Rodney Wallace

What got you into art?   I was brought up with a great appreciation for art from the masters up through the contemporaries of the time.  While studying graphic design Professor Patrick “Doc” Murphy advised me to switch to fine art.

 

Influences: Early masters, Anyone from the Bauhaus, Expressionists, Action Painters, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.

Motivation:  Don’t really think there is a motivation.  Creating is just something that I do.  I have never questioned it.

Direction your art is going: I have always used pop techniques in my larger paintings and really simple color usage in my color field research.  I see these two diverse areas fusing together in the near future.  My experimental work has been totally uncontrolled and with no particular direction and I do not see that changing.

BIO SUMMARY

Started at Penn State studying graphics design under Patrick “Doc” Murphy and then left there and went to Clarion to study collage and mixed media under Dr. Walter Hobbs. Left Clarion to study expression and painterly ways under Ned Wert at Indiana University of Pennsylvania only to find Ron Ali, resident genius.   Under independent study with Ron I developed a color harmonization formula that I went back to an old school to use some equipment to verify my 193 shade gray scale.  This was all done under a research grant and I must say that this opened a lot of doors for me.  ANYWAY, that led to me being accepted in the Studio In New York City program Facilitated by George McClancey and Paul Broch (12 people from a little over 1,200 in the world submitted by their schools).  This was combat education at its finest.  Only half of us finished.  This resulted in me showing at the Frank Bustimonti Gallery in SoHo and various solo shows, internationals, group shows, a museum show and lectures, being in private collections in four different countries, six corporate collections, and a museum.   On the surface this sounds good.  The business end of it ate me alive.  I quit art and got into the corporation thing so I could learn a little about this business thing.  Fast forward, I moved to Denver and three years ago started the art back up.  Have shown at Andenken Gallery, Studio A and The Assembly The Den.

I started KOUBOU a Deux, a working artists studio open to the public in November of 2004.  Being an artist associated with a gallery one gets one show and maybe a group show in a year.  If an artist is not showing they are not selling.  I have sold more art since opening in November than I have in the last three years in Denver .  KOUBOU a Deux is KOUBOU, Japanese for “artist work shop” and a Deux is French for “of two”.  It is located at