Farrell Brickhouse- Artist Statement
When I was around 8 years old I had a dream I was
in a garden. I climbed this wall and realized that if
I jumped over I would no longer have the
protection and order of the garden and would be
in the wilds. I jumped. It seems a life's choice.
Making Art is a way to share the totality of what
I've seen, touched and what has touched me. I
believe the making of a painting needs that
moment of epiphany and a trace of how the
imagery conveyed thru paint was discovered and
experienced by the artist. Not a graphic notation
of the language of experience but the mystery of
it.
For me art is a personal odyssey. A vehicle to carry
me forward and find some deeper unity in what is
happening in and around me. Art is a slow burn,
working its gift on individuals. It is based on a life
lived worked into a liquid space. I want my
paintings to be a haunted living presence that
reveals to the viewer passion, intellect, mystery
and that changes with each day’s new light. My
work is experiential, non-formulaic. Painting is a
belief system that asks as Borges stated, “ a
momentary act of faith that reality is inferred
from events not reasonings. That theories are
nothing but stimuli: that the finished work
frequently ignores and even contradicts them.”
One of arts chief functions is to resist the
denaturing forces that are always present; those
things that would take away our transcendent
possibilities and turn us into stereotyped beings.
For me Art is not the production of meaning but
the providing of a genuine experience of what it is
One of arts chief functions is to resist the
denaturing forces that are always present; those
things that would take away our transcendent
possibilities and turn us into stereotyped beings.
For me Art is not the production of meaning but
the providing of a genuine experience of what it is
to be alive and in the world. Octavio Paz said that
art turns the viewer into an artist. Great art is a
freedom giver, offering one a sense of the breadth
of one’s own possibilities, what may yet be
accomplished.
As a mature artist now 76 years old, I find I have
this large vocabulary to draw from. Imagery that
has woven its way thru my entire career is
available and malleable. I have access to this
personal history with a renewed understanding of
it’s original intent and a deepening understanding
of how these “forms” can continue to speak for me
in paint. I also seek to explore the range of subject
matter my paintings can encompass as I look to
everyday experiences, tell stories and paint about
current events in a expanding as well as deepening
vocabulary. There is in Art History an excitement
as I see my concerns expressed in new artists and
old ‘friends’ offer continued gifts. At its best
making art is a revelatory experience, a conduit to
the beauty and mystery in the miracle of simply
being here. Painting is the wish and the prayer and
the offering all in one. It is an act of faith just to
pick up the brush.
On Depicting Violence in my work.
I work on Series of paintings that are informed
both by Headlines in the News and my own
experiences and observations with what our
species deals with and inflicts, how we treat The
Other and the world around us. I title them-
Struggle Series, HIG Series- How It Goes and Dance
Of The Bombed as well as other Series. I respond
to the News and my own experience with violence.
I have always sought to see what my art can
encompass and document, both on a personal as
well as societal level. I made a painting from a
News photo of the LA riots- Dance Of The Bombed,
the senseless shooting of an Iranian girl- For Nada
and another Series- How It Goes. Struggle # 5-
Dancing Bear 2009 portrayed those at the end of
the wip. How It Goes II- 2010 and HIG Lesson On
Skrillex- 2012 were based on my girlfriend's
experience as an adult entertainer and others I
knew in that field in my younger days. My work is
about our treatment of each other and the other
and our fellow creatures but too the joy of just
being Here. I want to paint the terror and the
wonder of life. 2025
When I was around 8 years old I had a dream I was
in a garden. I climbed this wall and realized that if
I jumped over I would no longer have the
protection and order of the garden and would be
in the wilds. I jumped. It seems a life's choice.
Making Art is a way to share the totality of what
I've seen, touched and what has touched me. I
believe the making of a painting needs that
moment of epiphany and a trace of how the
imagery conveyed thru paint was discovered and
experienced by the artist. Not a graphic notation
of the language of experience but the mystery of
it.
For me art is a personal odyssey. A vehicle to carry
me forward and find some deeper unity in what is
happening in and around me. Art is a slow burn,
working its gift on individuals. It is based on a life
lived worked into a liquid space. I want my
paintings to be a haunted living presence that
reveals to the viewer passion, intellect, mystery
and that changes with each day’s new light. My
work is experiential, non-formulaic. Painting is a
belief system that asks as Borges stated, “ a
momentary act of faith that reality is inferred
from events not reasonings. That theories are
nothing but stimuli: that the finished work
frequently ignores and even contradicts them.”
One of arts chief functions is to resist the
denaturing forces that are always present; those
things that would take away our transcendent
possibilities and turn us into stereotyped beings.
For me Art is not the production of meaning but
the providing of a genuine experience of what it is
One of arts chief functions is to resist the
denaturing forces that are always present; those
things that would take away our transcendent
possibilities and turn us into stereotyped beings.
For me Art is not the production of meaning but
the providing of a genuine experience of what it is
to be alive and in the world. Octavio Paz said that
art turns the viewer into an artist. Great art is a
freedom giver, offering one a sense of the breadth
of one’s own possibilities, what may yet be
accomplished.
As a mature artist now 76 years old, I find I have
this large vocabulary to draw from. Imagery that
has woven its way thru my entire career is
available and malleable. I have access to this
personal history with a renewed understanding of
it’s original intent and a deepening understanding
of how these “forms” can continue to speak for me
in paint. I also seek to explore the range of subject
matter my paintings can encompass as I look to
everyday experiences, tell stories and paint about
current events in a expanding as well as deepening
vocabulary. There is in Art History an excitement
as I see my concerns expressed in new artists and
old ‘friends’ offer continued gifts. At its best
making art is a revelatory experience, a conduit to
the beauty and mystery in the miracle of simply
being here. Painting is the wish and the prayer and
the offering all in one. It is an act of faith just to
pick up the brush.
On Depicting Violence in my work.
I work on Series of paintings that are informed
both by Headlines in the News and my own
experiences and observations with what our
species deals with and inflicts, how we treat The
Other and the world around us. I title them-
Struggle Series, HIG Series- How It Goes and Dance
Of The Bombed as well as other Series. I respond
to the News and my own experience with violence.
I have always sought to see what my art can
encompass and document, both on a personal as
well as societal level. I made a painting from a
News photo of the LA riots- Dance Of The Bombed,
the senseless shooting of an Iranian girl- For Nada
and another Series- How It Goes. Struggle # 5-
Dancing Bear 2009 portrayed those at the end of
the wip. How It Goes II- 2010 and HIG Lesson On
Skrillex- 2012 were based on my girlfriend's
experience as an adult entertainer and others I
knew in that field in my younger days. My work is
about our treatment of each other and the other
and our fellow creatures but too the joy of just
being Here. I want to paint the terror and the
wonder of life. 2025
