s ideas. Just possibilities and different personalities. It was about the conversation of elements that make a painting. They were all things to use- all just aspects. What each guy believed, in my estimate, was that each color, whether dark, light, cool, warm, saturated or not, has a personality that perhaps did or didn’t get along with its neighbors. If you understand the characteristics and possibilities of that color- the words; value, hue, and saturation…, become just words. The variety of color and the sensations they offer, as they relate to the other colors and shapes on the surface, is the issue. How you use and when you use the darn things. A darker red, less saturated, cooler, or warmer red, is still just a color. It is just different and holds a different power and place in space or creates a different response/reaction to another shape or area of color. That’s how I married the ideas. Their ideas. 

In the end, I found it was all the same. It was the dance that they both loved, not the differences of the ideas. Lennart said he could only teach me to be more like him. Georges was the same but more open to what others might do. It was all about PAINTING, after all. It was the similarities that you could glean. If Lennart was about tone, then my, Georges’ trained, brain just interpreted those tones as different colors. There is no actual conflict there. I use black as a color to make a color, not to darken a color. The darkening was just a byproduct of creating a new color. 

Big Field, 80×114 inches, oil, 2004

For Paul, one structures a painting in terms of color and shapes. Color does not mean just pure saturated color. Every aspect and characteristic of that color is – a different color. So, what is important are the masses of color and where in space they appear to exist, how they hold or yield power, move your eye across the surface and back and forth between the planes. Flat pieces of COLOR moving in space but yet on the surface. Soft edge, or hard edge, who cares, but all conceived of as flat. 

In some fashion, they both were speaking about this, Paul and Lennart. But mostly, it was Paul. But they spoke the same language, albeit with an accent. It is a language of seeing and how one is perceiving the real world. Lennart may throw the word tone or value around more often, maybe into every one of his sentences. 

Morning Light Water Mill Fabric, 20×16 inches, oil on linen, 2023

Lennart Anderson’s teaching style:

The gems that Lennart left me were two most important things: Paintings emerge from a fog and are about the similarities and the differences. 

More than anyone, Lennart gave me a steady diet of trying to get the observation stuff – the color, for example- spot on and really upped my ability to work from observation. Nail stuff down solid. Lennart pushed me to see the similarities and differences between things. Which helped everything. He found the holes in how I worked. It was my habit to exaggerate color, allow paint to build up on the horizon’s edge, and let paint accumulate everywhere, creating some annoying texture that interfered with the narrative. I never used a palette knife to scrape it all down despite his suggestion. I did not even own a palette knife and wouldn’t get one. I can still see him slapping his forehead in disgust, comically gesturing to the heavens while shaking his head and proclaiming, to no one in particular, that it’s not his fault…. “A Georges’ guy.” A friendly version of Seinfeld and Newman.

Lennart Anderson, 16×24 inches, oil, 1983

To illustrate the gospel of the similar and different, let me talk about:The Raisins.

Lennart said my work was covered with them. They were the key to my understanding of everything Lennart. I jumped way down in tone, hitting a serious dark way too fast. He showed me how to find the tones between the ones I had. Those differences of tone I did not even know existed. And it was the same for the highlight. He would, by catching the light on the ferrule of the brush, establish a benchmark for the WHITE. The whitest thing on the painting- blank canvas. Holding that sparkle up and comparing it to (seeing the similarities and differences) what you thought was white, only to find that white is not what you really see. White is never white. You might find that the white is really way down in tone and actually has a touch of something…blueish, reddish or greenish to it. Thrilling. Holy crap, I was seeing the differences. Color, browns, whites the darks I would never think about or see the same. (But I still like to exaggerate the color.. Georges, I guess.)

Weirdly I saw Lennart speaking the same language headed to the same place but just taking a direct route. Obviously, their work is very different. But they both produce these serious things from deep inside themselves. Painting was not only about being observant of the subtle relationships, differences and similarities. But embracing them so they, the relationships and forms, emerge from a similar fog of tone or color. 

The “Emerge from a Fog” idea seems self-explanatory, but it was the other important Lennart-ism I took away. The FOG idea of Lennart’s is everything to me but I say that about Hoffmann too. Perhaps I married those ideas. SEE those Lennart differences and similarities in the fog, then organize and structure it through Paul.

Sea Memory, 6×12 inches, oil, 2008

I translated Lennart’s fog as the ambiguity- the similarities of color or tone I saw in a puddle and mush of paint that only suggested form (and the color) you pull from the swamp. Lennart told me to first draw free and loose on the canvas and not be “married” to the bad drawing. One you did for the painting in only 20 minutes and then stupidly be a slave to it- just fill in the colors? Let the thing evolve and grow through the life of the painting- emerge from the fog. Without going into detail, it was also how Georges worked as well. Sort of.

The Temptation-Italian Angel Eve 33.5×44.5 oil 2019

Paul Georges’s teaching style:

Georges took you into his world. I studied informally with him for several years and then went to Brandies for a more formal dose. We spent time at his studio with his wife and family. Went to openings, parties, shows, drew, drank, and even gathered oysters. All the time while he held court and preached Art…. Art was our religion. I became a regular at his Monday night drawing sessions, the Alliance and often tailed along on his various group studio visits and critiques. All were very casual and informal. He would do these great studio visits where we drank wine, and he critiqued work. Once a week? Once a month? He would carry a big heavy bag of art books and rifle through them to show us how something was painted, how it was flat, a pictorial device, how to organize the surface and deny perspective. 

Deconstructing how Manet painted an object, and he and Goya played with space. They ignored what was accepted as correct to maintain the integrity of the picture plane; the Dead Christ of Mantegna, Goya’s 3rd of May, and Manet’s The Dead Toreador were all his examples. You do what is needed to be done, and when it is needed, throw rules away (foreshortening in this case Giotto, Piero, Bruegel, Titian – Everyone….. The whole history of Art was his examples and furthered our sense that we were in this noble tradition- and part of it- a continuum through history. Part of this proud lineage that went to the Greeks. 

Georges quoted/referred to and, I suspect, mostly synthesized Hoffmann’s teachings all the time- It was everything. It was Hoffmann, Leger, and Paul himself as part of history. He dragged us back, or rather, history up to meet us. It was our guide and mentor. No giant was left sleeping, and their place in Olympus was ours to aspire to. Paul taught that history revealed a common thread of how one organizes a painting. How their paintings–all were constructed and  composed–how color was controlled and used, and how utterly flat it all was. The formal aspects that they all shared. 

View Thru Thorny Vine, oil, 30×30 inches, Collection LI Museum of Art

Georges was about flat color and how everything about painting is FLAT! That became the mantra. One of many. “Paint it flat.” Think about it as flat; see it as flat. Conceive forms as flat. Flat color shapes. Georges allowed me to let things happen and embrace the mistakes, the humanness, the drips, and the accidents. Then think – step back and think about your painting and the structure. Feel free to alter and change at will. Destroy at will. Paul was in the front row of a wild boxing match. Lennart was a sunny day of baseball, quieter and more deliberate. 

I was recently reminded about the Paul “see-saw.” Paul, looking at a painting of mine that was a real dog. Said to me, “Cousin, symmetry is BORING! Asymmetry is balance, too.” It is like having a big blue shape balanced by a tiny little blue shape because it sits just in the right spot on the see-saw(painting) or is super powerful. The shape’s or color’s strength will also bring it forward—Hofmann’s playbook.

Regarding tone, Paul ranted about tone or, rather, modeling. How TV and photography poisoned us to think about things in terms of black and white- as tone and detail. You had to develop the ability to see and think about the abstraction- the flatness of things. The color and shapes dancing, moving the planes, creating space, and denying it. (Hoffmann) Ways to destroy the horizon line and still allude to a place in space. Setting the planes free. That was Georges in formal terms. A new additional mantra would pop up through the years. ‘Don’t be self-conscious,” “Big shape up,” and “down in back” or “down to go back.” These come to mind. I heard it from him whether we were visiting a studio, drawing, digging oysters, or drinking wine, at the jet games, wandering museums… and it was all wonderful…all great. All ideas would be illustrated by referencing one of the great masters or a particular painting. 

Call First – Water Mill Summer 40×50 inches, oil, 2013

He seemed a master of finding the underlying systems in paintings – interesting repetitive systems or devices that held the construction of the painting together. Unified the structure of the thing- the surface. It felt like we were sitting in the park with Socrates. Walking thru the big Matisse show at the MOMA with Don Perlis and Paul, he was telling us about the space and the devices Matisse used. It was about how Matisse was making space… The foreground was always above something that dropped you back into the painting. (Bruegel Hunters in the Snow, Fall of Icarus)

LG:   In what ways might the emotional resonance found in the visual and non-objective aspects of abstraction translate to landscape painting? Is there a connection between how abstract art can evoke emotion and how landscapes can connect with viewers on a deeper level?

Bruce Lieberman:    

These days, the landscape dominates my subject matter. I’m in there, hiding from life, but they’re often just a foil for making paintings and playing formal games. My work is inherently personal and emotional, and that shows up in my paint handling. A bold gestural stroke is expressive and emotion-laden by nature. Making no attempt to hide the marks, the human touch, they are in many ways more relatable because of their humanity.  My presence is in your face, full of energy and vitality; inviting a shared human experience. Additionally, if the surface or planes in the painting are alive and dancing, they create a dynamic visual tempo. A musical jazz of rhythmic tensions- a textural richness evoking melody.

Sweeping Pink Field, oil-and-charcoal, 22×72 inches,2000

LG:  

The late Wolf Kahn, whose work is also in the “Masterworks of American Post-War Landscape Painting” show you’re in, made studio landscapes of forests and farmlands that explored color harmony and drawing that merged aspects of realism with aspects of abstract expressionism. What might be some thoughts you have about his work? How do your paintings differ or share similar concerns with his paintings?

Bruce Lieberman:  

I ‘ve always had a lot of respect for Wolf Kahn and his work. There is a shorthand to Wolf’s drawings, an economy that we shared. The abstraction in his work can be incredibly powerful and beautiful. More powerful than mine. He is the real deal. That said, I don’t see him as having any real influence on what I do. Ultimately, what the hell, we are all on the same team, all in the same struggle, and there is nothing easy about it. I remember meeting him a zillion years ago with Georges, and we all went to some downtown Greek restaurant. I last saw him at Lennart’s memorial, where I had a chance to tell him how much respect I had for him and his work. I was surprised by how touched he was, and I get choked up just thinking about it.

I don’t recall for sure, but I would venture to guess those Wolf studio landscapes were started on-site or at least from studies done in the field. If that is the case, I share that with Wolf—first, working outdoors and from direct observation, and then completing them in my studio. Only returning to nature if I’m lost and everything goes south on me. To avoid further frustration, I often note the date, time of day and atmospheric conditions on the back of the canvas.
So, if, after total frustration, I have to return to the crazy thing the following year I have a starting point. That said, once back in my studio, the work begins. Everything might change. Rhythms, relationships, and accidents are developed or exploited and anything might be thrown out the window.

