About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 2011)
PAINTED LADIES LOCAL FP: Do you listen to music when you paint? JH: Always. I type in "metal" into iTunes and let it run a playlist. I don't have to skip songs, even if it's a band I don't really love. It's high-energy music. When I have a happy moment while painting, an excla mation moment, it's always heightened by the music. I'm totally painting to double- kickdrum metal! Originally from Cordele, GA, Jeremy Hughes moved to Athens to study painting at the*Lamar Dodd School of Art. After a teaching gig at SUNY Oswego and a move to Nashville, he returned to Athens and the LDSOA. where he will be teach ing drawing and painting this fall. Hughes is a prolific painter who has focused on re-interpreting images from films (often Hitchcock) and advertisements, a practice that questions notions of authorship and originality. His current project takes the paintings of late-19th-century artist John Singer Sargent as its inspiration. Hughes saw Sargent's portraits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art a couple of years ago and was floored by the "effortlessness" of his brushstrokes, but. of course, creating the appearance of effortlessness takes a lot of practice. What started as an academic exercise in copying Sargent's paintings has turned into something else. Jeremy Hughes: My living room is my studio, so art is inte grated into my life. My painting is always visible to me. Every morning when I head to the bathroom for a shower to wake up, my painting is the first thing I see when I walk out of the door. The painting I'm working on is the first thing I look at. I've had studios outside my living space before, but that's too much like going to a job. Painting should be more like play than work; it should be fun! FP: Appropriation is a part of your work. What do you take from your environment that shows up in your pictures? JH: The people around me. The availability of people in this town—the personalities and artists—that is why I moved back to it. If Atlanta is the NYC of the South, then Athens is the Brooklyn. People are approachable here. I can ask local icons to be [in my paintings] and they will do it. People are ready to participate. It's a play date; it's dress-up; it's community service. One of Hughes’ paintings inspired by John Singer Sargenl. Hughes works with local artists to decide which of Sargent's models they should stand in for. His subjects, all women, sometimes choose portraits of women and sometimes men. With the models dressing the part to pose for photographs, these pictures are the source material from which Hughes makes the paintings. This collaborative process is integral to the creation of the work. Just as his subjects are reprising the role of Gilded Age debutantes or captains of industry, so is Hughes using Sargent as a mask to gain the sense of free dom and "effortlessness" he saw at the Met. Now, at almost mid-point in the series, I see something changing as his own self-assuredness develops. Hughes plans to take a few steps into, as he says, "dangerous waters" with his next paintings in the series to imbue the artwork with a little more of his (and his subjects') own lives. Sargent said that a portrait is a paint ing where there is a little something wrong with the mouth; Hughes' newest artwork just might get more "right" the more he gets "wrong" with Sargent. We spoke at his home in Athens, where he also keeps his studio. Flagpole: Can you think for a minute about which object in your studio reveals the most about the relationship between life and your art-making? FP: Try to explain what it is like for you to make art. JH: I really love starting. I get very anxious, conscious about finishing. I start fast and paint fast for two or three days and then I slow down for a week. Then I fin ish in a day. It is like reading a really good book that you don't want to finish. I paint out of joy and love. I want to paint what I love. When I am painting people, they don't need to be photorealistic; they just need to be real, like themselves. When I start a painting. I think about specific areas in [the composition] that need addressing. I may make a drink and drink half and then walk away, then I turn on the music and walk away from everything else. FP: What is your next project? What is most on your mind right now? JH: My show in Belgium just got pushed back another year due to lack of funding. I am disappointed about that but also a little relieved that I don't have to cough up the money for shipping. This [Sargent] series is not even halfway done. I've never felt this kind of longevity in my work—ever—and it's definitely attrib utable to the people I am working with. I feel pretty limitless. Gel a sneak peek of Hughes’ new Sargent series and other works at his website: www ieremyhughesart.com/mam.php. On Exhibition Now: Maxine Youngblood began painting ab-ut 20 years ago at age 52, immersing herself in the study of art history and painting technique while seeking out the art scene both here (as an MFA student) and in NYC. Upon see ing her works—most are on view for the first time in Athens at ATHICA—it is obvious that she is an ardent painter who wields color and brush with boldness and confidence. While some paintings appear to have a little Van Gogh, others are reminiscent of Ensor or de Kooning. Her expressionistic paint ings blend these historical citations with a representation of contemporary subjects from Elvis and Madonna to a portrait of O.J. Simpson's mother at his trial. Meet the artist in person at the July 9 reception from 7-9 p.m. or at the exhibition "Walk and Talk" on July 14 at 7 p.m. Youngblood's paintings will be on display at ATHICA through July 24. Caroline Barratt arls@flagpole com BEEutiful \ diamond s :ndant with lored golds uruni DOWNTOWN JEWELkY • ART 706-546-8826 EARTH-FRIENDLY • WATER-WISE ORGANIC GARDENING fl SOME GROW asVaTho b b v, WEDOllT.ROR A LIVING! ra HYDROPONICS CH272011 Open Pollinated Heirloom Organic Seeds Earthboxes and Earthbox stackable planters Propagation lighting for seeds Heatmats and thermostats for seed starting Organic fertilizers and amendments for gardens Composters and wormbins Hobby greenhouses and accessories www.FloraHydroponics.com • Mon-Sat 10am-6pm Now Open in Atlanta! 1239 Fowler St. 404-532-0001 Athens • 195 Paradise Blvd. Behind Terrapin Brewery 706-353-2223 JULY 6, 2011 •FLAGP0LE.COM 9
