Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Brand New
This is the first new painting I've worked on since the shows in June. It's going to be a slight departure. Some new elements are going to start appearing in the paintings and drawings, with some focus on narrative and other items that could be described as "set pieces". Also, there will be some new methodology applied to how marks are made, and how certain things appear throughout the work. This is a smaller paintings, around 20"x24", and should be wrapped up in the next week or so. Sorry about the glare, this work is never easy to photograph.
The next planned shows, at this point, are going to be a group show organized by my buddy Robert Minervini at Root Division and a solo exhibition at the Bemis Underground, both in 2011. I'm always looking for other opportunities, so if you know of one, shoot me an e-mail.
The next planned shows, at this point, are going to be a group show organized by my buddy Robert Minervini at Root Division and a solo exhibition at the Bemis Underground, both in 2011. I'm always looking for other opportunities, so if you know of one, shoot me an e-mail.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
D Moda magazine from Buenos Aires, Argentina
I was recently interviewed by Buenos Aires, Argentina based D Moda Magazine. The interview will be supplemented with some images of artworks and should hopefully be in the next issue to hit newstands. Fortunately for the Spanish speaking, it will be presented in beautiful and vibrant Spanish. Unfortunately for the English speakers, it might be harder to read. So, I'm presenting the interview below, in English.
Interview by Victoria Ferreira
Why did you choose landscapes as the subject of your work?
Before I moved out to California, I was doing mostly figure based work. For a while, I was using faces as the focal point of my work, and later it moved to large narrative scenes and nudes. People were always the focal point of the work. My goal was to move to a new place with the purpose of turning that around and using the landscape. Originally, I wanted to make seascapes and address issues around water, but then I got out and explored in and around the Bay Area, and the landscape just seemed to call to me. Things that I really liked and really disliked started to be more noticeable, and things just really grew from that.
How did you develop your particular mixed-media technique?
First off, I should mention that a huge reason we decided to move to San Francisco was because I was going to graduate school at the San Francisco Art Institute. I came to the school as part of the printmaking department and planned to paint and make prints. There was a point in my second semester where I was learning to make photogravure prints, and I had this “AHA!” moment where I decided to use a painted landscape and collage buildings into it to make this hyper-dense cityscape. The painting worked out really well, so after that, I made a series of paintings that were made entirely with collaged prints. Huge areas were silkscreened, the skies were woodblock prints, trees and grass were etched prints, there were parts that were spray painted stencils. These paintings were well received, and since that point three years ago, the work has continued to grow and evolve. Over time, Acrylic painting has become the overriding element in the work, while printmaking (and specifically silkscreen printing) has become a smaller component in my work. I feel like the process is always evolving and I doubt that I’ll be making paintings in the exact same way a year from now as I am today.
What is your creative process like?
Normally, I have a really rough idea that I’ll spend some time sketching out in a sketchbook or making notes about. Really, most paintings start with a very basic idea; some component that grounds the overall work. For some of the work, I might spend some time researching an event or someplace that exists in the world. Then I’ll paint a sky and when that dries, I cover the panel with a sheet of tracing paper where I do a preliminary sketch. I should really photograph that first sketch, because the final piece is always much different than the first drawing. Then I start painting. If a component of the painting is going to be collaged on, I figure out what I need to cut or rip out, and I use an acrylic gel as a collage paste. I’ve been silkscreening into the paintings a lot more, and a lot of times, it means I have to use tape or masking fluid to keep the ink where I want it to go. I spend a lot of time in my studio over-analyzing my decisions. A lot of time, I’ll go out running in the park or on the beach and I think a good majority of formal issues I have with my work comes from me being outside, jogging and thinking about things over and over.
Where do landscapes you paint come from? Do you know exactly what you want when you start an artwork or is there a lot of improvisation and experimentation in the process?
Sometimes a painting comes from a lyric in a song. Something just pops out to me, normally in songs I’ve listened to hundreds of times over, and all of a sudden a lyric just resonates with me in a new way. The landscapes aren’t necessarily exact places, but more like approximations of places I’ve been or places that I’ve read about in a book. So much of my work reads in this overhead fashion, like you’re high enough up that you see all of these things spread out in the landscape. Even then, scale is never what it should be, so things are either much larger or much smaller in relation to how they would really be in the actual world. Some of the work reads a lot like a map, while the newer work I’m making feels like you might actually be standing in the space you’re looking at.