Outdoor Decontamination Chamber, 2021, Oil, 30×40 inches

Recently, my work has taken on a nostalgic tone, a post-COVID reevaluation thing. I’ve been grappling with a batch of small, unfinished paintings, that had accumulated over the last three or four years.  Meditative things I just could not finish. Trying to imbue them with a sense of poetry and an ethereal quality, I decided to attack them- once and for all.

Health issues have forced me to paint these without solvents, leading me to a drier technique including scraping with a palette knife, à la Lennart. Something he never could get me to do.  Jokingly, I refer to this group as my “Corot/Lennart-y” paintings. Although more, often than not, I was really thinking of, a sort of “The two roads diverged…  lost in a dark wood…,” type of thing. (Frost and Dante)

That said, while I was working on these I did think of Lennart. He would occasionally show up unannounced and try to mess with certain passages in my painting. Sometimes, finding it a peaceful and amusing intrusion, I allowed him in. 

black sky and field, 72×72 inches

LG:  

You’ve said in the past that you wished you could have studied with Hans Hofmann. Have you read Tina Dickey’s 2011 book, “Color Creates Light: Studies with Hans Hofmann”? https://www.amazon.com/Color-Creates-Light-Studies-Hofmann/dp/0986651109 This book goes into great depth about his teachings and thoughts on color and light, an excellent read for any painter.

Bruce Lieberman:   

I haven’t read Tina Dickey’s 2011 book, “Color Creates Light: Studies with Hans Hofmann.”

I did want to study with Hofmann, but alas, he was dead. So, it was a problem. However, Hofmann students were everywhere; all over the art magazines and exhibiting in galleries and museums. Early on, Robert (Bobby) White had a beautiful show of his terracottas at Graham Modern with Robert De Niro.  I was floored -transported to heaven by those paintings. De Niro and De Kooning were my heroes, so that was that.  I sought out Hofmann’s students. Hofmann is still in my head today, albeit through Paul.

Georges hosted a drawing group every Monday in New York and relocated to the Hamptons in  the summers.  Many Hofmann students regularly attended, including Jane Freilicher and sometimes Mercedes Matter. I loved and absorbed every word.

Tree Studies 30 x 102 inches, Acrylic and Charcoal on Paper, 2018

LG:  

Hofmann wanted to respect the flatness of the 2D picture plane and not use traditional perspective and such to give the illusion of spatial recession; instead advocated the often cited “push and pull” of colors, where the degree of color contrast, chroma, and temperature create a sense of depth.

Does this concept have any relevance to your work?

Bruce Lieberman:  

Hofmann is very relevant to my work. It is about composition,  the whole unified surface. In some ways, it is everything I do. The way color works its way “all over” the surface- from side to side, back to front, and top to bottom, creates a sense of tension and movement. It’s about weaving color and space, utilizing color and its characteristics to establish depth and spatial organization— unity and tension on that flat surface. Playing games with space by destroying and denying it. “Making and breaking space,” as Paul would say. It’s about the way color spreads ‘all over’ the surface—from side to side, back to front, and top to bottom, creating a sense of tension and movement. It’s about weaving color 

Bitch of a paddle, oil 68×46 inches, 2014

LG:  

Can you give more specific examples?

Bruce Lieberman:    

In a nutshell, your eye might first be drawn to a specific color or area of a painting, such as vibrant red. It blares like a beautiful trumpet solo, demanding your full attention, until another color takes command of the stage. As its power fades and yields the floor, your eye is drawn to yet another color or area which now steals the spotlight. In this way, the composition remains in constant motion, rocking and rolling- as your eye is forced, from color to color in and around the surface.

This blue could represent a sky shape nestled between tree branches. If it is made to change in tone, temperature, or intensity, the result is that it would occupy different spatial planes, adding a sense of dynamic movement to the composition. It’s sort of a Cubist/Mondrian-type vibration that allows planes of color to dance rather than remain static, contributing a musical rhythm to the painting’s surface. The sky shape occupies a contradictory space, both advancing and sitting back simultaneously. Particularly in relation to the other bluesky shapes. Ah-ha! Surface tension at its best!

I hope all of this makes sense. I remember Paul Georges discussing some genius idea of his, something like, “Down in back or big shape up.” I asked him, “Why don’t you write this stuff down?” He laughed and responded, “If I write it down, it won’t be true.” I get that, but then again, I would.

Early Spring View NW, 16×20 inches, oil on linen, 2023

Study for Covid Field, oil on panel, 10×10 inches, 2020

LG:   

Your artist statement talked about your work as a ‘battle, dance, or a collision of accidents’ in which you compose, exploit and contort relationships. This is a great summation of the painterly approach. Could you delve deeper into what this process feels like for you? How do you navigate the interplay between intention and accident, control and chaos? 

Bruce Lieberman:   

I just allow the shit to happen and exploit it when it does.  Evaluate, assess, and re-assess, trying to be fearless about the whole thing while simultaneously beating myself up.  I have to remind myself that it always sorts itself out somehow and in some way. There is always a solution; a formal issue like the color that will navigate my ass out of this chaos.

When you do it enough, it just happens, and when it does, you are ready for it, prepared to react to the unexpected and use it.

Apple Tree and Path, 16×16 inches, oil, 2021

My process is about riding this chaos. Beginning in a mess and trying to wrestle something out of it. I start with a very loose free charcoal drawing, sometimes redrawing over it with ink. On occasion I will mess it up even more with a thin mix of acrylics and gesso, offer more opportunities and “fog” to navigate through. There are no tricks. Having a somewhat romantic attachment to Action Painting, my whole process is active and rather athletic.  That alone lends itself to an expressive emotionally charged paint.  Allowing for accident and mistakes that offer endless possibilities as well as troubles. I work wet into wet, fast and gestural although a painting takes months or years to complete itself. On a good day I’m just along for the ride.

North Snow, 16×20 inches, oil

So, how do I navigate the interplay between intention and accident, control and chaos?   

Thoughtlessly and thoughtfully. You to leave yourself and hit that zone. Lose yourself in between some intelligent decisions.  I am prolific- to a fault perhaps. I have come to see the process as a chance to embrace being human and the marks and accidents as footprints of the journey- the human experience.  What it is for me to be a painter. I’m just not neat, clean or slick even if I wanted to be.  I try to fill my world, the picture plane, with intelligent decisions. Try! It is a metaphor for life – life is chaos! Mine sure can be, and mostly I feel like I’m just swept along for  the ride. But things happen in sometimes tragic ways. Same in painting to some extent.  Certainly, life can be very peaceful and contemplative, but very often it is about juggling all of the moments. We are all just trying to keep our heads above water and make it back to shore and not wipe out on the reef.  Thru, all that thrashing around, juggling the stuff, and the chaos, we try to remember to enjoy the ride. Seems like painting to me.

Pandemic life confined me to my property, so I turned it into a palette full of motifs. I don’t do preliminary drawings/sketches much anymore, thanks to a hand injury. Instead, I use small paintings as studies for larger ones, revisiting subjects to really get what they’re about.

How to PAINT it. I work on paintings for years and years. Lennart and I used to joke about how this happens…since sometimes I could/ would finish a painting in about 3 hours. I got the feeling he related and spoke from experience, if it fell flat, he laughed, it would now take, not the 3 hours, but 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years.

GRAY WAVE – Cork in a toilet, oil, sand, sea and charcoal, 48 x52 inches, 2014- 2020

LG:   

Please tell us something about your paintings in the amazing show at the Center for Figurative Painting in NYC , “Masterworks of American Post-War Landscape Painting” exhibition(July 11-Dec 28, 2023). The show has many luminary painters such as Lennart Anderson, Rosemarie Beck, Jane Freilicher, Paul Georges, Wolf Kahn, Aristodimos Kaldis, Albert Kresch, Gabriel Laderman, Louisa Matthíasdóttir, Philip Pearlstein, Fairfield Porter, Seymour Remenick, Paul Resika, Neil Welliver. Many of these painters, including yourself, were active to some degree in the Figurative Artist Alliance that was active in the 70’s, is that part of how the work was selected?

Ground Hog Day – Driveway Selfie, 2020, oil, 42×60

Bruce Lieberman:  

I’m told the connection I had with some of the folks in the show and the Alliance, had to do with my paintings being selected for this show. At the Alliance, I was just another young painter  sharing in the experience. A few years ago, after CFP saw my work in an exhibition at the Nassau County Museum of Art, several of my new paintings were purchased for the collection.  So, now my work is hanging in a show with my heroes and friends. Of course, I’m loving that.

The paintings in the Center’s collection were part of a group I jokingly refer to as my “Covid Driveway Paintings.”  In October of 2019, I caught something from my students who had recently returned ill from China. After 5 sleepless nights gasping for air, I went to the hospital. So, my pandemic experience was rather serious. At that time, no one heard of COVID. Eventually, I was told I had lung disease resulting probably from years of turpentine and damar use. Had to go solvent-free and subsequently shorter and drier paint rather than the very wet and drippy stuff I was used to.

Come spring, I was setting up my easel at the edge of my driveway incredibly amused by the idea I was stopped by some imaginary force field. Working at the furthest edge of my property I painted in every direction but still afraid to leave.

LG:   

Can you tell us more about what it was like being a part of the Figurative Alliance back then?

Bruce Lieberman:  

As a very young painter the late 70’s/early 80’s the Alliance was – thrilling. Being there felt like I was living a version of the old Cedar bar days -an embodiment of that Abstract Expressionist spirit. There were serious conversations by serious painters- men and women who were dedicated and very passionate about painting.  Often fiery, wild, and wonderful, the Alliance was full of regular working stiffs. Someone described it as a “Wild West bar room.” Sounds right, but it was also a Scorsese Lower East Side New York mob movie set mixed with a bit of the Star Wars bar.

I first went to the Alliance the day after I met Paul.  As per his suggestion, I drove him and his wife, Lizzette, over from his Walker Street studio. As he got into my car, he said,” it is a good thing that you came tonight. Cousin.” Which meant I was in, and I was The Cousin from that day forward.

The Alliance had its share of cantankerous souls and emotionally heated debates that were all typically punctuated by loud, chaotic, angry yelling, laughing, and jeering. Nobody was going defer, or be deferential, to the anyone. The crowd suffered no fools. There was also a surplus of bigger than life personalities. Paul Georges being one of these. 

That first night they had four very heavy speakers. Hilton Kramer, Irving Sandler and two others, who I just can’t recall. I also don’t recall ever seeing the place that crowded again. Wall to wall artists, standing room only. Full of real painters. Alex Katz was standing a few folks down from me, Pearlstein, Rackstraw, Lennart everyone listening to these big cheeses talking. It was a very cool experience for a 19/20-year-old kid. That evening it was shockingly loud, and the crowd was ruder and perhaps more than characteristically, tumultuous than I would ever see again.  There was no shortage of noise and taunts from an audience who were all fighting for a turn to hurl comments at the panel. Then Georges stood up and the room went silent. My girlfriend, now wife, dug her nails into my arm. We were in shock. We did not know anything about Paul.  Just that he was a Bobby White’s friend, real painter, with a real studio, and a Hofmann student. Seeing him command such respect, I was sold. 

