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Elder Art Gallery
Gallery
"Thinking
on Canvas" by Patrick Glover
July 19 – August 17, 2002
On
Friday, July 19th, Elder Art Gallery Gallery will host a reception
to introduce New York City artist Patrick Glover. “Thinking
on Canvas” will include recent paintings done by Glover.
His work has been greatly influenced by growing up and coming
of age in New York City. “Patrick’s work reflects
his feelings regarding the affect of media upon American society,”
said Larry Elder, owner of Elder Art Gallery Gallery. “His work
has a certain edginess to it and is unlike any being shown
in our region.”
Featured
in the show that will run through August 17th will be “unconventional
still lifes” that depict objects and scenes from the
contemporary American home. In addition, Glover will present
a number of large oil paintings on canvas that are done in
a collage-like style. His paintings are thought-provoking
and are so detailed that the viewer can ponder a variety of
objects that are not immediately recognizable until after
considerable thought is given.
Glover’s work has appeared on the cover of Country Living
magazine as well as in an article in Architectural Digest
magazine. He is a graduate of The Cooper Union for the Advancement
of Science and Art, having earned a BFA with major emphasis
in painting.
The
following is an interview that was conducted with the artist
regarding his recent work. Please take time to read it since
it gives a great perspective of the artist’s work.
Q
- In your statement you say that you are trying to make work
that is approachable, but many of these paintings are fairly
complicated and can be confusing to look at. What do you mean
by approachable?
A
- I think my paintings take some work on the part of the viewer.
In order for them to get involved in the paintings, I need
to hook them - like a catchy tune does - and then give them
something more to think on, like a good catchy tune does.
I use images that are vaguely familiar to people to draw them
into looking, and hopefully that will lead them to keep looking
and having a more in depth, personal dialog with the work.
Q - So that is why you use pop and advertising images in
the paintings, mixed in with other things?
A
- Yes, partly. I am convinced that media images
are one of the only shared perceptual realities that we have
in this culture. Think about it, every emotion, every event
that will likely ever happen to us in our lives, we have already
experienced in movies or on television, usually before we
have in reality. We are programmed to a degree by images
we have been seeing since before we could communicate.
I recently heard a report on NPR about teens and their reactions
to portrayals of sexual situations in the media, and the point
was made that the teens knew the script of a first sexual
encounter because they had seen it sooften on TV and in movies,
even if they had not experienced that for themselves.
Q
- So is it a sort of cynical advertising or media derived
manipulation that you are using to "hook"
people?
A-
No, not at all. I am very interested in investigating and
defining an aesthetic of the contemporary, everyday world.
Advertising and media images are, as I said before, a commonly
shared perceptual reality - a visual language
that we all have in common. We have all had those images
become a part of our thought processes and our dreams. Media
images are produced to try to make people draw one specific
conclusion - no ambiguity - they usually say "you are
not good enough" or "you are not protecting your
loved ones... unless you have this product". The entertainment
industry isn't usually trying to be thought-provoking, it
is trying to come up with diversions that help advertisers
sell products. I am trying to reclaim those images for
myself and for the viewer. I feel that by rendering
mass produced images in paint, making them personal to myself
and using them to do what I want them to do, I am removing
their manipulative "power" and presenting them to
the viewer for a sort of intellectual dissection - like "where
is that image from" "why is that familiar to me?",
"what was that image originally used for?", "
why did he put this next to that?" I am definitely
trying to be thought provoking, but not manipulative.
Q
- Are you concerned that some elements that you choose to
juxtapose, like religious images and nudes for instance, might
offend some viewers?
A
- I live in Brooklyn. I am a member of the Brooklyn Museum.
Two years ago we had a controversy surrounding a show that
was mounted at the museum called "Sensations".
I wasn't very interested in the show when I first saw notices
announcing it - it looked like sensationalism for the sake
of sensationalism to me, which I am never very interested
in. Then the Mayor of New York, Rudy Giulliani, decided that
one painting by Chris Offili was offensive enough to try to
shut the show down, cut the museums' funding and evict them
from their building. The painting was of a Madonna and included
a small ball of elephant dung on the canvas. I felt
begrudgingly obligated to go see the show. The painting
in question was actually quite beautifully painted, and an
obviously reverent and intelligent investigation of the artists'
Catholic and African roots.
I
was amazed at how much heated controversy such a misinterpretation
of an artists motives could generate. I suppose we
can't really do much to help people who can not think for
themselves. I consider myself to be something of a free
speech absolutist. People have a right to voice their opinions,
regardless of how pre programmed or ill - informed they may
be. Free speech means free speech for all, and I have
the right to argue with you, or present another POV, an idea
that may not set well with the status quo. The fact that I
may choose to present something that may be seen as offensive
does not necessarily mean that it is MY point of view that
I am presenting. I don't need to believe it myself to present
it to others for consideration, right? I never do things in
my work to try to intentionally offend, but it is not my job
to make sure that no one is offended. I don't believe
it would be possible to do so.
