Please join me this Saturday 2-5 pm at At Land in Kingston, NY for the opening of my new show of paintings, ceramics, and apparel: BIG CATCH.
I’ve thought a lot about the best way to describe this body of work and my best answer is this: I’m giving up on dichotomies. For most of my professional life I’ve described myself as some combination of:
one part artist : one part book maker
one part writer : one part illustrator
one part fish painter : one part landscape painter
one part artist : one part angler
And on and on and on until… Well, now. Because as much as I appreciate a good organizational framework, I’ve been an idiot. It just doesn’t work! Neither side is discrete from the other. The art is in the mixture. That’s where I find the good stuff— the big catch—which in this case is a mix of bite-sized-to-enormous paintings, ceramics (in collaboration with Arc Ceramics), and apparel like this jacket which will all be available at At Land in person and online thru June!
Some of these fish are not just leviathan sized because it’s fun to paint them that way. (Even though that’s true, too). It’s because the bigger I paint them, the more it reminds me of casting a fly rod.
I find myself moving my brush-holding-hands and wrists differently–like I’m anticipating currents or dodging hanging branches. Pigments dart like fish out of a pool. Paint flows like the water it’s suspended in.
Likewise, these landscapes aren’t approaching IMAX size just because it’s fun to paint them that big. (Though, again it is!) I’m trying to connect these views back to time on the water. Those moments when you look up and see the hourglass of a creek shrinking into the sky then expanding outwards again. At the show, I encourage you to stand in front of these views, maybe just a foot or so back, and let yourself dissolve from (yet another!) dichotomy of viewer : image, and simply feel like you’re on the water.
All of these pieces were made from a cycle– inside my studio, outside on the creek, bringing my angler’s eye to the studio, bringing my painter’s eye to the creek, and finally realizing that it’s all connected as one process to repeat again and again.
In-person viewers get first dibs on the show’s inventory for a week before everything becomes available online. Curious about a piece right now? Just ask me! Subscribers get extra early dibs!
Hope to see you at At Land this Saturday!
-Steven