{"id":38226,"date":"2017-06-05T09:12:48","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T15:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=38226"},"modified":"2018-09-23T09:15:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T15:15:09","slug":"marcus-vincent-color-conveys-nuances-of-lifes-experiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/marcus-vincent-color-conveys-nuances-of-lifes-experiences\/","title":{"rendered":"Marcus Vincent: Color Conveys Nuances of Life\u2019s Experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Figure painter Marcus Vincent turned to narratives of experience through color dynamics in his collection titled \u201cObjekte,\u201d on display at Utah Valley University\u2019s Woodbury Art Museum. Here, he examines barely perceptible sheens and subliminal color pops in one painting in the exhibition. Photo by Gary Brodeur<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

W<\/span>hen an architecturally trained figure painter breaks from his early influences, what expression does he turn to? In Marcus Vincent\u2019s case, a visual element imbued with emotion, a color field that conveys a manifestation of experience.<\/h4>\n

\u201cColor is important to me,\u201d Vincent says during a break in the mounting of\u00a0Objekte<\/em>, a collection of his artworks on display at Utah Valley University\u2019s Woodbury Art Museum. Vincent\u2019s training included mechanical and architectural drawing\u00a0 \u2014 with blueprints as their natural outcome \u2014 and how to depict the classical and evocative human form. Describing himself as a \u201cvisually inquisitive being,\u201d he studied under Trevor Southey, a celebrated Utah figure painter who died two years ago at the age of 75. Now, emphasizing color has outstripped his adeptness in presenting structures and his passion for portraying figures.<\/h4>\n

The shift away from form and toward color-carried emotional expressions began literally at the turn of this century. Vincent was producing commissioned figure paintings and says they had become a tedious routine. \u201cI had some long conversations with myself about what it was I really need to be doing,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd this is what\u2019s emerged.\u201d<\/h4>\n
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Sulphur Rise<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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Deep<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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Between the Lines of Age<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Objekte<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 taken from a German notion for \u201cobjects\u201d \u2014 is an up-to-the-moment collection embodying Vincent\u2019s expressive, years-long movement from structure and form to emphasis on color. \u201cIt came to the surface when I was doing an artist retreat in Virginia\u201d in 2012, he says. Vincent rented workspace next to the studio of an artist friend, who had invited him to downtown Staunton, Virginia. It became a time of ambitious transition. \u201cIn the process of working through a lot of work rapidly \u2014 I think I had six going at a time \u2014 some structures popped up that you\u2019ll see in the works here,\u201d he says. \u201cI think that\u2019s when they first started to occur.\u201d<\/h4>\n

He describes the exhibited paintings as complex pieces. They hint at structure and form and are, in part, \u201crenditions of emotional states of being.\u201d He adds, \u201cThese are intended to be experiential and I\u2019ve used the metaphor of like when you find a fascinating pebble in a stream: You don\u2019t ask it to mean something, you don\u2019t ask it to point to something outside itself. It just is wonderful for the state that it is \u2014 and that\u2019s what I feel like I\u2019m in,\u201d he says.<\/h4>\n

One related piece, \u201cCinnamon Girl,\u201d is hanging in the Meditation Room inside the UVU Student Center. It results from a Zen aspect of Eastern thought, through which Vincent approaches and appreciates painting. He melds his artist persona with his UVU associate professorship in painting and drawing. \u201cI\u2019m working with color, interaction color. I teach color theory, and so I\u2019m very specifically pushing color around in various manners, starting from the intuitive basis but then sometimes checking myself against color structure,\u201d Vincent says. \u201cAnd so the materiality of the surface, the colors, the hues are important to me, but also that they evoke some sense of presence, or essence, beyond just design, as it were.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cThen Again\u201d<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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Pense Bleu<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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Schism<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cSome people just, you know \u2014 breaking up space this way and that tends to be what you get in Bed, Bath & Beyond. But that\u2019s not what I\u2019m interested in. I\u2019m not interested in making clever designs. I\u2019m trying to evoke a certain state of being with the marks, with these shapes, with these structures.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Since boyhood, Vincent has known he liked artistic expression and decided to be an artist at age 8, then began thinking of himself as an art major while in junior high school. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty much been my lifelong ambition,\u201d Vincent, now 61, says. \u201cI can\u2019t think of anything else I\u2019d rather do.\u201d<\/h4>\n

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\nHis father tried to steer him away from fine art and into a related commercial channel: architecture. After depicting the starkness of industrial lines and developing narratives through figures, during the Virginia sojourn Vincent worked to contrast organic elements with geometric forms, \u00e0 la Vermeer or Mondrian. \u201cMore recently I don\u2019t think there is a specific object, per se, as much as it is the nuances that we experience in living life,\u201d he says about favorite subjects for his work.<\/h4>\n

\u201cThe entry point for any of the paintings starts variably,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes I\u2019ll start with just a color concept \u2026 I\u2019ve challenged my color-theory students that if you ever find yourself getting in a rut, choose the colors you hate and force yourself to deal with them. And so there\u2019s a painting in here that\u2019s a bright orange painting. I\u2019ve been trying to do an orange painting for about 10 years and I finally got one. \u2026 You can\u2019t be shy of anything.\u201d<\/h4>\n

