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Fred Wise
Painting
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I'm an artist living and working in Atlanta. My work has been shown and collected throughout the South. My collectors are drawn to my paintings and watercolors for their strength of composition, fresh lines, and innovative use of color.
I've been painting part- and full-time for about 30 years. Growing up outside Atlanta, I was the first in my family to go to college, then on to an MFA at the University of Georgia. Art is how I make sense of the world. As a child in a rural school, my constant drawing was treated as a behavioral problem. But it kept my spirits alive, and has been my constant bulwark ever since.
Though I paint both figurative and abstract work, my first love is for the human figure. I'm fascinated with how our bodies are put together and move through space. And so in my art, even when it's abstract, I'm always trying to make explicit the interior momentum within our bodies and our lives.
My oil and acrylic paintings typically begin with a rough sketch applied directly to the canvas. After that, I let go of any "plans" and follow the possibilities suggested by the materials and the current shape of my thinking. I use the same kind of high-quality brushes I bought just out of art school years ago, and my detailed brushwork is one of the distinctive features of my art.
Watercolors typically start with a pencil sketch. Though I use some standard-sized paper, I prefer to buy heavy cotton rag watercolor paper in large sheets and hand-tear pieces for each work individually. This technique creates a unique size and shape for each watercolor, one that dictates subject matter and the final form of the piece.
Art is what I do. As a chaplain I visited patients and drew while charting the visit; as a librarian I drew pushing the book truck through the stacks; sitting in a lecture or a meeting I draw. Everywhere I've lived, drawings cover the walls - paintings lie over paint. I've painted through joy and through grief. I've painted a prayer for my soul to not be eaten up. My art has drawn my life, and daily life makes my art—yellow light in ocean waves, a musician's tender care, color patterns like the depths of our hearts.
~Fred Wise
