| Artist Statements |
Subtraction
[Written for "Subtraction", a solo exhibition at Gallery IMA, Seattle, November, 2010]
Rather than building up story elements to build narrative, in these works I seek to subtract.
The fictional arc is the starting point, and details are progressively removed. Narrative is
boiled down, reduced, distilled. Background details are suppressed, with little indication
of setting. Faces averted, the figures themselves seek anonymity. In some cases, even
sections of paint have been omitted. And yet, even with such scant information
provided, and perhaps because of it, the images are highly charged and rich with
possibility. The viewer is willingly recruited to supply details from their own perspectives,
their own experiences – to begin the process of building the story anew.
Why No Faces?
[This statement was created for my summer 2010 solo exhibition "Recent Work: Jeffrey
Palladini" at Sandra Lee Gallery in San Francisco. During the opening reception, Sandra
and I were both asked repeatedly about the prevalence of averted faces in the paintings
in the show. I decided it was high time to address the issue]
The greatest benefit, from the artist’s standpoint, to making figurative art is also its greatest
challenge – which is that the human figure demands immediate connection with the
viewer. It is impossible to look an image of the human form and not automatically search
for narrative. This is generally advantageous, but it can also be a negative, and here’s
why: Figures, and most especially the faces, inspire people to involuntarily and reflexively
seek recognition – it’s an instinctive and ancestral function of the brain. Who is this?
Friend or foe? Potential mate? With faces evident, the viewer is likely to make
connections they can’t get past: “this one looks like my ex-girlfriend,” or “Hey, that
reminds me of my Dad”. I feel that this kind of recognition inhibits, or at very least colors,
the viewer’s ability to delve into the implied narrative on their own terms.
By employing the quarter-view of the face in these works, I draw the viewer into the
painting – they feel that instinctive need to know who the figure is, what he’s looking at,
what’s the setting. There is a vast world of action, setting, story, and other characters just
out of view, and the viewer is compelled to seek it out. I include minimal visual
information and do my best to charge the image with emotional tension. In this way, the
viewers build the narrative for themselves by joining their own points of view, prejudices,
desires, fears, and histories to the scant information that I provide.
An Endless Succession of Moments / The Vast Remainder
[Written for solo exhibitions "An Endless Succession of Moments" at Gallery IMA, Seattle,
April 2009, and "The Vast Remainder" at Sam the Butcher Contemporary Art, Ross, CA,
September 2009]
In these paintings are captured, in bright, brief flashes, complex emotion and intense
intimacy. With minimal visual information provided, to the viewer is left the imperative of
exploring the vast remainder. From a movie still is extrapolated a full film of character,
pacing, plot and script. From a paragraph, an entire novel. From a brief encounter, a
lifetime of histories and potentialities. From a single windowpane spreads a wide,
complicated landscape. From one charged moment, the story extends infinitely in all
directions.
As in memory, all is viewed in snapshots, in glimpses. Complex narratives, transformative
events, entire lifetimes, boiled down to these singular points in time.
The Fundamental Forces
[Created for my 2007 solo exhibition "The Fundamental Forces" at Crome Architecture in
San Rafael, CA. This idea has been the conceptual seed for a number of works since
2006, including the entire Scatter Series of paintings]
We go through our lives acting on our assumption of free will, while all the while being
bombarded with influence from other internal and external forces. Often, our personal
stimuli - memories, inspiration, longing, lust - seem to come from somewhere outside
ourselves, outside our control. Even our dreams are involuntary and untethered. The
passage of time and tug of gravity on our fragile physical selves weigh heavy and infuse
our most optimistic and hopeful endeavors with the faint tang of futility and temporality.
Any effort, toward outcomes both positive and negative, depends more than we care to
admit on the cooperation of unknown strangers, indifferent physics, and the arbitrary
nature of chance.
Works on Wood
[This statement was written to address repeated questions early in my career about my
technique. Artists across many cultures over many centuries have used wood grounds in
their paintings, but the importance of the wood in my work has generated much interest
to this day]
Wood, I have found, is an ideal partner to oil paint. Because the wood is porous and
absorbent, with inherent grain and flaws, it alternately resists and drinks in the oil
medium. This creates the most wonderful and unpredictable effects. The grain adds
depth and texture behind flat blocks of translucent color. The wood always asserts itself in
some way, regardless of the treatment of the image or the density of paint application. I
often leave fields of unaltered wood in the work - a dry, natural section that provides an
interesting contrast to the slick feel of the painted areas.
The use of wood in my work has also allowed me to break out of the flat rectangle.
Independence from the stretched canvas leads me to work with irregular shapes, to cut
contours, to pierce the surface plane. Emotionally, works on wood give the feeling of
permanence, of weight and solidity, of the painting as object. My work explores the
relationship between this structural, architectural ground, and the organic, plastic
qualities of the medium and image.
Pattern Elements
[Written for one of my first solo exhibitions at the Lowe Gallery in Santa Monica in 2004]
The pattern elements in my work serve as a sort of undercurrent. The metaphorical, the
metaphysical. The subliminal, the subconscious. The passage of time, unspoken
connections, a sense of place. With the comparatively concrete elements, like figure, the
combination produces an interesting duality: the visual equivalent of the said and the
unsaid, text and subtext.
Eroticism
[Created in the wake of numerous questions arising out of a solo exhibition at the Lowe
Gallery in Santa Monica in 2005]
Much of my work brandishes a sort of ambiguous eroticism – a vaguely (and sometimes
not-so-vaguely) sexual tension that shows through even the most neutral imagery. The
multiple figures which populate many of my recent works share narratives that are
compelling but not quite overt, encouraging the viewer to project their own stories and
points of view into their interpretations.
