Summation — Tim Folzenlogen

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Tim Folzenlogen

art archives

the universe series

about

gallery

projects

essays

2023

2024

2025

2026

contact

a conversation with tim folzenlogen listed by month

Tim Folzenlogen

art archives

the universe series

about

gallery

projects

essays

2023

2024

2025

2026

contact

a conversation with tim folzenlogen listed by month

the universe series

Back

2023

2024

2025

2026

contact

a conversation with tim folzenlogen listed by month

Go to Engagement

I’ve been a full-time artist for my entire life.

I was born with a serious gift and never stopped pushing it.

I’ve had over sixty solo shows, mostly in NYC. I’m in lots of important collections.

I dropped out of Gallery World when I was at the peak of my success. The last gallery I was with in NYC

(MB Modern) sold nearly everything I gave them.

There were two reasons why I dropped out:

The first is that nobody spends any time looking at “a painting” in a gallery. Everybody just walks around in them and leaves. Great painting does not give up hardly anything in such a limited time frame. I find that one needs to see it in different moods, different weather, different lighting and seasons.

Great painting is like a living thing. You have to make a relationship.

The second reason I dropped out, is because galleries are not the least bit interested in the artist’s thought, especially if it is controversial in any way, as that complicates sales. Galleries are businesses with all kinds of overhead. They just want product to sell.

The problem there is that I began my life having way-down-the-road cosmic experiences.

From the age of five until I was twenty-three, I could have these full-impact instantaneous flashes of “everything” just by blinking my eyes.

It was like the universe intersected with my life, and never left.

All expression is self-portraiture. The way we walk, the way we talk, our taste in every single thing that we say and do: it’s all an expression of who we exactly are and cannot not be. Right?

We are all great artists in that regard.

So when you look at a painting, everything about it is telling you something about who that artist is: the size, the colors, the subject matter, the quality of line or brushstroke - it’s like complicated handwriting.

I grew up having profound experiences with the universe on a daily basis. It’s who I am, and you can see it in my paintings, if you spend time with them.

It’s like they are magical.

They can take you beyond what you think.

The painting on the right, the first of The Verona Series, is entitled: Sunny Day (in reply to Vincent’s Starry Night).

Great painting is hard to do. I myself have spent a lifetime of twelve hour days focused on my art; but it’s not like we are creating solar systems. It can be done.

This is yet another reason why I have decided to take my art out of the big gallery, and invest locally.

Understanding great painting is like understanding better cooking.

All it takes is interest and repeated exposure.

I want to create a template that other artists can use in their hometowns everywhere.