Jeremy Wagner

My attraction to making paintings stems form an appreciation of forms occurring in architecture and in nature and my fascination of how things are made. In my paintings I accentuate the hard lines occurring in man-made structure, or the organic curvature in nature, to create stylized versions of the everyday scenery by highlighting the spatial poetics. In doing so my work often makes commentary on the relationship between the modern world and the nature, which particularly interests me as an artist working in the urban landscape of New York City.

I work directly on sheets of steel; the metal surface is an integral characteristic in all my compositions, and serves my subject matters best. I have developed a unique process in which I hand-cut intricate matrixes to use acid solutions to rust the surface in combination with numerous painting techniques. The rusted surface facilitates distinctive effects that are spontaneous within the parameters created, and contract the controlled painted areas. Results of this process encourage the viewer to see objects or scenes they may have once considered iconic or mundane in a new enriching light.

MFA Hunter College 2008
BFA Rhode Island School of Design 2001