BUREAU GUEST ARTIST INTERVIEWS
Tom Gregg . David Palumbo . Eric Zenner
TOM GREGG: INTERVIEW
THE BUREAU OF ARTS AND CULTURE MAGAZINE GUEST ARTIST JUNE 2014
by Joshua TRILIEGI
Tom Gregg's paintings have a vibrancy, a super saturated presence that are difficult not to look at. Although based in realism, Gregg has taken the realist school of painting and cranked it up a bit. Sort of power popped it. Size is not really the issue here: style, color, shadow and light are. He's a very conscious painter with a clear understanding of whats happening on the canvas. As articulate on the page as off the page. Here at the Bureau of Arts and Culture, we talk a lot about craft. Tom Gregg is a master craftsman. Extremely dedicated to the personification of the object. Be it the American flag, a bottle full of candy, a crumpled piece of fabric, a disney curio toy or his famous on - going hand grenade series.
American Realist painters through the years have often been attracted to the Americana of yesteryear and the new America of tomorrow, check out the works of Richard Estes and Ralph Goings. They took signage, chrome, cars, everyday commonplace objects and locales and hyper fascinated them into extremely lush and rich tapestries. Mr Gregg is doing just that, but within a kind of candy coated lens, he's taken the rose colored glasses and used them accordingly to look at objects that sometimes by their very nature carry a much more loaded symbology and made us simply look at how the color, light and vibrato relate to one another. The single object in a Tom Gregg painting becomes a sort of icon due to the amount of time, positioning, scale and fascination with tonal studies. More than one object becomes a strange interlude, an odd marriage, a pairing of the Sesame Street variety where the question was asked to the viewer, ' Which one of these objects doesn't belong ? ' But here, Mr Gregg does not differentiate that view. On the contrary, he makes them belong together and indeed, somehow they do. Through style, tone, association and placement his choices simply make us see the union and with his saturated palette, his uber craftsmanship, his outright exuberance that radiates from the actual object, we are mystified in some way.
Where Estes and Going awed us with the fact that we could hardly believe it was a painting, Gregg takes us into a whole other ephemeral and wacked out hyper color experience that we need to see. Once focused on it, we may find it difficult to turn away, a kind of seduction of the visceral variety. An optical dessert of sorts, one bite leads to another and suddenly, we have gobbled it up. Not exactly eye candy, due to the sense of style and commitment to a serious painting, but possibly a rare delicacy. Once you have spent time with a Tom Gregg painting, the world itself may seem a bit heightened in reality, the way the light hits a color, the very sense of how colors will relate to one another, he is transferring a special experience that stays with the observer long after the viewing. It is Art.
TRILIEGI: Your work is based in realism, what led you to pursue this style ?
GREGG: As handy as it is, I hesitate to use the term realism because it tends to carry a set of limitations and might lead the viewer to be dismissive of the work before they get to what I think of as the most interesting part: the interplay of representation and thought. There is a conceptual impulse at the heart of all my paintings. They originate in an idea, a question, or a specific thought. This can be complex or ridiculously simple, perhaps even simple minded, hopefully Zen-like in some cases. In the most recent work it is as simple as a contemplation of symmetry and asymmetry, balance and imbalance.
TRILIEGI: Although it is realist work, there is a hyper saturated quality to the tones, discuss your choice of color when painting.
GREGG: I choose to keep the color as keyed up as I can without breaking the internal visual logic of the painting. I try to push it to an edge where it just starts to pop a bit. The flat, pigmented world of a painting will never really compete with raw experience and the full range of real visual stimuli, but I take a perverse pleasure in trying to get it to. On another level, color is incredibly sensual and expressive, as well as elusive and limitless. I never feel like I comprehend color in its fullness; it always gets away and I am left feeling futile, with a mere record of the attempt.I think any true knowledge of color comes from experience. Outside of simply painting a lot, there were two fundamental steps in my understanding of color. The first was studying with a man named Sy Sillman at RISD. He had been a student and collaborator of Josef Albers and had us spend enormous amounts of time, until our eyes were shot, looking and looking at color, doing all sorts of color experiments with color-aid papers. I couldn’t tell you any one specific thing I learned, but I looked at and tried to understand a seemingly endless amount of color. The second step came in Saskatchewan, where I lived for a few years in an attempt to digest graduate school. It has a vast, empty, stunning landscape with a very specific light. I painted from this landscape, plein-air style, on an almost daily basis for most of the time I was there. I would do 2 or 3 or more small paintings a day, trying to capture the light, the atmosphere, the colors. I covered a lot of panels with a lot of paint, too fast to think much about it, relying on instincts and experience. Most were failures, but sometimes something happened, something was captured. I still have boxes of these paintings in my studio.
