Tag: Kiddos

Thinkspace Projects is excited to welcome back Matthew Grabelsky for his seventh solo exhibition with our gallery. ‘Kiddos‘ features a collection of 15 new oil paintings of kids with animal heads doing things that kids do.

“Childhood is a particularly primal period of all of our lives. A time that is all about the id, when strong emotions and passions reign supreme, before every decision becomes thought out and overanalyzed. It’s also a time, or it was for me anyway, when most of who we become as adults, our character and interests, is established. As such, I thought it would be interesting to explore this age through the lens of my animal-head motif using it a way to see into kids minds… I’ve placed the characters in settings that relate to the animal that they are portrayed as. A dog at a dog park, a squirrel in a tree, an elephant in a pool, etc. Like in my subway paintings, where the clothing, details in the train car and station, and objects they hold relate to the animal, here the settings and clothing link with the animal. These details are meant to tell a story in a humorous way about who these kids are.”

Our interview with Matthew shares a memorable experience that influenced his artistic journey, explores his life outside of the US, and reveals what’s on his bucket list.

• What motivated or inspired the collection you’re presenting in this exhibition?

All the paintings in this show feature kids with animal heads. The models for them are my little cousins and my friend’s kids. I often think about how my childhood inspires my art. So much of who I am and the things that I like were fixed by the time I was 6 years old. As much as I’ve grown as an adult, my core identity from my early formative years hasn’t changed much. For that reason, I though it would be interesting to do a show of animal-kid paintings exploring that time of life.

• Can you share a particularly memorable moment or experience that influenced your artistic journey?

When I was in college at Rice University in Houston, I visited the Museum of Fine Arts and I came across a painting by the french academic painter William Bouguereau. It was of a girl sitting and holding her baby sister in her lap. They were outside, set against a low horizon in the French country side. The girl’s eyes were painted in a way that made it look like she was staring directly at you and they miraculously followed you wherever you stood in the room. I was captivated by how alive she looked and by the style of the painting which was strikingly realistic but also stylized in a way that captured some of the lively linear quality of comic book drawings. I was struck with an overpowering feeling that I had to learn how to paint like that. I had been making art my whole life but mostly sculpture, not drawing or painting. That moment set me on the artistic journey I’ve followed since.

• How do you feel your style or technique has evolved over time, and what factors have contributed to this evolution?

When I started painting, first learning and then painting professionally, I focused on painting realistically. My subject matter often had imaginary elements but I would render the entire scene to the borders of the canvas to make it look real. Lately, I’ve been very interested in moving away from that kind of evenly painted image. I’ve been exploring the idea of rendering the central figures but leaving the parts of the painting on the edges of the canvas loose and sketchy. Paintings in progress have always fascinated me by how you can see the process evolving and feel the artists hand and mind at work. I wanted to capture that idea by leaving parts of my paintings in process. I find that creates an exciting contrast with the central focus which is realistically rendered and detailed. It’s as if the edges of the canvas are fraying giving the impression the image is being conjured from paint and brushstrokes as you watch. I explored a bunch of variations of this idea in this current body of work and I’m excited to see where else I can take it.

• Are there any specific artists, movements, or periods in art history that have significantly influenced your work?

My biggest artistic influence growing up was my grandmother. She was an incredible artist, primarily an oil painter; she worked in other media as well – pen and ink, woodblock, etching, stained glass, watercolor, collage, and knitting. Our home was full of her art and she defined my idea of what an artist was. As my career as a painter has progressed I’ve gained even more appreciation for how good she was and I often look at her work to for inspiration and ideas.

In college and then later when I was studying painting in Italy, I fell in love with European painters in the long period between the Renaissance through the early 20th century. I loved how these paintings told stories in richly detailed realistic ways. There are lots of painters in this tradition whose work speaks to me but some of my favorites are the later ones who were painting around the end 19th century. Painters like William Bouguereau, Arnold Böcklin, John William Waterhouse, Rosa Bonheur among others. These artists portrayed narratives that combined the strong pictorial design that was central to the European tradition with an added level of realistic detail captured in a beautiful painterly way that strongly resonated with me.

• What’s on your bucket list?

At the moment all I can think about is getting out of the studio and spending time with my friends and family. I just got out of a big push in the studio getting ready for this show. Now that I can emerge from art jail I can’t wait to leave my self imposed solitary confinement and socialize. I’m going to take some trips, visit friend and family I haven’t seen for a while.

• Do you find yourself drawn to certain subjects or scenes repeatedly? If so, why?

Most of the paintings I’ve done over the last 15 years have been people with animal heads. It’s an idea that came out of my interest in myths and folklore where such creatures are common. In my work, the animal head is intended to capture the character of the person and gives a window into their mind. 

I’ve always been drawn to humorous images. I loved comic strips as a kid. Garfield, Calvin and Hobbs, The Far Side, and New Yorker cartoons were among my favorites. I’ve made a lot of paintings of people with animal heads and the spark for all of them is an idea that makes me laugh. In Greek theater, comedy and tragedy were intimately related, two sides of a coin. While today, tragedy often gets first billing in the art world, I think that comedy is a powerful way to explore passions and deep human themes. In my work, I always try to incorporate comedy in a weird and wonderful way.

• In what ways does your cultural background or personal identity inform your artistic perspective?

I grew up in New York with a big extended Jewish family, and humor was always a central part of our culture. My family wasn’t religious but I always had a strong feeling of being culturally Jewish and for me that meant eating bagels and trying to say funny witty things. Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Sarah Silverman, and Jon Stewart always felt like my people. Humor is central to my paintings. They start with a funny thought that makes me laugh and guide most of my decisions when I’m painting.

• Have you noticed any differences in how your art is interpreted abroad compared to in your home country?

I lived in Europe for a long time, first as an art student in Florence, and later living and painting in Paris. Europe is the region I’ve shown the most outside of the United States. My painting style is heavily influenced by Old Master and 19th Century European artists, and I’ve found that Europeans often pick up on that connection since they grow up surround by art from that time.

• What’s the weirdest or most unexpected inspiration you’ve ever drawn from for a painting?

Probably the first animal-head painting I ever made. I was a few years out of art school and living in Paris. I was focused on studying paintings in museums and improving my technical painting chops. As for what to paint, I had a lot of different interests but hadn’t figured out how to combine them into a signature style yet. I took a trip back to New York for a cousin’s wedding and while I was there I saw an older couple on the subway. Something about them caught my attention, and I snapped a quick photo. That reference became the inspiration for my first animal head painting which turned into a theme I’ve been exploring to this day.

• If your paintings could interact with viewers in a virtual reality experience, what would that interaction be like?

One question I’ve thought about is what my characters would sound like were you to come across them in person. Would they talk like people or sound like animals? Perhaps, in a virtual reality experience we could find out. Maybe they would sound like both interchangeably.