I never know what I want a finished painting to look like when I start it. Typically I know what ONE area of the painting is going to look like, and then I build from there.
What materials and colors do you like working with and why and how do you choose them?
I’ll use any material available, as long as it’s going to fit on the panel and convey something I’m trying to put in the work. Most of the time I’m using something because it seems appropriate. Screen door material looks like chain link fence, so I use it for that reason. Water is a transparent material in the real world, so it makes sense to me that I use water like that in my paintings. I silkscreen a graphic representation of water on acetate, and then I collage that into the painting. Mostly, I use materials that fit the bill and make the most sense. Hopefully, they end up adding a layer of depth to the work.
As for color, I like things that are bright and stand out. When I was painting a few years ago in Omaha, I was using CMYK colors to make full color paintings, and those colors continue to be used in my work. We see those colors every day, printed on packaging, used in magazines, used on the countless advertisements we see everywhere. I think I’ve always been drawn to these super bright and rich colors having grown up in the 80’s and spending a huge chunk of my youth being obsessed with cartoons and comic books.
What are your influences and sources of inspiration?
If we’re talking artists, the list would be too long to list. Really, if I were going to narrow it down though, Chuck Close is one of my biggest sources of inspiration. He’s such an interesting person overall, but if you add in his approach to painting and mark-making, coupled with his amazing story of how he adapted after his health issues in the late eighties…he makes for a truly phenomenal person.
I feel like I’m always thinking about my work so much so that I find myself being inspired by the most unlikely of things. Nintendo was a huge part of my childhood. Just the way space used to be laid out in video games, before they got so hyper realistic, and the bright colors that developers used to set pixels apart from one another. I feel like I’m always paying attention to the way things are presented and framed in movies and TV shows. Moments from my childhood or things that stick out in my day to day conversation end up playing over and over in my brain, a lot of times culminating in ideas that show up in my work. Political issues and the way things are handled by government and big business are always on my mind. My pure disagreement with nearly everything that Sarah Palin says feels like it’s been my over-arching inspiration for the better part of two years now.
What do you want to provoke or transmit with your work?
Hopefully, people look at the work and see something that’s really beautiful, but maybe they feel uneasy about things happening in the painting. Without a doubt, I’m an optimistic person. But we’re living at a time where a lot of bad things are happening to our planet. My hope is that more and more people recognize that, and they end up wanting to change things. Ray Kurzweil makes a lot of predictions about the future and our place in it, and even though some people might dismiss a lot of what he says as science fiction, it always reflects the intelligence and ingenuity of humanity. We make problems, and then we fix problems. I’m all for finding solutions to the problems we help create.
What was the change of moving from Omaha to San Francisco like?
Omaha was my home for 24 years, and it’s built a lot different than San Francisco. It’s been growing westward for years now, and there are areas of the city I honestly have never seen before. Most of the houses out west are just gigantic, and it feels like the current trend is that there is a huge shopping center with Wal-Mart, Home Depot and stores like that every couple of miles. San Francisco is a lot smaller and very dense. I feel like people are living one on top of another out here, but it’s not uncomfortable at all. If I don’t want to drive, I don’t have to, and I love that. With Omaha, you almost have to drive to get anywhere. I just hate driving so much that if we ever decide to leave here, we’ll end up going to another city that has an extensive public transit system and, ideally, where we can walk to take care a lot of our daily errands.
What can you tell us of the arts scene in San Francisco, about living and working there?
San Francisco is an absolutely gorgeous place to live. A lot of people don’t realize it until they get here, but the city is really small. You’ll hear people refer to it’s being “7x7”, which is 7 miles by 7 miles. But it’s a cultural hub for a lot of people, with a lot of different cultures represented here. This is a much smaller market than places like New York or Los Angeles, but there’s a quality to the galleries and shows that come through here. We have the SFMoMA, which is a great museum for both modern and contemporary work. Part of the reason I love this city is I feel like I see a lot of great work because a lot of big artists, both locally and from beyond California, show in spaces out here.
Personally, I find it really inspiring. If I’m having trouble with something in the studio, I can hop on the train and head downtown and look at shows going on in the galleries down there. There are a few areas in the city where galleries are concentrated, so there are always opportunities to see some great work. And because there are a lot of galleries, there tend to be some great chances out there for me to show my work, which helps me to continue getting it out there and seeing how people respond to what I’m doing.
