JOHN J. FITZSIMMONS

Artist’s Statement

           My painting explores the space experienced as a “witness to a slice of life”. I gravitate towards the random, the chaotic and the awkward in my painting and I make use of those unresolved tensions.

            I look for the drama in the quiet and the quiet in the drama, the layers and the light and the feeling that is “the sublime”.

            I work with drawings, onsite painted studies, photographs and memory to construct my paintings. I take what could be considered a random glance of a tree, stream or a patch of ground, and explore its space and light. The negative space is no less important as an object.

            I am always aware of perspective, my eye level and the horizon, even though that may not be obvious in the tree paintings. Perspective is an aspect of perception and a formalistic element that can organize or confuse a picture plane and is a tool for defining my relationship to the original subject and the painted image. Giotto is the master of skillful but not slavish use of perspective to exert a subtle structure in a multifaceted painting.

            I paint one or more small studies, for instance a 3 x 16 inch study for a 16 x 80 inch painting. I like working with odd scales and proportions and the low, wide format feels like my natural field of vision. I paint on either stretched canvas or panels, which are two very different painting experiences. The canvas gives and responds to the brush, a hard plywood or Masonite panel resists the brush leaving thinner more transparent paint that I often scratch through to break up or define an edge.

            I am returning the figure to my paintings, and find that the figure gives a stronger implied narrative, versus the subtle anthropomorphism present in the tree top paintings.

JOHN FITZSIMMONS

FAYETTEVILLE , NY 13066

www.fitzsimmonsart.com

 email: jfitzsim@twcny.rr.com

 phone: 315-449-0978