I dropped by the studio at Illiterate on Wednesday, walked into the gallery and stumbled upon Jason Appleton finishing up a massive 14 x 11′ painting and was in completely awe at the scale and quality of his work. I have gotten to know Jason pretty well since the mini-interview I did with him on the 303 blog back in February and had the wonderful opportunity to witness the beginning and end of a new body of work by an artist. After a self imposed, 2 year art world hiatus, the wildly prolific painter returns with a solo show this Saturday at Illiterate Gallery (82 S. Broadway). The opening reception starts at 6pm and the Show runs until June 25th.
I just could not help but ask Jason a few questions about the new show:
So, Tell me about your new work at Illiterate:
The show seems to be about color and paint. Two of the paintings represent some big steps in color for me- a pink painting with light blue and light green line over it and a painting that I am finishing on the gallery floor tonight which has 16 colors in it. This painting is 14 feet wide and 11 feet tall. I started it about 9 days ago on the floor of my studio. Brand new territory for me is the molding of house paint that becomes this sculptural material. I mold little paint strips that are three feet long and giant paint strips that are 15 feet long. Then I stack a bunch of these paint strips together, flop them around a bit and get these bizarre 3-d paint sculptures.
So what’s next for Jason Appleton:
I have plans to do a one night only all ceramic show hosted by Mark Sink at Z-Cuisine which is a French Restaurant. This will be a few months down the road. The other thing is a two year show that will open June 8th, 2012. I realized while working on this show (Illiterate) for the past 5 months that day in/day out working on art and art ideas is the only thing that really motivates me, that gets me juiced up. I need a show to shape my time and to focus my ideas so I figured why not a two year show? So I am starting on the planning stages of a two year show after things are finished with this one.
