VB-Contemporary - Interview with Jason Rafferty

Jason Rafferty

About the artist: Jason Rafferty is a multidisciplinary artist and professor/educator based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US. Rafferty is an Applied Assistant Professor of 2D Visual Art at the University of Tulsa. Rafferty holds an MFA from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, and a BFA degree in Drawing and Painting from UNC Asheville. Jason is an AXA Art Prize Finalist and a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant. Recent exhibitions include the Athenaeum in Athens, GA, Swan Coach House Gallery in Atlanta, GA, AXA Art Prize in New York, NY, Vestige Concept Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA, Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, OH, and Artfields in Lake City, SC. His work can be found in private collections across the US and internationally.

Tell us about your "Beginnings", how did you start your artist journey? How did your childhood influence your creative career path? And, how is your beginnings / childhood "Reflective" within your work? One thing I’ve been reflecting a lot about with my current work is the creative space of children making art outside of formal art-making contexts, like with after-school art projects, and when they freely draw subjects from their own imagination. As a very young child, my parents both worked full-time and so I did daycare with a friend’s mother after school, and she was very good about having us do hands-on creative projects with popsicle sticks, colored sand, acrylic finger painting and such. There’s a sense of creative abandon that comes with these materials, which imply a sort of open-ended, direct access to the generative possibilities of imagination. I’ve been revisiting these forms and have included imagery with popsicle sticks, sand and acrylic painting into my recent series Possible Landscapes, considering the Utopian emotional qualities that these forms evoke when placed in a landscape setting. Growing up, I did art classes in school, I didn’t do formal art workshops or private lessons until later on. School art classes were generally fun, my high school art teacher introduced me to J.M.W. Turner, whose work I continue to enjoy and engage with. I also did lots of drawing with colored pencils and ink pens on my own at home, or when hanging out with friends while we switched off at the computer playing video games. One of us would play games, the other would draw, and we would at times draw these surrealist landscapes populated by our invented little characters. I was also playing around with Photoshop and did many little digital paintings, called signatures, for people on a graphic design web forum in the early 2000’s. So, I grew up at a time when working fluidly between traditional and digital art making was beginning to feel rather normal. I’m still doing the same things now as an artist and educator, whether creating digitally painted images as a launch point for oil paintings, or facilitating collaborative drawings amongst my students.

Looking Twice

Walk us through your day from morning till evening along with your creative process? What does a day for "Jason Rafferty" look like? Where do you find inspiration in the area in which you reside? And, what does "Summer" mean to you? Let us know what is your favorite Summer activity? A year ago I began working as a studio art professor at the University of Tulsa. I teach three to four classes per semester including all levels of painting and drawing, design foundations, special topics and mixed-media classes, and senior seminars, depending on the semester. My personal studio time fluidly moves between working in evenings or weekends, working alongside my students in class at times, and more concentrated, intensive periods of production when I’m not teaching. I recently did a residency at the Pouch Cove Foundation in Newfoundland, Canada, which was a wonderful opportunity to concentrate pretty much solely on painting for a month, with influence from the rugged coastal landscape, which was wonderful. I’m a people person, I love the problem-solving discussions with aspiring artists and the variety that my job entails, regularly shifting between things such as designing syllabus, introducing students (including many non-majors) to the art world, demoing and explaining techniques and procedures, facilitating feedback discussions, hosting visiting artists and scholars, maintaining studios, mentoring graduating students and helping them find opportunities to exhibit and advance their careers. The nice thing with all of this is that there is an open exchange between my students’ work, the work of artists we study, and my own studio practice. Regarding inspiration from the area in which I reside, local landscapes have always had a big impact on my work. I now live in a geographic region in which the Great Plains of the Central US begin, and the forests of the Southeastern US end, they call this area of biome transition the Cross Timbers. I am interested in local native species of flowers and grasses and have been learning more about the important environmental role of prairie grasses, as they offer excellent carbon sequestration with their deep roots. I’ve been creating experimental narrative landscape paintings about the transition to sustainable energy, and have also been looking at scientific illustrations in research journals like Nature Catalysis. The series I’m developing now responds to forms and colors of the prairie-forest transitional landscape and conveys an interest in sustainable energy science via abstract paintings that at times include things like wind turbines and solar panels in various forms. I’m a landscape painter interested in narrative, at heart, and so whether I’m painting full abstractions, or whimsical, cartoonish landscapes, both of which I’ve done lately, everything is storytelling, and I hope the work uplifts the viewer and conveys a sense of possibility and potentiality.

As an artist, what have been some of the biggest challenges you've faced in your career? And, what have been your best achievements for you personally and professionally? Who are your favorite artists and why do you find their art captivating? My wife Sally Garner and I are both professional artists, so I would be remiss if I didn’t state that the big challenge is always to find a means to sustain one’s studio practice and creative life financially over the long term. We met quite young around age 19-20, we’re in our thirties now, so we’ve been navigating the ups and downs of the early stages of an art career together for the last fourteen years. Like anyone in the arts long term, we have learned resiliency, resourcefulness, patience, and how to build each other up when one of us is feeling uncertain after a setback, whether in the studio with a new piece or with some professional opportunity. I have learned to think of the art world like a big numbers game, where one can’t feel too attached to any particular opportunity, but must stay open to a range of possibilities depending on when your number comes up and you get selected for something. That is easier said than done, of course. Yet, we’ve learned that we need to keep steady with our art-making, and keep looking for interesting places to share the work and build community amongst artists and art appreciators. It all comes back to connecting with people in a genuine way, and maintaining a broad interest in what other folks are up to, whether they are students, fellow artists running a gallery, folks working in a local nonprofit organization, art dealers, friends working in different disciplines who you may have a chance to collaborate with, etc. Regarding favorite artists, it’s tricky as I’m always looking at a lot of different stuff, particularly to share with students who are working in a broad range of styles. I recently saw Nicole Eisenman’s wonderful exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, her work has me thinking about fluidity with how one represents the world in painting, the playful nature of her technical versatility is inspiring. Another show I just saw that blew me away was the Algerian-born French artist Mohamed Bourouissa’s exhibition "Signal" at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. He uses electrical wires clipped to plants to create real-time soundscapes from plant life activity, along with a range of abstracted cast-metal and 3D printed sculptures, photographs and paintings, an incredible range of work.

Instagram: @jasonraffertyart Website: https://www.jasonrafferty.com/