Todd Bienvenu
Region: Northeast
I work in a free kind of way, drawing from lots of different sources,
so there wasn’t an overarching “concept” initially, but more of
an autobiographical feeling. These are some of the things I’ve
been thinking about over the last ten months or so. Brooklyn,
summertime, music, drinking beers alone or with my friends,
growing up in the South, shadows, grids, the color blue . . .
The color and compositional structural decisions happen before
the subject has been decided. I paint instinctively, and eventually
the subjects come out of the paint. I think that keeps it from
falling into an illustrative kind of place. My paintings begin
as pure abstractions. The narrative is a bonus. My particular
narrative happens to be predominantly playful, but tempered with
melancholy or an edge.