Paula Billups

STATEMENT

Currently my practice is moving along two trajectories. The first is the private and individual studio practice I follow as a painter, and the second is a nascent, powerful interest in developing collaborative practice and hybridized approaches to making art as well as redefining, examining and expanding the kinds of places where our encounters with art can typically occur.

Track 1

My own work focuses on the mechanics of visual poetry and composition as a means of showing emotional content. I show essence rather than narrative to promote the viewer's recognition of self in other and to allow  them room to recall their own experiences. Invoking the emotions surrounding significant moments in my life, they serve as the prime mover for creation. I offer the ephemeral moment to arouse an emotional resonance in the viewer.

My goal in my own work is to create and share art that opens the way for a direct and uninterrupted emotional experience between the work and the viewer in a tranquil meditative state; to provide the silence, space and peace needed for the viewer to find the way to their own centers of feeling and being.

Track 2

I balance the concerns of my private work with the priorities of the larger communities of artists, whether local, national, or global. Collaboration and exchange of ideas and methodologies is of great interest to me. Recently, I participated in events related to the new form of painting known as Tunisian Collaborative Painting, which had its introduction to the United States this year. Working with a group of other artists in this dynamic and extemporaneous fashion formed a point of departure for me in how I approach my own practice. It has stoked my curiosity in how the definition of art and work can be expanded.

My current operational and philosophical question is this: how can art, as fine art rather than a support for other concerns, arise in the sphere of everyday life to offer all people the chance encounters, unexpected discoveries or moments of wonder that catalyze and punctuate the everyday world of non-artists into new contexts? How can artists provide the unique flashes of vision and pure creativity that challenge and inspire others to create their own unexpected reality?  This question forms the basis for my own newest explorations.

The gallery and museum space serves as a very important field of encounter, yet I am intrigued as to how far that field of encounter can be expanded. I believe cross-pollination and constant cooperation between artists really willing to be engaged in this kind of process holds immense potential for creating a better world and an expanded consciousness for everyone.

Artists do not exist in a cultural vacuum, and we can and often do create context. It behooves us to find ways to operate in the world at large as well as to flourish in our own studios or our own circles of creatives. Sharing ideas with other artists is an important and necessary means for growing our vision. However, this can become a closed and therefore purposeless loop of information and ideas if the conversation only takes place between artists and does not, to some degree, engage the rest of the world too. It is becoming increasingly more crucial for artists to participate meaningfully in everyday life as the visionary contingent whose lively presence is essential to the health of any society's public sphere.