From my stupid kid perspective, it was amusing to view the scene at the Alliance like a high-school cafeteria with its distinct cliques. I’m sure these folks didn’t think of themselves part of any group, they were all just friends and fellow painters. But each group seemed to have a unique style, which I thought of as, “a smell” to their work. The Brooklyn guys all had these domestic street operas, Life on the Stoop; in retrospect maybe they were really a Queens Laderman group? Or maybe Lennart’s old students? Among others, there were also the Leland folks, our Georges wedding party and the others- I referred to as the ‘side guys.’ One such group was seemed centered around Peter Heinemann, who had a reputation for being tough and street-wise looking for a brawl. They scared the heck out of me. The myth was that he, an ex-golden glove boxer, after a few drinks liked to punch people out. I stayed clear but one day after a Bowery opening, sitting at the bar in Fanelli’s Peter sat down. Over several drinks we talked about life and art. He was a wonderful artist and a nice man.

I read a characterization of Paul that I found surprising. I was blessed to tag along with Georges and his friends, a group of artists deeply, even obsessively, engaged with ideas. This wasn’t a group of “henchmen,” but a community of serious artists grappling with issues of significance. After the Alliance meetings, a group of us would migrate to Mare Chiaro, a bar in Little Italy, where our discussions would continue but now perhaps somewhat alcohol-fueled. Conversations were deep and thoughtful, revolving around the act of painting, and maybe seasoned with a bit of gossip. I might have learned more about painting at these places than anywhere else.

Rough Winter Beach, 2010, oil, 16×16

LG:     

Lately, I’ve tried to guess what percentage of the people at art receptions are over 60 or so. Art shows that feature painterly abstract or representational paintings seem to attract grey hairs more than green hairs.

 Do you think that there is waning interest from younger people for the formal, visual concerns that our generation held dear? If this holds true, what do you suspect the future of painting will be like? I think fewer folks care about what I consider pure honest painting.  Painting base on perception and some version abstraction that implies to a consideration of surface and materials.

Bruce Lieberman: 

Maybe we go to the wrong openings? I’m not too optimistic. For years I’ve trained students in some form of traditional painting and drawing, only to see them diverted toward more conceptual programs. I saw good painting students, after leaving me, making installations maybe just to please the rest of the faculty. I have a few ex-students, who stayed with it. Perhaps most did not see the depth that is required to make work that is both personal and powerful. Paintings that aim for a form of poetry and demand the viewer’s participation and contemplation instead of entertainment. Instead, they often mistake honest perception for some surface depiction of reality, looking for some sort of “finished” product. Paintings that are pretty beach house sofa art or just look like they are about photography. I’m exhausted by it all. Anyone with a brush is a painter these days. Galleries resemble furniture stores but without furniture. The future? I have retreated inward. I just paint. Hopefully, the future can’t find me.

LG:   

The population explosion of painters over the years has made it extremely difficult for lesser-known painters to find venues to show and sell their work. The fact that many galleries can no longer afford to stay in business compounds this problem.

When I was in art school in the 80s, there was little or no discussion about how to survive in the real world as an artist other than to get a job teaching or find someone to support you. Any thoughts on this topic you’d care to share?

Bruce Lieberman:  

Beats me. I managed to survive in spite of myself. But maybe it was a good thing to not focus on how to survive. You need a day job, a rich partner, or teaching, but the adjunct thing pays nothing these days and living costs a big something. Maybe art schools should teach a trade or at least push business classes.

There might be more artists than before, but potentially there are more opportunities. The digital age has opened up a realm of possibilities that simply didn’t exist before. I’m clueless about it all.  It is certainly easier than making and dealing with slides. We can all remember slides. There are also a zillion residencies and grants available. As Dave Hickey points out, in an interesting fun rant, today’s model for success is about building such a CV filled with such credentials rather than having great work.

Corn,  oil, 36×57 inches, 2008 – 2017

Young artists need to be part of something- a circle of artist friends – a community. They need a support group to help them paddle thru the rough surf, make and seize opportunities. In the Hamptons, perhaps there more such opportunities than elsewhere. Here, many of my former students have carved out a niche for themselves; they’re showing and attending the right events. They are working “it.” They have style. I hope they also find substance too. For me it is always about – the PAINTINGS- not how well you can crash a party. While some may be buoyed by early success and an adoring crowd, the real challenge lies in sustaining that heat and creative momentum.

LG:   

Can you tell us something about your experience in getting your work shown and making a living as an artist?

Bruce Lieberman:  

Getting my work shown was a direct result of having the work- because of my work. But it was also the fact I was out there! My rule was that every ten openings, something would happen.  I attended art openings regularly; I sought the company of artists who were more accomplished. They were folks who thought my work was worthy of- something. This made me work more and push myself harder. 

I love that Abstract Expressionist story, true or not, that they all figured they would never make any money painting.  Some purist thing I took to heart. The painters I knew, all banged nails, painted houses, or made a living teaching. They did what they had to do. And they PAINTED.

I did my day job just well enough to keep it. I dug clams, farmed oysters, banged nails, painted houses, and sometimes had three different things going at once. Then I taught. But I always painted. I would wake up at 3:30, drink a gallon of coffee, and paint before work. When I came home, I worked until dinner. Putting in ten-hour days on the weekends and during school holidays, I kept it going. Paycheck to paycheck, painting sale to painting sale, I raised my family. Well, maybe my wife deserves ALL THE credit for that.

Social commitments like attending NYC openings and Monday drawing sessions lasted until my age and physical limitations intervened. I’ve had my share of lucky breaks and setbacks—two years’ worth of narrative paintings were stolen from a New York gallery, and I spent five years paying off legal fees. No longer being in New York had its drawbacks, but I kept painting.  I worked as if history was watching me. That is how I survived.

Finding the right gallery has always been a challenge for me. Finding one that believes in both you and your work is hard to come by. My approach to courting galleries is lackadaisical at best, and the results are predictably inconsistent. I’m in no hurry. Yet, over the decades, I’ve managed to show and sell my work. This business model is not for the faint of heart; it’s suitable only for both the delusional and those living on a teacher’s pension. My delusion and success lie in placing value in the process—in the making of the art itself, and earning the respect of those painters whose opinions I hold in high regard.”

Canna Lilies, 70×54 inches, 0il, 2022

LG:

Is there any specific advice you can offer young artists navigating today’s saturated art market, Or is it all hopeless, and just paint for the love of it?

Bruce Lieberman: 

I lean toward the latter. I think it is all hopeless, and you should just paint.  Paint because you can’t help yourself. Make the best paintings you can and then get out and network. Surround yourself with artists who are more skilled and experienced than you are. Show your work wherever and whenever possible. Find a way to make money so you can be free to paint what and how you want- and the way you want to.

If I haven’t imparted any advice yet, here it is:

Paint because you love it and need to. Paint as if history is watching. Just paint! I know it is a silly thing to say and perhaps even sillier to do, but do it anyway. Paint for history. Just strive to make the best work possible so that it might actually be worthy of that silly ‘History’ statement of mine. In my view, that is enough of an ambition. Just tend your garden. Strive to create better than mediocre paintings. Expect to fail, but just maybe, every so often, you catch some lightning in a bottle.

Moe’s mini parked 5pm, oil, 18 x 24 inches, 2020

The post Interview with Bruce Lieberman appeared first on Painting Perceptions.

Review by Christopher J. Graham, guest contributor

Its Getting Dark, Joey Cocciardi’s current show at The Lodge features twelve explosive paintings. Their compositions vary between apparent firework-inspired bursts to glowing auras from an astral plane, leading the viewer to a place of ephemera. Their surfaces are worked over through layers of applied painted paper and surfaces whittled down, courtesy of an orbital sander. The result is a rewarding peek into the history of the painting’s structure.

FRWK-2203 (courtesy of The Lodge)

The works in the show all have variations on the name FRWK, an abbreviation of the word firework. The largest painting in the show, FRWK 2203, features neon colors as they reach through a dark shroud. It is relatively centralized with an abstracted “burst” prominently featured in the work. The largest painting in the show seems to have a textural component in common with later Richter Cage paintings. With observation, the viewer can see how paint was removed from the surface and reapplied to others. In the depths of the void space, there are flecks of white- small illustrations of stars- allowing the work’s dark space to expand into the cosmos.

FRWK-2309 (courtesy of The Lodge)

Many of the compositions in the show feature single “bursts” of a firework against a void that shifts once in color, usually in the shape of a halo. By painting variations on the same composition Cocciardi highlights key differences in the work, making slight compositional tweaks feel like a departure. An example of this is FRWK 2302 with its celestial burst transforming into cartoon-stylized stars along the outer frame of the piece and FRWK 2309. In 2309, Cocciardi wears down the surface just before they become unintelligible. With careful examination, the viewer can see the echoed compositional framework from 2302.

FRWK-2302 (courtesy of The Lodge)

At times the bursts in the FRWK resemble things other than fireworks. FRWK 2306, features a washy pink, green and yellow form that seems to cut in ribbons through a darkened black and merlot-tinged void. The composition suggests palm fronds, so common in Los Angeles, they ground Cocciardi in a specific locale. In FRWK 2312, the artist hides faint green and yellow swirls that resemble patterns created through batik or tie dye against a cerulean halo.

FRWK-2314 (courtesy of The Lodge)

Welcome is FRWK-2314, with its three-headed burst. The painting reminds me of some of Harold Ancart’s UFO paintings, with its ascending movement and jagged formal lines. These bursts illuminate the void space that they occupy. Elsewhere in the show, evidence of a Spirograph is present, this element of play comes across in the work through the slight resemblance to “scratch and sketch” style children’s coloring sets.

Since most of the paintings in the show are 14 x 11 inches, a sense of pictorial scale becomes quite important. How the bursts interact with the edges of the canvas surface, can indicate their supposed sizes. The pictorial shifts in scale, though slight, introduces variation where formal qualities remain lean.

Cocciardi’s Its Getting Dark at The Lodge shows an artist exploring the ideas of working a surface, and material reduction without being reductive. Flashing colored forms against contrasting void space unifies the compositions to create a cohesive body of work. The effect of these paintings has something in common with the moment after a firework explodes, the smell of gunpowder and the smoke hanging in the air. After the firework show there is often a moment of awe in the aftermath, spent marveling at the beauty and technicality of the feats on display, and this is no exception.

Joey Cocciardi Its Getting Dark, runs from July 22nd to August 12th 2023.

The post Joey Cocciardi at the Lodge in LA appeared first on Painting Perceptions.

The Greening, 2023, Acrylic, pumice, various pastes on panel, 18X24

I am pleased to share this email interview with the painter JoAnne Lobotsky, and I would like to thank her for her time and effort in writing thoughtful answers to my questions. I’ve been following her work on Facebook and have been especially intrigued by her many compelling works exploring abstract visual concerns, and I wanted to learn more about her. Many of her paintings entice us to join her roadmap adventure through a dense, sculpted topography of thickly impastoed paint and collaged elements that often suggests a whimsical aerial landscape or perhaps a microscopic cellular view.

