Philip Wagner
Art is translating.Translation, add to that, interpreting. Nothing can be mimicked precisely without a grain or two of the Artist being exposed. The artwork tells more about the individuality of the artist than the object depicted. It shares that individuality with the Viewer. The Viewer is offered the opportunity
to allow his own individual self to also open out and be seen.
It's a meaningful experience...emotional, sensual, dreamy, and inspirational. Programming is suspended. Often, what appears is experienced as something even the Artist didn't know or couldn't imagine about himself, and is oddly, wonderfully, precisely what the Artist needed to take the next step in some kind of evolution.
Art is a Crystal ball. He who looks in will see something important, something needed. Art is the Alchemist's Chalice. The artist pours himself in, is immersed in pure immediacy. Oddly and wonderfully again, a good piece of art allows the Viewer to go through the same sweaty work of discovery through which the artist labored.
A good piece of art is a surprise.... unconsciously, unpredictably, arriving in a new world, like Adam's first kiss and then staring into Eve's eyes---everything thereafter is a new ball game.
Through a unique lens, the (good) artist, or the good piece of art, demonstrates the problems and difficulties of experiencing and giving voice to the labor. They call it a "work of art" for a reason, it is just that, WORK, pushing through or making conscious, hundreds of decision points which the artist encountered in a particular set of elements, a scene, a body, a scrim of backlights, an idea,....all of his talents and knowledge pulled into one place, the chalice, the joyful crucible.
The artist and perhaps all humans only find themselves in what they create, their work. Surprise! The secret of happiness? Work!....in the coliseum of the intimate personal, if you're lucky enough to find the entry point and to develop, chase after, pray for, the tools (or are they "keys"?), that capacity to be able to WORK.
The art-work process becomes a three way conversation between (1) the object, or the pressing gestalt of observed/experienced elements present, (2) the artist himself, and (3) the work of art itself. Whatever the artist creates on canvas comes around like a boomerang and changes the artist. And, as a changed person, the artist sees with a new set of lens, and the scene perceived by this changed person is oddly and wonderfully---also changed. It's Quantum Physics 101. As with lovers, each party changes the other, and that set of changes is irrevocable.
Please contact Phil for more information regarding the artwork, purchases, or commissions by Email at philipjwagner@comcast.net
Scroll down to view Paintings
January, 2012 "Moab Library Exhibit", Moab Library, Center St.,
Moab, UT
---showing winter Plein Aire paintings.
April 14, 2012 "Moab Art Walk" , Moab Arts & Recreation
Center, Moab, UT
Sept 1 & 2, 2012 "Artist's Studio Tour", participant
Moab, UT ----see brochure for location.
10-4: p.m. daily
Sept 15-23, 2012 "Escalante Plein Air Festival", participant
Escalante, UT
Oct 5-13, 2012 "Moab Plein Air Festival", participant
Moab, UT
New Paintings 2012
"Salt Creek, Utah"
16 x 20 framed oil
"Tall Trees"
8 x 10 unframed oil
"Three Blossoms in Vase" "Las Truchas"
20 x 24 unframed oil 11 x 14 framed oil
"Portal View I" "Dove Creek"
18 x 24 unframed oil 9 x 12 framed oil
"Green Fields"
11 x 14 Framed oil
"Ocean View"
11 x 14 framed oil
"Road Trip"
11 x 14 framed oil
"Snack Wagon" "Desert Sky"
16 x 20 unframed oil 24 x 24 unframed
"Davenport Cove, CA"
20 x 24 unframed oil
"Portal View II"
18 x 24 framed oil
"Pool" "Milt's"
20 x 24 unframed oil 11 x 14 framed oil
"Dancing Blue Figures"
18 x 24 unframed oil
"Road to Bluff, UT"
18 x 24 unframed oil
"Davenport Fields, CA"
20 x 24 unframed oil
"Moab Bridge" "Bluff, Utah"
16 x 20 unframed oil 11 x 14 unframed oil
"Castle Valley"
18 x 24 unframed oil
"Orange Ginger Jar"
11 x 14 framed oil
"White Fence"
24 x 24 unframed oil
