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It seems we can sometimes understand ourselves or find inner experience articulated through the language of the landscape - and in that connection recognize something within both landscape and self that is deeper and bigger than either... |
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Private Instruction Presentations Fine Art Resume pdf BORN: NY, NY 1960 CURRENT RESIDENCE: Rochester, NY (contact: jhmott@juno.com) EDUCATION 1985: M.F.A., Painting and Drawing Univ. of Michigan School of Art, Ann Arbor, MI 1982: B.A., Visual Studies; Religion Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH cum laude, with distinction and high distinction 1995: B.S., Environmental Science SUNY Brockport, Brockport, NY FINE ART / LANDSCAPE PAINTING I paint and draw in response to the visual environment - urban, suburban, rural and natural landscapes, favoring modes of representation that emphasize both sensitive observation and subjective experience of everyday surroundings. Of note: The Itinerant Artist Project: over 15,000 miles of painting and exchanging art for hospitality across the USA. Touring for a total of 6 months since 2000, I have stayed at 45 homes in 23 states and painted over 250 small landscape studies. Integrating painting, art outreach and performance, this ongoing project has been the subject of several articles and is described on this website and the original support site: www.edteck.com/jhmott. SELECTED AWARDS AND HONORS NY State Council on the Arts Grant, 2002 Blue Mountain Center Guest Residency (by invitation), 2001 Saltonstall Foundation Painting Grant, 1997 Saltonstall Foundation Residency, Ithaca, NY, 1996 New York State/Monroe County LIFT Grant, 1986 First Selection, UM/Karlsruhe Fellowship for Fine Art, 1985 Marcus Heimann Award for Creative Excellence, Dartmouth College, 1982 SELECTED SOLO AND INVITATIONAL (*) EXHIBITIONS 2005 Creative Conversations*, High Falls Gallery, Rochester, NY 2003 Farmland and Development, Big Springs Museum, Caledonia, NY 2003 The Itinerant Artist Project, 1570 Gallery, Rochester, NY 2002 Here and Not Here, Mill Gallery, Honeoye Falls, NY 2001 First Year of the Itinerant Artist Project, Taylor Gallery, Meriden, NH 2000 Retrospective Exhibition, Mercer Gallery, Rochester, NY 1998 Spirit and Place, Edwards Gallery, Plymouth, NH 1996 Shadow Landscape, Matrix Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI My art is found in private and institutional collections in the US, Canada and Europe, including the collections of film director John Irvin and singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco. SELECTED REVIEWS and ARTICLES Small Art, Giant Appeal, by Maja Tarateta, Art Business News, April 03 Coast to Coast, by Alan Singer, American Artist, Feb. 02 A Harvest of Other Views, by Jim Memmott, Democrat & Chronicle, Feb. 01 Cross Country Painter, by Rebecca Denton, Valley News (NH, VT), Jan. 01 Building the Perfect Painting, City Newspaper, Rochester, NY, Jan. 00 Spirit and Place reviewed, by John C. Cantu, Ann Arbor News, Oct. 93 Direct and Distilled Response, by Judith Reynolds, City Newspaper, Jul. 90 WRITING/OTHER I work part-time as an environmental consultant for national and local conservation groups; occasionally publish poetry, essays and articles, including "The Shadow Landscape, Painting on Black Gesso" and "Packing Ultralight for Travel Painting" in Inksmith; and am currently working on a book about my Itinerant Artist Project. |
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A landscape painting is a representation, to some degree a window, inviting you to see and perhaps feel something seen and felt by the painter; but it is also - and this may be a subtle shift in emphasis - a small doorway to shared experience. A painting affirms and expands a realm where the appreciation, imagination and thought of the viewer can mingle with those of the painter, with those of any other viewer, and, in a landscape painting, with the spirit of the place depicted. When painting, however, I may feel but don't really think about these points. I tend to paint whatever's around me, often favoring the everyday stuff of common experience; I think it's important to remember that beauty and meaning are really there in the ordinary things as much as anywhere. Certain subjects or themes will catch my interest for certain reasons, often showing me a way to give form and some resolution to my own emotions. Sometimes I simply enjoy seeing and trying to understand a scene or some aspect of a scene that I happen upon. In painting a place, I want to show something of the shapes and colors - the particular visual reality - of the chosen subject. I also try to keep the paint active and moving with a life of its own. I'm always excited when a brushstroke can suggest a cloud or a tree and also convey a certain feeling, all the while remaining a little mass of paint. The ideal I usually aim toward is the concentrated moment when subject, emotion and medium are one. I like the final image to rest somewhere between the state of painting as illusion and painting as a play of paint, just as in the process I tend to need a balance between control and not knowing what's going on. |
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