Terry Rodgers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Terry Rodgers (born September 11, 1947) is an American figurative
painter known for his large scale canvases that focus on portraying
contemporary body politics. He was born in Newark, New Jersey and raised
in Washington, D.C., He graduated cum laude from Amherst College in
Massachusetts in 1969, with a major in Fine Arts. His strong interest in
film and photography influenced his style in the direction of
representational realism in art. In 2005, three of his monumental figurative canvases were presented
at the Valencia Biennial. Abroad he has had solo exhibitions in
galleries in Amsterdam, Zurich and Milan, and participated in group
shows around the world. In the United States, he has had solo gallery
exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Chicago. He has also exhibited at numerous museums in the US including the
Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, the Erie Art Museum and the
Mobile Museum of Art. Abroad, his work has been exhibited at the
Stedelijk Museum - 's-Hertogenbosch, the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung
in Munich, the Museum Franz Gertsch in Burgdorf, the Museum Folkwang in
Essen, the Gemeentemuseum Helmond, the Scheringa Museum of Realist Art
in Spanbroek and at the Kunsthal Rotterdam.
Rodgers began drawing as a young child. He seriously began
experimenting with color when his mother gave him her set of old paints.
As a precocious artist, he was seducing unsuspecting friends to model
for him in increasingly compromising attire. Imagine his delight, when
at drawing classes at the Corcoran School of Art, he had the good
fortune to be confronted with an enormous, loosely fat, woman
considerably his elder. “There were these exquisite layers of flesh. Rolls of it. It wasn’t
about learning how to draw, or sex or social crap. It was about opening
my eyes.”
About the same time as Rodgers' eyes were falling out of his head,
his photographer grandfather gave him a huge camera and took him to
their native Norway. Hundreds of pictures later it was clear: drawing
and photography were it for him. By the time Rodgers arrived at Amherst College in Massachusetts, he
was drawing regularly. Each night he joined several other students to
draw from a model, training his hand to automatically respond to what
his eyes told him. A few lines would render the essence of a gesture,
and what came to matter was a sense of authenticity rather than perfect
likeness. When Rodgers exited college in 1969, the contemporary art scene,
dominated by the American School of Abstraction, was fast becoming the
playground of the emerging Pop Art movement. Though this meant the
return of some kind of figuration, and he was quick to take in the
insights these movements offered, Rodgers continued to search for
another non-abstract way to express himself, one that included a greater
awareness of our physicality. He moved to a commune with some musicians,
filmmakers, and other creatives, positioning himself outside the
prevailing culture. Here he painted with independence. When the boom of the 80’s and 90’s came, Rodgers hit the streets
again, looking for faces…faces to render a transformed America —
transformed by money, coke, glamour and celebrity with the media
defining it all the way. Here was a wildly affluent America. “I see a
world driven by desire and crushed by pseudo satisfaction…wanting better
bodies, more beautiful faces, expensive clothes, stunning architecture,
exclusivity. “ He took on the challenge of sketching a fresco of contemporary
America. “My hope is that these paintings reveal fragile, genuine human
beings trying to figure it out.”