Lobotsky is currently showing work in summer group shows at the juried show at the Blue Mountain Gallery as well as, CONNECTIONS VII – AN INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION OF ARTISTS, at the Atlantic Gallery, in NYC, NY both shows are up until July 29th.

From her website :

JoAnne Lobotsky has been a New York City-based artist for over three decades. She studied sculpture at the School of Visual Arts in New York City with Alice Aycock, Judy Pfaff and Elizabeth Murray, where she graduated with a BFA cum laude. She also studied printmaking at the University of Colorado at Boulder and painting at the Art Students League of New York. In the recent past, she has had two solo shows and won several prizes in group shows for her work.

Larry Groff:   What led you to decide to become an artist? I read that you grew up on a farm, which has influenced you and your work in several ways. Where did you grow up? What do you remember about making art as a child? 

JoAnne Lobotsky:   It is the details and feelings of nature that inhabit my work. I was immersed in nature as a child. My mother taught me to notice and enjoy the beauty in all of it, macro and micro. I enjoyed drawing as a young child and began to take it more seriously in fifth grade. Although in kindergarten, I remember critiquing other kids’ drawings and telling them that the hair does not go all the way under the chin and that there were five fingers on the hand, and that people had necks, etc. The inaccuracies just annoyed me. I vividly remember stealing another’s idea for drawing curtains in windows that I thought was very clever. But in fifth grade, I started obsessively making studies of my left hand in different positions. My art teacher told my mother that I would be an artist one day and I felt happy and excited. So I guess that was the start; the positive reactions by people to what I created reinforced my enjoyment and confidence in creating. I grew up in upstate NY in a very rural area. The house was surrounded by forest, as was the farm. I knew every inch of it. As far as actually being an artist, that was a long, gradual process. When I went to SVA in NYC, I began to take it the most seriously. I had an aunt who was an amateur artist and my Russian grandfather’s cousin, who was also an amateur artist. I have one of his paintings of the family farm. He later died in a fire in his house in France set by the Nazis during WWII. He was running a safe house for Jewish people and they found out. But other than that, I did not have any exposure to art as a child.

The Storm, 2023, Acrylic, pumice, various pastes on panel, 12X12 inches

LG:  What was your earliest meaningful experience with a museum?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   I was first taken to an art museum by a more sophisticated and slightly older friend when I was a senior in high school. We went to the Museum of Modern Art. Just going to MOMA was meaningful for someone like me who had no previous exposure to art. She also took me to the West Village, which was full of hippies at the time. I loved all of it. Later after moving to NYC from Boulder in 1979, I visited PS1 in Queens (when it was simply an unrenovated abandoned school building), and that was a real awakening to what was possible. It was more interesting than a museum for the surprises and possibilities and, not least – located in a building like that. Lots of Arte Povera, ephemeral art, and site-specific type work as I recall. All those types of art influenced my focus in art school and beyond. It’s too bad we didn’t have the habit of photographing all our experiences then. I would love to show some photos of PS1 back then.

Olive Grove, 2023, Acrylic, pumice, various pastes on panel, 12X12 inches

LG:  You got your BFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York City in sculpture, and you studied with Alice Aycock, Judy Pfaff, and Elizabeth Murray. You later studied printmaking at the University of Colorado at Boulder and painting at the Art Students League of New York. Can you tell us something about what studying with Judy Pfaff was like?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   The order is University of Colorado 1976-78, School of Visual Arts, where I graduated with a BFA cum laude 1982 and then years later, The Art Students League in 2001-2003 to study oil painting. (Before all that I did two years at a community college.) I had transferred to SVA from CU and lost a year of college as I had 3 years already. In my first year at SVA, I somehow slipped under the radar and did not take the required painting or sculpture classes. Instead, I took printmaking which is what I was doing in Colorado. That caught up to me, and I was required to choose between the traditional categories of painting or sculpture for my final year. I thought it was so old-fashioned to confine serious art to just two categories, but I had to do what was required. Painting seemed foreign to me, so I picked sculpture. And – surprise! – it really opened up my world. So, unfortunately, I only had one year of exposure to those artists. Alice Aycock was probably the biggest influence since she was the one I was taking sculpture with, but Pfaff and Murray, as mentors and artists were hugely influential on my thinking and practice. All three were such amazing artists working outside what anyone would traditionally think of as simply painting or sculpture. It felt like anything you could dream up was possible. I think it was the sense of freedom and expansive view of art that I took away the most from them.

Yellow River, 2023, Acrylic, pumice, various pastes on panel, 18X24 inches

I wanted to mention why it took so long to get my BFA (7 years). This was partly because of travel which hyphenated and enhanced my scholastic education, and partly due to money. After graduating from a community college in 1974 right after high school in upstate NY, I moved first to Denver and then quickly to Boulder, Colorado for the experience, not yet for school in 1974. I was a typical free spirit of those times – less about formal education and more about experiencing different things. The following year, I went to North Africa and Europe with two friends for eight months. I was in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco for five months and Europe for three months. It was an incredible experience. (In the mid-1970s travel overseas was pretty cheap.) I started school in Boulder when I returned, but it was part-time due to having to work. I was not a practicing artist yet, nor did I plan to be, but I took printmaking classes and was pretty serious about it. Then after five years in Colorado, I moved to NYC in 1979 and soon matriculated at SVA. I have since traveled to many countries. Experiencing other cultures and seeing their art has enriched my practice as an artist by just opening up my world.

LG:  What was art school like for you? Any particular event or story most influential to you as an artist?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   Art school was the most wonderful experience—just the total freedom to experiment. I really love experimenting. I tried fiberglass like Eva Hesse. I was devoted to Eva Hesse. I tried concrete floor sculptures. I built things out of wood and used other materials like sand, mold, and rust. It was all great.

Student work, 1981, wood, chicken wire, cheesecloth, rhoplex, pigment.

Mechanism of Correct Procedure,1985, wood, canvas, rope, acrylic, 98X48X6 inches

JoAnne Lobotsky:   I had no idea what to do after I graduated in December 1981. It was very difficult. There was no instruction at college on how one went about having an art career and no social media yet. The only instruction I got was from another instructor who told me not to work at anything like art for money – like fabric design or commercial art because it would ruin me as an artist. Graduate school was out of the question. No money and I had to pay off my student loan and support myself. And no interest, time was moving on. But then SVA appointed me their representative at the OIA (Organization of Independent Artists) sculpture garden at Ward’s Island in 1982. Every year a graduating sculpture student was chosen. So working on that was a focus for a while. Later that year, I moved to DUMBO to an illegal loft with a friend and had a lot space to make sculpture – mainly installation-type work on the floor and wall in that loft. It was enormously fun to live in DUMBO and I lived in three different lofts there during those years. This is when it looked like a ghost town of empty warehouses, factories, and deserted streets. But artists lived in some of them, hidden away. We were a community. It was somewhat dangerous and felt kind of like the wild west to me. But as far as professionally, it was hard going. I’m not a natural schmoozer and am an introvert. I mean, I basically grew up in a forest! The internet has made things easier since then. But it is never easy.

And I am sorry for dirt and the quality of these slides from the 1980s and 1990s. They’re significantly damaged.

Esprit de l’Escalier, 1986, wood, stain, enamel, linoleum, 127X93X108 inches

Open Book, 1987, plywood, wax, oil paint, 93X48X4 inches

A Little Girl, 1986, wood, enamel, metal, wheel, 39X42X49 inches

JoAnne Lobotsky:   I work full time at my art. I never taught, but I worked in the corporate world for many years. I no longer have to work to support myself. This is the best time of my life. I’m grateful every day. I really can’t believe how lucky I am. It’s a dream come true.

LG:  Have you always been working non-representationally? I saw where you made some abstractly flattened landscape paintings from aerial views. Would you ever consider making something from direct observation?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   Those aerial views and other types of fantasy-based “landscapes” that I named “Terradaptions” were heavily reliant on work in photoshop to prep for them. Those paintings were my first real paintings, beginning in 2002. I did do some representational encaustic paintings during the time when I had “quit” art for seven years due to many reasons – that was mainly in the 1990s – and then breaking out of that period, I studied oil painting at the ASL for a couple semesters at night. I did not consider those encaustic paintings “serious” work, but I had to create something although I had given up my art career, such as it was. The aerial paintings were made mostly after my time at ASL, but some during. It was interesting working things up by applying various filters to them and changing colors and distorting them in Photoshop from the satellite photos, but then painting from those Photoshopped photos was a bit boring for me; not too many surprises. So eventually, I realized I had to work more intuitively. And that was such a relief. Abandoning Photoshop happened around 2012. As far as working from direct observation, I plan to try it at some point. It might be interesting to try abstracted landscapes en plein air. But I think I may get bogged down in details from immediate observation, whether from photos or plein air. And then the work becomes too literal. It’s more engaging for me from memory or invented. But I will try it at some point and see.

I-36 , 1991, encaustic, wood enamel

Untitled, 1990, wood, encaustic, enamel, gold leaf, 35X39.5 inches, Including homemade frame as part of the piece. It was made during the seven years of stepping back.

Some aerial paintings called Terradaptions:

Plexiluvial Coast, 2009, oil on canvas, 16X20 inches (Terradaptions series)

World’s Fair, 2006, oil on canvas, 40X64 inches (Terradaptions series)

Tomorrow, 2008, oil on canvas, 54X40 inches (Terradaptions series)

Deep Dive, 2011, oil on canvas, 44X44 inches (Terradaptions series)

JoAnne Lobotsky:   The Pandemic had me trying other materials, although I did start working with textiles at the end of 2019, just before. My husband and I fled the Bronx, where the rate of hospitalization and death from Covid was rising exponentially, for a little over two months in Stowe, VT, at the beginning of the Pandemic in 2020. I stuffed the car with various exotic papers from Mexico, Thailand, Japan, Africa, etc., and various vintage fabric remnants – a lot of silk from Japan, burlap and other things and my sewing machine. I was working on textiles and collages while there in a little ski house. No, I mostly cannot pivot day to day from one type of art-making to another. I wish I could; it sounds lovely. I concentrate on one thing at a time for a period. I may continue the paper-based work at some point because I think that it is interesting work, but I don’t think I will return to textiles.