TRILIEGI: Objects play a key role in your body of work, how do you choose what to paint ?
GREGG: When people find out you’re a painter they inevitably ask what sort of paintings you do. Early on I noticed the answer “still life” was often accompanied by a glazing over of the eyes, or an “oh”, and a slow nod of their head, as if it were some sort of unfortunate news. I learned to enjoy this, and almost take it as some sort of challenge, to try to exceed the mundane and lowly expectations of the genre. I find that still life offers me almost total control of the visual situation, not just the objects, but also the lighting, the colors, the forms, the space. This makes it a great vehicle for a certain sort of experimentation and provides a great framework for conceptual pursuits.
I have been painting still lives for decades now and my choices of what to paint and the role these objects will play has shifted many times based on the conceptual demands of the paintings. Simply put, sometimes I want the objects to make the initial impact and be seen first, at other times I want them to be more transparent and secondary to the visual orchestration of the painting. I think there is a stereotypical or classical idea of still life subject matter: fruit, glasses, drapery, flowers, etc. These objects don’t ask many questions in and of themselves and therefore allow the formal choices and the mechanics of the painting to be the focus. The challenge here is to transcend the familiarity of the objects and arrive at something that will hold the viewer’s attention, almost in spite of them. On the other hand if I choose to paint hand grenades, guns, pharmaceuticals, Big Macs or crumpled up American flags, the viewer is confronted by a whole different set of questions and has a different entry into the painting. In an odd way the challenge here is similar, but starts from the other side of the problem: to transcend the confrontational aspect of the objects and seduce the viewer into the sensuousness and beauty of the painting itself. At the heart of it all is my belief that even the humblest and most banal of objects has the possibility of being transformed in a painting, and given existence at the core of something profound and meaningful. Even the most mundane of objects seem to possess some sort of secret or a dignity that lies beyond my comprehension and seems worthy of contemplation.
TRILIEGI: Each painting seems like you invest a large amount of time into, without attempting to quantify a value point, how much time will you invest in a painting such as the new works: Cocktails, etc …
GREGG: My “work” does involve a lot of actual work, though work I enjoy. The number of hours invested in a painting seems to have little bearing on the ultimate success or failure of the piece. And paintings can get worse the longer you work on them. There is no equivalency between time invested and success, which makes the process more engaging and demanding of my full attention.My working process starts with a lot of drawing. In these drawings I figure out the scale, the composition and placement. I get to explore and work out a lot of decisions before getting into the actual painting. I find it a lot easier to change my mind in a drawing than in a painting. The drawings are very much working drawings, not finished pieces, and primarily serve as a step into the painting. I transfer the drawing to the panel, re-draw it, and rough in the painting with this as a guide. Then I try to make the whole thing come together.
A lot of the process of painting for me is looking, and marking, and looking again, and marking again, adjusting and changing, repeating this process until I feel I have captured something meaningful or profound about what it is I am seeing. This seems to go beyond illusion and has more to do with the energy found in visual relationships. My guess is that a bit of life is given to the painting when a relationship or a set of relationships is observed and experienced openly and directly, (whether it be one color to another color, or one ellipse to another, one space to another, etc.), and then that relationship is reinvented and brought into the painting itself. Time has little to do with this in any direct sense, other than that if I keep the process open, then the longer I try, the more chances I take, the more likely I am to hit on something.
TRILIEGI: The shadows in the newer works appear to have eyes, were seeing a lot of reference to that lately, in much of the contemporary art scene, is this a conscious decision or just a happenstance ?
GREGG: I am not aware of the profusion of eye references, so I can’t claim to be a part of that as a trend or as a part of the contemporary scene. But I was definitely aware of the eye - like shadows in some of these recent paintings. So the effect was heightened, if only subtly. I enjoy the extra layer of visual reference that this gives to the piece. The viewer can flip their attention from “oh, it’s two cocktails” to “there are two eyes staring out at me” and have these competing stimuli struggle a bit in your head, a bit like the classic optical illusion of the rabbit or the duck. I believe a great deal in the power of subliminal decisions and the role instincts play in how we go about things, and it is undeniably fun to discover things within things, so on some level I am responsible for those eye references in the paintings, and glad you noticed them. I will add that my father passed away, rather suddenly, about 5 years ago and ever since then I have had the tendency to fabricate faces, most often his face, in all sorts of patterns and situations, as if trying to find his presence in my world, bring him back or just ease the loss.
