Bricolage Realism
Thursday night, May 1st from 6-8 pm, there will be a wine and cheese reception for my show at the Coldwell Banker Caine Real Estate Gallery on Main St. in Greenville. Thank you to CBC Realtors for this wonderful opportunity to exhibit my work in the "Bricolage Realism" series, plus one other work in the "Grounded Skies" new series.
Bricolage Realism is a term I use to describe the combination of on-location, direct observational realist landscape with found object assemblage. Bricolage is originally a French term used to describe the use of immediate, at hand multiple processes or materials. While there are elements of traditional realist landscape painting and found object assemblage art methods here, their combination is somewhat unique. Robert Rauschenberg, George Herms and Jasper Johns have all experimented with using objects in their abstract or expressionist compositions. In Rauschenberg's series of Combines (his own bricolage work), one of his better known pieces is "Canyon". You'll see an obvious allusion to this in one of my works in this exhibit.
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| Robert Rauschenberg (1959) Canyon |
These compositions reflect explicit and sometimes personal and more hidden messages about location, history and people. In painting the "urban landscape" it is hard to maintain distance from social and cultural reality. In the bricolage work, I intentionally subvert the traditional aesthetic of landscape as a stand-alone work of art and treat the painting as just another "found" artifact, representing a particular time and location. I invest time and inquire about the site, walk around, have a good long look and find things; sometimes about other people, sometimes about myself.
Bonus: The one newer work from the "Grounded Skies" series is indulging my love of sky painting and low-horizon landscape. This work pairs the openness and inspirational effects of clouds and light with a reality grounded in familiar scenes in and around Greenville. The piece "Poinsett Highway Bridge" was painted on location over several weeks.