You used to have a band. What can you tell us of your musical side?
Ha, wow. I’m a little surprised that you found out that I was in band. Google makes the world smaller, I suppose. Basically, my friends had started a band, needed a bassist, and I had a bass guitar. So my buddy Kevin asked me if I wanted to join, and I said “sure”. We released a few records, almost all vinyl releases, and did some short run tour cd’s. Our band afforded me to get in a van every summer for a month or so and see the country and meet a ton of rad people. I really don’t play music at all anymore, but our drummer Aaron is one of the most talented musicians and multi-instrumentalists I know. He’s still out there playing in a few bands. One of his bands, Back When, just recently reunited and are one of my favorite bands to listen to and see.
What music do you listen to while you paint?
Honestly, I don’t always listen to music. Some days I’ll just stream something to watch over Netflix. I recently rewatched all nine seasons of The X-Files. If the San Francisco Giants (our Major League Baseball team) are on the radio, I’ll listen to that.
Lately when I do listen to music, I’ve been really into Die Antwoord, Nirvana, Jimmy Eat World, Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship, Sleep….a wide variety of things, really. I use streaming services like Pandora a lot these days with the intention of discovering new music that’s out there. Mostly, I just want background noise.
What do you like doing when you’re not painting?
My wife and I like to try to make it to a lot of baseball games in the summer. I watch a lot of baseball and American Football. We live about five blocks off the beach, so I spend a good amount of time down there. We’re also across the street from Golden Gate Park, so I go to the museums there pretty consistently. For the last year and a half, I make it a point to run at least five days a week and stay in shape. I’d like to say that I’m the type of person who spends a lot of time outside, enjoying the beautiful city that I live in. We’re lucky to have a whole host of great galleries and museums in the Bay Area, and so I get out and see shows a few times a month. When I do stay inside, I’m probably playing XBOX or spending too much time on the internet.
What are your upcoming projects?
I just went back home to Omaha to visit family and friends last month. While I was there, I stopped in to the recently re-opened Bemis Underground, which is an exhibition space attatched to the Bemis Center for Contemporary arts. They recently hired a new director, Brigitte McQueen, and I was originally stopping in just to see how she had remodeled the space. I proposed a rough idea for a show, and it looks like we’re going to move forward on that for sometime around spring of 2011. Also, in September & October, I’m going out to Vermont to work at the Vermont Studio Center. Everything else between now and next spring will be group shows in and around San Francisco. Maybe something big will fall into place between now and then, maybe not. My goal is to always just try to take it day by day.
Interview by Victoria Ferreira
Why did you choose landscapes as the subject of your work?
Before I moved out to California, I was doing mostly figure based work. For a while, I was using faces as the focal point of my work, and later it moved to large narrative scenes and nudes. People were always the focal point of the work. My goal was to move to a new place with the purpose of turning that around and using the landscape. Originally, I wanted to make seascapes and address issues around water, but then I got out and explored in and around the Bay Area, and the landscape just seemed to call to me. Things that I really liked and really disliked started to be more noticeable, and things just really grew from that.
How did you develop your particular mixed-media technique?
First off, I should mention that a huge reason we decided to move to San Francisco was because I was going to graduate school at the San Francisco Art Institute. I came to the school as part of the printmaking department and planned to paint and make prints. There was a point in my second semester where I was learning to make photogravure prints, and I had this “AHA!” moment where I decided to use a painted landscape and collage buildings into it to make this hyper-dense cityscape. The painting worked out really well, so after that, I made a series of paintings that were made entirely with collaged prints. Huge areas were silkscreened, the skies were woodblock prints, trees and grass were etched prints, there were parts that were spray painted stencils. These paintings were well received, and since that point three years ago, the work has continued to grow and evolve. Over time, Acrylic painting has become the overriding element in the work, while printmaking (and specifically silkscreen printing) has become a smaller component in my work. I feel like the process is always evolving and I doubt that I’ll be making paintings in the exact same way a year from now as I am today.
What is your creative process like?
