September 6, 2002

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

On top of the world

Artist Doug Fordyce is opening a show, then a studio

by Kaizaad Kotwal

Doug Fordyce is on top of the world these days. Fordyce, of Columbus, has his hands full as a professional artist, a graphics designer, a teacher, a businessman, and working on opening his own studio-cum-gallery space in October.

Starting September 11 and running through October, Fordyce's most recent works will be on display at the Michael Orr Gallery on King Avenue in Columbus.

Fordyce is most excited by the most recent venture being undertaken by him and his partner David Jones.

In October they will be inaugurating Studio 16 at 431 West 3rd Avenue in Columbus. In addition to functioning as Fordyce's studio, he and his partner will display other artists' works. He will also be offering classes and workshops all year round, giving back to the city he loves.

"Except for a brief stint in Newport, Rhode Island, I have spent the past eighteen plus years in Columbus,” he said.

During that brief stint away from home, Fordyce says he "needed to get away from my life for a while, to get some perspective and make some decisions. I spent my time there sitting on the beach with my journal, sketchbook and Walkman. I made a lot of discoveries about myself during that six months and came back to Columbus with the drive I needed to get on with making art." After leaving art school, he did some traveling in California and New England, including time spent in New York City and Boston. While visiting New York City in 1993 he "was amazed by the energy there."

"After coming back from New York, I always feel as if I can do anything." Pausing to catch his breath he adds, "As most artists aspire, I truly hope to exhibit my work there someday."

Having caught the traveling bug, Fordyce spent a summer in Europe, mostly France, Italy and Belgium with a quick trip to Switzerland.

"Europe was incredible," he

gushes. "I think every artist

should try to visit it. I learned so

much just from seeing the places

I had studied, seeing the art I had only seen in books."

His worst memory from Europe involved "getting food poisoning and spending most of my first visit to the Louvre seeing its many bathrooms," he jokes.

In 1997, he graduated from Ohio State University with a BFA in painting and drawing. He chose OSU despite being accepted to the Rhode Island School of De-

sign in Providence and Parsons in New York City because, "I was in a pretty serious relationship at the time, and we decided to try rehabbing a house together."

Fordyce has "been drawing for as long as I can remember."

"My parents were always very supportive of my art from a very early age. My mother enrolled me in an adult college outreach oil painting class when I was in the fourth grade. She would drive me there each week and then sit off to the side reading a book until I was finished."

The Fordyce matriarch's commitment to her son's artistic leanings continued beyond childhood. "As I grew older," Fordyce adds, "my mother became my best art critic. She has a very good eye and could point out problem areas in my work."

His father too, has contributed to the artist in him. "My father has been a great carpenter for years and is a very precise and meticulous individual," Fordyce explains. As a result of this character trait, the senior Fordyce has "kept all my watercolors and drawings matted for me."

Having grown up in the country, Fordyce would pack up his watercolors and go hike in the woods and paint old abandoned houses

or plants that he found in the woods and forests.

Fordyce says, "There were always peaceful places to retreat to and be alone with my art."

"My work is often about calm, often about feeling that peace. But because I don't produce work that directly represents that, I must get my viewer to feel that feeling based on my colors, my shapes, my brushstrokes," he explains. "In order for this to occur, I need to feel these things when I paint."

One of his favorite quotes of all time

is what Robert Henri said in The Art Spirit: "The brush stroke at the moment of contact carries inevitably the exact state of the artist at that moment into the work, and there it is, to be seen and read by those who can read such signs, and to be read later by the artist himself, with perhaps some surprise, as a revelation of himself."

Series # XII Study #

Fordyce's most recent oeuvre is a result of abstracting the figurative world. "I've spent many years drawing and painting the figure representationally," he explains, "but in the past few years, I have begun to abstract my work, pulling the figure along with me."

Fordyce's paintings are created with a unique technique. He says, "I created a tool that transformed my years of representational expression into a fluid abstraction free from the confines of realism. The tool is a four-foot piece of wood with holes drilled at random locations. Beside each hole is a nail partially driven into the surface. Pencils and brushes can be stuck into the holes and secured by clipping them to the corresponding nails. I use the tool to create drawings. My only conscious thought is to create shapes of a figurative nature. I use pencils and brushes of varying thickness, hardness, and sometimes, color. The tool moves across the drawing surface, creating repeated lines, shapes and uncontrolled random marks.”

He adds, "I have also found that many of my recent pieces place the figures against dramatic backdrops of sky and clouds. The unintentional landscapes establish a correspondence between man and nature that reflects the tension and harmony of existence."

The cool of the blues and greens is

8

J. MOOS

Doug Fordyce

complimented and put into tension by reds, oranges, and siennas "to achieve a sense of warmth that alternately reflects onto and radiates from within the figure."

Fordyce has a proclivity for worn objects, which also manifests itself in his work. He explains that, "By layering color, often beginning with a dark solid background and

laying a lighter wash of color on top, allowing the dark to come through in areas, I set a ground that feels aged. Once the ground is established, corrosion is suggested by removing sections of the 'finished' surface. The work is given a patina that imbues a sense of discovery. Abstraction and modernism are blended with an oxidation realized by paint instead of air. I hope in the larger blue oils the viewer recognizes an effect similar to the oxidation of bronze in ancient Chinese vessels and mirrors."

In addressing the emotional qualities of his paintings, he says, "Sometimes I hope to convey a feeling of sadness or melancholy and other times feelings of joy and celebration."

Thematically, he says that he's "also been attempting to portray universally recognized themes. For example, the change of seasons and what moods or emotions are associated with these times. Another example would be the coming of rain, the darkness of the storm approaching combined with the relief of knowing that the rain will wash away the grayness and leave a fresh beginning."

Another recurring theme for Fordyce is the "spiritual quality of life. I often show areas of extreme chaos and struggle, figures overlapping and then contrast this with an area of simplicity, few figures enveloped in soothing color."

In discussing his work he concludes by saying that, "I hope for viewers to leave my work with a sense of calm, a feeling of stopping for a one moment to see the beauty of life. We all struggle with life in one way or another, but without the struggle, there would be no comparison, no way to realize how wonderful the calm can be.”

Painting is special to Fordyce because he can get lost in his painting. He says, "Sitting down in front of a canvas that I've been working on, thinking about the subject matter, smelling the turpentine, feeling the smoothness of the paint on my brush, the texture of the layers already on the canvas, I can lose myself totally." Extolling the therapeutic virtues of art, he adds that, "The stresses of my life and the world around me can just disappear while I am engrossed in my painting." He concludes that, "The outcome of the painting is no longer important, just the act of painting."

For more information about Fordyce's show at the Michael Orr Gallery or about Studio 16 call 614-353-1188 or visit www.studio16.net.