A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Contemporary Paintings by Artist Joshua Flint
March 6 – March 27, 2020
Opening Reception: March 6, 5-8 PM
Robert Lange Studios upcoming exhibit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, features the work of disrupted realist painter Joshua Flint. This show is a series of paintings that capture fleeting moments in time that feel like memories or dreams. All are welcome at the March 6 opening from 5-8pm where the artist will be on hand to answer questions.
The show title is ‘A Field Guide to Getting Lost,” which draws a direct connection to literature and a book of the same name by Rebecca Solnit whose writing embraces and explores “memory, place, loss, desire, and transformation.” She’s one of a number of authors who Flint looked to for ideas presented in this body of work.
“Since I was a child I’ve always been fascinated by field guides to places I didn't know and most likely would never visit, which only heightened the mystery for me. Their combination of words and pictures tells you what you may encounter in an attempt to familiarize yourself your journey, but it doesn’t tell you where you will find meaning.
The show is a visual metaphor for how we experience in life. The paintings are about recollection, the fragmentary nature of identity, and the necessary faultiness of memory. What I’ve noticed over the last few years is that I’m making a sort of alternate reality, a kind of parallel world, or a world that exists “behind the curtain” where the physical and the metaphysical blend in more obvious ways. This world also connects more with literature, poetry, philosophy, science, and nature writing rather than current events or the historical canon. Although, I think some of those influences inevitably find their way in,” says Flint.
Flint is very much interested in how each piece develops a sense of a wandering memory and the way we journey through a variety of places, the unknown territories, these liminal spaces, and the people who populate them. He says, “ Painting allows me to enter into subjects or topics at unexpected angles so that I can open up the imagery to greater possibilities than what I’ve previously known or experienced. As writer Robert MacFarlane states,” Illusion is also a path towards knowledge.”
This exhibit is a celebration of the artists continued journey. Flint says, “A new body of work answers certain questions while leaving others silent. It’s a continuous cycle of seeking and finding and each outcome provides incomplete insights. It’s like I have a partial map to a territory but never a complete one to find my way out. There are always more questions.
The imagery isn’t my only motivation. I’m also interested in the material qualities of paint and how it can be manipulated or applied to connect to my subject matter. I want instability in the surface of the canvas, which reinforces the themes in my work. For example, my paintings contain missing fragments in the imagery, blurred areas, sections not entirely realized, unexpected colors, drips, splatters, scrapes, a flash of color, all which reflect the distortion of memory.“
Flint has been featured in American Art Collector, Southwest Art, and Poets and Artists. He received his BFA from the Academy of Art in San Francisco in 2002.
The exhibition will hang from March 6 – March 27, 2020, and a festive reception, featuring music, wine, and hors d’oeuvres, is open to the public on March 6, 5:00-8:00 PM, in conjunction with the First Friday Art Walk.