In this issue, THLR is fortunate to offer our readers the work of Jim Fuess

 

Jim Fuess has had hundreds of group shows and over 40 solo shows over his 32 year artistic career. “I am known for my vividly colored abstract paintings. The series of black and white paintings are an exercise in going back to the basics of form and structure. They deal with the relationship of shapes and figures to each other and to negative space.

There is whimsy, fear, energy, movement, fun and dread. A lot of the work is anthropomorphic. The shapes seem familiar. The faces are real. The gestures and movements recognizable.” More of my work, both in color and black and white may be seen at www.jimfuessart.com .

 

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The Art Editor's Strategy for Viewing

 

One might often think that abstract expressionsim is drawn from the same world as representational art and, indeed, some of it is. But the question is: Why try to think of that representation as the emotion of the artist seeking form? Not that such terms are inadequate, just that there is another path, a path beyond ontology

 

Some of abstract expressionism is geometrically formal, some of it is a representation of the world in de-formation, and some of it is almost pure energy. Viewers (perhaps you, dear viewer?) often tend to want to latch on to representation as meaning rather than approach the aformal representation of energy.

 

In the work of Fuess, energy tries to escape the material confines of other energy, even those confines Fuess himself would give it. For his energy, that energy which is trying to bring itself to be, other energy is merely noise.

 

Abstract paintings bring with them formal qualities, which might be best described as statistical patterns, and a name is, at best, a near pattern match. Yet Jim Fuess names his paintings for what they tend to look like and presents them as representational abstracts, which is much like pointing to a cloud that looks like Santa Claus and calling it Santa Claus. 

 

What Fuess attempts to do with his paintings is express energy. His channeling of that energy to a name seems a post process, at which point what that energy might be representative of is a foregone question. However much his energy looks like organs slopped out on an autopsy table, squished paint, labial flora, or whatnot is merely coincident, coincident with noise that presents itself as a pattern of meaning. Fuess probably takes exception to this point for he still believes in patterns that have meaning and that his energy belongs to those patterns, yet his energy is what reverbs against the noise.

 

Enjoy the energy! That it is.

Jeff Crouch, visual arts editor

 

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Abstract Painting #106                                         Breathing Fire #1

 

 

Lily

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Maternal

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monkey god                                                       running egg

 

underwater fire #2

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Yellow Worm on Red

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An Excerpt from the Jim Fuess Vita:

 

I work with liquid acrylic paint on

canvas. Most of my work is abstract,

but there are recognizable forms

and faces in a number of the paintings.

 

I am striving for grace and fluidity,

movement and balance. I like color and

believe that beauty can be an artistic

goal.

 

The most recent work deals with

negative space and the edges of the

canvas. The work is lyrical, energetic,

colorful and sometimes spooky or

humorous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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