Artist's Statement
I studied drawing and painting at the University of Nebraska and Ohio Sate
University. My paintings are done with paint sticks which are pigment and wax
on board. The images range from a coarse pointillism to being crisply
articulated. The subject matter, though drawn from photographs taken in Ohio,
Iowa or Nebraska, all key into memories of the land I came to know and understand growing up on
a farm in Nebraska. I am very interested in the way light and shadows can
evoke emotions in the landscape. Nature works both as an image and a metaphor
for my everyday life. The mood that is set sometimes reminds me of my
ancestors and their history with the land. Sometimes it expresses inner
emotions. I am always amazed at the way that I feel or the way that it lifts
me out of myself.
I have come to realize that paintings do the same thing. You can look at
repeatedly and come away with a different reaction each time. My subject
matter is no longer a representation of my surroundings but a pursuit of how I
express the feeling of what I saw.
Critical Excerpts
"The surface is a nearly perfect merging of process and subject for
the artist because the heavy impasto ‘attempts to mimic the physical
complexity I see in nature’ as it simultaneously reflects the physical
nature of application. This merging is true also for his work in
monotype."
Melissa Wolfe,
Rod Bouc: Landscapes from the
Middle Border, 2003
Recent
Articles
Painter
Escapes in Rockin' Carriage House
The Columbus Dispatch
Private Spaces | Rod Bouc
Sunday,
December 7, 2008
Keny
Galleries
Man,
environment interact in contrasting styles
Sunday,
June 17, 2007 3:59 AM
By
Christopher A. Yates
For
The Columbus Dispatch
Rod
Bouc and Eric Barth create contemplative landscapes. Like windows of personal
experience, their paintings are emotional responses to location, the passage
of time and the change of light or season. Both use unconventional painting
methods with vastly different results.
Though stylistically the artists reside in different camps,
pairing them is successful. Most interesting is a comparison of surfaces.
Bouc's are visceral and energetic while Barth's are atmospheric and quiet.
Equally valid, the approaches suggest two different relationships with nature.
Using oil sticks, Bouc produces dramatic paintings and monotype
prints. Having grown up on a farm in Nebraska, he re-creates the rural Midwest
through elaborate orchestrations of mark and texture. Though brightly colored,
his works essentially are about value -- with strong light and dark shades.
The effect is stark, raw and a bit unsettling.
Many pieces focus on areas of transition, places where nature and
man form an uneasy coexistence. Weedtree, Michaelmas and Goldenrod
depicts a tangle of noxious weeds, plants that farmers battle. The strangely
beautiful image examines man's control and domination of the natural world.
The monotype After Corn Picking presents a harvested
cornfield. The barren earth seems to have endured a kind of physical violence.
Though more observation than indictment, the piece moves beyond a simple
landscape to make a statement: When man's will is imposed on nature, there are
consequences.
Barth's paintings are calm and meditative. Although they seem to
be Midwestern places, his subjects are unidentifiable, approaching a universal
quality. They follow the tradition of 19th-century American landscape painters
but, more important, they connect with tonalists such as Ralph Blakelock,
James Abbott McNeill Whistler scenes, including A Silent Night Shattered and
A Clouded Moon. Distant lights and small boats on bodies of water signal
man's presence.
Bouc and Barth offer
landscapes as reflections of personal experience. Their works reflect upon and
attempt to understand the human place in the natural world.
Education
MFA, The Ohio
State University, 1979
BFA, Univsersity of Nebraska, 1973
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