Painters From The United States

"All the thought which in the course of my studies I have been able to give to the subject has led me to conclude that the ideal in Art is but the impressions made upon the mind of the artist by the beautiful or Art subjects in external nature, and that our Art power is the ability to receive and retain these impressions so clearly and distinctly as to be able to duplicate them upon canvas. So far from these impressions thus engraved upon our memory being superior to nature, they are but the creatures of nature and depend upon her for existence as fully as the image in a mirror depends upon that which is before it."

"“I want my children to be happy. I want them to find their own purpose in life rather than fall into a life that’s already set up for them"

"I had this internal need to be a healer. My mom was ill a lot when I was a kid. When she got cancer, I became interested in the progression of the disease and how she was being treated,"

"I’m in a position where I don’t have to be labeled… I don’t have to call myself an Indian artist to sell my work, and I decided that it was more to my advantage not to label myself as a particular kind of artist, based solely on my genealogy… now I know that I can be part of something, part of that lineage, without being defined by it."

"My grandmother, my mother, and me, each one of us progressed into our own work, “I take a great deal of pride in being different from my family. Yet I know my mother would absolutely love my work. As a woman, I think she’d be very proud that I’ve chosen to do things in my own style.”"

"I don’t like to feel like I have to stay within a certain style. I like to see things progress and turn into other things. I’m all about adventure."

"I liked the way they looked. They were easy to work with my hands. The drawings turned into these magical things."

"I am against the U.S./Mexican border wall, but rather than protest it directly, I chose to paint it with kids. I spent 6 years as “The Border Bedazzlers” painting the south side of the border wall with Mexican kids. We painted a full mile of border wall in Naco, Sonora. We turned something ugly into a giant canvas for art. Our painted border wall got torn down in 2016, shortly after Trump was elected. It was replaced with a metal slotted fence. I didn’t want to paint that fence, and always thought I’d like to start a kids’ free art center if I had a space to do so. I called an 80 year old border activist named Tom Carlson, and met him for coffee. The next day he gave me the keys to the old migrant center that hadn’t been used in a few years. I opened Studio Mariposa on Trump’s inauguration day as my own small protest."

"It wasn’t until 2008, when Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy, that art cars became a vehicle for activism for me. I wasn’t a political person at that point, but I had been a big fan of Hillary for years and vowed if she ever ran for President I’d do everything in my power to help get her elected. I immediately set to work and created my group “The Hillary Clinton Army.” The point of the group was to support Hillary using art. I painted my car with Hillary images, glued items such as toys, marbles and anything that caught my eye, and hit the campaign trail. The Hillcar was a hit and soon became part of Hillary’s entourage, traveling from town to town all over the country. I joined Hillary’s campaign again in 2016, and the Hillcar traveled to many states once again!"

"I was first introduced to art cars in the early 90’s in Bisbee by my friend Kate Pearson. She had just seen Harrod Blank’s film “Wild Wheels” and had met Harrod. She got inspired and made her own and I soon followed. My first car was called “The Funk Ambulance,” which was an Oldsmobile 98 painted with lions, a big sound system, and disco lights."

"Narrative is telling a story, I’m providing a situation. And it's in time, right now. Paintings are not in time. These are not narrative paintings. They can't be. Painting is boom: it's one time! It doesn't move, unless you put two of them in diptychs, or cartoon strips. And that's how they move. You can be doing narrative that way, if you want. But single paintings are a situation, they're snapshots. So, I avoid the word narrative. I'm not telling a story. I'm telling a situation. And I don't know a better way to say that. If you have a better way, please give it to me now."

"No, I wasn't interested in being Irish. And I wasn't interested in being in the Irish—in the sense of their mindset and miracles … I think you called them “myths.” But in the scheme of things, I liked the Irish and I liked living in Ireland and moreso familiarizing myself with their bewitching landscape and that story."

"My intention from the very beginning,was to try to find a way that didn't remind me of a thousand other people that I had seen."