TRILIEGI: Do you believe in a school of thought, or does the individual artist still have the power to express something alone ?
GREGG: Tough question, it sort of goes in a lot of directions. I believe we are all so embedded in our time and world that we are more or less completely defined by it, especially in this supersaturated media culture. The world seems to be made smaller by technology but at the same time fragmented, shattered and without boundaries.
I believe we are all formed by our environment and can’t escape our place and time. We all build on the work and accomplishments of others and operate in the context of our culture. Artists have always fed off of other artists; there is no avoiding it and no shame in it. I don’t think any of us exist alone, as some sort of outsider. A favorite quote seems applicable here: “we are only as original as the obscurity of our sources”. But I also believe that we each provide a slight shading or slight shift in perspective to the larger culture.
For about 5 years I helped coordinate and curate an artist run gallery here in Kansas City. There was a core group of artists who showed consistently over that time and occasionally you could see some direct lifting of ideas or stylistic crossing over, but for the most part the artists involved were distinctly defined in interests and direction. What did seem to be shared and what did get passed around was the energy, the ambition, and the desire to be a participant in what was happening, an impulse to step it up. So there was a sort of school of energy more than thought. At this point in our culture, which is so fragmented, and has unlimited options for expression, it seems almost impossible to narrow to a school of thought in any traditional sense, everything can and does co-exist simultaneously and it makes for a much more vibrant conversation. I trust that in a hundred years the art historians will put the labels on what is happening now and give the names to the schools of thought.
TRILIEGI: The craftsmanship in your work is amazing, how long have you been painting and who were / are your influences as an artist ?
GREGG: I always flinch at the use of the word craftsmanship in regards to painting. It seems that as an artist you just have to do what the painting demands and use the materials however they need to be used to get there. Any notion of craftsmanship is integral to the artwork as a whole. So it seems to be more a matter of necessity than craftsmanship. I guess in that way I would consider De Kooning a great craftsman, because the paint does exactly what it needs to do to get those paintings to work. Paint, as a material, can do so many things and be used in so many ways that I think all painters use it a bit differently. You have to find out not just how you can use it but also how you need to use it: it evolves with the vision of the work. My use of paint is always slowly evolving and changing and providing slightly different possibilities for the paintings. As for influences, I think I am generally voracious as an art and culture consumer and digester and like to think that, at least in terms of inspiration, that all these experiences get channeled into what I do. I get thrilled at a show of Tom Friedman or an Ingres retrospective. As I think it is with most artists, there is a big sort of soup that is always on the stove somewhere in my head and all kinds of stuff, everything, really, gets thrown in there and cooked together and then it gets ladled out in the form of my paintings. The influences more directly related to my paintings are most likely predictable for the sort of painter I am. From an early fascination with Giotto, Masaccio, and Pierro della Francesca I worked my way up through art history on up to the present and Lucien Freud, Balthus, and Euan Uglow. But my heart keeps returning to the Seventeenth century where, for me, some sort of pinnacle was reached with Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Velasquez and Vermeer. I am always cruising through both the past and the present for inspiration, and easily falling in love with an artist’s work, whether for a fleeting moment, a lifelong fascination or just a new spot on the map of my art experience.
TRILIEGI: Does Music or Film or some special activity inform or inspire your work process, if so, please tell our readers a bit about that process.
GREGG: Music has always had the ability to flood me with emotion, to overwhelm me, or bring tears to my eyes in a completely irrational, physical and emotionally rooted way. I have never studied music and never played an instrument and can’t carry a tune, so there is no other way for me to experience music. It serves as a source of inspiration because it hits me directly and leaves me feeling defenseless in a manner that painting almost never does. Painting and visual art enters through my eyes and mind, music through my ears and gut. That said, I do have my own, uneducated ideas about music that filter into my paintings. I often think of color as musical tones, as having a pitch and harmonizing with other colors. I also use ideas of rhythm and movement that come from musical ideas. Sometimes I think of my paintings as small, minimalist symphonies, each “instrument” playing its’ role in the whole piece. Haiku poetry is another form that I look to and hope to channel into my work. There is a stunning beauty in the sparseness and economy of conveying emotions and ideas and a stark use of the juxtaposition of image that I often think of in relation to my paintings. I have also been practicing Chi Gong and Tai Chi for almost 5 years now and have found it making its’ way into my work, particularly the recent series of paintings. In both these practices there is a strong emphasis on subtle movements and repetition, and on balance and gravity, and on being grounded. It is all ultimately about focus, energy and awareness.
