Artist Jason Rafferty
Jason Rafferty is a U.S born artist with a BFA in Painting/Minor in French and is currently a MFA candidate at the University of Georgia. He has spent time at the Studio Escalier in Paris, France, at the Fine Arts League of the Carolinas from 2009-2011 and finally completed an apprenticeship with landscape painter John Mac Kah . Jason Rafferty submitted his artwork to the 2nd Edition of the Boynes Emerging Artist Award and although he did not win a prize, his art caught my attention during judging and I was very excited to be able to interview him.
“ Persephone and Hermes in the Underworld”
By Jason Rafferty (Submitting Artist 2nd Edition)
Oil on Canvas
2019
What inspired you to start creating art?
Like many artists I have been drawing and painting as long as I can recall. Growing up, in addition to always making the typical drawings that little boys make (lots of swords, guns and fantastical weapons, armored knights, monsters, bizarre heads and figures), I experimented with making art in Photoshop CS2 by creating little signatures for online forums. As a young teen I was on the virtual ‘staff’ of a website based in the U.K. that created these for people ca. 2003-2006 and I made hundreds of little forum ‘signatures’ (never any money involved.) These were basically little rectangular digital paintings involving a stock image of a figure (often a video game character) with an abstract background and some text. I look back fondly on these origins as I continue to utilise both analog and digital (Photoshop) paintings in my current practice and continue to be interested in the interaction of figuration and abstraction.
“Her Judgement of Paris”
By Jason Rafferty
Oil on Canvas
2019
What inspires your work now?
My most recently completed series, titled “Mythic Images”, is of contemporary mythological narrative paintings and drawings, and so that drew inspiration from narrative figurative painters such as Paul Fenniak, Steven Assael, Adam Miller, Margaret Bowland and Zoey Frank amongst others. Art historically, I’ve been obsessed with Rubens for many years, particularly since discovering his Medici Cycle at the Louvre while I was studying with Studio Escalier in 2012. As I made that body of work his paintings were always in mind. Additionally, Giambattista Tiepolo’s oil sketches and the Pre-Raphaelites were big influences. The foundational idea about seeking mythology in the contemporary world was from Joseph Campbell, I loved reading his interviews with Bill Moyers as a teenager. And current events related to climate change and gender and racial disparities heavily informed the settings and concepts of the paintings.
Currently in conjunction with entering MFA I am starting a new body of work that looks to be totally different, more mixed media and meandering around the borders of abstraction and representation. “Casualist” painting, as they call it, which creates the illusion of haphazard execution and emphasises playful stylistic eclecticism, is of great interest in my current research. I’m working from a lot of snapshots drawn from everyday life. Artists such as Chris Liberti, Cecily Brown, Richard Diebenkorn and Elaine de Kooning are top of mind at the moment.
“The Furies III : Hurricane Maria”
By Jason Rafferty
Oil on Aluminium Dibond Panel
2018
Can you tell us more about the paintings in this article?
In these images, friends and acquaintances act in the role of gods and goddesses from ancient Greek, Roman and Egypitan mythologies, but the works are set in contemporary scenarios with figures in contemporary dress. Some of the paintings in this series look to the threat posed by climate change and honor victims of natural disasters like The Furies III: Hurricane Maria. In Conflict of Generations (Titanomachy), our current intergenerational ideological struggles are framed with a backdrop of wildfires. In Her Judgement of Paris, a traditionally-sexist myth in which the mortal Paris judges the beauty of three female goddesses, rewarding "the fairest" with a golden apple, is flipped on its head; Venus steps upon the golden apple while anonymous male figures attend to her. In Persephone and Hermes in the Underworld, the figures and space begin to dissolve into a strange, dreamlike nether world. These paintings were very collaborative, with my actors often suggesting costume and compositional ideas which then led me to determine the myth that they would best represent. Typically, the god or goddess and accompanying narrative were chosen in response to the actors in this way. Numerous photos were shot and the paintings are a stitching together of multiple images.
“Conflict of Generations(Titanomachy)”
By Jason Rafferty
Oil on Dibond Panel
2018
What mediums do you work in and experiment with?
Oil painting, acrylic painting, watercolor, gouache, mixed media drawing materials (graphite, charcoal, ink). Digitally, Adobe Photoshop and Snapseed for digital image editing and digital painting. Recently I’ve also been getting into tearing up scraps of old paintings or drawings and collaging with them.
Are there any particular brands of art supplies you prefer using? Why?
I have a motley mix of oil paints from all sorts of brands. I use primarily professional grade paints but also use some student grade for starting paintings. Some good lesser- known paint brands that are worth looking into: Rublev (by Natural Pigments) and Blue Ridge Oil Colours (our hometown heroes in Asheville, NC, where I lived and worked as an art student and artist from 2009-2020). I have paints by those companies that I love but I’m judicious with using them as they’re sort of boutique paint makers. Sometimes you just need a big tube of cheap paint to shake things up.
“Adonis”
By Jason Rafferty
Oil on Linen
2018
Do you have any particular ways that you work through a creative block?
Keep looking at all sorts of artists and let yourself stew around. Short naps can be good to help reset the mind. Walks. I find the constraint of making works that look ‘cohesive’ from one piece to the next can be very limiting early on in a series, so I let myself bounce around between approaches, even if they seem ridiculously irrelevant. Make lots of little experimental sketches and try to fail on a small scale first. The more art you look at, and the more diverse that art is, the more your visual vocabulary grows and ideas will manifest that surprise you.
“Osiris”
By Jason Rafferty
Oil and Aluminium Leaf on Chalk Gesso Panel
2018
Can you give any piece of advice to your fellow artists on what you have learned while you practiced your craft?
Craft is very important and I feel it is not adequately taught in university art programs from my experience and from what I’ve heard from other artists (they can only cover so much in four years.) I enjoy painting on a variety of substrates, both highly traditional such as linen stretched on wood panel with a lead oil ground, as well as contemporary, such as aluminum Dibond panel with acrylic gesso, and of course canvas and canvas paper. Seeking out to learn as much as you can about the craft of your media is just as important as conceptual research. I recall a quote from Picasso about having “strength in reserve” that will allow you to tackle the project at hand (I know, it sounds so macho), but I think that having a sound foundation by reading as much as you can about the craft of your artmaking from respected books on the subject, watching videos, taking workshops and/or pursuing a more extended apprenticeship / mentorship with an artist who is knowledgeable about craft, if possible, provides that reserve of ‘craft’ strength so that you can figure out how to execute a zany, novel, offbeat idea in a way that will hold up effectively over time.
I also want to share another memorable thought that I’ve found to be quite true, that we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in one year and wildly underestimate what we can do in ten years. It’s important to keep the greater goal in mind while being able to forgive ourselves if we get sidetracked for a little while (or more than a little while; life can get in the way, it’s okay, you’re still an artist. (I try to remember to tell myself that.)
To view more of Jason Rafferty’s work