"Studio Mariposa is a kids’ free art center located just across the border in Naco, Sonora. We are on our 6th year. Before the pandemic we had a weekly art day that around 100 kids attended. We offered all kinds of projects, from painting, clay, textiles, 3-dimensional art, and even our own kids’ band. During the pandemic we had to stop in-person events so we gave away free art supply bags for kids to make art at home. Around 400 kids picked up bags each week, and the art they made was astounding! A lot of kids really found their artistic voice at this time. Now we offer free outdoor classes and projects. We have a weekly outdoor painting class. We also paint murals around town, and as I already said, we have started painting border wall number 2. We are made possible by donations, so please consider donating"

"“I feel that an abstract painting is outer space, and I am in front of it, suspended in outer space, so that there isn't any horizon line. However, there is probably a sense of up and down, and side to side.” Beyond that, “I want the viewer to create part of the meaning."

"I have no idea! You've got more exotic Irish than I have. My neighbors would never tell me that sort of thing. They don't talk that way to me. I think it's rather interesting: a bunch of new paintings I'm thinking of doing still keep the “Giants” in mind. I came across something a couple of weeks ago where they found bones in Northern Ireland of a woman and a man. And I guess either in the same graves or next door to each other. But they were brother and sister. Incest. Maybe like the Pharaohs: they ruled as brother and sister."

"“I often paint a painting until it tells me to stop, and sometimes the white ground still shows,In most cases, I try to make the white ground either a pattern, so that it can be both negative and positive space, or if not that, perhaps an atmospheric wind moving the other colors and shapes around."

"When I first conceive of a painting‭, ‬I must feel it‭, ‬I hear it‭, ‬I taste it‭, ‬and I want to eat it‭. ‬I start from the driving force‭ ‬of color‭ (‬color hunger‭); ‬then comes to a second color to provide light‭, ‬luminous light‭. ‬It will be the glow to reinforce the first color‭. ‬I then discover the need of one‭, ‬two‭, ‬three‭, ‬or more colors which will indicate and make movement‭, ‬establish the psychodynamic balance in midair‭, ‬allow freedom to take place‭, ‬add weight at the top and bottom of painting‭, ‬and create mythical whirlpools between larger forms‭.”"

"I grew up on Martha’s Vineyard, a small island and home to many artists. After graduating art school in the mid 80’s, I spent a year in Guatemala. I loved its color and simple way of life. Things were getting increasingly scary there with war, so when I saw Bisbee, passing through on my way back east, it reminded me of Guatemala…a mountain village with simple houses and artistic people. It also felt very familiar to me because I grew up in a small creative community. After another winter in Guatemala, and the situation there getting worse, I decided to move to Bisbee in 1988. With the exception of a few years at sea, I’ve lived in Bisbee ever since. My favorite view to paint is right out my studio window at Central School Project. Downtown with B mountain"

"Art comes first for me. I enjoy inspiring others to be creative too. I prefer positive action rather than protest whenever possible. For example, I am currently painting the Mexican side of the U.S. border wall with kids across the border. This is the second border wall I’m painting. What I love about it is that it sends a clear message in a way that transcends fighting and protesting. I can’t personally tear down the border wall, but I can help change minds."

"In 1995 I moved on to painting a boat, and then a home built sailing raft my partner at the time and I built out of scrap lumber, logs and foam. We fashioned it into a painted dragon. We lived and sailed on it in the North-East for two years. It was hard living on the ocean so in 1999, I moved back to Bisbee."

"On the same canvas. Yes. Well, that's essentially what I'm doing. And I have been tempted to say that I make history paintings—but I know quite well that nobody anymore knows what I mean. If you say “classic,” that doesn't mean anything, but “history painting” is what I'm doing and I know I'm doing that, but I wouldn't choose it as a way of explaining it to an audience today cause they don't know."

"Whaaaaa I’m not sure, on my gap year I worked on a super yacht which was a crazy, exhausting and bind blowing all at the same time."

"When I paint I listen to the Harry Potter audiobooks on repeat."

"The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch, I am obsessed with it."

