Art Sync | What Paintings Do: Conversation with Ted Walsh

Elizabeth Johnson: Your art statement says, "My work often begins with familiar things—buildings, figures, animals, objects, skies. I am interested in pictures that feel as though they are setting a scene, although what has happened, or what might happen, is often left unresolved." I love the mystery and dreamy feeling of Daydream House. To you, are buildings both characters and spaces to mentally enter and explore? Is the shed more like a character or a space in reference to the boy who, like you, "plays" with buildings?

Ted Walsh: I like “dreamy feeling.” The house is a day dream, and it’s a dream house. The drive behind this picture danced around quite a bit before I really pinned it down. It’s a little bit like two paintings in one.

I have always played with houses. Toys and models, sketching, in paintings, looking at and reading about architecture. And my imagination does wander. It comes naturally to imagine entering a building while you are looking at it. I like to turn buildings around in my head: What does that space look like in plan, or cross section, or from another angle? How are you oriented to it, and what shape would that space enclose you with if you were inside? 

EJ: Looking at A Place to Wait, I wonder if your invented landscapes almost always start with drawings on site? Or are the buildings most often invented? Does the possibility of being watched by someone inside them balance your external gaze implied though focused rendering and painting?

EJ: Delivered, with its cabbage butterflies, is somber and seems to withhold details that would make it more familiar or specific.

The butterflies add levity but separate from the background.

Are you experimenting with layering foreground and background to make mystery? How did this piece develop?

EJ: In our last conversation you said, "I guess I do prioritize the physical painted surface over the surface of the depicted objects, but I’m careful not to make one aspect of the painting––surface texture, depiction, color, scale, etc.––overpowering." That seems like a very important point. How does this restraint serve you? Is saying less with less always your goal?

TW: I think balance is very important. I wouldn’t call it “restraint” exactly, because it’s more about making sure one part of the work doesn’t overpower the others. You could have a wild piece, over the top in many aspects, but if each aspect is tuned properly with the others, the painting will work. 

I think I can clarify that quote about surface a little. The surface of the painting itself is what you are looking at, so, that surface is more important than the depicted surface texture of an object in the picture. If you are very interested in the texture of some object, you may want to illustrate that object and its texture. But even if you illustrate it accurately and the illusion is complete, the painting will fall flat if the actual painted surface is boring or executed poorly.

On the flip side, when a painting surface is working well, a simple hint, a touch or smudge or stroke or an accurate bit of color can give endlessly more character to a piece. It’s a less exhausting way to make a painting, and I find it’s a more audience/viewer-oriented way of making art. It’s about the viewers connection more than the artist’s narrow interest. So, saying less isn’t the goal. But in my experience, saying less often works well, and saves you a lot of time. The goal is to say only what is straightforward and honest, and relying on that to engage people. 

TW: I don’t usually use texture to distinguish objects intentionally, but I can see what you mean. In a painting like this I’m usually thinking more about opacity. The paint of the barns is thicker and more opaque and, therefore, warmer and brighter. The white in the sky is cooler because the paint is thinner. It’s a way to bring the building forward to the foreground as the main subject; though it’s not like, “barns are solid and wood” and “skies are airy.”

And it’s interesting that you say “ragged.” Puff is oil on a torn piece of watercolor paper. Rough edges are cropped in the image, so I guess the feeling is still there. I like that because it means everything is working together.  You’re not the only one to point out the stippled effect. The look comes from the paper, which has a prominent texture. To pull the paint thin in places I kind of pound the surface to flatten it. This is a small painting, so, I probably just used the heel of my hand or the side of my finger to spread the paint thin. 

TW: Shadows on my figures can have more complex shapes than shadows in my landscapes. People can twist and turn their bodies in all kinds of ways which cast shadows differently than with landscapes. And the shapes in my landscapes slide around more like abstract puzzle pieces. But I try to work with both types of subjects in the same way.

Sometimes you have to remind yourself, if you add wiggle room to the landscapes, you can allow it in the figures too. I like to think my figures accomplish the same level of rule breaking as my landscapes; though, they can be received differently. There are a lot of opinions people hold pretty close when it comes to figures. 

EJ: Dormant feels narrative and modern with light-hearted, surface foliage. Since the shadow on the statue's shoulder functions differently than the shadow behind it, their separation deepens a possible narrative, though I don't even need to know what the story is. How does darkness enter the story to you?

TW: In a picture like this, the darkness of the background makes the shadows in the foreground stand out as a midtone. It is a little counterintuitive to what you might want to do if you are new to painting, but you see this kind of midtone shadow a lot once you pay attention for it.

Thomas Eakins (again), and Caravaggio, and Antonio Mancini are just the first three off the top of my head who do it quite a bit. They also happen to be three of my favorite painters. It’s a tool I use pretty often. It’s one way to emphasize the object quality of the subject of the painting.

TW: I often think of color in terms of the kind of space it creates, and the mood follows. It certainly happened with the darks here. The darks in Read Denouement do a change-up: the mid-tones are the light side of the subject, and the shadow is the darkest part of the painting. It pinches the action, like the tip of an angry witch’s wand. The out-of-whack perspective lines lead to the same thing.

EJ: Green and White Bee Boxes may be the sleeper for me, the one that is most subtle and most mysterious. You make me value someting as subtle as hive lids that are not perfectly fitted, and I still get the unknown interior mystery that you conjure with buildings. By means of only the container, I know there are busy bees inside, I can hear them, and there’s the danger of being stung. Is implied hidden activity a next step after implied narrative?

About the Artist

Ted Walsh is an artist based in southern New Jersey. For more than two decades, he has exhibited throughout the United States, and his work is held in private collections in the United States and abroad. He earned his MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Walsh has received two Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grants and First Prize in Painting at Art of the State at The State Museum of Pennsylvania. He has twice served as artist-in-residence at Gettysburg National Military Park and was selected as the inaugural artist-in-residence at First State National Historical Park. He has also been an artist-in-residence at Rocky Neck Art Colony in Gloucester, Massachusetts.