Normally, I have a really rough idea that I’ll spend some time sketching out in a sketchbook or making notes about. Really, most paintings start with a very basic idea; some component that grounds the overall work. For some of the work, I might spend some time researching an event or someplace that exists in the world. Then I’ll paint a sky and when that dries, I cover the panel with a sheet of tracing paper where I do a preliminary sketch. I should really photograph that first sketch, because the final piece is always much different than the first drawing. Then I start painting. If a component of the painting is going to be collaged on, I figure out what I need to cut or rip out, and I use an acrylic gel as a collage paste. I’ve been silkscreening into the paintings a lot more, and a lot of times, it means I have to use tape or masking fluid to keep the ink where I want it to go. I spend a lot of time in my studio over-analyzing my decisions. A lot of time, I’ll go out running in the park or on the beach and I think a good majority of formal issues I have with my work comes from me being outside, jogging and thinking about things over and over.
Where do landscapes you paint come from? Do you know exactly what you want when you start an artwork or is there a lot of improvisation and experimentation in the process?
Sometimes a painting comes from a lyric in a song. Something just pops out to me, normally in songs I’ve listened to hundreds of times over, and all of a sudden a lyric just resonates with me in a new way. The landscapes aren’t necessarily exact places, but more like approximations of places I’ve been or places that I’ve read about in a book. So much of my work reads in this overhead fashion, like you’re high enough up that you see all of these things spread out in the landscape. Even then, scale is never what it should be, so things are either much larger or much smaller in relation to how they would really be in the actual world. Some of the work reads a lot like a map, while the newer work I’m making feels like you might actually be standing in the space you’re looking at.
I never know what I want a finished painting to look like when I start it. Typically I know what ONE area of the painting is going to look like, and then I build from there.
What materials and colors do you like working with and why and how do you choose them?
I’ll use any material available, as long as it’s going to fit on the panel and convey something I’m trying to put in the work. Most of the time I’m using something because it seems appropriate. Screen door material looks like chain link fence, so I use it for that reason. Water is a transparent material in the real world, so it makes sense to me that I use water like that in my paintings. I silkscreen a graphic representation of water on acetate, and then I collage that into the painting. Mostly, I use materials that fit the bill and make the most sense. Hopefully, they end up adding a layer of depth to the work.
As for color, I like things that are bright and stand out. When I was painting a few years ago in Omaha, I was using CMYK colors to make full color paintings, and those colors continue to be used in my work. We see those colors every day, printed on packaging, used in magazines, used on the countless advertisements we see everywhere. I think I’ve always been drawn to these super bright and rich colors having grown up in the 80’s and spending a huge chunk of my youth being obsessed with cartoons and comic books.
What are your influences and sources of inspiration?
If we’re talking artists, the list would be too long to list. Really, if I were going to narrow it down though, Chuck Close is one of my biggest sources of inspiration. He’s such an interesting person overall, but if you add in his approach to painting and mark-making, coupled with his amazing story of how he adapted after his health issues in the late eighties…he makes for a truly phenomenal person.
I feel like I’m always thinking about my work so much so that I find myself being inspired by the most unlikely of things. Nintendo was a huge part of my childhood. Just the way space used to be laid out in video games, before they got so hyper realistic, and the bright colors that developers used to set pixels apart from one another. I feel like I’m always paying attention to the way things are presented and framed in movies and TV shows. Moments from my childhood or things that stick out in my day to day conversation end up playing over and over in my brain, a lot of times culminating in ideas that show up in my work. Political issues and the way things are handled by government and big business are always on my mind. My pure disagreement with nearly everything that Sarah Palin says feels like it’s been my over-arching inspiration for the better part of two years now.
What do you want to provoke or transmit with your work?
Hopefully, people look at the work and see something that’s really beautiful, but maybe they feel uneasy about things happening in the painting. Without a doubt, I’m an optimistic person. But we’re living at a time where a lot of bad things are happening to our planet. My hope is that more and more people recognize that, and they end up wanting to change things. Ray Kurzweil makes a lot of predictions about the future and our place in it, and even though some people might dismiss a lot of what he says as science fiction, it always reflects the intelligence and ingenuity of humanity. We make problems, and then we fix problems. I’m all for finding solutions to the problems we help create.
What was the change of moving from Omaha to San Francisco like?