"I am really inspired by Flora Yuknovich’s work, I think as soon as I arrived at City and Guilds and saw her paintings I feel in love with them. I am also really inspired and fascinated with botanical studies and love visiting Kew Gardens. Within my work I try to bring the loose, bold and dynamic style of Flora’s work alongside the minute details found in floral studies, whilst recreate and transcribing classical mythological paintings."

"Crows know the value of organization, and are as well drilled as soldiers — very much better than some soldiers, in fact, for crows are always on duty, always at war, and always dependent on each other for life and safety."

"This year I have been looking the play Antigone by Sophocles. At the beginning of my project I tried to find as many classical painting representations of the play and then I work from these paintings to create my own work."

"I am really interested in the beauty of these paintings and the dark tales that they often depict, and this battle between aesthetic beauty against the dark truth of human behaviours."

"This is a time when the whole nation is turning toward the outdoor life, seeking in it the physical regeneration so needful for continued national existence — is waking to the fact long known to thoughtful men, that those live longest who live nearest to the ground, that is, who live the simple life of primitive times, divested, however, of the evils that ignorance in those times begot."

"I was born in Louisiana going back upwards of 10 generations of southerners, on my mother’s side, back to Jamestown. The South is a place behind the times – it runs slower. The South taught me tradition, storytelling, nostalgia, and preservation which are prevalent in my paintings. Returning to the South after traveling around the world, I am learning and becoming more aware about how systemically flawed our country is and I hope to be a better ally for finding solutions. I don’t yet know how this developing awareness might express its way into my art but I am reading books this summer about institutional racism. Most of my painting ideas can be traced back to what I am reading."

"My studio is a giant collage with images taped to the walls. By surrounding myself with images and fragments from paintings, I find relationships. From there I move things with tape to make a more specific composition of forms. It can be a slow process that sometimes takes years or a lightning fast instant when two things get stuck together and make a perfect new statement that I then render in paint."

"I individually value the artists of the past but I also look at what I am doing like a quilt making."

"These are images of works in progress in my studio. Some of these are from very complex collages and some from simpler. I think they reflect that struggle between maximalist and more minimal to compose."

"In creating the collage, the windmill was surreptitiously appeared…and it became apparent that is was there to blow debris into the Magdalene’s eyes and cause them to cry. In the process of collage, there are happy accidents that astound me. Next, I needed to figure out why they must cry and in my mind’s eye, I saw these structures all aflame. I realized that they were not merely sad but that they had to cry from danger of their own peril. For this reason, one is holding an onion…so as to produce more tears."

"Painting is about painting and its history. In some ways, I am trying to bring the past back and keep it alive, and in other ways, I weave quotations of past work into a narrative that reflects my life experiences in the present now. I paint from collages cut from the pages of Western European art history, so in a way, I work to preserve the past, and to create a narrative – to write my name on body of work mostly made by men."

"I grew up sleeping beneath quilts made by my great-grandmother. Each design had a name and meaning and each piece of cloth was a remnant from a dress of the many daughters, granddaughters, or great granddaughters. Each scrap went back to a greater cloth from which it was cut. They were narratives of textiles, garments, and lives; all combined they contained the aura of our family. Each was designed into a new creation to cover us from scraps of the old. Nothing was lost; it was ordered and reabsorbed into a larger pattern. This reflects my own process working from the fabric of art history. To answer your question: Yes! I love them all. I am interested in it all of art’s past. It gives me more to work with."

"I was teaching in Spain spring of 2020 and I watched as FSU’s campus in Italy close as the virus was killing thousands; and then, our own campus in Valencia closed. It was necessary for me to evacuate but not before I had to quickly try to finish a large painting project there and ship the work to friends in Paris and Vienna. Some of my packages have still not arrived at their destination because Covid has disrupted service and made things very complicated. It’s not a safe time to distribute art when the opening of services and facilities is so up in the air. Usually I show in ten shows a year all over the US and abroad. For now, I am taking a hiatus from exhibiting in person. I am hoping to take the next couple of years to turn inward and make my work in an intimate way without the pressure of circulation."