Textile related works

Textile Drawing #1, 2020, Used fabrics, homespun cotton, cheesecloth, canvas, various threads and walnut ink on linen, 13X12 inches

Version of the Past #2, 2020, Hand dyed indigo linen, vintage “boro” fabrics, velvet, various threads, wool roving, wool neeps, 21.5X17 inches

Version of the Past #4, 2020, Linen, various threads, burlap, canvas, felt, Japanese antique hemp mosquito netting, cheesecloth, cardboard, wood, acrylic paint, 13X11.5 inches

The Initiate, 2020, Various vintage fabrics, lace, cheesecloth, beads, trim, ribbon, feathers, buttons, rusty nails on vintage linen, 31X17 inches

Cache Cache, 2020, Vintage Japanese kusakizome, cheesecloth, vintage kimono silks, embroidery floss, 19th century rusted square nails, wrapped stick, thread, feathers, walnut dye, bleached mulberry, 67X15 inches

Under An Open Sky, 2022, Acrylic, paper mâché, mica, quartz sand, mulberry bark, pumice on torn and layered heavyweight watercolor paper, 40X38 inches

There Will Come Soft Rains, 2021, Acrylic, cardboard, eggshells, paper mâché, Hanji paper, pumice, encyclopedia pages on heavyweight watercolor paper, 30X24.5 inches

Metamorphosis, 2021, Acrylic, quartz sand, cardboard, pages from old encyclopedia, heavyweight watercolor paper, 34.5X17 inches

Dryad, 2020, Acrylic, pumice, monoprint, copper brads, on heavyweight watercolor paper, 24X18.5 inches

LG:  Does your work evolve intuitively and improvisational, or do you have a plan beforehand? How would you describe your process regarding how quickly it goes from being an idea to a finished piece? Do you draw out studies for a piece?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   I never draw, except to maybe sketch a rough shape or two. But I would like to start drawing as a practice in itself – as I keep saying to myself. In my most current work, there is a basis in the physical world of nature and landscape that I abstract from. It is very interesting starting from something real and recognizable and then “forgetting” about that and giving the painting what it needs as an abstraction regardless of making any sense. It has me thinking differently. But these new ones are just baby steps so far. So yes, except for those Terradaptions paintings mentioned previously, it’s always been intuitive and improvisational, although I may have colors in mind or a vague intention. But I respond to the paint I put down and follow a path that is made up as I go along.

LG:  How long do you generally work on such pieces, and what goes into making you decide they are complete?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   Well, it’s different with each piece and depends on the size. Some are more difficult. Some are larger. But I think I am moderately productive. I’m pretty decisive. At some point, I like to stop and think about what each piece may need, if they are done and they just hang on the wall for a few days. That is a fascinating question for me about deciding when something is done. It often seems that due to any intention at the start and all the decisions I make afterward, it leads to the only conclusion possible, and maybe it’s just okay, or perhaps it’s good, or maybe it’s great. You know, it’s an experience that takes you down a road that might not be all you hoped for — or might contain amazing surprises. It’s the ones that don’t arrive in a good place that I struggle with, of course, due to an unclear focus. It has not found its voice or its identity. And then it’s usually paint over it or abandon it. I stop when it feels natural to stop and I feel there is nothing else to be done to it. You know, it’s so tied to who you are, your experiences with art, and your attitude towards painting – the stopping point. And then sometimes I feel like I could work on a particular painting forever and it just keeps evolving in a significant way. That is a wonderful experience, those types of paintings.

I mean, I do stop, of course. You do have to be careful not to overwork something and lose what energy and freshness you have. If anything, for most paintings, I may stop sooner rather than later because I like awkwardness, mistakes, and imperfection. It’s not good for me to dwell too long on a painting because I believe I tend to edit toward conventionality. However, I am currently reevaluating my stopping point and experimenting with expanding it to see what happens.

LG:  Many of your works are deeply textural, synthesizing sculpture, collage, and painting. Most appear delightfully tactile and have evocative compositions. What are some of the ways your decisions about texture inform the structure of the piece and vice-versa?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   I find this a difficult question to answer. It might be too granular, and I can only answer generally. My work is more visceral and perhaps integrates my rural upbringing with my experience as a sculptor. Texture is how I elevate a painting from its 2-dimensional nature while allowing my sculptural sensibility room to evolve instinctively.

Bad Math, 2021, Acrylic, ink, Nepalese Lokta Paper, cardboard, Japanese Ogura lace paper, pencil, vintage fabric, bad math on heavyweight watercolor paper, 30X22.5 inches

You Probably Still Believe, 2021, Acrylic, pencil, charcoal oil pencil, book pages, letter on heavyweight watercolor paper, 30X22 inches

Abstract Wild, 2021, Acrylic, modeling paste, Powertex hardener, string, mulberry bark, tiny paper balls on heavyweight watercolor paper, 31.5X22X3.5 inches

Early World, 2022, Acrylic, quartz sand, pumice, cardboard, cheesecloth, Nepalese batik lokta paper, fabric, pebbles, shells on heavyweight watercolor paper, 36X32X1.5 inches

A Hard Rain, 2021, Acrylic, acrylic skins on heavyweight watercolor paper, 25X27 inches

JoAnne Lobotsky:   It’s pretty simple – I choose gels or pastes with the desired texture or quality. They all have their unique properties. I usually have a favorite, which changes through time. Right now, it’s fiber paste which gives a satisfyingly thick rough texture. Earlier, it was pumice gel which looks like small pebbles. That can be a nice contrast with any other smooth paste or gel. Molding paste makes the paint thickest.

Foreign Field, 2019, Acrylic, metallic acrylic, molding paste, glitter, small paper balls, pumice on panel, 24X24 inches

Foreign Field Detail

Velvet Morning, 2018, Acrylic, molding paste, pumice on wood panel, 30X24 inches

Twilight, 2019, Acrylic, silver acrylic, molding paste, micaceous iron oxide on panel, 24X24 inches

Fossil, 2019, Acrylic, acrylic skin, molding paste, canvas scraps on panel, 24X18 inches

Beginner’s Journey, 2019, Acrylic, molding paste, pumice, micaceous iron oxide, glitter on panel, 24X18

Blind Valley, 2019, Acrylic, molding paste, pumice, aluminum leaf on canvas scraps on panel, 30X30 inches

JoAnne Lobotsky:   Yes, in my Terradaptions series of the aerial landscapes. I did a lot of work manipulating them in Photoshop in every possible way. Then I painted from that. See my answer to question no. 7. I do not use a computer in my current work.

LG:  What art show have you seen recently that made an impression on you?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   That would have to be Mark Bradford at Hauser & Wirth in NYC. Huge works full of texture and color on the second floor and more muted ones on the third. I could have just fallen deeply into the paintings called “tapestries.” Fantastic layers and excavations in his work that include the personal, social, historical, and emotional – all for the most part submerged or subsumed by abstraction.

LG:  What artists have you looked at the most and been the most influential?

That answer would change with each body of work. Right now, for my current abstracted landscapes work, I am looking at artists who make landscapes along the same lines. Artists like Soutine, Yi Ling, Kirkeby, Robert Datum, Gabriele Münter, Vasyl Khmeluk, Duncan Shanks and there are others. And Zhu Jinshi too, although more abstract, sometimes reminds me of landscapes or gardens, and I love his thick paint. I know it’s all been done very well before, but it is a path I feel I need to go down now. It feels right.

LG:  There are so many new things to worry about these days, climate change, AI, pandemics, political upheavals, and mass shootings, to name just a few. How do you triage these worries so your mind can be free for art-making? Does art help you cope?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   When I am in the studio, everything else falls away. I guess it’s an escape in a way. All worries, both personal and worldly, are gone. I concentrate fully on what I am doing. Making art is an experience that you have to pay attention to; you can’t phone it in. The best experience is when I start connecting with associations that are very fleeting – various moments either remembered, dreamt, or imaginary that create little bursts of joy. I don’t know what that is – I guess it’s part of the “flow” state, which has been likened to meditation. So I would say, yes, making art is crucial to my well-being. I am someone who always has to be doing something.

LG:  In the past many artists believed in the power of paint to reveal some truth – either metaphysical, poetic, or symbolic nature. In more recent times, many modernist artists are more likely to want to be more formal or art for art’s sake; of course, many artists today have an ironic post-modern attitude. Where do you see your work fitting into this paradigm?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   I’ve been more art for art’s sake, I guess. But I want art to express something poetic or emotional that reaches other people. I mean, it is, after all, a form of communication. Maybe I am post-ironic? I just want to create in a way that is authentic to my experience in life. I guess that’s pretty old school. I don’t adjust my focus to whatever the current fashion in art is. The types of work that I find compelling are primarily based on mid-century art. I see art-making as a journey or a quest.

LG:  Do you think art makes any real difference in making the world a better place?

JoAnne Lobotsky:   Funny, I was recently reading in the NYT this: “There’s a “really robust body of evidence” that suggests that creating art, as well as activities like attending a concert or visiting a museum, can benefit mental health,” said Jill Sonke, research director of the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine. So, yes, in the sense of opening people’s minds to new ideas and ways of seeing. And it definitely adds to the quality of one’s life and to the quality of “furniture” in one’s mind. Certain types of art can also bring awareness of social issues, which inspires discussion. Art can facilitate understanding between societies with different values. And between different kinds of people living in the same society. Art is also a historical record – it expresses what it felt like to live in the world at a different time. It can be a kind of time travel. Unless that is presumptuous to think we can understand a time or a society, we don’t live in. But people would have to step into an art gallery or museum and engage with what they are looking at, or at least try to, for art to affect them, for the most part. There are many who never do, so looking at art in a museum and engaging with it, and having it affect your well-being or outlook on life is a culturally privileged activity (but not necessarily bound to any particular class). And I think, if you want to change the world, put that brush down and get out there and do that!

Spring Snow, 2023, Acrylic, pumice, various pastes on panel, 12X12 inches

Thursday Afternoon, 2023, Acrylic, pumice, various pastes, small paper balls on panel, 18X18 inches

Blue Trees, 2023, Acrylic, pumice, various pastes on panel, 18X24 inches

The post Interview with JoAnne Lobotsky appeared first on Painting Perceptions.

Path to the Lords Pavilion, 2016, pastel on board, 16 x 20 inches

I’m pleased to present this email interview with the Elgin, Illinois-based painter Timothy King. I had wanted to find out more about his life and work after seeing his work online and when he wrote about his studies with Stanley Lewis for my interview with him a few years ago. I was impressed by his leadership of the Midwest Paint Group, which has held several terrific exhibitions that often featured the work of modernistic mid-western painters who work from observation in some way. I’m especially pleased to share this interview as his 45-year retrospective at the Kishwaukee College Art Gallery in Malta, Illinois has just been shown. I was grateful to receive his gift of the stunning print catalog for this show, where example after example of his paintings reveals the depth of his emotional engagement with his chosen motifs from nature and compliments the intensity of his painterly response and compelling compositional structures. King pays forward the tradition of modern perceptual painting in the spirit of his mentors, Wilbur Niewald and Stanley Lewis.

