At the time of the election I did 10 small (8x10) paintings. Through Instagram I gave them away.
Anthony Palocci, Jr., “Open Container #2” (2014), oil on canvas, 14 x 11 inches (image courtesy Craig Stockwell)
Craig Stockwell (Keene, New Hampshire): This painting by Anthony Palocci sits in a central room in our house. A small painting, it occupies a lot of visual space on the wall. It is always shifting. I observe it at all times of day, in every different light, and it continually feeds me. During shutdown I have thought a lot about limitations, formal structures, doorways for imaginative action. This painting offers, repeatedly, those possibilities. And it is such an absurdly humble, simple, handmade painting — very physical in both its presence and its making.
As our art world shrinks and collapses, I have worked this winter/spring to just keep going. Surprisingly, I found that small, structured yet provisional paintings, like this one, are what I turn to both for looking and making. It is a small painting that activates domestic space; a painting shaky in its making yet firm in its presence, resistant to aesthetics yet rooted in art historical reference. Anthony is a Boston-based painter and I purchased this painting from a show at the former et al Projects in Bushwick during the year I spent in New York at the Sharpe-Walentas Space Program, 2013-14.
My work during these recent months has consisted of small, handmade, precarious formalist paintings, which I mailed to people (selected from Instagram) around the country. I reached 100 and am now done with that particular melancholy project. The luminous, shape-shifting quality of Anthony’s painting was an ongoing inspiration for what a painting might be at this time.
I’ve been at home with Sarah now for 43 days, but I have the saving grace of owning a free standing studio building that I can walk to 20 minutes away. Everyday I go. At this time I am not capable of originality or strategic thinking, instead I began work on a pile of small canvases that had been left behind by BFA students and I gathered them from the painting studio at NHIA. Thinking about the monks who, in the Dark Ages, retreated to islands off of the coasts of Ireland and Scotland to preserve western culture in illuminated manuscripts I am doing my own. Repetitive glowing works. As a further thought I am so bothered and restricted now by the accumulation of works I have, I work a lot and things pile up. It occurred to me to begin sending them out as gifts, I’ve sent out about 150 so far.
Gravity Gallery 44 Eagle Street
love songs 8/11/18-9/8/18
Berkshire Art Museum 159 East Main Street
Faculty-Artists from New England Colleges through October
love song #4 12x12 oil and acrylic on canvas, 2018
I have been invited by Sharon Butler for a Two Coats of Paint Residency.
May 6-12
There will be a reception, probably May9
Two Coats of Paint / Sharon Butler
55 Washington Street #454
Brooklyn, NY 11201
One of sixteen artists featured in the deCordova Biennial in Lincoln, Massachusetts. This exhibition represents the deCordova’s longstanding commitment to artists working in New England, celebrating the most compelling and ambitious art-making in the region. The sixteen artists selected for the Biennial are from across all six northeastern states—Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Their work represents a broad range of experience and explores diverse mediums and themes. These include creative translations of the natural world, innovations in abstraction, and investigations of digital processes and communication. Each artist is making a significant contribution to the contemporary art dialogue in New England today through the originality and dedication to excellence in their work. Read more about the show at the deCordova website.
I recently had the privilege of sitting down with Jennifer Samet of Hyperallergic to discuss painting, writing, and other topics. You can read the full interview at the Hyperallergic website.
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