Sin Sin Fine Art proudly presents a solo exhibition of the American artist Rick Lewis.
Sin Sin Fine Art is very pleased to announce our upcoming exhibition featuring recent works by Rick Lewis, an American artist who's been showing with Sin Sin Fine Art since 2006. At the same time, we will also host our annual "Reach for the HeART" charity program, organized together with the "Art in Hospital" organization - in which part of the proceedings from Rick Lewis' exhibition will go to this program. "Reach for the HeART" was proposed and launched in 2009 by Sin Sin with the objective to fund AIH programs that are specifically designed for geriatric patients in the public hospitals. More than 88 "Reach for the HeART" art workshops and five exhibitions have been organized over the past six years. A fund raising campaign is run annually to raise funds to sustain and expand the service. Rick Lewis is very happy to contribute to this noble program through "Wind Against Tide" at Sin Sin Fine Art.
Artist Statement:
My work is born out of a direct connection to places that I have been. Some locations have a magical or mystical quality about them that seems to connect up with my own psyche. My artistic process involves experiencing the area many times, photographing, taking notes, making sketches, recording audio, writing, and sometimes creating music if the place lends itself to that. I return to the studio and sift through the source material I collected, keeping the things that are relevant and setting the rest aside.
Starting a painting begins with a general idea, but I never really know from one piece to the next what may happen along the way. Throughout the process events occur that direct the work. Imagery seems to make itself known. There may have been a particular memory of a texture on a tree, a reflection in the water, color of the shoreline, a peculiar sound that I have never heard, a communion with spirit (be it God, the Great Spirit, Buddha etc. or whatever one may wish to call it), a smell that recalls a specific memory and so on. My artistic life is by no means linear, and space/time contained in the work is not that way either. For me painting is governed by some things that are known and some that are not. Intellectual decisions occur but there are factors that cannot be predicted. For example in nature we understand some things about the wind and tide. Scientifically we know why these phenomena happen. We can approximate their direction and time, we can somewhat understand their relationship, but we are not always sure of the certainty of their effect.
As far as my technique or process goes I usually begin by selecting the support for a certain quality. Be it smooth, slightly toothed, ragged, ‘found’ or what not and begin by manipulating the surface with sandpaper, scrapers, razors, sticks, rocks, sand etc. Then I will lay a ground of either acrylic or oil based enamel, sometimes coating the entire surface, at other times laying out a loosely designed grid. While the ground is curing I trowel a layer of acrylic or resin based medium that is pre-tinted with an added dry pigment color, sand, earth etc. I let that set in for several days and then come back with a mixture of heavy plastic asphalt. The asphalt is laid on in a very spontaneous fashion while covering many pieces at a time. I don’t really think too much about what I am doing at this stage. It is just a very intuitive response to materials and the process. Then all the collective pieces will be pinned or hung on the wall and laid out on the floor for me to live with over the next few days while I review notes. A very strange and wonderful thing begins to take place. A dialogue begins to develop between the notes, sketches, writings, audio, my own thinking and the grounds that I have prepared. Finally I just start going through each one of the works. Drawing and painting back into them. Letting each piece tell me what it needs to get along. Then it is just a matter of working and living with them over the next few months or even years sometimes. They stop at interesting places. I put them away. I bring them back out. Then they leave or are "led away, and I don’t really think about them much after this. I think it is this method of working that keeps me grounded and aware of my senses, and once it is over I have grown, the work has grown and then I am off to the next thing.
-- Rick Lewis
