Columbus Dispatch Features My Art & Schumacher Gallery Exhibition
by Daric Gill
I’m pleased to share that “Elements”, a group show at the Schumacher gallery, was reviewed in today’s Columbus Dispatch newspaper. My work was featured both in the physical paper and the online version. It was also a nice surprise to see my work sharing a spread with my long-time friend & former boss, the late Denny Griffith. A giant thank you to Nancy Gilson who wrote the article.
Click the image below for a larger view or follow this link for the online version:
Absolute: Construct, oil on refinished red oak. 22″ x 26″. 9.21.12.
The Story Behind The Original “Absolute” Painting & Updated Images
by Daric Gill
Absolute Orchid (Orchid’s Empty). Oil on wood panel. 11″ x 17 1/4″. 2008
We all love when a great idea travels along a bolt of lightning and blazes right into our skulls. But there’s also something really satisfying about a slow rolling brainstorm that overtime builds into something great. These kinds of ideas seem as if they need time to simmer down to a distilled form; extracting, refining, and aging to something far more potent. The latter of the two was the case for the origins of the Absolute paintings.
It so happens that the first in the Absolute series is also the last piece in a deconstructed triptych. The previous triptych actually starts as a portrait painting and ends in a still life. Originally titled Orchid’s Empty, this painting sat as an unknown transition piece for a few years.
In fact, I stopped making still lives altogether after undergraduate school. The brutal truth is that trompe l’oeil paintings (a painting style used to deceive the eye) is often a study about the ‘objectness’ of the still life rather than the pursuit of a complex concept. I realized I didn’t have any place for that limitation and I stuck to sculpture and portrait paintings until I had something more meaty to hold onto. Graduate school came and went as with my stint as a teacher, and I still felt a little disenchanted.
For a while, I almost gave up painting altogether…
After a delightfully busy week of studio work and paneling an art festival, I’m continuing the process of re-documenting my collection.
“Absolute: Radiance” (detail), Oil on reclaimed quilted walnut. 11 3/8″ x 8 1/2″. 6.14.13
It’s not the biggest or the smallest piece in this series. It doesn’t hold the most humor or even seem as conspicuous as some other pieces in this series. But this piece holds a lot of information for portraying so little. It’s the sometimes less is more analogy. There’s also a lot of hidden secrets in this piece. Painted on quilted black walnut, even its fairly small dimensions are a sneaky deception. Absolute: Radiance weighs as much as a piece 3 times its size due to its thick cross section. The security code usually stamped on the back is hidden on the side wall of the wood. Even the materials it is made of has a literal and figurative duality.
This painting depicts a bent nail resting on a vein of halo’d metallic gold paint. This effervescent vein follows the grain pattern of the wood and changes sheen based on where the viewer stands. As you have read, there’s some interesting aspects of this piece’s process that makes for some cool behind the scenes information.
The real nail used as subject matter is still IN the piece… after it was liquified and used to dye the frame.
To borrow a few sentences from the Broad & High website: [The show is] “an exciting and original weekly magazine show, developed by the award-winning production team of WOSU Public Media, explores the character and creativity of Columbus and beyond.”
I believe this whole heartedly and I’m tremendously honored to have been part of this lovely series.
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Thank You
A huge thank you goes out to producer Jackie Shafer, videographer Kenny Sato, and the entire team at WOSU-PBS Broad & High for putting on a thoughtful and enriching show. The entirety of this series seems to be aiming for an ever-increasing understanding of culture both locally and abroad. I’m truly grateful to be selected for such a feature.
What It’s Like Being Filmed For An Afternoon?
Sanding (before/after)
Since this video was posted, I’ve had several people ask me what it was like to be filmed while working. This is a question asked more from other artists than anyone else. As you can imagine, art-making can often be a fairly solitary occupation and so it comes as sort of a shock to the system for some that a person would be filming one’s every artistic move.
My honest answer:
Strangely, I was more nervous with anticipation during the month or so between filming and air date than I was during the actual art-shadowing. There’s a whole list of strategic planning and editing processes that the public never sees in preparations for a production like this. The episode I was featured in was slotted for a distant time that seemed ages away from the original filming date. Although I was entirely comfortable in front of the camera, I found myself itching like a kid before Christmas for the air date. I was restless to unwrap the goodies under the tree.
As a former teacher, I’ve grown accustomed to giving demos and speaking intensely about the theories of art making. It was an extra benefit that Kenny Sato (the man behind the camera) was calm and quite easy to talk to. Sato’s genuine interest in my work and pleasant demeanor made it possible for me to remain true to those previously learned teaching habits. He was comfortable which made me feel comfortable. A true professional.
Somewhere in the ethos there’s a saying that goes something like, “For every minute of air time, there’s an hour of recording”.
Filming my videographer, Kenny Sato
I’m not entirely sure how true this is in reality, but I can say that my interview lasted a fair amount of my afternoon. The camera followed me for several hours while I worked and I was surprised to find that after some time I actually became fairly oblivious to it. Again, I would say that Sato’s ‘fly on the wall’ approach aided in this comfortability. On minimal occasions he’d interject a question as I switched tasks or stopped recording to change memory cards. But for the most part, I brought my normal day’s worth of work and he let me do just that–work. It was sort of nice actually. Like having a quiet friend hang out with me while I was on the clock. Only I had just met him.
After filming my process for a while, we had an informal interview upstairs in an opened space. This was a little more like the TV interviews I’ve encountered before. Bright lights, cameras, sound booms, and cords-a-plenty pointed directly at me while I pretend they aren’t there. I always find this to be a pretty surreal experience. Immediately, I am reminded that I do that one thing with my hands too much. Next is usually a wave of forgetting how to breathe naturally. Then, a simultaneous amusement/bewilderment creeps in as I contemplate how one can think about breathing normally while giving an interview AND worrying about hand gestures… all while still not autonomously regulating one’s breathing. So, I gave up on multi-tasking brain faculties and settled into myself again. From there on out things sailed smoothly and I had a great time.
Again, it was a great experience. Thanks Jackie Shafer and Broad & High! Please navigate to their website or check out their broadcast on TV every Wed. night at 7:30p WOSU-PBS.
I’m pleased to share that “Elements”, a group show at the Schumacher gallery, was reviewed in today’s Columbus Dispatch newspaper. My work was featured both in the physical paper and the online version. It was also a nice surprise to see my work sharing a spread with my long-time friend & former boss, the late Denny Griffith. A giant thank you to Nancy Gilson who wrote the article.
Daric Gill 
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