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Trey Reed: I started painting three years ago when I started working with Chinese calligraphy and stuff like that, stencils too. That’s kind of where I started, I don’t know why, but I’ve always had some fascination with Chinese characters. |
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Metallics Awash – Ann Wilson
Trey Reed: I started painting three years ago when I started working with Chinese calligraphy and stuff like that, stencils too. That’s kind of where I started, I don’t know why, but I’ve always had some fascination with Chinese characters.
Ann Wilson: Does that involve Chinese literature as well?
TR: Not so much, it’s more just the aesthetic feel of the characters.
AW: It’s more of the visual…
TR: Yeah, the visual. I mean, I know what I’m writing on there as far as the meaning of the characters, but it doesn’t really have any more depth or meaning than that.
AW: You should check out the Japan Society while you’re in New York, and also, go to the Asian galleries at the Met. Both the Japanese and the Chinese galleries are stupendous. You must have something similar in San Francisco since you have a big Asian community there.
TR: Oh huge, huge.
AW: Do you know any Asian artists?
TR: I’ve met about three or four; I don’t know them per se, but I’ve met them in the past. They’re there; they just tend to stick together. Nothing you can do about that. There are not a lot of them though, from what I can tell.
AW: Do you have a comparable group of painter friends?
TR: I really don’t. I feel like I’m kind of out there all by myself, which I don’t mind. People are generally interested in hearing about my work, however, so I don’t get sick of it. I met an artist recently, like three days ago, who does the same kind of work that I do. That was the first person I really met there since my friends have already done the college thing and are in a career. I was doing that too—I was working for the family business, but this art thing just came out of nowhere. There’s a whole story behind how it happened but, anyway, for three years now, I’ve been doing this.
AW: Because I’m a painter, the thing I noticed in your work is that you work on a very large scale.
TR: The largest painting to date that I’ve completed was eight feet by 20 feet and eight feet by 16 feet for a commercial.
AW: The second thing that interested me is that you work in different textures. Some pieces are thick, but you work thin more often. Did one technique or style precede the other?
TR: The more texturized ones are the earlier ones. Actually, I kind of jumped around. I started with texture—everyone fears a blank canvas, so if you can’t think of a color to start with, start with a texture. Just throw Spackle or something on there and get started. I always began by doing that.
I had this huge commission that I recently finished and it took me a year and my dad couldn’t understand why I didn’t just get it done. Finally, he came to my studio at four o’clock in the morning. He was like, “What are you doing? Oh I get it, you can’t hand them over until you’re okay with them.”
AW: The thin washes came later?
TR: They’re the later ones. The inspiration there comes from my mother. She was a watercolorist. Now she’s a designer and has been for 35 years. So, I got this technique from her, definitely. She always favored watercolor and said to me: “Why don’t you try?” Actually, I love watercolor and the whole look of it. I love the dripping, the letting it do its own thing. So, I personally favor watercolor and not so much texture. I just have a hard time going there.
I have about four or five different styles of painting that I can start out with and afterward go in some general direction. One is kind of a like a grid and I have a series of those that I’ve done. Then there are the ones that have a criss-cross texture, but thicker. The materiality of these is almost like molding paste.
AW: I suppose that your color sensibility tends to be low on the color value scale. It appears as if browns and perhaps reds are as far as you venture up the scale.
TR: I jump back and forth between the glossy and the mat. I’m colorblind for one, and I don’t like red. I favor earth tones, metallics. There’s a lot more metallic in there than you would realize. And sky blue, I like that color too.
I have a tendency to create heavy, dark paintings. So, my new goal is less is more.