Excerpt from the Timothy King Retrospective catalog essay, A Life of Visual Sensations, by Stanley Lewis

“I keep looking around for other painters who are hooked on setting up their easels in front of trees, bushes, houses, sidewalks, clouds, etc.–the urban landscape. There are only so many painters who are interested in this. For one thing, it is very inconvenient—lots of stuff to carry and something that can go wrong with the weather. Tim King has been plowing away at this for 40 years, consistently working on his visual concepts. Setting up and painting in every place he is living and trying to get through that day, this show covers all those places and times.
The same situation existed for every outdoor painter who has done this at any time. Corot, Cézanne, van Gogh, Wilbur Niewald, Rackstraw Downes, and Tim King. You look out there, set up to paint, and say, “this is impossible. There is no way I can paint this.” This retrospective shows a lifetime of such outdoor painting.” – Stanley Lewis

Tyler Creek, Wing Park, 2018, oil on Canvas 42 x 54 inches

Bio from King’s website timothy-king-studio.com/,

“King studied at the Kansas City Art Institute with Lester Goldman, Wilbur Niewald and Stanley Lewis. King’s work has been exhibited in Chicago, locally and nationally, notably in New York at the Bowery Gallery, as well as at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, MO. He is a founding member of the Midwest Paint Group. His work is in the collection of the Sheldon Swope Museum of Art in Terra Haute, IN.” He is a member of the Bowery Gallery in NYC, had shown work at the Kate Hendrickson Gallery, Chicago, IL. He taught at Kishwaukee College, 2014 – current), Professor of Art & Design see his CV for more

Larry Groff: What led you to put on this 45-year retrospective?

Timothy King:  I needed to look back, catalog my artistic life, and consider my achievements. I’m coming up on ten years as an adjunct professor at Kishwaukee College. Other faculty had done shows there over the years, so it was my turn. Initially, I wanted to do a retrospective; unfortunately, the pandemic delayed the show until now. When the gallery reopened, the manager wanted to change the plan to do a trimmer, current works show. Unfortunately, last year I underwent heart bypass surgery. When I fully recovered, feeling better than ever, I decided this show had to be a retrospective. I also considered the Kish Art Gallery. It’s a unique space; the architect designed it as a gallery with ample square footage and a vast open viewing space for art.  

Kishwaukee Art Gallery Retrospective Installation

Kishwaukee Art Gallery Retrospective Installation

LG: Your retrospective catalog must have been quite the undertaking. The photography, color correction, and layout must have been much work. Did you do this yourself? Would you recommend using Amazon print on demand?

Timothy King: I designed and published my catalog with 195 pages and 175 artworks, of which I exhibited 134 pieces. I had to re-photograph most of the art. My colleague Loretta Swanson wrote the introduction, and I worked with Stanley Lewis to get his essay. I included ten poems by my wife, Elizabeth Stanley King, and Walter King, my brother, who wrote an essay. Getting it all together for the catalog was a tremendous job, but I’m also a 37-year veteran graphic designer.  

 Amazon Kindle print-on-demand is a fast, affordable, quality way to deliver an art book. It usually takes a day to go live on Amazon and for sale. Delivery takes three days. The quality is close to Blurb.com, the best in the industry, but a lot less expensive than Blurb.  

The catalog is available on Amazon, from this link – Timothy King Retrospective 

LG: What led you to want to be a painter? I understand your brother, Walter King, is also a painter. Anything interesting to say about your family?

Timothy King: My older brother Walter and I were artistically talented. Mom was an artist, so we got a lot of encouragement. During my high school years, Mom and Dad opened an arts and crafts store called the King’s Glue Pot in Tulsa. Mom taught art classes, and Dad made woodcraft products. He did picture framing, too, and taught me how. We all helped run the store. Walter and I were each top high school artists, but I started college first at Columbus College of Art & Design. Walter is four years older and didn’t pursue college, so I entered him in the CCAD new student portfolio contest after Christmas break. The first he knew was in receiving his scholarship award. When I decided to study painting because I always loved it, my painting teacher recommended I transfer to Kansas City Art Institute for its reputation as a painting school.

Walter studied Illustration at CCAD but was also a serious painting student. He studied with Nathanial Larrabee. After getting our BFAs, Walt went to Boston University, and I went to Tulsa University without any mentorships. I was still working from my KCAI accomplishments and rejected what the one TU painting professor offered. After 30 years, Walter retired Emeritus Professor of Illustration from CCAD. I’m an adjunct professor at several schools and teach full-time. Becoming painters, somehow, was ordained for both of us. We’ve done three two-person exhibitions in Columbus, Chicago, and Cordoba, Argentina.  

King’s House, Backyard View, 2022, oil pastel on canvas, 20 x 20 inches

Walter King, Becca’s Backyard, 2019, original watercolor, 15 x 21 inches

LG: You went to Kansas City Art Institute in the early 80s and studied with Wilbur Niewald and Stanley Lewis; what was that like for you?

Timothy King: I was at KCAI from 1976 to 1980. I studied drawing and then painting with Wilbur Niewald for one semester of painting and a couple in drawing. I appreciated his ability to get you to see the model in that north light studio. Wilbur was chair of KCAI painting for a long time and built that department into a fantastic painting school. He brought in younger painters like Stanley Lewis and Lester Goldman. Altogether there were seven painting faculty, and I studied with five. I was with Stanley Lewis for three semesters and a couple extra for drawing. I got to know Stanley best and formed a lasting friendship with him. I kept in contact with Wilbur and visited him several times before he passed last year. I studied at four schools, and none were as great as those days at KCAI.  

Female nude in Chair, 1977 graphite on paper 13.5 x 11 inches

Female Model in Chair 2, 1979 graphite on paper 17 x 11 inches

LG:  What did you learn from Wilbur Niewald about painting the landscape and from life that remains critical to your current practice?

Timothy King: While I learned about landscape painting from Wilbur’s ideas and by looking at his work, my landscape practice developed during grad school in Tulsa. I did one unfinished landscape with Wilbur, but my time was spent primarily inside the studio, working from the model and still life. From Wilbur’s teachings, landscape painting was no different than still life to me. Wilbur taught abstraction through his idea about perceptual structure. He taught me that a convex and concave experience envelopes and weaves throughout space and form. I still see Wilbur lace his fingers together as he describes it. Wilbur also taught me tonal color. I remember painting a lovely glowing nude with soft, neutral warms and cools when Wilbur grabbed a brush, mixed up a brilliant red, and plopped a stroke on the nude’s face. That splash keyed up the whole painting five times. So many people think being a colorist is all about bright color, but Wilbur taught me a finer sensibility which I’ve tried to carry into my landscapes. 

(Done in Niewald’s studio) Male Nude Seated, 1977, oil on canvas, 18 x 16 inches

(Done in Tulsa) Tulsa Arboretum – Autumn, 1983, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

LG: What was Stanley Lewis like as a teacher?

Timothy King: I used a lot of ideas from Stanley, and he inspired me to write about those ideas and study drawing and painting analytically. I’m a theoretical thinker, so he encouraged me to write about painting. I’m a visual thinker, so the ordering of words presents me with great difficulty. I did go on to write my MA master’s thesis on binocular image formation in drawing and painting. The paper is posted on reaserchgate.edu along with my MFA thesis. In his classes, Stanley created different controlled experiments for each student. Stanley had me working on his “Two-Table” theory and had me make mockups from Dutch still lives. I would set up two tables tipped oppositely, in forward and backward tilt. The table positioning is more complicated than I’m explaining, but the point is that the painting captured the appearance of objects on top of one table, not two. In these setups, there was a reversing of the illusion of things positioned in space. The foreground and background objects in the compositions are juxtaposed in relationships. It was a play on the painter’s sense of form ruled by intuition over expectation. I continue to work on this idea in my landscape painting. Stanley and I have a shorthand language about ideas on painting. I’ve heard many more of Stanley’s drawing schemes than I’ve ever understood. Sometimes, he’d refer to the “Painter’s Form” as if there were ideas ingrained in the tradition of painting. I have always appreciated that Stanley taught to the individual in his classes and tried to help each find a unique knowledge bracket to work off. I’m sure he came up with teaching angles I’ve never seen. He is a remarkable teacher. I wrote about some of Stanley’s teachings for your interview with Stanley Lewis. Here is the link.  MY STUDIES WITH STANLEY LEWIS, By Timothy King (scroll to end).

Black Cast Iron pot and Ceramic Bowls on Two Tables, 1980, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches

Tabletop View of Lake Michigan, 2008, oil-pastel on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

LG:      You later got a MA in 1985 and then an MFA in Painting in 2006 at Northern Illinois University. I’m curious to know why you earned both the MA and MFA. Was it so you could teach in public schools?

Timothy King: I went back for my MFA in 2003 to teach college art. I got my painting MA in 1985 but had no support at Tulsa University, so an MFA from a different school was more appealing at that time. Stanley referred me to Yale, and I interviewed as a finalist MFA candidate. But it was a no-go. Then, Stan sent me to Parsons, where Leland Bell and Paul Resika taught. Parsons awarded me their top MFA scholarship. But ultimately, New York was too expensive.  Not going to Parsons is a regret. I had one more chance at Northern Illinois University in 2003. I graduated in 2006 and went right into teaching. I’m a full Professor rank, part-time, at Kishwaukee College teaching design. In addition, I teach drawing and design classes at several Colleges as a full-time living.  

Self Portrait, 1984, oil on canvas, 16 x 12 inches

Lets Play Dress Up, 2006, pastel on paper, 25 x 19.75 inches

LG: Your earlier work shows a love for painterly expression like that seen in Oskar Kokoschka’s work or the Bay Area Figurative painters such as David Parks and Richard Diebenkorn. Later, your work emphasizes a more tonal palette with light and value carving out the 2-D designs. In what ways do you feel your work has evolved over the years? What has been most important with your compositions, and what are your most important influences?

Timothy King: I have always painted with expression and liked Kokoschka’s landscapes early on. I was fortunate that I met with a former Kokoschka student giving a talk at Tulsa University. He concurred that Kokoschka thought himself a classist, not a German Expressionist. As for my Diebenkorn similarities, I found his flatness and simplicity were approachable. I’m still not a David Park admirer, but Walter appreciated him, so I paid attention. Walt studied with James Weeks and Nathan Oliveira at BU. I worked in sophomore painting at KCAI with Hal Parker, who studied under Weeks and Park at the San Francisco Art Institute. Walt and I have a fair amount of Bay Area school in our DNA. So, Walt and I shared a dialog about our respective teachers that worked to our advantage.  Here is a link to Walter King’s website: 

That Bay Area sense of painting got me early on. In high school, I saw my first Wayne Thiebaud painting of a woman in a bikini at Philbrook Art Museum. Many see the Balthus influence in that picture of my wife leaning on a gravity chair in her underwear, but the solidity of that Thiebaud painting influenced me just as much. Helion, Leland Bell, Derain, and Balthus were my most important influences. Of course, I copied from the old masters as one should.  

Becoming a Landscape painter, I looked additionally at Matisse, Cézanne, Courbet, Corot, Constable, Golden Age Dutch landscapes, and Italian Baroque landscapes. I’ve always believed in those painters. I’ve worked with a Matisse early and Fauvist color, but mostly I work in a solid chromatic tonal range. Natural color suits me, but if you look, natural is not quite at all simple. I like being free to move back and forth in color approaches. I’m trying to grasp a classical construction of form and color. I think I’ve been evolving since my studies with Stanley. I have seen my development in three logical stages, with perceptual painting widening my visual expanse of space.  

