Fred Stonehouse Chats about the Marschmeister

Folliard Exhibition End February 4

Jan. 27, 2012

9:25 p.m.

Fred Stonehouse talks very fast and with so much enthusiasm for his paintings, it\'s contagious for anyone listening. He explains his work in long sentences one needs to listen to very closely to appreciate and understand everything he wants to say. On the last winter gallery night, Stonehouse answers questions from all those who who braved the frigid weather to come and view the exhibition “Marschmeister” at Tory Folliard Gallery. While he's chatting, an old friend Dennis appears and said he spotted his picture in the newspaper. Stonehouse elaborates that Dennis and he were in a Milwaukee Art Museum exhibition back in the 1980's tltled: “Three Out Front.” Another artist from the city, Jose A. Chavez, stops him once again to discuss the silver point medium, another way to draw, which brings up the Wisconsin Surrealist John Wilde who also used that medium. Stonehouse draws with graphite on antique paper or paints with acrylic on canvas and board. In the midst of this bundled up and interested in art crowd, Stonehouse explains how his recent move to Slinger, Wisconsin has influenced this series of paintings, "Marschmeister."  <o:p> </o:p>Do you plan you paintings before you begin to work on the canvas? I plan but don't execute. I always plan on doing a particular painting, but then deviate from the plan. I'm a deviator. The last several shows I've been in have focused on the marsh. Traveling between Slinger and Madison [where Stonhouse teaches at the University of Wisconsin] over and over has allowed me to view the Horicon Marsh. It's now a daily experience so that landscape feels more natural. The effects feel more natural. The marsh has become part of my vocabulary. And this show is a summation of the actual Marsh project I've been working of for the last few years. Will the marsh continue to influence your work? <o:p /> Yes. I've targeted Marsh themes. It's an evolution that has happened [as part of my daily experience]. These paintings have more abstraction that comes from really looking at it [the landscape] as it exists from outside my studio. Outside the North windows there are more formal acres of woods. Yet, you can still see the influence of the Wisconsin Dells in this work, the stacked rock formations, and cliffs [surrounding Devil's Lake at the Dells]. Do you draw on your canvases or panels before you paint? I start with a background first and today I painted just a black background. The painting comes from there, a place that I inhabit and occupy, conjuring up the work. A mental image clearly formed by my own conceptuals [ideas] imprinted as a kid. Environmental. And the hunting and taxidermy elements [in the paintings] with the animals are larger concepts [I work with]. The exhibition features on wall of drawings. How do you view the drawing?<o:p /> The drawings are never preparatory. Sometimes they come before [a painting], sometimes after. I view them as a discourse between painting and drawing They are works in themselves, works on paper with the materiality of an antique with a history [Stonehouse works on all antique or found paper].<o:p> </o:p> Besides antique paper, do you also frame your pictures with found wood?<o:p /> Using the frame on a picture relates to that materiality, a history, analogue. The pieces [paintings] are invested with inherited history, so they're preloaded [the paintings], the materials have an actual history. The frames are integral to the work because I'm a big junker searching for frames. The frames come first and I cut the panels to fit the frames. The frames speak to you, inspire the small paintings, and have an object quality. The painting Macho was animated an put in a picture frame to run on an approximately 40 second loop. It's quite interesting. Will you do that again?<o:p /> Yes, we're working on it with Dale Kaminski [On the UW-Madison Art Faculty]. We dug through some images and he went to town on that animation. It's the first one we finished. I' trying to work on a three minute animated film to extend the narrative [in the painting]. So we might offer a limited edition DVD [of this painting] with the exhibition catalogue. Any final words on the exhibition?<o:p /> I feel these paintings have solidified and I've rendered them more abstractly. The paint handling is more abrasive, drippy in some areas. I started out that way, and I'm bringing it back. The paintings are split into two, the reality and the abstraction [of the landscape] I'm experimenting in the large-scale drawings with much looser themes.<o:p> </o:p> Tory Folliard Gallery features “Marschmeister” through February 4. Explore the marsh theme Fred Stonehouse discussed through his drawinsg and painting on display. <o:p /> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p /> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p />

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