Thank you.
I’m winding down… it’s been a stressful, yet productive week of installing at Johalla Projects. Show’s 21 hours away and everything is done… Thanks to Chiara No, Emily Barnes, Conner (?) and the Clemons brothers, Justin and Anthony… I managed to create an 18’ x 14’ x 18’ x 9’ installation entirely made of colored tape, one inch at a time. It took four full days of work, and each one of you propelled me forward not only with the insane amount of labor but the fearless, confident attitude I love to deal with when thrown into such a potentially chaotic situation. You all not only carried me physically, but emotionally and intellectually.
I have to express an extra dash of gratitude to the Clemons brothers though. It was really special for me to have former After School Matters students be my assistants… I’ve known you guys for 5 years and taught you freshman to senior year in HS and will always cherish the memories of your incredibly sophisticated drawing and painting skills. But the greatest thing for a teacher to see is you incredible guys stayed on the path, and am honored that I had a part in that. You both have what it takes to succeed at anything you pursue… Thanks fellas. It was a pleasure working with you, you kicked some serious ass. 
Painted Drawings, Petty Anxieties, Electric Riffs and Multiple Personality Order
Been awhile since I’ve written. The last few weeks have been a blur of non-stop show preparation. I’m getting ready for my upcoming, not yet titled solo show at Johalla Projects April 6th. We’re right about to tighten up all of the loose ends all exhibitions encounter… Anna Cerniglia stopped by last week with her art partner Aimee Quinkert to make a studio visit. I showed them around 70 works, out of which they chose 19 to show, along with a large area to create an installation. We had a great conversation and both women did a great job of balancing honest critique with the works they passed over and genuine enthusiasm for the selections they made.
We still haven’t come up with a title at this point, although my blog headline might not be such a bad fit. Over the last few months, I have viewed a lot of painting. Great painting, not so great painting. Standouts- Molly Zuckerman-Hartung at Corbett and Dempsey for one. Some of the most liberating painting I’ve checked out in awhile… her keen ability to get it all right when it appears it could be all wrong… the complete opposite of the way I work… I kind of left the opening wanting to throw a gallon of paint on my kitchen floor but resisted… but, definitely, one of those shows that the memories of can creep up on you when you least expect it and force you to reconsider the path you took as a painter. I mean all of this in the best possible way. Another great painter I saw was Samantha Bittman at 65 Grand at the “New Formalisms” painting show a couple months ago. Kudos to Abraham Ritchie for putting together such a thoughtful group exhibition, including Todd Chilton, Steven Husby , Melissa Oresky and Ms. Bittman. Her work in particular was a joy for me to look at… I had been working on the piece pictured below at the same exact time and felt a genuine affinity with her style. Carl Baratta also put a splendid solo show together at Lloyd Dobler, “Sweet Water”. I left that show longing to make a copy of one of his works, enough said.
On that topic, logging ridiculous hours in the studio making work over the last several months has afforded me new insight into my own practice and my place as a painter… All of the artists I like are doing what I’m attempting… exploring a visual language that’s pushing our practice forward. Lately, I’ve had an inner conflict going on in my mind if what I’m doing is actually “painting”. Sure, I incorporate empty color field painted backgrounds. Sometimes I use raw backgrounds. But once that is over, I typically don’t choose to push it any further than that. It basically turns into a colored piece of paper. I use a number 1 brush on an almost exclusive basis after that. I (almost) hold it like a pen and have basically been drawing with it all along. So maybe they should be called drawings. “Almost”, because it’s not really possible to translate the action of a pen into a brush, brushes tend to bend, waver, and generally run out of ink on a constant basis. So maybe it’s still “painting”. The hand is visible if you look closely. Countless tiny amounts of negative space spread on the surface, none of them intentional, all the natural by product of shaky caffeinated hands. The body of work I’ve produced over the last five years has felt like I’ve been working on one gigantic painting… I made a commitment to limit myself to a few specific rules. Draw lines and allow those lines to become what they become, or draw lines using a common template, like a circle, or a rectangle. Allow the build up of these lines to alter the negative space, the color field background. Create a work that doesn’t attempt to create illusion through painterly depth, rather allow the eye to use the natural phenomena of our retina’s reaction when it begins to parse color. Resist the urge to layer, although I do sometimes. Let it sit on top of the surface, let it dangle there, allow it to be precarious, allow it to appear plain. There’s no such thing as life in a painting. My object is to create a personal, palpable sense of “aliveness” by actively looking. It should be an experience firstly on the physical level, and if I pull it off, inspire questioning. Most importantly, allow my authentic voice to come through every time. The circle paintings in particular… I’d hope that my viewers would take the time to feel the energy each individual one gives away… they remind me of people, even though they all look alike, they all have their own individual “personality”.
Through all of my self-induced painting neurosis, one thing I can say is I’ve stayed interested, reminding me of some classic advice I took seriously a long time ago…If you are genuinely interested in what you do, others will be too. I’ll stay interested as long as I know I can push this further, and maybe one day I’ll decide to explore other ideas in the studio. On the other hand, one way I currently accomplish this study is through installation, where I’ve been exploring the concept of color energy through the medium of colored masking tape and drawing with a razor blade, limitations I’ve set for myself, again. I’ll be exploring the relationship between classic heavy metal guitar riffs (the ones that stay stuck in your head) and the attempted visual representation of that sound, imagined. I don’t want to give away much more than that, other to say it will be big, out of respect for the big sound I’m in love with.
Look, I love my city with all of my heart and love most of the artists contained within, but the only way to be honest to myself is to react against current trends in academic painting… I’m not a product of anyone’s MFA program and have only recently come to peace with this fact. This is one of the “petty anxieties” I’ve been battling. As a primarily self-taught artist (two years of “art” school, mixed with film, advertising and electives) I’ve learned that making an honest work has been the key to any advancement I’ve enjoyed over my career.
The most recent works that Johalla will show will hopefully reflect what I’m trying to explain here, I’m looking forward to seeing my steady supporters and meeting many new friends. Even my enemies are also cordially invited, I love you all the same. The show opens on Friday, April 6th at 1821 West Hubbard, 7pm-10pm.
A couple of pieces I started working on in spring ‘11… there’s not a single work in my studio that every facet of it’s production comes directly out from my fingertips. Maybe if someone else did everything for me I’d be “worth” more in this crazy art world, like Hennessy says…
Abraham Ritchie, Flavorpill
