Accomplice May 2-31, 2008
Doug Sutherland
Doug Sutherland, "Drawing for a Computer Model", 2008.
Artist Statement:
Growing up on the gulf coast of Florida with an artist illustrator father has had a major impact on the style and subject of the work that I do. My father’s medium of preference was watercolor and he loved the work of Winslow Homer. I grew up in a house with walls covered with Homeresque paintings. He also kept elaborate visual files, which he often used as reference for his work. As I grew older and my interest in the arts grew, I would look through his files for inspiration.
While attending graduate school at the Florida State University, I became interested in the work being done by the photorealist painters, but felt that there was something lacking in the subject matter of these artists. What was missing was being expressed by the European performance artists of the time. So I went about try to combine the technical style of the photorealists and the emotion of the performance artists. I saw a photograph of a performance done in Tokyo by an artist who hung himself with fishhooks. So I decided to do a portrait of myself stretching my face with “S” hooks. I need something for the background behind my figure. I looked in my father’s files and in a folder labeled “Art Modern,” I found a reproduction of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. This work dates back around five hundred years ago, so I though to myself, what make a piece like this so timeless.
This has made a lasting impression on me and has shape much of how I choose the subject matter for my work. I try to use subjects and images, sometimes from “Art History,” that are archetypal and timeless and blend them with subjects and images that have personal meaning and personal value, with a little social satire thrown in sometimes. In essence I try to marry the personal and universal, in an attempt to create works that hopefully are as interesting and relevant at the time they are made as they will be several hundred years from now.