TRILIEGI: The backgrounds in the newer works are extremely worked over, when your dealing with a smaller object, like say a shot glass, is there a need to invest a certain amount of time into the background or is there simply a habit of entirely presenting a serious work on every square inch of the painting ?
GREGG: The backgrounds, or what I think of as the wall, are always an integral part of the painting and often end up being what the success or failure of the piece rides on. It is the largest part of the painting and therefore the dominant color proportionally. It is a particular challenge to paint because in order to succeed it has to have a sense of light and atmosphere and it also has to create a space for the still life to exist in. And it has to do this with the barest of elements; it is flat, without detail, and has no definition beyond the play of light across its surface. Because of this I consider it to have a certain visual and conceptual purity. It is working with color and light, nothing else. To make it work is difficult, and most often leaves me with a sense of a long pursuit that comes to an end with me empty handed. That pulsing of life and light that I saw and experienced and seemed so palpable, and that I just spent all day chasing with paint, almost always gets away.
TRILIEGI: Where do you live and work and how does that influence your work ?
GREGG: I live and work in Kansas City, Missouri. I was born in California, in Long Beach, and at age seven moved to a town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I went to RISD and lived in Rhode Island for eight years and Connecticut for two years while at Yale, then spent two years in Saskatchewan before landing in Missouri.
Kansas City has a lively art scene, and I think a true sense of community among artists across a range of disciplines. It provides an ease and a clear feeling of being connected, perhaps due to its size. It ebbs and flows, but at times there has been a vibrant dialogue between the art makers here, a feeling that there is something being shared, that the community is being pushed farther than any one individual could go on their own. A sense that there are other tuned-in voices right here that are listening, and responding: an audience of artists and other participants in the aesthetic cultural here and now. There is a lot going on here, a lot of opportunities for artist driven projects and a real commitment to the arts all across the spectrum.
Mr Gregg The Guest Artist JUNE 2014 and you will find his work available at George Billis Gallery
in Los Angeles at Culver City's Art Row on La Cienega and in New York City with a New Show
scheduled this Fall 2014. Many of the Interviews throughout this Publication feature Mr Gregg's
Paintings and we are very pleased to have him at BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE Magazine.
George Billis Gallery LA 2716 S. La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90034 T: 310-838-3685
George Billis Gallery NY 525 W. 26th Street, New York City NY 10001 T:212- 645-2621
DAVID PALUMBO : Painter
By Joshua Triliegi
Mr Palumbo is a prolific painter working in a multitude of styles. David has an ongoing series of works including: The Tarot, The Portraits, Fantasy illustration, Gallery Fine Art and his sexually charged, if not controversial Quickies. The later available in publication as well as for purchase individually. Once familiar with David Palumbo's work, each style or series is immediately identifiable and interesting. The Quickies definitely push the envelope and raise the bar as well as the blood pressure on sexually charged and inspired figural work.
David Palumbo is that rare breed hybrid of working illustrator, fine artist and individual creator who is pushing the envelope on what can be done with an image. Mr Palumbo's portraits of well known personalities such as Sidney Poitier, Mathew McConaughey, David Bowie and Jane Fonda capture the essence of the person and also stamp his own style and interpretation accordingly. David Palumbo has what we might call a painterly style: excessive brush strokes, textural experimentation, impressionistic via the materials. Schooled as a classical figural painter with a keen interest in cinema and raised among a family of artists has led him to be commissioned by a wide variety of publications and we are very proud to have him as Guest Artist for The June/August Edition of BUREAU of Arts and Culture Magazine & BUREAU of Arts and Culture . com & Community Sites On Line.
The David Palumbo Sci-Fi or Fantasy illustrative work is not only exciting, bold, striking, sometimes scary and even gory, but also imaginative, humorous and always services the story being told. BUREAU readers may remember Mr Palumbo's artworks affiliated with the Fiction project in the recent June edition of the magazine. David's work brought an entirely new & fresh approach to telling the story and we noticed right away how accessible and welcoming as well as supportive his work is to the text. The dark humor involved in his fantasy illustration harkens back to the American comic books from the nineteen sixties and even further back than that, some of his themes relate back to early 19th and 20th century illustrative technique's of the English variety: Sherlock Holmes and Jack The Ripper.
