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photograph 2011. Jason Amster
What Is Painting? -Jason Amster
I paint the people, the places, and the things around me. For me painting is a way to stop and appreciate the moment. Each painting is a story in which colors and tones reveal the physicality--the existence--of that moment. Painting is a funny thing. Walking up to a finished work and taking it in is an almost instantaneous event (Linger longer and you will be rewarded, however the initial impact is the strongest.). Behind that moment of apprehension are the hours the painter has focused on that canvas, the years of practice leading up to that painting, and the artist's own lifetime of experiences informing that image. So much time and effort, so much love put into the saving of that one experience! Why not snap a photo? For me, I guess it's selfish. I don't feel that I would own the moment, truly see the relationships without focusing and examining and recording it with my own hand.
Why Paint?
Jason Amster
I paint to remember. I want to stop time and understand right now. Of course I can't exactly do that, but painting is a way for me to slow down and observe the moment. The process let's me enjoy the subject in a deeper way before it slips by. I'm not just painting a person, I'm painting my love of light; my reaction to the person; my relationship with the paint itself; that person's relationship to their surroundings; to others--the list continues. Looking at my paintings brings me back to people and times long past as if they were happening still.
photograph 2011. Jason Amster
Influences -Jason Amster
The first artists that influenced me were my mother and a close family friend, Dale. My mother (And all of her sisters) is an artist. She works in collage and ceramics. From my earliest memory her work has been a part of my life. Her passion for art and her encouragement of my creativity have always been a base for me. Dale has been a part of my life since birth. He works in acrylic paints and has endless sketchbooks drawn with grease pencils and pen. We used to sometimes go landscape painting together when I was a teenager: We were both too shy to paint outside alone! Through being able to watch him work and looking at his finished drawings and paintings I learned a lot about composition, and things that words like, see and feel, don't adequately describe as pertaining to how an artist creates.
The first famous painter I was really just bowled over by was John Singer Sargent. The man could paint. I am still impressed by his versatility and the directness with which he painted. Lucian Freud's paintings are amazing. He can really turn paint into flesh. I like how loose he is with his brush and yet the painting comes together and doesn't look sloppy. I also find his compositions fresh and unencumbered. Whether it's a figure or a plate of eggs, you really feel the presence and physicality of the subject. Gerhardt Richter is also just a genius with paint. He can paint anything and is not held to one style. His abstract paintings--the colors! the textures!--are just pleasure to look at. I really like what Jacob Collins and his school are doing with realism. Although I'm not so strict about my process, I think that drawing from nature and draftsmanship are essential. I recently saw a painting by Muneyuki Ishida at the Nitten exhibition and was drawn by his clean draftsmanship and how he paints flesh so naturally. I am strongly influenced by Japanese print artists. Cropping and composition are things that artists like Utamaro, Hiroshige, and more recently Katsuyuki Nishijima and Akira Yamaguchi have deeply considered. These artists' subject matter is also akin to my interest. They draw from the world immediately around them.