1. Peripheral Vision work; the idea for a painting and drawing through a frame with the left eye on the scene and the right eye on the picture.
2. Binocular Vision work. Also, a frame-based idea, the use of both eyes triangulating on the subject in the frame.
3. Binocular-Peripheral-Fusion work. My current work combines the first two experiences where I’m simultaneously inside the frame, rotating my head 180 degrees. It is a five-point spherical conception, but without the typical curvature other painters utilize.

Elizabeth on Gravity Chair, 1985, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

Tyler Creek, Wing Park, 2012, pastel on board, 16 x 20 inch

LG: How much do you plan out a painting beforehand? Do you make studies, or do you work it out on-site?

Timothy King: I have various modes of working. I like planning a landscape, but I will respond spontaneously to a view of where I end up. Sometimes those spontaneous situations teach me to be open to new ideas. I work out ideas for plasticity in compositions. What angle do I want to view the scene? How is the slope of scenery moving the space, and do I want to reverse that slope in my painting to make better sense of the forms? Usually, I go with one of several reversal approaches. My work is always a game of playing against visual expectations.  I’m working more on using my on-site work as preliminary to studio paintings. I’ve learned doing the studio landscapes that I need to increase the information I capture when working on-site. The process has become a feedback loop between my studio painting, plain-air landscapes, and life studies. As I get older, I want to work more on studio paintings, but it requires me to intensify my observations in the field.  

Oak Street Beach Lifeguard and Rescue Boat, 1994, oil on panel, 16 x 20 inches

Joy Ride Redemption: The Boy Who Didn’t Drown, 2006 – 2023, Oil on Canvas, 62 x 50 inches

LG: I often ask painters why do you paint from observation; so I’ll ask you that too, what are your considerations about this? What does observation offer you that working from memory, studies, or invention can’t provide?  

Timothy King: I prefer directly observable situations and on-site work because I’m interested in my visual perceptual process more than invention from imagination or fantasy. I don’t observe for appearance as much as to see and feel the sensual abstractions. There is a natural formation of the picture that is different when working from invented and memory compositions. Working from life helps to remove me from outside art styles and their influence. Painting from life filters out the imitation of others. Of course, I’m always looking at other painters, and I like seeing how they invent and use memory in their work. But working that way is less successful for me. Yet, I conceive objects like tree branches or a person directly from my imagination. I like inventing skies in the studio work. Sometimes those inventions stay in the finished piece. The innovations inspire further life studies needed to do the studio compositions. Mostly, I’m trying to free my mind in nature, working directly.  

Two Trees Standing Apart, 2006, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches

Randal Oaks Park #1, 2021, pastel on board, 16 x 20 inches

LG: Do you use a limited palette? How important is matching the color you see in nature exactly right?

Timothy King: I work back and forth between a full palette and a limited palette. Sometimes I’m lazy, and I start with black and white. Then I go into brown and green making it a Grisaille study, then adding blue and yellow. I react to color as I go. I’m not formula driven. The landscapes start with rough approximations, but I always seek a better color or tonal space. I want to avoid apparent local color renditions. I prefer atmospheric and indirect colors and look for unexpected color contrasts. I enjoy how a color starts interacting and changing in the color space.  

Haircut, 2022 oil on canvas 48 x 36 inches

Cornish Park, Algonquin Dam, 2019, pastel on board, 16 x 20 inches

LG:      When you paint outdoors, especially with premier coup-type painting, what are some considerations for evaluating the work in progress?

Timothy King: I’m interested in structure and form primarily. These are abstractions from visual experience; the spaces and shapes create interwoven rhythms. It is the way I trained myself to inscribe binocular and peripheral relationships. I always aim to set up a pictorial space with interlocking shape reversals. I tune in by flipping reality away from my preconceptions; when I hit that zone, I don’t recognize anything except the forms and the abstraction. When I’m there, I’m feeling not evaluating. I’ve learned not to judge progress because painting is intoxicating. I’ve learned that my rational faculty is distorted and not as realized as my moment-to-moment intuitional sensation becomes while working.  

White Oak, Tyler Creek, 2017, Oil on Canvas 12 x 12 inches

Lebanon Street 3, 2017 Casein on Canvas, 12 x 12 inches

LG:      How important is being faithful to what you see in terms of measurements, angles, and details as opposed to what you think the painting needs in terms of composition?

Timothy King: Measuring and sightseeing approaches are mechanical and academic to me. So, I use rectangular relationships instead. It’s a Mondrian approach, but I have a Soutine sense too. I’m drawing from the compressions and expansions of an anamorphic experience. Angles are essential to hook the space, especially when skewed in the reverse of what you’d expect. Placing the background into a frontal plane initially changes the shape and scale relationships. I’m always trying to merge depth into the picture plane and reverse meanings between the front and back, top and bottom. That’s what I consider composition. I’m capturing my moment in my visual relational system.  

Lords Park, in Autumn, 2013, pastel on paper, 19.75 x 25.5 inches

Home Street – Summer #2, 2018, oil on canvas, 24 x 34 inches

LG:      I especially enjoy looking at the trees in your paintings; they seem more about capturing the lyrical movement through the picture and the design than simply describing the trees that happened to be there, not unlike how Cézanne would use the trees to structure his painting.

Timothy King: I love painting tree canopies and didn’t realize most landscape painters avoid that subject because trees are so complicated. I think about how Cézanne and Courbet accomplished painting in the tree canopy. They are among the best at it. Establishing the tree’s architecture is essential to visualize and memorizing dominant segments for significant progress. Looking back and forth causes disorientation. I’ve found myself detailing in the wrong section. I’m setting up the rhythms to create depth from my binocularity, and I use triangulation to find a blue-sky breaking through the green. The abstraction of spaces and shapes is musical to me. And once a melody flows, I can more easily get into the canopy’s complexity.  

Wing Park Bluff – Elgin, 2008, pastel on board, 16 x 20 inches

LG:      When you go out to paint, what goes into your decision to use pastels, watercolors, or oils? Do you experiment with different techniques, supports, media, and such?

Timothy King: I’m not too fond of watercolor. I’m not like Cézanne at all. He painted in oil and watercolor revolving around the white ground to set up his light. That’s something I’ve always admired. But I use white and black in watercolor to tint and shade, and the paper’s white be damned. When I’ve experimented with mediums for oil painting, I’m concerned with drying times. I need wet paint to blend and mix on the canvas, but I also need to add bright colors over dark without muddying, so I like drying mediums. I’ve used acrylics that key my color up, and I see myself returning to them more. I love using casein paint working small. They feel and look like oils but have fast-drying qualities like acrylic. As close as I get to watercolor is gauche, which handles like casein paints, and you can rewet and blend wet over dry. I’m working on canvas, but I did work on panels for a period. I prefer oil-primed wood panels with a tan tone.  In working with pastels, I’m using chalk and oil pastels. I prefer square hard pastels like the Prismacolor Nupastel brand. I use a workable spray fix to form a crust every 30-45 minutes. I use toned pastel-matt boards and toned pastel paper of various warm and cool grays. I don’t usually blend or smudge except in the underlying layer. I want the color from below to filter up to the top in little chromatic specks. I love the serendipity of chance.  

Home Street in Summer, 2019, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

Walton Island Park 2, 2020, pastel on board, 16 x 20 inches

LG: I understand that Jean Hélion influenced and informed your work; his writings and paintings also influenced Stanley Lewis. You had Stanley painting and sculpting in an abstract and been involved in writing a short book about Hélion, Twelve Ways of Looking at a Painting: An Homage to Jean Hélion and Le Grand Luxembourg.

Timothy King: Stanley showed me how Hélion drew using a curvy rhythmical structure. Helion’s form seems to distort space around and through those figures of people; this is not the usual way of drawing accurate contoured outlines of things. Helion has an a priori reality used to construct forms, which hooked me to Hélion’s abstract paintings. Lester Goldman first showed me Helion’s geometric abstracts with strange, distorted shapes with no apparent geometric identity. I learned that Hélion developed weird short curving shapes in little signets of abstract structure. If you look, you see them in his later work, realist still life, and figure paintings. Hélion worked off those conceptual building blocks from his abstract period to build his art. I’m the opposite of how Helion worked. He worked from the simple to the complex, and I’ve never figured out how to do that. I’ve always wanted to work from the complex, to find those strange forming Hélion-like building blocks within some essence of my perception. I teach a two-dimensional design assignment based on Hélion’s little abstract motifs. Hélion is a significant and overlooked painter. 

Jean Helion, Le Grand Luxembourg, 1954-57, Oil on canvas, 118 x156 inches, Southern Illinois University Edwardville

Timothy King, After Helion’s Le Grand Luxembourg, 2013, pastel on board 24 x 30 inches Collection: Lovejoy Library Art Museum, University of Southern Illinois Edwardsville

LG: What is the community of painters like where you live? Are you able to connect with many other artists?

Timothy King: It is lonely here in the Midwest. A friend described the Chicago art scene as all spiders. It’s a fun idea. I enjoy seeing the Chicago art scene and love having conversations with my friends about contemporary art. A few weeks ago, I had a great conversation with my MFA nephew Daniel King at the Chicago Art Institute, whom I don’t often see enough. I have painter friends in Chicago, but we need to get together more. I have the Midwest Paint Group friends and new acquaintances in the Bowery Gallery. I’ve had regular contact with Stanley Lewis and my brother Walter. 

Lebanon Street 1, 2017, Casein on canvas, 12×12 inches

LG: You were the Director of the Midwest Paint Group for several years with several shows. What about your experience with this that might be interesting?

Timothy King: I’m still the Director of the Midwest Paint Group. The group is currently in a post-pandemic slumber. I created the MPG website around 2000. It was one of the first Internet art groups back then, other than the New York cooperatives like the Bowery Gallery and Zeuxis. We got some extra attention after I posted a portfolio of Stanley Lewis’s art when he had no internet presence, so I started him online with a retrospective from scans of his slides.  

In 2004 I made a Chicago cooperative gallery connection and arranged the first MPG exhibition. Our membership evolved from several KCAI grads. Mike Neary and I are the two remaining six founding members. Of the 11 current members, only three are KCAI graduates. The rest are from a broader spectrum of schools. We all share an essence of what we find exciting about painting. We are now more geographically spread out beyond the Midwest, but all share a vital or long-term connection to the Midwest. The group has done numerous museum and university exhibitions, amongst other venues in the Midwest and East. 
Here is the link for our group. midwest-paint-group.us. 

White Oak, Hornet Park, 2017, Casein on canvas, 12×12 inches

North Worth Avenue #2, 2004, oil on panel, 16×24 inches

LG: Gabriel Laderman had been involved with your group for a time before he passed in 2011. How did he become involved? What do you find most interesting about him?

