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John Greenwald is member #52 of WASAA. May 12

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What is your Medium?: Painting, Drawing

If you have a studio at WAS, where can we find you?: Studio 505, main building

Tell us about yourself.: I paint the nude figure in an unplanned, expressionist manner, using acrylics, watercolors, gouache, colored inks and other mixed media on paper and wood panels. Working quickly and intuitively, I try to convey and explore color, personality and emotion, and to create paintings that engage the eye. I use the nude figure the way a jazz artist uses a Gershwin melody — as a starting point for an improvisation. Some paintings might suggest relationships or a story, others a moment in time, an abstraction, or perhaps a landscape.

For many years, I made gesture drawings on paper, which are quick sketches artists use to warm up. Their aim is to capture the model’s poses in a few, fast, economical strokes. I combine groups of gesture drawings into unified works resembling cinematic or storyboard arrangements. At best, they are full of move-ment and expressive exaggeration.

Recently, I’ve been working on large wood panels. Here, the basic drawings of the figures still are as intuitive and spontaneous. But painting on wood has made me more conscious of color and the benefits of exaggeration, distortion and the application of paint itself.

Also, I’ve been long been drawing a series of gestures in panoramic, accordion-fold books, hoping to create an impulsive sense of movement and experi-mentation. I don’t draw and paint each figure in an ordered sequence. Rather, I scatter 20 to 25 drawings throughout the length of each book. There’s a risk that taken together these drawings might not flow or work as a single piece. Some-times they don’t. But when they do, there’s an added exhilaration to the series.

In all my work, I aim to let whatever occurs between my eyes and my hand happen as freely and intuitively as possible, and to have “outside-the-envelope” adventures in color. I hope you, the viewer, respond with equal sense of spontaneity and excitement.

Website:: http://johngreenwald.com

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At 5:21pm on June 20, 2008, +EYEFORMATION+ said…: We should be friends, I just a formal request.

At 11:22pm on June 9, 2008, Jessica said…: Thanks John :)

At 7:55pm on June 3, 2008, Jessica said…: Hey John- good to see you on here!

At 3:50pm on May 27, 2008, Gay Tracy said…: It's all about color RIGHT!!!!!
Gay

At 12:53pm on May 23, 2008, Linda B. Dunn said…: You are definitely a friend. An a good critic, too.

At 4:59pm on May 22, 2008, Donna Berger said…: Hi John!!!
Thanks for the invitation! I loved talking with you yesterday! Nice presentation. I still need to do mine.
Donna :)