Featured Artist Will Crow

The flowing, simple lines and semi transparent brush strokes of color in Will Crow’s portraits bring depth and life to his subjects.  To view more of his oil paintings, please visit his website.

 

 

I grew up privileged. My siblings and I were very clean, expensive children. I was born on the first yard line and ran the other way. I studied at colleges and enjoyed the leisure of a dilettante. I’ve worked as a white water raft guide, pizza cook, and in the gulf as an underwater welder.

 

 

As a child of the 80’s, I imagined the upward swing of American exceptionalism, an extension of my own elitist views and ego. Living under bridges and homeless shelters I’ve met the kindest people on the planet. Hitchhiking coast to coast, walking highways and trails, the world’s accelerating speed has taken its toll. Taking the continent back one step at a time has helped slow the process of America’s mythopoetic embrace.

 

 

It’s through love and obsession I’ve come to understand art. Creation of art, a scribbling on a wall, jail cell floor, or hermit’s cave is a rejection of emptiness.

 

 

Some have a legacy in family, in making a new generation. That’s not me. My work is the delicate tracing of human forms and I surround them with the violence of raw brushstrokes. Unhidden, unafraid and bold. Looking into someone’s eyes the rest of the world bleeds out into two dimensions, as well it should. What is less consequential than the universe when looking into another person’s eyes?

 

 

Color, simplicity and spontaneity are my tools. I try to find what’s worthy in a person and communicate it. Time and time again I am bowled over by people who care. People whom are willing and people who try. Those who quit and are knocked down, those who are trampled and beaten are the ones who have given their all to be different, and to make a difference. They have small stories, small statures and long shadows on the road.

 

 

The false does not exist in art. Point to it and it falls apart. Describe it and it evaporates. Sign a blank sheet of paper and argue that the signature itself is art and I will defend you. Wipe your nose on the same piece of paper, sign that, and you become a liar.

 

 

I have spent a lifetime creating myself, the arc of my life; the trajectory of it is a singularity. I don’t join. I do not co-create and I am a limited man with a limited vision. I do my level best to love and be loved by the women I paint. The outcome of which has broken my heart in many wonderful ways. I stand open without postures of ignorance or apology.

Will Crow invites you to follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest.

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