With the resurgence and popularity of Vampires, Zombies and a new form of sexually expressive literature, art and film in today's current creative landscape, we are sure that the popularity of Mr David Palumbo's artworks is on the rise and we are glad to introduce our readers, as well as allow Mr Palumbo himself to describe his process and share a top ten of his favorites. We spoke with David Palumbo about his career, his education and his approach when it comes to making Art for a living and who he keeps an eye on when it comes to inspiration. Enjoy The David Palumbo Interview and many Artworks dispersed throughout.
Guest Artist David Palumbo discusses his career with BUREAU Editor Joshua Triliegi
BUREAU: You are a painter, an illustrator and you are represented as a fine artist as well. How do you balance theses different jobs ? And do they inform one another ?
DAVID PALUMBO: Over the years I have placed different emphasis on commissioned work and gallery work. The gallery was initially how I was making a living, though I became more focused towards illustration after a time for reasons both personal and practical and, for a number of years, that was my dedicated outlet. To the extent that I did shift back towards gallery work, I used it as a sort of laboratory to explore and experiment which really helped me to continue growing as an artist while working commercially. Much of my current process and method was developed with that balance.
BUREAU: Your parents are both relatively established and respected artists, tell us about growing up around art and what its like to be the child of artists.
DAVID PALUMBO: I feel that the biggest boost that this gave me, other than their enthusiastic support, was removing the doubts that so many aspiring artists have to struggle with over the possibility of making a living. I saw them working daily as freelancers and understood intimately as a result that it is as viable a career as any more traditional occupation. I think that was huge.
Now that I am also a working artist, I also appreciate how fortunate I am to have so many people close to me who understand that side of my life. My brother is also a painter and just about every person who I have a close friendship with is a creative person. That isn’t to say that I can’t relate to non-artists, though I do find it easier and it is wonderful to be able to connect with my own family in that way. We certainly all push each other, either directly or indirectly, to perform at our best and to continue striving to improve.
BUREAU: Your family reminds me a bit of Stephen King and his family, each person is an artist and obviously their father is a master of the macabre. How much does literature inform your work ?
DAVID PALUMBO: I enjoy reading, though I don’t know how directly that ties to my painting. I’m sure that it doesn’t hurt, though I probably am more influenced and inspired by more directly visual mediums like cinema and photography.
BUREAU: Some of your paintings push the envelope on female sexuality, but there is such a fine art craftsmanship, that it is very difficult to call it pornographic. Do you think humans are afraid of sexuality and if so why ?
DAVID PALUMBO: From the point of view of Western culture, specifically American culture, I think that sexuality is a very complicated issue to the point that I’m not always even sure how I feel about it. Understanding how other people feel about it is likely beyond me. Even though I disagree with some cultural norms, they still shaped my views of the world and it can be difficult to navigate that at times. In general though, speaking again as an American, yes. I think we are entirely too freaked out by it. The fear of or fixation on nudity, even absent of sexual context, is a product of our weird society.
So far as my own paintings, I feel those with any sexual nuance are primarily about beauty and certainly nothing even approaching pornographic by my own definitions. I don’t condemn art which explores sexuality in more explicit detail, don’t get me wrong. For my own motives however, I tend to be more interested in simply appreciating figures from a flirtatious, confident, and natural point of view. That side of my work has been evolving for some years now and I’m sure it will continue to. I don’t always know what it is about but I think art created with an open question rather than a defined statement can be very poetic and universal, so I’ve let the series find its own direction over time. Inevitably some people will find it tame while others offensive. Like anything else creative, all I can realistically aim to do is satisfy myself.
BUREAU: Explain your process when creating works in a series such as the Tarot, The Postcards, the Subway.
DAVID PALUMBO: Working in series is something I generally find very appealing. I think in part the reason may connect with my love of art books. When I think of a series, I think of them as a chapter in my own book and somehow that adds extra interest and excitement for me. For one thing, it removes the pressure of saying everything in one image. Instead you have the opportunity to create story and communicate ideas through the broader world which the series collectively describes. I don’t often know at the beginning if a series will be short or long, that more depends on my level of interest as I develop it. When that interest dips, a new idea has most likely taken its place. Others, like the postcard nudes (and related works) just seem to continue indefinitely.
BUREAU: How difficult was it to break into mainstream illustration and tell as a story that exemplifies that hurdle ?
DAVID PALUMBO: Breaking in to illustration is just a long slow process. Even if you have the chops from the outset, which practically no body coming right out of school does, it takes time and dedication to get the work in the right hands and have them think of you at the right moments. My own long slow process wasn’t likely any different from most emerging illustrators in the post internet job market: creating samples, sharing online, and getting out to meet art directors and other artists face to face whenever possible. Repeat forever. For me it took about three years of gradual progress to really gain any initial ground. That time was spent learning how to apply my basic understanding of painting into the specific needs of illustration and then learn to do it well and efficiently. Every year since then has been dedicated to improving those skills.
