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State Street Gallery Featured Artist
Anthony Dallmann-Jones
Painting is about relationship — my relationship with the intended message, then with the paint, finally your relationship with the piece and its message for you.
I used to paint trees, people and buildings. Now I paint feelings, nothing else. No style can conduct emotions like abstract expressionism. I do not paint ordinary feelings, like anger, joy, sadness, etc. I paint complex, deeply and universally felt feelings, intertwined with things such as confusion, intention, grief, illumination, and the constant search for meaning — which, once found, seems so simple... yet still impossible to accurately express in words.
The unspeakable fascinates me. Painting lets me speak the unspeakable. 9/11 left my inner being speechless at such horror. Such agony. Such unspeakable motives in the terrorists, courage in the survivors, and fear we will never know in those who perished. I had to paint. There was nothing else I could do. I painted about 6 large expressive paintings. It helped.
The Mystery: Who are we? Are we little coincidences running around like hamsters on a wheel until we die? Are we purposeful, precious, irreplaceable, unique, significant pieces of a large universal puzzle? How can one be so alive in one second and lifeless in the next second? This mystery we paint, sing, dance, write... in an attempt to create a portal of understanding. I paint for that reason too.
And let us never forget fun! I paint for fun! Whatever the Higher Power be, it has a sense of humor — or why would it invent Labrador Retrievers?
I love art... love is a big motivator. I am "in my element" when I smell the paint and put the first smear on the canvas. I love canvas, too... the smell, the feel, the look of it. The love of creating something new, never done just like this before, or ever again.
So there you have it: relationship, the unspeakable, mystery, fun, love. That (those) are my artist statements.
I was born in Mobile, Alabama. Moved to Chicago in kindergarten. Back to Mobile a year later. That set the pattern for years to come. Three different first grades. Three Different high schools. I have traveled in all 48 continental states, Canada and Mexico. I became a visual artist in college which had a very strong ceramics program. I was in love at first sight. I had written a lot by then, and my interest in the literary arts never went away (I now have 8 books published). But ceramics shot me off into the visual arts... first ceramics, then sketching and watercoloring, then painting with oils, then with acrylics and house paint enamels. That was it. I have painted ever since. I do not like everything I paint. I mourn others I love too much. I have set fire to many of my creations, and have sold others. I maintain the paintings got busy and sold themselves to avoid the torch.
I miss the big ol' studio days. Now I paint when and where I can... in the gallery between customers, at home in my wood shop. In the garage. In my office. On the patio. In the yard. Once or twice in the car. I might paint you if you stand still a bit.
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