Omaha was my home for 24 years, and it’s built a lot different than San Francisco. It’s been growing westward for years now, and there are areas of the city I honestly have never seen before. Most of the houses out west are just gigantic, and it feels like the current trend is that there is a huge shopping center with Wal-Mart, Home Depot and stores like that every couple of miles. San Francisco is a lot smaller and very dense. I feel like people are living one on top of another out here, but it’s not uncomfortable at all. If I don’t want to drive, I don’t have to, and I love that. With Omaha, you almost have to drive to get anywhere. I just hate driving so much that if we ever decide to leave here, we’ll end up going to another city that has an extensive public transit system and, ideally, where we can walk to take care a lot of our daily errands.
What can you tell us of the arts scene in San Francisco, about living and working there?
San Francisco is an absolutely gorgeous place to live. A lot of people don’t realize it until they get here, but the city is really small. You’ll hear people refer to it’s being “7x7”, which is 7 miles by 7 miles. But it’s a cultural hub for a lot of people, with a lot of different cultures represented here. This is a much smaller market than places like New York or Los Angeles, but there’s a quality to the galleries and shows that come through here. We have the SFMoMA, which is a great museum for both modern and contemporary work. Part of the reason I love this city is I feel like I see a lot of great work because a lot of big artists, both locally and from beyond California, show in spaces out here.
Personally, I find it really inspiring. If I’m having trouble with something in the studio, I can hop on the train and head downtown and look at shows going on in the galleries down there. There are a few areas in the city where galleries are concentrated, so there are always opportunities to see some great work. And because there are a lot of galleries, there tend to be some great chances out there for me to show my work, which helps me to continue getting it out there and seeing how people respond to what I’m doing.
You used to have a band. What can you tell us of your musical side?
Ha, wow. I’m a little surprised that you found out that I was in band. Google makes the world smaller, I suppose. Basically, my friends had started a band, needed a bassist, and I had a bass guitar. So my buddy Kevin asked me if I wanted to join, and I said “sure”. We released a few records, almost all vinyl releases, and did some short run tour cd’s. Our band afforded me to get in a van every summer for a month or so and see the country and meet a ton of rad people. I really don’t play music at all anymore, but our drummer Aaron is one of the most talented musicians and multi-instrumentalists I know. He’s still out there playing in a few bands. One of his bands, Back When, just recently reunited and are one of my favorite bands to listen to and see.
What music do you listen to while you paint?
Honestly, I don’t always listen to music. Some days I’ll just stream something to watch over Netflix. I recently rewatched all nine seasons of The X-Files. If the San Francisco Giants (our Major League Baseball team) are on the radio, I’ll listen to that.
Lately when I do listen to music, I’ve been really into Die Antwoord, Nirvana, Jimmy Eat World, Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship, Sleep….a wide variety of things, really. I use streaming services like Pandora a lot these days with the intention of discovering new music that’s out there. Mostly, I just want background noise.
What do you like doing when you’re not painting?
My wife and I like to try to make it to a lot of baseball games in the summer. I watch a lot of baseball and American Football. We live about five blocks off the beach, so I spend a good amount of time down there. We’re also across the street from Golden Gate Park, so I go to the museums there pretty consistently. For the last year and a half, I make it a point to run at least five days a week and stay in shape. I’d like to say that I’m the type of person who spends a lot of time outside, enjoying the beautiful city that I live in. We’re lucky to have a whole host of great galleries and museums in the Bay Area, and so I get out and see shows a few times a month. When I do stay inside, I’m probably playing XBOX or spending too much time on the internet.
What are your upcoming projects?
I just went back home to Omaha to visit family and friends last month. While I was there, I stopped in to the recently re-opened Bemis Underground, which is an exhibition space attatched to the Bemis Center for Contemporary arts. They recently hired a new director, Brigitte McQueen, and I was originally stopping in just to see how she had remodeled the space. I proposed a rough idea for a show, and it looks like we’re going to move forward on that for sometime around spring of 2011. Also, in September & October, I’m going out to Vermont to work at the Vermont Studio Center. Everything else between now and next spring will be group shows in and around San Francisco. Maybe something big will fall into place between now and then, maybe not. My goal is to always just try to take it day by day.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Incapable of taking a break...
After working long hours from the middle/end of February up until the middle of May, I really thought I was going to be all about taking a long break. I'm flying out to Columbus for the Cut-Ups opening the first weekend in June, and then flying back to Omaha for two weeks, so I don't want to start anything substantial. I hate the idea of starting a large painting and leaving it in the middle. It never seems to work out correctly. So I was just going to take a small break, and call it that.