BUREAU: Does any music play a key role in your work and what are you listening to now ?
DAVID PALUMBO: I like to listen to music while painting, though it probably plays the most significant role during sketching. I’ll often choose music which helps me get into the mood of the piece which I am planning and it seems to help me push that mood further. For that purpose I listen to film scores quite a bit (Vertigo is one of my all time favorites), though in general I have a pretty wide variety of tastes. I’m much more broad-minded about things like that than I used to be. I’ve always loved movies in particular and often aim to bring cinematic qualities to my work. Sometimes that might mean taking inspiration from favorite films but more often it simply means trying to bring a narrative tone and composition which is informed by them. I’ve done some very basic study of cinematography to better grasp that art form, and done quite a bit more study into still photography. I’m lucky that I really enjoy learning the technical aspects of photography as opposed to feeling it to be a chore, because the more I study lenses and photographic concepts the better I can use that knowledge to plan and execute my paintings effectively. All of that started with a love of movies though.
BUREAU: How important was school for you and share why with our readers ?
DAVID PALUMBO: I think school was pretty important, though it has become so expensive these days that I’d advise prospective students to consider less traditional options as well. My own school was very focused on an academic classical approach and I feel that was a great benefit to me. The nuts and bolts of picture making should be a huge part of your basic art education. If you want to do figurative painting and are not studying the figure from life in your first semester (or, as some people have told me, at all) then you might want to seek a different program. Besides the big art schools, there are many very promising ateliers which tend to cost less and have more intense curriculums. One big advantage to traditional art school can be the connections which you make with fellow students and opportunities you might be exposed to through faculty. I didn’t personally enjoy this perk so far as my illustration career (my school was strictly fine arts) but having family in my chosen field surely offset that for me.
BUREAU: A guy like you could put a product like Viagra out of business. Do you think that sexuality in film, in art and in literature is judged more harshly than violence and if so why ?
DAVID PALUMBO: That the two are even comparable as concerns is weird. I don’t really know. I don’t understand it. I caught some of Kill Bill 2 on TV the other day and it seemed strange to be able to show brutal fights and painful death one moment but have to dub out the word “cunt” (used in a non-sexual context even) the next. I think most people who I regularly interact with would agree that it’s craziness so I suppose that I‘ve adopted my own sort of social reality. A reality when I might have a friend pose nude and it’s no big deal. The people who are terribly concerned, I guess I just don’t get them. Not to imply that I don’t personally enjoy action and horror movies, because I generally do. I just don’t understand the relatively casual acceptance compared against the deep discomfort that many people seem to have with sexuality.
BUREAU: Please suggest a list of ten artists that our audience should know about and why.
DAVID PALUMBO: Hmmm. Ok, I hope some of these are already well known, but here are ten artists I’m currently really digging:
Mead Scheaffer - I don’t know much of his story, but damn can he paint. Scheaffer was an illustrator in the first half of the 20th century who was brilliant with design, limited color, and something about his brush calligraphy just kills me.
J.C. Leyendecker - Another early 20th century illustrator, Leyendecker was so bold with shape and silhouette that I’m often looking to him for inspiration. His stylization of figures adds such elegance and drama. Precursor to Rockwell.
Jeremy Geddes - an Australian contemporary painter who has transitioned from illustration to fine art. His work is so moody and stark. I love the illustration and gallery work equally.
Antonio Lopez Garcia - a Spanish painter, still active I believe, who is known for his immense cityscapes and incredibly life-like interiors. The depth and tangible quality of his work is unreal, especially if you ever have the opportunity to see one in person.
Sam Weber - a contemporary illustrator based in Brooklyn who’s done mostly editorial and cover work. Sam’s look has been evolving since I first became aware of him. Back then it was very graphic and stylized, often monochromatic and minimalist. Recently he’s been turning more hyper-realist but still with a strong graphic punch and terrific mood.
Alex Kanevsky - a contemporary fine artist who does very abstracted depictions of figures and such. I’m endlessly fascinated by how far he can break the lines and planes while still showing a clear representation of the figure.
Robert McGinnis - an illustrator who did a ton of crime novel covers with sexy women in the 60s and 70s. Think of Bond girls and you’d think of McGinnis.
