State of the Union
41 x 66
oil on canvas
2011

 

 

Breaking News
18 x 24
oil on canvas
2013

 

 

Dinosaurs Eating CEO
55 x 60
oil on canvas
2013

 

 

Fatigue (Version 2)
48 x 60
oil on canvas
2011

 

 

Terrarium
32 x 36
oil on canvas
2012

 

 

Interview with JOHN BROSIO:

Your childhood ambition:

My childhood ambition was to be a herpetologist—basically study and work with reptiles, mainly snakes in my case. Had I gone ahead with that I would have of course gotten into conservation and possibly toxicology. Many of my early drawings were of reptiles.

Something you treasure:

What I treasure most are the people in my life. My fiancée, my friends, my family. But that is the boring answer, no? If I had to pick something silly?! I have some really cool masks and movie costumes that are still a lot of fun. At one point I was going to go into creature and monster making and a good deal of that is left over. In a way I am glad I did not pursue that career since so much of it is now typed into a keypad instead of sculpted and molded. There are some very, very talented folks who have been sent out to pasture by the excess of CGI, much of which is still too cartoony. As for right now I am looking forward very much to the next Star Wars film as JJ Abrams and LucasFilm have made the claim that they are using computer imagery as one of their tools in the midst of a return to models, sets, costumes, etc. I am eager for the results.

Your worst habit:

Worst habit?! You trying to start trouble?!!! Let’s just say that distraction and procrastination are always the end result.

The aspect of your work that’s most important to you:

The aspect of my work that is most important to me is the freedom. And what I mean by it is the freedom to explore what I want. And not only does that have to do with circumstance, luck, finance, and all of that, but it is also quite necessarily particular to art. Critic and writer Robert Hughes wrote a book on painter Frank Auerbach. In the front of the book he states:

“Auerbach’s work suggests a way…out of the morass of ambivalence and coarsened self-reflexiveness in which so much of the art of the last twenty years has foundered. It reminds us that painting may still connect us to the whole body of the world, being more than just a conduit for debate about novelty, cultural signs and stylistic relations…What counts most in Auerbach’s work is the sense it projects of the immediacy of experience—not through the facile rush of most neo-expressionist painting, but in a way that is deeply meditated, impacted with cultural memories and desires which do not condescend to the secondhand discourse of quotation…Auerbach’s struggle (is) not to ‘express himself,’ but to stabilize and define the terms of his relations to the real, resistant and experienced world: which is what art must do, today as yesterday, if it is to be more than chatter.”

To be working in a field that allows me this kind of exploration is what is most important to me. It is rare. And I am lucky to be able to attempt it.

Your first job:

My first job ended up not happening. My cousin had gotten a summer job working at an ice cream shop. I wanted to do the same but my father prevented it. I forget why but he was very proud of being able to support his family. My summers, though dotted with little jobs here and there, were primarily free. Between junior and senior year of high school I got a job doing storyboards for New World Pictures but never got paid in the end.

Someone whose work you highly recommend:

It is very difficult for me to single out someone whose work I recommend but I will say Michael Hussar. He is a dazzling painter who, though already “known,” deserves another look I think.

 

See more of John Brosio’s work here.