Unfortunately, I just couldn't take a break. I spent a few days watching movies and playing videogames, but I got very bored very fast. A group in LA sent me an e-mail asking for a small piece for a charity they're doing that gives food to children with AIDS, so I thought I'd make up something to send down to them. I did a small piece for the Bemis that was originally just going to be a one-off, but I ended up liking the idea so much that I decided to make a series. Some of these might end up at the show at HANG in June, as well.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Final update for the Mahan Gallery show
Hitchcock
Acrylic, Ink, Photographs, Silkscreen, Spraypaint & Collage on Wood Panel
31 1/2" x 47"
Four of the pieces for the show at Mahan Gallery
Also, some of my work was featured on Beautiful Decay's blogroll Wednesday:
BDecay
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
This will be the last painting for Mahan
This is a progress shot of the last painting for Mahan Gallery in June. Show opens June 5th in Columbus, Ohio, and this painting is 32"x48", or close to that. There's a bit more to go on this, basically filling things in, but otherwise, hopefully will wrap this up early next week.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Framed "gyre" work on paper
I framed up the still untitled "gyre" painting yesterday, which was a good 2 hour long endeavor. I feel lucky to have the studio space that I do have, but it's terrible for framing work. There's always crap floating around, so I have to take excessive steps to keep everything clean as I work.
Anyway, this piece is on a full sheet of watercolor paper, which stretched comes to around 22 1/2" x 30 1/4", or someplace in that area. The work is framed out to 26"x34".
This piece will be the basis for a much larger and more detailed painting about the great pacific garbage patch. I went out to Ocean Beach in San Francisco and collect plastic trash that had washed up (of which there is a lot), and then brought it back here, where I treated it in a soapy bath for a couple of weeks, agitating it and sterilizing it.
Anyway, this piece is on a full sheet of watercolor paper, which stretched comes to around 22 1/2" x 30 1/4", or someplace in that area. The work is framed out to 26"x34".
This piece will be the basis for a much larger and more detailed painting about the great pacific garbage patch. I went out to Ocean Beach in San Francisco and collect plastic trash that had washed up (of which there is a lot), and then brought it back here, where I treated it in a soapy bath for a couple of weeks, agitating it and sterilizing it.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Six new paintings from Nicholas Bohac
I spent the evening photographing all of the recently finished paintings for the show in Columbus and the show here in San Francisco. This leaves one more painting to finish up for Ohio, and then I can take a bit of a break, go home to Omaha, and see some family and friends for the first time in a year.
"Great Misconceptions"
Acrylic, Ink, Photographs, Silkscreen, Spraypaint, Copper Leaf & Collage on Wood Panel
20"x30"
untitled gyre painting
Acrylic, Ink, Silkscreen, Photographs, Pacific Ocean Plastic & Collage on Wood Panel
22.50"x30.25"
"Lurk"
Acrylic, Ink, Silkscreen, Photographs & Collage on Wood Panel
16"x24"
untitled
Acrylic, Ink, Silkscreen & Collage on Wood Panel
16"x24"
"The Giving Tree"
Acrylic, Ink, Silkscreen & Collage on Wood Panel
20"x24"
"Wreck Center"
Acrylic, Ink, Silkscreen, Spraypaint & Collage on Wood Panel
16"x24"
"Great Misconceptions"
Acrylic, Ink, Photographs, Silkscreen, Spraypaint, Copper Leaf & Collage on Wood Panel
20"x30"
untitled gyre painting
Acrylic, Ink, Silkscreen, Photographs, Pacific Ocean Plastic & Collage on Wood Panel
22.50"x30.25"
"Lurk"
Acrylic, Ink, Silkscreen, Photographs & Collage on Wood Panel
16"x24"
untitled
Acrylic, Ink, Silkscreen & Collage on Wood Panel
16"x24"
"The Giving Tree"
Acrylic, Ink, Silkscreen & Collage on Wood Panel
20"x24"
"Wreck Center"
Acrylic, Ink, Silkscreen, Spraypaint & Collage on Wood Panel
16"x24"
Friday, April 23, 2010
Finished work
These first three are basically finished. They need to be cleaned up a bit, and the two on panel will be varnished, while the one on paper will be framed up next week (hopefully).