Sanjulian - a European illustrator who did absolutely brilliant 70s gothic and horror (and romance) book covers. Wonderful 70s texture and amazing montages
Greg Manchess - a contemporary illustrator who does genre and mainstream work with a very painterly hand in the spirit of the Pyle school. Wonderful chunky strokes and incredible compositions.
John Harris - an English illustrator who does beautiful painterly space scenes rich in color and emotion. Almost nobody can get away with loose atmospheric takes on SF like Harris can.
By Joshua Triliegi
Guest Artist for October 2014 Edition of BUREAU of Arts and Culture Magazine is Eric Zener. Mr. Zener is currently working with figural subjects in relation to the element of water. The very act of diving in, the splash, the plunge, the immersion, the submission of giving yourself to a body of liquid. Normally, this subject might be considered a perfect summer series, but with record heat waves on the West Coast, we decided to celebrate these refreshing images. Although the work is influenced by photography and lush saturated realist tones, because of the expressionist nature of the reflections and the water's reaction to the figures, there is a large amount of experimentation and abstraction within the work. Each painting is worked over with an extreme amount of detail. Many of the subjects are proportionately larger than life, in terms of scale, which takes us into the picture in the same way that a camera might magnify a subject, bringing us as the viewer into closer focus with the subject & the scene.
The poolside in the contemporary arts has become a symbol and almost a genre of sorts. Think of films such as The Graduate and its isolationist emotional meaning or David Hockney's pool paintings and drawings, which have a new relationship's reflective quality, or on a darker side, Billy Wilder's opening and closing scene in The classic film, Sunset Boulevard. Water equals emotions, pool side water is a slightly more controlled emotion, it is not the all powerful ocean, but a man made version. Mr. Zener's most recent work gives us pause to reflect on the stages before, during and after the experience of diving into our uncertain future. Many of the works allow for the individual to feel that surge, while others within the on going series represent a relationship of two. Zener has an evolving craft that is currently at a pinnacle, Over the past decades, he has developed a style that is in a territory which might be called realism or even symbolism. What you call it is not as important as what you experience, feel and imagine while viewing it. All to often, the Art Critic, the Presenter, the Gallery and the Historian's interpretation of any given work eclipses the actual experience of simply enjoying, owning and living with a work of art. We suggest, in the case of Eric Zener's paintings, that you simply allow yourself to dive in and feel the work, immerse yourself and reflect on the refreshing qualities of relating to the element of water.
This Series of paintings brings new meaning to the term, "West Coast Cool." Also included throughout the entire edition are earlier works by Mr. Zener that relate to the elements of Wood, Earth & Air, making him a sort of alchemist of images. Man's Relationship to Nature: The great on going story that never ceases to effect, edify and entertain. Humankind's relationship to the elements are once again asking us, even demanding for a reevaluation of what it actually means to have an ecosystem, to relate directly to the elements and to reciprocate by preserving it's offering. Zener's newest work is exhilarating, impassioned and fresh. We are proud to have him as Guest Artist for the October 2014 Edition of BUREAU of Arts and Culture Magazine & Our On Line Sites.
BUREAU: Your work is based in realism, what led you to pursue this style ?
ERIC ZENER: As a self taught artist my approach to painting, and what has led me to where I am today, has been a long process of evolution. I grew up around art and like any child, enjoyed the freedom of expression with drawing and painting. Now after 25 years of painting full-time, it is interesting to see all the changes along the way in terms of theme and style. To be honest there was not a singular moment when any particular change happened. Often times the evolutions were slow, unplanned and unnoticed. My very early work bordered on a sense of cubism or crude illustration.
ERIC ZENER: Where the overlay into realism happened is hard to pinpoint.10 or so years ago I began to use a camera to take photos of models under water; as attempting the authentic pose in the studio with chairs, pillows and fans proved stiff and unnatural.
"… Photographic reference may have sparked a
challenge to capture more & more realism …"
Having a still two dimensional photo reference gave me a tool to capture the poses I wanted. I suppose that photographic reference may have sparked a challenge to capture more and more realism in the process. I don’t know….but clearly that is where I am at now.
BUREAU: Although it is realist work, there is a pure quality to the colors, discuss your choice of tone when painting.
ERIC ZENER: The mood of the narrative of each piece generally influences the color, which then informs the tone. I use the pose I capture only as the “police chalk outline” in a sense for general composition. After drawing the figure I think about what they are doing…where they are heading, and depending on how I feel, what the idea may convey. Are they on a metaphorical journey into the unknown?
