In Conversation: Jason Stopa Interviews Farrell Brickhouse

“In time, I found that I could move into a kind of expressive painting without the interface of an entirely abstract language.”

Farrell Brickhouse, Critter Heaven, 2011. 11” x 14”, Courtesy of John Davis Gallery and the artist.

In Conversation: Jason Stopa Interviews Farrell Brickhouse

For years now, Farrell Brickhouse has been towing the line between abstraction and figuration on an intimate scale; creating paintings that conjure up a plethora of associations from romantic to violent all imbued with a wonderfully strange light. For Brickhouse, this year proves especially busy, having participated in Scope Fair earlier this year and now this Spring with a venue at Saatchi Online ArtParis.

Jason Stopa: I’ve enjoyed your work for some time, but I know less about your life. Have you always lived in NY?

Farrell Brickhouse: I grew up in NYC in a working class family. Back then things were different. I felt like I had two choices, either stay in school or gang up. I wound up fighting from eleven years old till college. My father was a carpenter and I liked to build things and then take them apart. When I turned 18 I decided to major in engineering….then I dropped out. I soon started traveling, keeping a sketchbook with me along the way, and that’s when I started to draw. Soon I went to Queens College and started making academic kinds of work. Artists as diverse as Charles Cajori, Gabriel Laderman, Ilya Bolotowsky and Richard Serra were there. At the time, the lines between abstraction and figuration were still sharply defined. There was a push to be in one camp or the other.

JS: And now? How have things evolved?

FB: In time I realized it was okay to be personal, that it was okay to move back and forth between figuration and abstraction and fuse the possibilities of the two. Nowadays the art world is so open. No one is excluded. There is a range of human expression and no one expression should de-legitimize the other. I currently teach at SVA and I believe that the previous generation has something to offer the next. You offer a way forward. A way of being in the world, you remind them of their shared humanity.

JS: Much of your work has a sense of real or imagined dramas unfolding. I’m curious, what is your studio process is like? Does an idea generate the painting or does the act of painting generate something to respond to?

FB: Work comes from work. I often begin in the morning and work all day. Then I take a dinner break and realize that everything I just did was a warm up and that the real work is about to begin. Halfway in a painting something that I see near the brushes or corner of the room will bring me to the next step. In the course of the painting the whole thing can collapse. I think, “Will I find it again?” You have to throw it up for grabs every once in a while. Often, it takes time to know if the thing is done. Once the novelty wears off, then what? As Yates says “ if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught”.

JS: That’s a great quote. You know, some of your figures seem to have a quirky, romantic, physicality to them. Others still have a foreboding sense of violence. Especially in your painting Healer. Can you talk about those themes in relation to the work?

FB: The root of Abstract Expressionism was male aggression. After college I was creating entirely abstract paintings. In time, I found that I could move into a kind of expressive painting without the interface of an entirely abstract language. In 1995 my gallery was about to close and had to drop me and everyone else. I had dozens of canvases and I thought, “my career is probably over.” But, I realized I can do what I want….I can make this into whatever I want. I had worked so hard to get a gallery and so I felt like, “Can I play? Can I really just play now?” So I started doing all of these seminal things and considered whether or not any of it offered a way forward. Art has a funny relationship with beauty, violence, and horror. In a work like Healer, there is a struggle but it is also turning into an embrace.

Farrell Brickhouse, Healer, 2010. 11” x 14”, Courtesy of John Davis Gallery and the artist.

JS: I noticed that too. That particular painting has a great tension to it. Often times we are navigating between contradictory emotions rather than flanking to the extremes of love and hate, peace and conflict.

FB: Exactly. It’s a similar thing with this painting of the dancing bear. I put this bear on stage and began to think of how often that we do violence, not only to one another but to other creatures. Usually in my paintings, there is some character that is willing to act on the behalf of others, or do the dirty work, but are caught up too.

JS: A hero of sorts. Many of them appear to be tragic/comic figures too. They don’t seem to be heralding themselves as a savior, but they are doing the job anyways. In that sense there is an element of theatricality.

FB: Yeah you could say that. I became interested in creating a shallow stage where these scenes unfold and characters act out a range of human emotions. It’s exciting right now to see the scope of experiences my work can contain.