"The title for this painting is from the Devil in the White City, a book about a murderer who destroyed women during the chaos surrounding the Chicago’s 1893 World Fair. The image of “manufacturing of tears” fit well with the imagery I had been collecting of towers of babel connected to crying Mary Magdalenes. I was interested in placing these Babel-Magdalenes so that they covered the landscape, each unable to move."

"“Each woman must cry and contribute her tears to a communal glass. By working together, perhaps one day they will produce enough tears to put out one fire and spare the one who is closest to immediate danger. To stop participating results in death.”"

"My work is inspired by Renaissance period paintings depicting Greek mythology. I am currently focusing on The Odyssey by Homer. The Renaissance paintings represent the drama within these stories, with dynamic compositions and rich colours. I use a range of different paintings depicting the myth to create a collage on Photoshop, breaking down the classical structure and the figuration; creating contrasts between scale, composition, figuration and abstraction. From them, I create large-scale paintings constructed in layers using a variety of mediums; oil, gouache and acrylic."

"I have just completed my degree series which I have been working on in lockdown. I have really enjoyed making it, however my dream series at the moment is just being able to make work in a large studio where I can work to any scale and have space to stand back. Lockdown had really shown my the importance of having a studio and the space to look at your work."

"Not Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Astor together could have raised money enough to buy a quarter share in my little Dog Snap."

"A lion shorn of his strength, an eagle robbed of his freedom, or a dove bereft of his mate, all die, it is said, of a broken heart; and who will aver that this grim bandit could bear the three-fold brunt, heart-whole? This only I know, that when the morning dawned, he was lying there still in his position of calm repose, his body unwounded, but his spirit was gone — the old King-wolf was dead."

"Next day on returning I found him dead in the snow with his head on the sill of the door — the door of his puppyhood's days; my dog to the last in his heart of hearts — it was my help he sought, and vainly sought, in the hour of his bitter extremity."

"Art has always been a big part of my life, I can always remember sitting down and painting and drawing with my sisters, and art would always be spoken about. When I was studying the IB I then realised that all I wanted to do was make art and that’s when I decide to take a gap year and then apply for City and Guilds."

"The paintings start with a layer of gouache, blocking in colour and mapping out movement. Then acrylic paint is used for the floral patterns to intensify the placement of colours and black/grey structural lines breaking through the work. For some time now, I have been developing the use of organic floral forms to apply a different painting language when recreating these classical paintings. I am interested in breaking down the barriers between the decorative and the fine arts. So, rather than purely decorative, I see the floral and feminine forms as a different language of abstraction. In this layer, the acrylic is built up and overlaps with changes in scale to create depth. In the final layer oil paint is used, which is applied in glazes to push back areas and for the floral patterning. The oils create a unique, opaque effect as they sit on the surface."

"My paintings function as allegories and this one I think is as a metaphor for work and contributing to something like social security."

"I’ve come to experience art like a séance. Over time you can meld minds with artists: you laugh and feel their humor, or you are shocked by their sadness and grief. The main thing that comes across in Bellini’s paintings is the awesome potency and profound depth of feeling that made them. I’ve spent a good deal of my life looking at paintings, and what stands out to me is that, no matter when the painters lived, there are a lot of similarities among them. The work carries markers of the artist’s inner life—be it Carroll Dunham’s or Giovanni Bellini’s—for us to connect to. I find that humanity in art very appealing because it just cuts away all the layers of academia. Scholarship can buoy understanding in some ways but after a point can also drag you down, away from the art. Since contemporary artists are not hired by, say, the Vatican, we have the freedom to ask ourselves what we believe in and then to assert that belief. It’s actually a powerful liberty to own, and especially nice in our time when there are so many women’s voices in the mix."

"The best paintings of depositions, crucifixions and entombments are images that are familiar if you’ve ever buried someone you love. Just today, I saw an image in the New York Daily News of the brother of Moises Locón Yac, who was killed in the explosion on Second Avenue on March 26, collapsing in the arms of a Red Cross worker. You see the same configuration in paintings of Mary Magdalene mourning Christ. I remember things through great pictures. When I look at Renaissance masterpieces I recall scenes like the one on Second Avenue—the profound grief of families realizing that their loved ones have been killed."