Telling Stories
Paintings by John deLorimier
Bolinas Museum Show 2010
The work in this show grew out of paintings I did on-site in the late evening and nighttime. I am fascinated with the way objects appear in the special light at these times, especially the effects that happen when a car’s headlights fall on objects. I would set up my easel and paint quickly and then “fix” things back at the studio. It seemed an interesting way to contrast the naturalness of a landscape with the artifacts of a human presence. As time has passed the need to insert a narrative has become more important to me. I don’t know if this was because of the evocative effect of the lighting in the paintings or the nostalgia I’ve felt for the time when I first did this type of work, but the result has been paintings that are more illustrative and less formal.
There is a danger for an artist to explain too much about his work because it can narrow the ways the audience can enjoy the art. In the case of “Woman Walking Her Dogs” though, it may add to its meaning to know that this painting came out a conversation I had with a friend about the passing of her apparently healthy dog. It was taking a long time for her to get over his death and I thought of doing a portrait of the dog, but dropped that idea for a more staged image. The dog is framed in a strong light that I interpret as coming from a moving car’s headlights, while the other figures are silhouetted and too far away to help. This remoteness from the ones we love, even when we can see them clearly, is a theme that springs from this association of the near with the far.
The other paintings in this group are more restrained in overt storytelling and I have less to tell about them here. Some of my anxieties seem to be showing up in them, but I have also been studying the work of American realistic painters of the last century and I hope they have had some effect. My family visited The Art Institute of Chicago last year and I was able to see paintings by Sloan and Hopper among others. It is a great thrill to stand in front of the painting itself, instead of relying on a photograph to appreciate it. That happiness tempers for me the unease of making pictures in oil when there is so much visual content competing for our attention. I hope that a bit of my enjoyment of paintings — both seeing and creating them — is passed on to the museum visitor here in Bolinas when they view my work.