ARTIST STATEMENT

I want to paint to have a good time in the process of creating my work. Instead of concentrating on production, I’ve become satisfied with the daily discovery of just plain beauty. Producing is just a by-product of enjoying the studio process, which in turn naturally allows for a number of pieces to be made in many different bodies of work. Over time, I have had the good fortune to become known for the many different styles of work that I do, instead of just being noted for one style alone. In the thirty-five years that I’ve been working, I’ve never painted a single work that I didn’t have fun making.

On my style:  Yes, there is a thread of particular style that people, myself included, see running throughout my various paintings.  Whether it be heavily textured, the way my gazing characters look straight at the viewer,the movement, background images or the obvious deep color palette, there is a continuum of style that I’ve found I cannot control. One of my early instructors once asked   me, “Winston, what is STYLE?”, and, after some brief thought I replied, “myself”… he agreed, and never were any art instruction made simpler for me – at least at that time in my growth as an artist. Since the early days, I realize that as I work every day, and the paintings seem to manifest all on their own (especially the mixed media works), whether straight from the brush or my bare hand on some plaster covered wax with an oil paint soaked rag. The piece somehow takes on its own style, and I want it to become what “it” wants to be (the narrative paintings included, even though they require much more physical research). I can take up to two or three months gathering photographs, drawing from life, or attempting to make a direct copy of a face from a photograph in pencil before I begin the execution of a narrative work. Yes, a simple story is “the narrative”, so even though they are much more difficult than the various media work I engage in, they are definitely a good challenge for me to continue growing as an artist. “Never get stale, never become complacent, erase and re-build!”, my mother, who was a great landscape painter, used to bark at me.

So, except for some commissioned work, I try to stay away from the stoic, academic tendency to make my work appeal to everyone.  Since the early 2000’s, some of what I do seems like it’s been taken from a polaroid camera influenced children’s picture book: a staged technicolor palette of smiles and faces placed or posing in storybook styled scenes of a nostalgic past that is brought into the present. Playful, sometimes mischievous, I include the   tropical colors that have   always been a reaction to the mute, solemn grays that the Seattle area is known for … I paint in vivid color because that’s what, to me, is what I’d like to look at when in a gallery or museum. Color is key for me, the most glorious thing to see, remember and express. But this particular kind of color palette must be balanced with a true, properly mixed palette (as academic as I get). All the rest is just wanting to say, “what would this iconic nostalgic character look like if placed in this environment?”

These days, people take lots of pictures of themselves and friends, and I know my narratives reflect that societal culture. But there’s another reason why I use this nostalgia, whether it be a neon sign, a singer from the 1940’s, period costume, an old Schwinn bicycle. I want the new, younger viewing audience to become more familiar with people and scenes reminiscent of a black and white photo era, to see the popular cultural icons in glowing, tropical color with a touch of the fantastic mixed in for interest. Like taking a selfie picture of the past, I seek to bridge a gap between generational interests and differences, to bridge cultural references and make the old become new. Simply, I’d like to see for myself what Frank Sinatra would look like with modern tattoos and a red velvet jacket with green olive martinis for a bow tie. The candy-laden rich color palette is something that appears because of the need for proper shading, hue, tone, etc. (one way that I stay interested) – and this completes the composition of a technicolor snapshot.

It’s interesting to no end in how two materials like espresso and rock salt react in a mixed media work, or how a costume’s finish suddenly appears as to look like some delicious, torrid candy glazing that is freshly poured onto a table for curing. That’s what I live for and love the most (besides the opening night!) – is the process that happens in the studio. As for the imagination and how I get to what I want to see in a finished piece, I’m interested in so many aspects of the modern age that have become so stylized:  faces, products, landscapes, food, clothing, or the way people speak.  Frenetic movement and contrasting shapes in the city, the aromatics of dried grasses and vistas out in the country, a neon sign on a lonely street in a one block town or a cat sleeping in a window can capture my “vision” and move into my work.  When you are driving   along, sometimes you may suddenly see the next piece that will fit into the latest compositional puzzle. And I try not to look too much at former completed work, instead I want to make “someone”, or “something” new each day and that way I’m only influenced by what comes next. I just let myself work, stay disciplined every day and “see what comes out of me”. Sometimes, a walk in an alleyway past a rusty drainpipe or the way vintage salt and pepper shakers are arranged on an antique windowsill are all I need as a catalyst – I will add the figure later as the painting gains more life. You don’t have to paint the sky in before the rest of whatever it is you are putting in there – sometimes it’s better to go in reverse and find the piece’s life in that unorthodox way, and my works are truly unorthodox.

When I started out, I realized I couldn’t afford the beauty I saw in the gallery world, so I decided just to make some myself to have on the wall. In that way , I was  satisfied  from the beginning , that I was  very  successful right away – if only because I wanted the work I couldn’t obtain by any working means . Like, what my father said to me many years ago and still rings true to me to this day: “Success is only loving what you do and always trying to be the very best at it, just being yourself”. Isn’t that what we all want …. beauty, passion, love, enlightenment, peace, success …I don’t seek them. Instead, those things find me in the studio, relentless in their joy and surprise in the movement of one hand dancing to the music of expression.

On the basic idea/being inspired :To me,any idea I may have for a new painting is in reality no idea at all, I don’t paint to convey an idea, but to have a good time. Ideas are just another word for inspiration to me, my compositions just evolve as I draw the first lines on the canvas, so often inspiration comes after I have chosen a base subject. That subject may be a tangerine lit up on an old, Paine’s grey crackled and dilapidated windowsill, or it might be just the way Audrey Hepburn looks into your eyes through the camera in a warm, sun drenched movie scene. It’s that simple, I say, “Would you look at that!”, and I’ll take a good photo of that citrus or go to find a striking still of Audrey …. And place each one on a panel or canvas, fleshing out the body of the image, and begin painting around that as the final stages of the base image are almost complete.  People often ask me how I start and that’s all it is, really, I don’t make many completed drawings unless requested for a commissioned work, instead, it’s more free form and “organic” in how the piece develops. When I painted Great King Crooners, I really didn’t have the “idea” to make Frank Sinatra’s ribs exposed and to show his tattoos, that just came about after I’d painted his face (and drawn the beginning lines of his red velvet jacket, which started unnaturally curving outward as I painted). And his exposed ribs? He was very,very skinny when he was young, called “Thin Thunder” by his peers and admiring society, and I guess you could say that was what initially “inspired” me …. And I wanted to bring him into the modern age for a new viewing generation by using the script painted on his skin, something obvious to the eye that Frank would never have had done on his body . The reason any artist paints is not always all about expression,nor emotion – for me, it’s just classically being fascinated by the way someone , something looks. ”Paint to have a great time,a great life,a great body of work”,I always tell my peers when any one asks me what they think they should do next. I tell them, “put on some good music, light a candle, turn on the lights and paint! See what’s inside you have fun and the image will take care of the rest ” ….WINSTON HAYCOCK 2017