Timothy King: Gabriel Laderman searched for images of Stanley Lewis paintings for a show he was planning and found the Midwest Paint Group website. He started writing some members and befriended me. Gabriel wrote the catalog essay in that first MPG show. Gabriel called us post-abstract figurative painters, and the show was then named Post Abstract Figuration: The Midwest Paint Group. Gabriel met up with Walter and me at the MET years ago. He immediately began talking about his favorite paintings, telling us his stories. I did my Invitational show at the Bowery Gallery in 2006. Gabriel got over to see it before it closed and wrote me a long letter with an in-depth review of his experience. We finally got Gabriel to agree to show with the Midwest Paint Group what became, Realism and its Discontents at Wright State University and Manchester University (2012). Unfortunately, Gabriel passed away before the exhibition. We got three of Gabriel’s’ paintings and featured him as our special guest. 

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I recently received a postcard from Adrianne Lobel about her upcoming Reflections on a Pond exhibition, this will be her fourth show at the Bowery Gallery Bowery Gallery April 25 – May 20. I was intrigued by her unique approach to geometric abstraction and color arrangements and decided to find out more. I then recalled that I’d seen her 2018 Bowery Gallery show online of plein air-based mobile home series; looking closer, I guessed that these new abstractions also had their genesis from observation on some level. I decided to ask if she’d consider an interview and was very pleased that she accepted my invitation to talk about her process and background in this email-based interview.

Autumn Pond, 36×36 inches, oil

Her press release for this show states:
Adrianne Lobel presents a new series of graphic and geometric paintings inspired by the landscape and its reflection on her pond in upstate New York. Over the years, her work has become more and more abstract. She tries to compose the chaos of nature into something almost architectural.

“Adrianne Lobel takes on the classic challenge of abstraction as she distills her experience of nature with carefully honed shapes. Varying color harmonies, lushly painted, signal the change of seasons and the time of day. Powerfully composed arrangements bring a tautness of design and a sense of resolution in their clarity. The artist uses great invention to achieve endless and subtle variation using only rectangles along with a few semi-circles and half-circles. Elements overlap, interlock, find themselves sliced by dark lines. The edges are painted freehand, endowing the work with a warmth and accessibility that a more mechanical approach would lack. The resulting paintings are immensely satisfying. The rich density of deciduous forest, sharp blue skies, reflective ponds, the resplendent color of nature are all packed into these simple squares of painted canvas.” – John A. Parks, painter, teacher, and art writer

Moon Reflected, 48×48 inches, oil

Larry Groff: In your upcoming exhibition of new work titled Reflections on a Pond at the Bowery Gallery are a series of abstract paintings and tapestries. Is this work based on studies done on-site as you made in previous work, such as your previous series of Mobile Homes? 

Adrianne Lobel: Absolutely, The show is called Reflections on a Pond because I spent last summer and fall painting exactly that. I have an old stone house on a hill in Rhinebeck, New York. At the base of the hill is a rather large pond full of frogs and koi. I had a number of areas cleared of cattails and shrubbery so that I could drive my paint-mobile down there with all of my equipment and paint.  From the first day, I knew it was going to be exciting. The shapes and colors of the “real” foliage were reflected and distorted in the brown water giving an almost mirror effect and allowing for very interesting compositions.  But also–the title has a double meaning as in “Thoughts” of a Pond.

LG: Your father was a well-known successful illustrator and writer of the acclaimed children’s books–the Frog and Toad series. Your mother attended Pratt and was also involved in the Arts and the Theatre. What were some ways your experience as a child led you on your creative path?

Adrianne Lobel: I have been an artist since I was two. My parents both worked at home and often didn’t have time for little me–so they threw me in a corner with crayons, markers, and paper to keep me occupied.  Then everybody worked. It was fine with me. Since I can remember, my parents have been freelance artists, so that was normal for me. My work ethic, which is ironclad, comes from watching them get up every day and go to their drawing tables.

Pond Reflection #1, 48×48 inches, oil

Black and White and Beige, 36×36 inches, oil

Pond Reflection #3, 36×36 inches, oil

Adrianne Lobel: I did study painting at the Brooklyn Museum School  (sadly gone), but I also worked in summer theaters as a teen. I was much more interested in what went on backstage. I was 15 when I designed and painted my first drop, and I was thrilled with the scale and importance of that. I also loved the social aspect of the theater. At that age, the thought of being a lonely easel painter was less appealing than the party that was going on in the theater. I also thought that working in the theater would lead to actually making a living. (Ha!). 

Fall Reflections, 36×36 inches, oil

 LG: For over 30 years, you had a successful career in scenic design, starting from working closely with such acclaimed artists as the choreographer Mark Morris and the theatre and opera director Peter Sellars. In 1986 you worked on the opera Nixon in China and then went on to design many of the sets for Mark Morris, such as L’Allegro, The Hard Nut, and Acis and Galatea. You’ve also won the Obie, the Lucille Lortel, The Jefferson, and the Long Wharf’s prestigious Murphy Award. I’m curious to hear whatever you might have to say about why and how you decided to segue from this incredible career to being a full-time painter.

 Adrianne Lobel: A lot of things happened.  First off, My now ex-husband and I bought the upstate house around 22 years ago. I had been hankering to paint again, and the landscape inspired me–so in the first summers up there, I started to paint en plein air, as I had done as a kid.  Then I had a baby, and the travel involved with my brilliant career started to be irksome to me. There was one time when I was working for The Bolshoi Ballet (which was a surreal experience) when my daughter was four. The piece was a ballet choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. It was 29 minutes long, and it ran in repertory with many other shows–so–it was only onstage for lighting and tech for about half an hour a week–which meant that I had to commute to Moscow three times in three weeks!  Every time I said goodbye to my child and got on the 11-hour Aeroflot flight, I thought I would never see her again. It really was too much for me!

LG: A large part of this conversation is about your set design of  L’Allegro’s that took inspiration from the color sensations of Mark Rothko and Josef Albers in the movable translucent and opaque scrims fabric movable translucent and opaque scrims timed to the movement of the dancers and the music. After making such an astonishing set of design visuals, how does your painting compare to you in terms of aesthetic accomplishment?

Adrianne Lobel: Oh goodness!  L’ Allegro is a masterpiece, but it also premiered in 1989. It is the show that I am most proud of–and that has lasted the longest. But really, I feel like after almost 40 years, I have said what I have wanted to say as a stage designer and am now much more interested in finding my voice as a painter. 

Early Fall, 36×36 inches, oil

Pond Reflection #4, 36×36 inches, oil

Adrianne Lobel: I attended The New York Studio School from 2012–2015 as a certificate student. I did this for two reasons: One–I wanted to put a final wedge between me and my past career. Though I did design one production while in school, I was able to say no to a number of things. And two: I had no idea what to do as a studio artist. I could only paint if I were standing on site looking at something. And since there are seven months of the year when you can’t do that, I did not know how to spend my winter months inside. The studio school–gave me exactly what I needed–a way into my plein air information–that led to a studio practice. 

One Tree Shadow, 20×20

Three Trees in Fall, 20×20 inches, oil

Pond Reflection #7, 36×36 inches, oil

Adrianne Lobel: I have always been a “Flattist.” When I am dealing with theater, I use flat planes to carve up the space. It is the same in painting–where the canvas becomes “the space.” 

LG: What might you say about the color harmony in your paintings? Would you say that you work more intuitively, or do you have a particular color theory or process you respond to?

 Adrianne Lobel: I have no color theory–and I don’t understand color theory. My colors are all observed from nature. I often push them slightly–like that impossible spring green becomes bright yellow in my work.

Two Trees and a Bush in Fall, 20×20 inches, oil

Slice of Sky, 36×36, oil

 Adrianne Lobel: I love geometry. It was the only math in high school that I was able to excel in. But it is all a question of translation. I make the shapes that I see and the relationships between the shapes that I see. It kind of paints itself. There is no theory. And half the work I do, I toss. They don’t always come together. It is thrilling when they do.

LG: Do you try to achieve a feeling of light or air in your painting?

Adrianne Lobel: I hope that that happens automatically, but yes.  

LG: I understand you often use a tractor of sorts to drive all your gear out to paint in the field. Please tell us something about how you go about painting outside.

 Adrianne Lobel: I have a green John Deer two-by-four vehicle that I load up with paints, a French easel (the wide kind), throw-away palettes, turpenoid, linseed oil, a palette knife, paper towels, garbage bags, brushes, hat, sunscreen, bug spray, water,  and, of course, canvases. If I forget anything, I am lost and have to return home. Then I drive around a bit till I find a spot that calls out to me. I can paint from the same spot many times–an inch or two to the left or right changes the composition completely!

Mobile home, 6×12 Feet, Oil on Linen

Mobile home2, 6×12 Feet, Oil on Linen

Mobile homes, 15 small

 Adrianne Lobel: I feel like my evolution most closely resembles that of Mondrian. When I started painting, it was in a pseudo-impressionistic style. But as I kept on, the work became more and more angular and cubist. This recent work is the most boiled down to simple abstraction and feels the most genuine to me. 

Cathedral Tree, 36×36 inches, 2007

Glory Tree, 36×36 inches, 2007

Adrianne Lobel: I really can’t make anything up. I have no imagination, and I don’t understand how the abstract expressionists emoted all over the canvas. My work is completely based on what I observe.  When I work outside, it is hard to go bigger than 36 by 36 inches. I normally do one small painting (around 20 by 20 inches) and then a bigger one in a morning.  These paintings, when they are successful, become models for the studio paintings, which are often bigger and cleaner. The studio paintings are the ones that I show. I keep the plein air painting for making copies and to design my tapestrys from them. When I blow them up in the studio, I take the color and the relationships very seriously, and I try not to deviate too much.

Dancing Tree, 20×20 inches, oil

Needlepoint, 20×20 inches, Tapestry

 Adrianne Lobel: The tapestry work is insane. They take about 6 weeks to do. They are mostly 20 by 20 or 24 by 24.  I take a painting and place the embroidery mesh on top of it and trace the design with a sharpie. Then I take the painting to Michael’s or Joann’s craft shop, where they have embroidery thread, and I spend hours matching the colors as best as I can.  I tend to embroider in the evening in front of the television. I watch a lot of junk and it has to be in English because I can’t read subtitles while I embroider. I love the way they take the paintings to an even more graphic and pixelated form. People love them.

C.P.W. Summer, 20×20 inches, Tapestry

C.P.W., 23×23 inches, Tapestry

Needlepoint, 24×24 inches, Tapestry

LG: Can you tell us a few contemporary artists’ works you most enjoy seeing?

 Adrianne Lobel: I love looking at art, and I think all great art is contemporary–like the Fra Angelicos in San Marco, Florence look like they were painted yesterday. But when it comes to painters working recently–I would say I have been most influenced by people like Sonia Delaunay, Sophie Tauber Arp, Calder, Noguchi,  Diebenkorn, Thiebaud, and Hopper.

LG: What art books are you most likely to have close by in your studio?

 Adrianne Lobel: I have hundreds of art books, but I confess, I don’t look at them often. I keep them as mementos of shows I have seen and loved. I like having my “friends” around me, but I prefer to see things in the flesh. I have spent my life looking very hard at everybody!

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