He also speaks of intention and an artist\u2019s instinct: \u201cIf I\u2019m really good at getting out of the way, it will veer off into something that is actually better than what I had originally conceived. And if I force it to go through with what I had originally conceived it usually comes out to be something that is . . .\u00a0 I realize it\u2019s just not that good, then I can\u2019t let it live, I can\u2019t let it remain. So I have to look at it, all right: What do I have to do to remedy the problems? Because I forced something to be that, in actuality, isn\u2019t poetic. It isn\u2019t something that reaches that, so I can\u2019t let it exist.<\/h4>\n

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\n\u201cI\u2019m rather bashful with all of my work,\u201d he says. \u201cI feel a little bit (of) discomfort in the limelight. I\u2019d rather have the work be there; if you like the work, great, but I don\u2019t need to be in the picture. I made it but the most important thing for me is if it feeds someone, it feeds a need for someone or if they experience some kind of joy in it.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Vincent terms \u201cSee the Sky About to Rain,\u201d included in the Woodbury exhibition, a \u201cvery difficult piece,\u201d with sheens of gray and subliminal accents of pinks and blues. It is a \u201ca depressing piece,\u201d he says \u2014 the piece evokes the event of and feelings surrounding the recent death of his mother \u2014 but expresses not merely \u201canguish that comes through those life experiences\u201d; he says dismal experiences allow people to see and feel \u201cthat sorrow is a great place to quietly be.\u201d<\/h4>\n

While explaining this, Vincent seems to realize a deeper connection between that piece and another, \u201cBreak On Through.\u201d It is a painting through which the artist and viewer can relate to entering the other side of grief, and gain something from the experience. The two artworks were not executed at the same time, more like several years apart, he says. One painting, that he finished about two weeks before the show, was begun in 2014; he painted it out three times. Other works take two years to complete, yet others come together rapidly.<\/h4>\n

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\nSeveral pieces manifest synergy related to themes expressed in the classic or psychedelic rock compositions of Neil Young, Pink Floyd or The Doors. Vincent has executed paintings with titles drawn from song lyrics or titles, such as the Young-inspired \u201cExpressions I Never Give\u201d and the aforementioned \u201cCinnamon Girl.\u201d The fine artist has talked with musicians about combining their works but never yet pulled it off.<\/h4>\n

Vincent has quite a few paintings in which he has recovered the whole canvas with paint or discreetly allowed underlayers to glimmer through. Highlights can change or yield surprises, depending on the viewer\u2019s angle. \u201cI try to be faithful to the intuition \u2018cause I think that\u2019s where the authentic work comes from,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I realize that when my left brain gets in the way I sometimes will do corny things or things that aren\u2019t so beautifully handled.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Vincent says \u201cgood teachers and hard work\u201d helped shape his own expression, and Brigham Young University instructor Bruce Hixson Smith instilled the virtues of craftsmanship, starting with the production of paints. He respects a variety of Utah artists and their work: \u201cIf it\u2019s done well and if there\u2019s a heart in it, that to me is the determiner of what is good.\u201d<\/h4>\n
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Marcus Vincent mounts a painting for his collection titled \u201cObjekte,\u201d on exhibition at Utah Valley University\u2019s Woodbury Art Museum. Photo by Gary Brodeur<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A great motivator for Vincent as teacher is his students\u2019 progress and distinctive successes. \u201cThe thing that keeps me in it is the joy I get when I see a student make a quantum leap in understanding,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s like the light comes on and they finally understand this indescribable thing we call art versus mere rendering or making pretty pictures, when they start to come alive to the idea that art can be a transformative thing. It\u2019s not just for pretty decorations over our sofas \u2026 It\u2019s when I see the students start to take it on their own and run with their own vision and their own voice.\u201d<\/h4>\n

The artist\u2019s curiosity and boldness also have benefited him. As well as teaching the Masters, he has been afforded opportunities to stand where notable artists have stood and not only gaze upon but hold the artworks of James Abbott McNeill Whistler and others. That \u201cspecial experience\u201d with Whistler\u2019s art came about when he knocked on a door of The Smithsonian\u2019s Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., during its remodeling and was unexpectedly invited to a private tour. Vincent was able to appreciate the physicality of the pieces, the color and spatial relationships, the beauty of substance and brush marks painted by Whistler. \u201cThat was a big experience for me,\u201d he says.<\/h4>\n

The artist considers his path from the depiction of mechanical structures to mastering human form narratives and then evoking experiences through color dynamics: \u201cI think that one of the things I marvel at most is that I\u2019m doing what I\u2019m doing now compared to where I thought I was going to be as a student.\u201d<\/h4>\n

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Art of Our Century<\/em>, and Spotlight Artist Marcus Vincent,\u00a0UVU Woodbury Art Museum<\/a>, University Place Mall, Orem, through Sept. 9; For more on the artist visit\u00a0www.MarcusAVincent.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Figure painter Marcus Vincent turned to narratives of experience through color dynamics in his collection titled \u201cObjekte,\u201d on display at Utah Valley University\u2019s Woodbury Art Museum. Here, he examines barely perceptible sheens and subliminal color pops in one painting in the exhibition. Photo by Gary Brodeur When an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist_profiles","category-visual_arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Marcus_Vincent-1192x800.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-26 08:20:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38228,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38226\/revisions\/38228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}