22"x30"
16"x24"
16"x24"
This is the 32"x48" painting for Mahan. This was photographed earlier today to send over to a friend, so it's actually moved along furuther than this since then. I'm planning on working in the foreground tomorrow and throughout the weekend, and also finish up, or get close to finishing up, a few smaller paintings. Things are starting to wrap up.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Nicholas Bohac: Working hard, taking names, new works for Mahan Gallery & Hang Art Gallery
I wanted to update with a few things to start off the week. I'll be updating much more in the next week or two, I hope. June 3rd I have an opening at HANG Art Gallery in San Francisco, and then I'm flying out the next night for an opening in Columbus, Ohio at Mahan Gallery. Both are groups shows, and I feel fortunate to be a part of both shows. I've known DJ over at HANG for a few years and always love working with her, while Mahan is a new group of people that I'm looking forward to meeting in person in less than two months. I have some of the work finished up for both shows, but I'm also making, I believe, 7 new pieces. A couple 16"x24" paintings on panel, a 20"x30" painting on panel, a 20"x24" on panel, a 22"x30" work on paper, and just started a 32"x48" painting on panel last week. I want to ship the work to Mahan by mid May, and I have another week after that to finish work for HANG, although most of the work is finished up for that. So that's the long story, and I'll try to keep the work coming this week. The only thing that's going to be being worked on into May will be the larger piece, I hope.
This is the 20"x30" painting on panel. Also, while I'm working on 7 things at once, I've lucked out in that I'm really loving everything I'm working on right now. But in a group of 7 new things, this is really tops for me. I love this painting. I'm shooting slides (hopefully) this coming weekend, and can't wait to get this on the website.
This is the 22"x30" work on paper. It'll be framed up for the show. The concept behind this painting is to make a study for a larger 60"x72" painting about the Pacific Gyre or "great pacific garbage patch" or any of the other names that are floating around about it. For those that don't know, it's a floating "island" of plastic refuse out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was something that was known about in the scientific and boating communities, but I think Alan Weisman's "World Without People" popularized the knowledge that this exists. It's hard to clean up because the garbage floats in the water, and not on top of it. For this work, I went out to Ocean Beach and picked up plastic garbage that was washed up in the sand. Ocean Beach, btw, is connected to the Pacific Ocean. While working on the 60"x72" painting, I plan to continue to do smaller pieces that supplement the larger work.
Also, for those in the LA Area, I'll have a painting in a group show opening at Tinlark Gallery over on Sunset BLVD. on Saturday April 24.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
It's been around three weeks...
Ok, it's been around three weeks since the last time I updated this blog. Around the beginning of March, I started eleven paintings, mostly small, a couple medium sized. For the group show at Mahan Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, they wanted me to have around 5-7 pieces, so I'm going into it with the intention of having 7 finished around the beginning of May. If they want to take all 7, awesome. If we won't have enough room, then at least I'll be edit down from seven paintings I really like. So that's that. Because I'm working on more than one painting at once, it sometimes seems like I'm moving a hell of a lot slower than I really am. This really isn't the case. It's just that, from day to day, I might be working on different things. Also, this last week was spent working on drawing up some films to shoot to screen tomorrow morning so I can screen onto the paintings I'm working on.
Onto the work:
20"x30"
22"x30"
It might be a little harder to read this, but because I end up soaking areas of the painting, and collage heavily in areas, the paper that I'm working on could end up warping a lot. But I want to maintain the deckled edge that Arches worked so hard on, and if I were to stretch the paper with staples or gummed tape, it would mess with the integrity of those edges. So what I've come up with is to soak the paper, squeegee it onto a sheet of MDF or thick acrylic plastic, and then when it's still wet, clamp wood strips around the edges. When the paper dries, it still stretches, and it keeps the deckles looking awesome. Long explanation for something that, when you see it framed, speaks for itself.
16"x24"
32"x48"
This is just the background of the painting that will be taking up the majority of my April. Something you can see in a lot of these shots is tracing paper hanging off the top. The sketches that I work from are on these sheets, and obviously if I tried photograph this painting with the sketch on tracing paper over the top, it wouldn't read right.
16"x24"
I don't have photos of the other newer paintings, mostly because they're harder too shoot, or haven't changed much over the month. I'm going to try to update more in the next few weeks.
