2012 BEst of Show:
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Statement from David Higgins
The only job I could get after graduating with a Fine Arts degree was drawing houses for a real-estate company. They needed line drawings for their catalog, and my job was essentially to make the houses look better than they really were. It wasn’t a fun or rewarding job by any means, but I sure got good at drawing linear perspective. All those house drawings eventually overlapped with the original art I was making, and now that I’m 50, I look back and see that my art is mostly about houses. And yet, they are so much more than perspective structures; they can be amazingly expressive.
Sometimes houses are skulls. Sometimes they are accretions of debris, like the casings built by weird little caddisflies from sand and pine needles. At night, they are cells in a larger organism, chambering sleepers in the dark. As the older neighborhoods of our towns and cities slip further into decrepitude, the houses get more eloquent. They have been stripped of their pipe by copper thieves. The roofs sag, the railings rot, and garbage accumulates in the alcoves. Elmira, Binghamton, Cortland, Rochester; I am a connoisseur of their silent stories.
David Higgins grew up in Deposit, Elmira, and Binghamton. He received a BA in Fine Art from SUNY-Binghamton in 1983 and an MFA from Louisiana State University in 1988. He has been teaching art at Corning Community College since 1991. His website is davidhigginsart.com.
Exhibition Introduction by Gerald Mead
I am pleased to provide the introduction for this solo exhibition of David Higgins’ work at the Olean Public Library Gallery since I and my fellow juror, Marie Via, the Director of Exhibitions at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, had such a positive response to his entry in the 2011 Southern Tier Biennial. Our admiration for the work led us to enthusiastically select him as the Best of Show winner in that competition and give him a well-deserved opportunity for a larger viewing of his artwork. What was it about his entry, an oil painting/construction titled “Termite Heads,” that impressed us? Through that one work, it was clear that Higgins was a consummate draftsman and craftsman who paid careful attention to the technical details of his artwork. The content of the artwork was both idiosyncratic and highly imaginative and the imagery was compelling on a number of levels. It was oddly wonderful and whet our appetite to see more of his highly accomplished artistry. Happily, through this exhibition and illustrated catalog, that desire has become a reality.
The subjects of the work in this exhibition differ from “Termite Heads” but are no less extraordinary. His elegant paintings of houses, industrial structures and rural intersections are notable due to the artist’s uncanny ability to elevate unremarkable objects and locations to positions that command both our attention and admiration. Finding beauty in the commonplace has many art historical precedents and by focusing on this theme, Higgins confidently places his work squarely within that tradition. In his statement, the artist aptly describes himself as a connoisseur of “silent stories.” His expertly rendered, precisionist paintings are candid, frank depictions that transcend nostalgia and gently suggest unknown narratives. There are each poetically imbued with a distinctive sprit of quietude. In many instances, Higgins deftly uses the time of day to reinforce our impression of the scene. For example, transitional periods such as dusk or dawn, and the quality of light associated with them, serve as a metaphor for the suspension of time that many of the paintings suggest.
I encourage you to contemplate the paintings in this exceptional body of work and allow Higgins’ unique view of the world to become your newfound perspective on the everyday.
Gerald Mead
Independent Curator and Arts Writer
Lecturer in Design, Buffalo State College
The only job I could get after graduating with a Fine Arts degree was drawing houses for a real-estate company. They needed line drawings for their catalog, and my job was essentially to make the houses look better than they really were. It wasn’t a fun or rewarding job by any means, but I sure got good at drawing linear perspective. All those house drawings eventually overlapped with the original art I was making, and now that I’m 50, I look back and see that my art is mostly about houses. And yet, they are so much more than perspective structures; they can be amazingly expressive.
Sometimes houses are skulls. Sometimes they are accretions of debris, like the casings built by weird little caddisflies from sand and pine needles. At night, they are cells in a larger organism, chambering sleepers in the dark. As the older neighborhoods of our towns and cities slip further into decrepitude, the houses get more eloquent. They have been stripped of their pipe by copper thieves. The roofs sag, the railings rot, and garbage accumulates in the alcoves. Elmira, Binghamton, Cortland, Rochester; I am a connoisseur of their silent stories.
David Higgins grew up in Deposit, Elmira, and Binghamton. He received a BA in Fine Art from SUNY-Binghamton in 1983 and an MFA from Louisiana State University in 1988. He has been teaching art at Corning Community College since 1991. His website is davidhigginsart.com.
Exhibition Introduction by Gerald Mead
I am pleased to provide the introduction for this solo exhibition of David Higgins’ work at the Olean Public Library Gallery since I and my fellow juror, Marie Via, the Director of Exhibitions at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, had such a positive response to his entry in the 2011 Southern Tier Biennial. Our admiration for the work led us to enthusiastically select him as the Best of Show winner in that competition and give him a well-deserved opportunity for a larger viewing of his artwork. What was it about his entry, an oil painting/construction titled “Termite Heads,” that impressed us? Through that one work, it was clear that Higgins was a consummate draftsman and craftsman who paid careful attention to the technical details of his artwork. The content of the artwork was both idiosyncratic and highly imaginative and the imagery was compelling on a number of levels. It was oddly wonderful and whet our appetite to see more of his highly accomplished artistry. Happily, through this exhibition and illustrated catalog, that desire has become a reality.
The subjects of the work in this exhibition differ from “Termite Heads” but are no less extraordinary. His elegant paintings of houses, industrial structures and rural intersections are notable due to the artist’s uncanny ability to elevate unremarkable objects and locations to positions that command both our attention and admiration. Finding beauty in the commonplace has many art historical precedents and by focusing on this theme, Higgins confidently places his work squarely within that tradition. In his statement, the artist aptly describes himself as a connoisseur of “silent stories.” His expertly rendered, precisionist paintings are candid, frank depictions that transcend nostalgia and gently suggest unknown narratives. There are each poetically imbued with a distinctive sprit of quietude. In many instances, Higgins deftly uses the time of day to reinforce our impression of the scene. For example, transitional periods such as dusk or dawn, and the quality of light associated with them, serve as a metaphor for the suspension of time that many of the paintings suggest.
I encourage you to contemplate the paintings in this exceptional body of work and allow Higgins’ unique view of the world to become your newfound perspective on the everyday.
Gerald Mead
Independent Curator and Arts Writer
Lecturer in Design, Buffalo State College