Q
- Some of these paintings are not very easy to look at, in
fact some of them might even be described as ugly - can you
describe what your motives would be in not making the finished
product as "attractive" as possible?
A
-The philosophy of the school I attended was art as a way
of looking at and thinking about the world, not just as a
set of skills.- Sort of "art as a way of life"
as opposed to as a trade. You are immersed for 4 years
in theory and art history and arguments about concepts and
politics - it was a blast.
I
love the act of painting, the struggle is how to make this
old, slow, individual medium be relevant in our age of instant
gratification and mass electronic media, how does the product
that I am producing have anything other than "I am a
pretty object" to say, when that is what much of contemporary
painting has become? I have  different
expectations for the work, I want to make the best paintings
I am capable of making, and for me the goal is that they should
have some relevance beyond just being pretty or nice. I want
the viewer to be challenged, provoked to thought.
Also,
I allow the paintings to transform as I work on them, the
finished product is never a fore gone conclusion. Just like
having your opinions or point of view change over time as
you gather more information and spend more time mulling over
a subject - that's how the paintings change as I work on them,
add images or rework areas, and that really is the process,
and process is important to the conception of the work, and
informs the look of the finished object to a large degree.
I
am more interested in the strength of that, in the end, than
I am in whether the object itself is going to be perceived
as "pretty". I would rather that people find
them interesting, intriguing or even annoying, as long as
that makes them want to keep looking, and as long as I can
honestly feel that they are well resolved, good paintings.
Q-
Do you consider the work to be conceptual then?
A
- I would hope that I am striking a balance - that there is
enough technical merit to hold a traditionalist and enough
of a concept to make the work interesting on that level as
well.
Q
- Who do you consider to be your artistic influences?
A
- The abstract expressionists ideas of direct experiential
painting is a major influence, obviously not in subject matter,
but in spirit, because of the way in which my paintings evolve,
with out a clear end product in mind. My favorite painting
instructor at The Cooper Union was a second generation abstract
expressionist named Nick Marsicano - he had worked with Diego
Rivera in his youth, and was friends with Phillip Guston.
I think that whole ideology was very influential with-in the
painting department at the school, and I was definitely influenced
by it. Pollock, Franz Kline, DeKooning - all those guys.
I love the immediacy and the ability in the best abstract
expressionist works to transmit the experience of the making
of the work to the viewer.
I
love Rembrandt, Pissarro, Soutine, Chagall, Van Gogh, Gorky,
Miro, Kandinsky, Klee, Duchamp, Stuart Davis, Robert Rauchenberg;
Chuck Close is one of my favorite contemporary painters.
I’ve been influenced by the movement called the "Situationist
International" - and the book The Society of the Spectacle
by Guy DeBord as well as Art as Experience by Dewey,
both of which I studied as a student.
Q
- What role do you think these artists play in informing your
work?
A
- One of the things that I love about making art is the influence
someone who lived and worked long ago can still have over
people looking to learn and innovate today. I love being able
to walk through history at the museum and to be able to get
excited by something cool and innovative someone did 2 or
3 hundred years ago. I love feeling that connection through
the distance of time with another person who is interested
in the same things I am. I get excited when I recognize
what they were doing and that it is the same issue I am dealing
with in my work. Also, to see somethin they
figured out that I am having difficulty with. It's a
non - verbal communication that transcends the barriers of
real time and amazes me when I am experiencing it. Some of
my favorite art instructors have been dead for hundreds of
years.
I
think I am interested in a kind of mixed bag of artists; some
very painterly sensualists and some who are more conceptually
motivated. I try to make work that is involved in numerous
ideas that interest me. The artists I admire inform different
elements of the work, depending on what I am trying to achieve.
The paintings begin to follow their own logic after I have
worked on them for a while. I guess that's a difficult thing
to describe. Having art history to reference while in the
midst of that kind of "hermit in the studio" thinking
is often very helpful or grounding.
Elder Art Gallery
Gallery is located in Charlotte’s historic South End
district on South Boulevard and is one-half block from the
Trolley’s Bland Street Station that ties the district
to the center city area.
“Thinking
on Canvas” will open Friday, July 19th, and continue
through August 17th. Summer operating hours are Tuesday through
Friday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m.
until 2 p.m. Private appointments are encouraged.
Elder Art Gallery
Gallery
1427 South Boulevard • Suite 101 • Charlotte, NC
28203
704-370-6337
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