Also, I'm now a featured artist on Gawker Artists. Check it out:
Gawker Artists
Onto the work:
20"x30"
22"x30"
It might be a little harder to read this, but because I end up soaking areas of the painting, and collage heavily in areas, the paper that I'm working on could end up warping a lot. But I want to maintain the deckled edge that Arches worked so hard on, and if I were to stretch the paper with staples or gummed tape, it would mess with the integrity of those edges. So what I've come up with is to soak the paper, squeegee it onto a sheet of MDF or thick acrylic plastic, and then when it's still wet, clamp wood strips around the edges. When the paper dries, it still stretches, and it keeps the deckles looking awesome. Long explanation for something that, when you see it framed, speaks for itself.
16"x24"
32"x48"
This is just the background of the painting that will be taking up the majority of my April. Something you can see in a lot of these shots is tracing paper hanging off the top. The sketches that I work from are on these sheets, and obviously if I tried photograph this painting with the sketch on tracing paper over the top, it wouldn't read right.
16"x24"
I don't have photos of the other newer paintings, mostly because they're harder too shoot, or haven't changed much over the month. I'm going to try to update more in the next few weeks.
Also, I'm now a featured artist on Gawker Artists. Check it out:
Gawker Artists
Friday, March 5, 2010
The New American Paintings that I'm in, no. 85, just came in the mail this afternoon. Stoked!
The cover (artist is Devin Troy Strother)
The cover (artist is Devin Troy Strother)
They used one of my images in the "Contents" page.
First two pages of my spread, perfect...
And the second two pages. They put the wrong painting in, which is kind of a boo-urns, but what can you do?
Other artists in this issue:
Ron Adkins
Libby Black
Sean Brimer
Christopher Buening
Ryan Callis
Sally Cleveland
Timothy Cross
Matthew Dennison
Rebecca Ebeling
Andrew Foster
Jen Garrido
Erik Geschke
Daniel Healey
Christopher Martin Hoff
Barbara Kerwin
Joe Macca
Melissa Manfull
Deborah Martin
Kim McKenna
Lester Monzon
Christine Morla
Robert Moya
Whitney E. Nye
Chrstine Ondrus
Laura Paulini
Heather Peterson
Antonio Adriano Puleo
Ursula Schneider
Adam Sorensen
Kirsten Stolle
Bradley Streeper
Devin Troy Strother
Marci Washington
Nancy White
Blade Wynne
Eric Yahnker
Andre Yi
Robert Yoder
Michael Louis Young
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
This show is opening Sunday, March 7. 5-9
Aside from this, I've started 11 paintings. There may, or may not, be an event in Southern California in April. If things pan out, I'll make the announcement here this week. Also working on some things for a group exhibition at Mahan Gallery in Columbus, Ohio in June. I believe the opening will be June 5th and I'm planning on flying out there for that.
Because things have been so busy, I haven't seen a lot of shows this week like I usually would, but I did check out the Park Life opening last Friday. Very much worth checking out. In a few days I plan to have some new images finished up and some progress shots. Until then...
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
I had to re-photograph a painting last night, so I figured I'd just go ahead and get some better, more color corrected photographs of some of the other paintings. The first one is something I've been working on more these last few days, and will be referencing port cities. The second is an image I've posted a few times, and which I plan to have finished up in the next week or so.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
A-List of Michael J. Krainak
Michael J. Krainak at the Omaha Reader has a cover article in this weeks copy, and names the Field Guide show at Jackson Artworks to his "A-List" shows of 2009. The article is an interesting read of the Omaha area's 2009 art scene and the shows that went along with it all.
Hit the read link below:
Art! for a Change
Hit the read link below:
Art! for a Change
Thursday, January 21, 2010
First post
I have decided to start using Blogspot to supplement news on my website. The "News" page will still continue to be updated, but I will be reserving the more major news for that. This page will feature works in progress, ideas, shows in and around San Francisco that I think others should check out, and just about anything else.
No major updates to start with. The "Field Guide" show from June back in Omaha is up for an Omaha Entertainment Award for "best group exhibition", which is a huge honor.
Also, I'll post a few photos of my studio space in beautiful San Francisco.
No major updates to start with. The "Field Guide" show from June back in Omaha is up for an Omaha Entertainment Award for "best group exhibition", which is a huge honor.
Also, I'll post a few photos of my studio space in beautiful San Francisco.
Also, people should check out my buddy Adam Friedman's show currently on view over at Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco. Awesome dude, awesome show, awesome gallery.
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