" The mood of the narrative of each piece generally
influences the color, which then informs the tone."
BUREAU: Figures play a key role in your body of work, how do you choose subjects ?
ERIC ZENER: I think there is a universal quest we all are all on. For some it is more convenient than others to explore it. Socio and economic circumstances allow some more freedom than others to have the time to self explore. However we all at some level all desire a “break”. Immersion in water is both physically cathartic, but also speaks perhaps to a deeper metaphysical and universal human experience. We are from water in birth and made largely of its substance. Using the figure in or around water, at times anonymously, always us to find ourselves in the composition and that connection we share.
BUREAU: How much time will you invest in a painting such as the new works: Pool Subjects.
ERIC ZENER: There really is no timeline that any good painting can follow. It finds itself done when it’s done. The painting tells the painter to stop. As overly dramatic as it sounds it is like a boxing match for me. At times you are wining and at times loosing.
" When I am painting, I only work on one painting at a time. "
The beginning and ending are easy…it is the time between that the struggle pushes your passion and endurance to reach the beauty and idea you set out for. When I am painting, I only work on one painting at a time. I’ve never been able to put something aside and move on. They haunt me too much unresolved. I like resolution.
BUREAU: The reflections in many of the new works have abstractions, tell us about the need to express the abstract within the realist style.
ERIC ZENER: Somebody said once, “We don’t see the world the way it is, but how we choose to perceive it.” With that there are abstractions in everything as it’s relative to the observer. Particularly with water, I like the play on that theme as what appears solid on one side of the dividing line, between water and air, is indeed “solid” yet fluid and abstract from its opposite perspective. Like life itself, for better or for worse, we are in a constant state of transformation and change. The abstracted figures reflect that idea. Nothing really is how it really is. In fact I think we can never observe anything as an absolute. All our perceptions and conclusions are based on our relative position observing it. The mirror images in this body of work show that constant state of transformation and the metaphor of change we may or not always see.
BUREAU: Does the individual artist still have the power to express something alone ?
ERIC ZENER: I agree with the concept that the individual artist has the power to express something alone. At some level we all may be unknowingly borrowing from our life’s experience, however true authorship comes from our own voice representing our individual visions and narratives.
BUREAU: How long have you been painting and who were/are your influences as an artist ?
ERIC ZENER: Painting has been my profession for 25 years. I’ve never been somebody that has one “hero”. For me music and quotes I hear tend to provoke thoughts and emotions more than visual observations. As my tastes and interests in music have evolved, so has my taste and interest in visual artists. I may be interested in one painter for a while and then another later. No one person has been a constant influence. That said I tend to be impressed and excited about art that is very different from mine. I gain nothing creatively looking at things that are similar to my work. I would rather find the spark in something totally different than what I do.
BUREAU: Does any other Art form or some special activity inform or inspire your work process, if so, please tell our readers a bit about that process.
ERIC ZENER: So many genres of music and musicians have a daily and ever-changing influence on what I think about. I’m moved by musicians and artists who express themselves fully and vulnerably. I’ve spent my life surfing and swimming in the water and find great peace and joy there. With my nature series it may be more linear. I enjoy being alone in nature and the influence of the slow patient growth of the trees inspires me artistically and personally.
Water may have some relationship to my youth and personal pastimes. I’ve spent my life surfing and swimming in the water and find great peace and joy there. My intention in my art is not about the physical act of swimming etc., but rather the joy of the immersion into a deep and buoyant other world.
BUREAU: The backgrounds colors in the newer works set a certain tone, tell us how you decide to work with a color such as the Yellow, Turquoise & Blue background in the images.
ERIC ZENER: A great deal of my water work has been metaphorical and more open to interpretation and introspection. After a particularly challenging year, I have personally gone through a lot of changes in my life and I wanted to cathartically express the simple pleasures of joy and playfulness which these colors evoke for me. Rather than using the color or light of the water….or the depth of the figure entering as the narrative, I wanted to focus on the pureness of the figure, and hopefully their joy in that moment. Happy, bright and light!
BUREAU: Where do you live and work and how does that influence your work ?
ERIC ZENER: I live in the SF bay area, but honestly the location of where I paint has little influence. It’s the interior space of my studio and interior space of my mind that influences my work.
" I suppose being in city or in a country could have some influence, however for me it is the music, the friends and the input from other sensory and emotional sources that are the real fodder of my work. "
I suppose being in city or in a country could have some influence, however for me it is the music, the friends and the input from other sensory and emotional sources that are the real fodder of my work.
