Bill Frederick Artist
Picture of the Day
- Not today.
Upcoming/Ongoing
- Gone fishing
- Dark and Light: 24 Paintings by Bill Frederick
52 pages, soft cover, ISBN-13: 978-0-615-32670-2Available for $35 from Boffo Books
Work
Billography
I’m an artist living in Chicago. Most little kids make pictures: I never stopped.
For many years I’ve worked with—and for—a variety of art galleries in Chicago and in the surrounding region. I’ve become familiar with the challenges and pleasures of them as businesses and cultural entities.
For the past few years I’ve made art on a modest scale and worked on related creative projects: the junction between photographic and drawn images, honing my Photoshop skills (still not sharp!), checking out Gimp, working on lo-fi digital printing. I’ve also been writing and illustrating a children’s book–that’s been quite an experience!
It’s given me invaluable time to rethink my artistic point and goals. Any conclusions will likely be reflected here on this website.
Reviews
An Aside
These junk-food-and-caffeine-fueled paintings are made with the simple materials of pencil, brush, water, ink, watercolor, and paper—materials that require little technical know-how while demanding brevity and craft—materials that I love for their beauty and for the way they make an obvious record of their use.
Here are some things I tell myself—or not—as circumstances require:
- The simplest thing I’d say to someone asking what these pictures are about is “How do they make you feel?”
- I want to show the perceiving of things more than the appearance of things.
- Our perceptions are completely unreliable but are all that we know. The truth really matters but doesn’t really pertain here.
- Both making art and looking at art can be like dreaming: each involve echoing and reordering experience.
- I like the contrast between the obviousness of a subject and the ambiguity of it’s metaphorical implications.
- In making an image of something I’m trying to implicate you in a relationship with the thing. I want to compel you to feel involved. All is shaped in pursuit of this.
Still, my pictures don’t finally advocate anything or reflect any agenda but this: They say an affirmative “Yes, I’m present in the world at this moment—I see it around me!” From somewhere I might hear an answering call back, “Yes, at this moment I’m present too.” That’s it.
Contact
Email Bill Frederick at: bill@billfrederick.art