StanleyBly.com

 

I was talking to a close friend one night about the idea of art as a retelling.  How, despite the wardrobe and dictionary used, Shakespeare essentially if simplified, encompassed most, if not all human experience throughout his life's work, and we see this retelling of this dilemma in television and film over and over again.  So the question within our conversation, was how do you create something new?  The conclusion we came upon, was not that you'd create something new, but that you'd make it new again. 

 

Inspired by the artist of many genres,  the retelling became the basis for my work.  So I thought, "how could I retell?"  I picked up on those things I loved about art. I loved the mythology found in art, generally the ones that could easily relate to the American blue collar middle class.  I loved the stage in which the Romantic, Pre-Raphaelite, and Baroque painters portrayed the imagery.  I loved painting the figure, simple as that.  I loved poetry and loved the concept of how a chalkboard, in its asymmetry, could be wiped away, yet still remained.  Finally, painting upon wood as an homage to the artist of the past, and to my father, a woodworker.

 

The work, in its melting pot of art history, material, composition, and dreamlike feel creates paintings that ultimately, though painted with a realism, is introspective despite its academic relationship.