2/18/2006

Thomas Nozkowski

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

learn from a master how its done

Mountain Man said...

One of my all-time favorite painters. This is such a great one too......it is time to make grandiose claims, like maybe he is the best abstract painter around today. This image is obscuring thoughts of all others.

Anonymous said...

opens tonight at max protetch. he has had over 50 solo shows!

JD said...

So many artists that I respect love, love, love this painter, but I have to admit that I don't quite get it. I appreciate the inventiveness of his work as a group, but feel unfulfilled when I'm looking at any given one. I find the surfaces to be kinda gummy and overworked, and while the imagery feels very quirky to me, it never opens up for me into bigger content.

Help me understand! 'Splain, Lucy.

Anonymous said...

he also does pro bono legal work for new immigrants
i prefer his legal drafts to his paintings
but a great man

Anonymous said...

pro bono legal work? he's not a lawyer! what does he do exactly?

Anonymous said...

he worked full time for years and years at MAD magazine. if he also does pro bono legal work that would explain why these are so resolutely small! what more can a guy have time for??

Anonymous said...

beautiful but boring....

satanarchy said...

boring is beautiful

Anonymous said...

i have never heard of the pro bono legal work. are you sure about that?

the noz was a good teacher. he referred to me as a "bombastic painter" once but i forgave him. he's the real deal. these paintings take months to make. he pushes everything around a zillion times before he settles on a composition. and his vernacular is very personal; he has been building it for years and years and is true to it - meaning that he doesn't grab shapes out of thin air.

although there are similarities to other painters, no one really does what he does.

Dumbpainter said...

good painting...always happy to look at these. can people still get mad at painting...lighten up.

Dumbpainter said...

check out this great painter!

http://www.modernprimitive.com/gees03.html

Anonymous said...

Listen, his paintings are looking good and not just that but he is working p/t as a pastry chef. He is more precise from what I understand, with his shape-shifting articulation on canvas, as a result. This painting may not be his best ever but it gives you hope for figure-ground receptivity and hope for love of colored blobs on fields of truisms. I am into it. His paintings looked great tonight as did Charlene Von Heyl's, esp. the French one, the Matisse one, the one that intimated honey, didactism, and wit. White is the atmosphere that hugs us all into invention.

Anonymous said...

When I was at the Vermont Studio Center circa 1996 the Noz told me "why twice it when you can once it." Instead I have chosen to 100 times it but that's just me. I still liked what he had to say, he wanted to keep re-working his paintings until they "sang." I think about that as an ideal all the time. Thanks Noz.

Anonymous said...

the noz knows.
he is a mad magazine production dude, a pro-bono legal worker, a pastry chef, a professor, a dad, a great painter, a husband,, a comical figure, a bad ass.

Anonymous said...

Well at least he sounds like one hard-working fellow which is more than I can say for a lot of other artists who lay around high and drunk most of the day.

Anonymous said...

"lay around high and drunk most of the day"???

fairy butler said...

His paintings are little gems.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to address jd's question about Nozkowski's work.
It recalls being in the studio, making moves that seem interesting, beg the question: could THIS be something worth pursuing? He acts on that. There is a sense of aha! I'll leave it here. Yes, he reworks his paintings--but brings them and then leaves them at a point where that sense of discovery seems fresh.
They truly come out of process and retrain their sense of abstraction. They are absolutely open yet absolutely painted.

JD said...

Thanks, anonymous, I'll keep looking at Nozkowski, and your comments may help me see the light one of these days.

Anonymous said...

b o r i n g

Anonymous said...

Snacky, do you not agree with my characterization? I know there is a lot of napping, a lot of yapping, a lot of substance abuse. It's rampant all over these blogs. I for one appreciate a hard work ethic and it's hard to believe you all get away with your lazing around day after day, making a picture here or there to justify your existence. Don't take this the wrong way, I am not angry, just jealous. If only I had the nerve I could while away the days in a stupor of neurotic ambition, eating pills and drinking the fascist tonics. Let's face it, art is for miscreants.

Anonymous said...

"Snacky, do you not agree with my characterization?...If only I had the nerve I could while away the days in a stupor of neurotic ambition, eating pills and drinking the fascist tonics. Let's face it, art is for miscreants."

I think you are either joking or out of your mind.

Anonymous said...

psst, psst, hey Snacky....maybe it's both.