[Written for "Subtraction", a solo exhibition at Gallery IMA, Seattle, November, 2010]
Rather than building up story elements to build narrative, in these works I seek to subtract.
The fictional arc is the starting point, and details are progressively removed. Narrative is
boiled down, reduced, distilled. Background details are suppressed, with little indication
of setting. Faces averted, the figures themselves seek anonymity. In some cases, even
sections of paint have been omitted. And yet, even with such scant information
provided, and perhaps because of it, the images are highly charged and rich with
possibility. The viewer is willingly recruited to supply details from their own perspectives,
their own experiences – to begin the process of building the story anew.
Why No Faces?
[This statement was created for my summer 2010 solo exhibition "Recent Work: Jeffrey
Palladini" at Sandra Lee Gallery in San Francisco. During the opening reception, Sandra
and I were both asked repeatedly about the prevalence of averted faces in the paintings
in the show. I decided it was high time to address the issue]
The greatest benefit, from the artist’s standpoint, to making figurative art is also its greatest
challenge – which is that the human figure demands immediate connection with the
viewer. It is impossible to look an image of the human form and not automatically search
for narrative. This is generally advantageous, but it can also be a negative, and here’s
why: Figures, and most especially the faces, inspire people to involuntarily and reflexively
seek recognition – it’s an instinctive and ancestral function of the brain. Who is this?
Friend or foe? Potential mate? With faces evident, the viewer is likely to make
connections they can’t get past: “this one looks like my ex-girlfriend,” or “Hey, that
reminds me of my Dad”. I feel that this kind of recognition inhibits, or at very least colors,
the viewer’s ability to delve into the implied narrative on their own terms.
By employing the quarter-view of the face in these works, I draw the viewer into the
painting – they feel that instinctive need to know who the figure is, what he’s looking at,
what’s the setting. There is a vast world of action, setting, story, and other characters just
out of view, and the viewer is compelled to seek it out. I include minimal visual
information and do my best to charge the image with emotional tension. In this way, the
viewers build the narrative for themselves by joining their own points of view, prejudices,
desires, fears, and histories to the scant information that I provide.
An Endless Succession of Moments / The Vast Remainder
[Written for solo exhibitions "An Endless Succession of Moments" at Gallery IMA, Seattle,
April 2009, and "The Vast Remainder" at Sam the Butcher Contemporary Art, Ross, CA,
September 2009]
In these paintings are captured, in bright, brief flashes, complex emotion and intense
intimacy. With minimal visual information provided, to the viewer is left the imperative of
exploring the vast remainder. From a movie still is extrapolated a full film of character,
pacing, plot and script. From a paragraph, an entire novel. From a brief encounter, a
lifetime of histories and potentialities. From a single windowpane spreads a wide,
complicated landscape. From one charged moment, the story extends infinitely in all
directions.
As in memory, all is viewed in snapshots, in glimpses. Complex narratives, transformative
events, entire lifetimes, boiled down to these singular points in time.
The Fundamental Forces
[Created for my 2007 solo exhibition "The Fundamental Forces" at Crome Architecture in
San Rafael, CA. This idea has been the conceptual seed for a number of works since
2006, including the entire Scatter Series of paintings]
We go through our lives acting on our assumption of free will, while all the while being
bombarded with influence from other internal and external forces. Often, our personal
stimuli - memories, inspiration, longing, lust - seem to come from somewhere outside
ourselves, outside our control. Even our dreams are involuntary and untethered. The
passage of time and tug of gravity on our fragile physical selves weigh heavy and infuse
our most optimistic and hopeful endeavors with the faint tang of futility and temporality.
Any effort, toward outcomes both positive and negative, depends more than we care to
admit on the cooperation of unknown strangers, indifferent physics, and the arbitrary
nature of chance.
Works on Wood
[This statement was written to address repeated questions early in my career about my
technique. Artists across many cultures over many centuries have used wood grounds in
their paintings, but the importance of the wood in my work has generated much interest
to this day]
Wood, I have found, is an ideal partner to oil paint. Because the wood is porous and
absorbent, with inherent grain and flaws, it alternately resists and drinks in the oil
medium. This creates the most wonderful and unpredictable effects. The grain adds
depth and texture behind flat blocks of translucent color. The wood always asserts itself in
some way, regardless of the treatment of the image or the density of paint application. I
often leave fields of unaltered wood in the work - a dry, natural section that provides an
interesting contrast to the slick feel of the painted areas.
The use of wood in my work has also allowed me to break out of the flat rectangle.
Independence from the stretched canvas leads me to work with irregular shapes, to cut
contours, to pierce the surface plane. Emotionally, works on wood give the feeling of
permanence, of weight and solidity, of the painting as object. My work explores the
relationship between this structural, architectural ground, and the organic, plastic
qualities of the medium and image.
Pattern Elements
[Written for one of my first solo exhibitions at the Lowe Gallery in Santa Monica in 2004]
The pattern elements in my work serve as a sort of undercurrent. The metaphorical, the
metaphysical. The subliminal, the subconscious. The passage of time, unspoken
connections, a sense of place. With the comparatively concrete elements, like figure, the
combination produces an interesting duality: the visual equivalent of the said and the
unsaid, text and subtext.
Eroticism
[Created in the wake of numerous questions arising out of a solo exhibition at the Lowe
Gallery in Santa Monica in 2005]
Much of my work brandishes a sort of ambiguous eroticism – a vaguely (and sometimes
not-so-vaguely) sexual tension that shows through even the most neutral imagery. The
multiple figures which populate many of my recent works share narratives that are
compelling but not quite overt, encouraging the viewer to project their own stories and
points of view into their interpretations.
