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"Art Lies..." 1998 3x5' Mixed media neoluminist. Move your cursor over the image to reveal what it looks like with the fluorescent bulbs lit inside it. This multi media piece is all about my philosophy of art. I'm not a huge fan of the 'hands off' policy that is the norm in galleries around the world. I understand that the point is to preserve the paintings, but don't you just want to run you fingers across the surface of a Monet? What I hope to accomplish with paintings like these is a physical connection between the viewer and the work. In this case, you flip a switch on the surface of the painting to illuminate transparency films inside that read, "Art lies not only in what you see, but in how you react to and interact with it." The other images that show through are part of a paper that I wrote on the subject of my 'touch paintings'. There are also photographs of other paintings that I have done that invite the viewer to get hands-on with my work. |
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"Kosovo" 1999 30x24" Oil on canvas neoluminist. Roll your cursor over the image to turn on the lights. This is yet another of my illuminated paintings, and my one and only political piece. The girl in the painting was an art student that I corresponded with for a short while. In the midst of all of the turmoil in Kosovo, she managed to capture some amazing images. In speaking with her, I learned about the horrors that were going on in her home town and across the country. They were events that existed only as the occasional headline in my morning paper, until I met her. I created this work as a reminder that even while eating a meal and going to her classes, the atrocities raged on around her. While we can flip to the funny section of the paper or turn off the painting, those events are always there, just beneath the surface. |
"Reclining Nude" 2000 2x5' Mixed Media neoluminist. On a lighter note, this painting is a bit of a joke about painting in general. Art history books are littered with paintings featuring the reclining nude figure. Since my work isn't usually figural, I decided to create a 'reclining' work that is nude in the sense that it exposes all of the lights and wiring that are usually hidden in my neoluminist paintings. The dark panels in the front are x-ray test films that a radiology lab does every morning to ensure that the equipment is working. The gears and tracks are part of the moving x-ray table. The work also features 5 switches that control 3 incandescent bulbs and 2 fluorescent tubes. One switch isn't hooked to anything, as a bit of a tease. During this work's first showing, one fellow swore that the unwired switch made a faint buzzing sound when it was flipped on. So far, this is the only work I've done that has induced an auditory hallucination. |
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"Grandpa" 2000 Oil on Canvas. This is a series that I created to pay homage to the wonder that is photoshop. I had been doing a ton of photo editing for other projects and it struck me how easy it had become to crop, resize, blow up, etc... So, I decided to do a series the hard way. I cropped and resized the second and third from the original, trying to match enlarged brushstrokes and such along the way. Not terribly ground-breaking, but a lot of fun to paint!
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"Lillian in Orange and Red" 2002 Acrylic on board. You've already seen this one on the main page, but I felt that it needed a bit of explanation. As you may have noticed, no two of my paintings look alike. I've wrestled with the issue of finding my style for years and it doesn't seem that I'm any closer to finding my 'look'. One professor at Ohio State complained that "If they weren't signed, I'd think they were made by a dozen different people". If I were forced to choose a path, however, I'd probably keep making paintings like this one. I painted this during a sleepless night in my basement while my wife was away. It was one of those moments where inspiration strikes and you simply must paint! Even at 4a.m.. It's all about the memory image of her, the gist of the form. The colors are appropriate to her personality, but I can't take all the credit, that's just the colors of spray paint that I happened to have! I've done a few in a similar style that were part of the stage dressing for Ohio University Chillicothe's production of "Black Comedy" in 2005. I'll have a few of those images up some time in the future. |
Please think of this page as a 'selected works' or even 'best of Jeremy Graves anthology'. There are a great many works before, between and after these that I just didn't have the foresight to photograph. I promise to be more careful in the future. In the mean time, feel free to cruise over to the page featuring my latest endeavor, miniatures. I take commissions and requests, so send me an e-mail if you find my work appealing. Many thanks for dropping by! |
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