So…first off – John Carlson is definitely a “painter’s painter.” Loose brushstrokes. Limited palettes. Human gestures. Interesting compositions. His work has a timeless quality to it. I guess that’s because it really is top notch in so many different ways. And that comes from learning, exploring and painting constantly for many years. Over that time, he’s developed a free flowing style that lends itself to impromptu variations with ambiguous meanings, which emerge from the vague human presences dotted within his sparse landscapes.
The following works were a few of our favorites which were on display at The Art Gallery in Willoughby, where we met up with Mr. Carlson to take some photos and talk about…art stuff.
So, I’m guessing that you’ve been doing this for a long time…picked up anything over that time.
Yeah, Creative freedom. Experimentation is the biggest thing, and knowing that if it doesn’t work – then it doesn’t work. I try to reduce the preciousness of the canvas or the paper. You kind of break a rhythm if you’re too worried about ruining this piece of paper that costs ten dollars…you don’t put your full effort into it – and it could be a mistake, but then again, it could be something killer.
Yeah…sometimes, I like to think of art as a way to defile the white spaces in our lives…although, it seems that you like to work with white space as well…
Yeah, a lot of my stuff is really defined by the negative space.
And it could also be defined as figurative as well…right?
Absolutely, I mean…I do a stray landscape here and there, but not very often. I’m just too fascinated by the billions of gestures from the human form. The little things…like just bending over (for example), and then maybe there’s something more violent that happens next – I mean these two actions could happen within one minute. I like to break it down almost like film stills…which, I also get a lot of my black and white inspiration from Film Noir…Robert Mitchum and Orson Welles type stuff.
With figurative art – do any other artists jump out at you as influential?
Egon Schiele…and newer artists like Luc Tuymans and John Currin. And then…someone who’s not a figurative artist, but all about surface – Anselm Kiefer…I can look at one of his pieces and see my own figurative idea …his work is so strong that it’s influential.
Do you work from memory? Or photos? Or something else?
A lot of them are just sketches. I’m kind of like Dr. Frankenstein…I’ll get a gesture in an airport or a restaurant or somewhere, and go back into my studio and get it down. Again, the most important thing is the gesture, and how it works within the whole piece. Moments of action. Is it a sorrowful moment? A moment of discovery? Which…I like ambiguity – maybe a tension that isn’t picked up immediately by the viewer. I like to keep people off balance, that’s my own gesture…sometimes space can be stronger than the figure itself.
View more of John W. Carlson’s work online at: carlsonstudio.net
