Meet Colby DeGraaf | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Colby DeGraaf and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Colby, have you ever found yourself in a spot where you had to decide whether to give up or keep going? How did you make the choice?
As my process has evolved over time, I’ve come to accept that I must always work through any roadblocks. Problem-solving is built into the mark-making process and, for me, each compositional idea or goal seems to emerge with a different set of roadblocks since oil paintings are, by nature of the medium, a single instance.

I don’t believe I have ever intentionally given up on a painting but there has definitely been more than one occasion where I’ve placed a work on the back burner to do more research on an idea that might relate to colors being used (or not) on the palette, or perhaps I was not accomplishing a technique in mind and needed to take an extended break due to mental exhaustion.

Sometimes it makes sense for me to incorporate some down time to avoid what would feel like, ultimately, going backwards. In a nutshell, the goal is to always keep going but to balance progress with time.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

My work aims to bring connections to a range of evanescent moments by employing the human form in literal and figurative constructs. When I paint, I am searching for a balance between something that appears rendered loose versus tight. To accomplish that, I am constantly thinking about Gestault principles of perception, specifically figure-ground relationships.

I usually build up the composition with a dozen or more layers of information then the work goes through a deconstruction process. There are times where I am working on a piece and deciding in real time where I want areas to be more transparent or opaque then previously considered because the overall execution as an end goal evolved differently from the original intent.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, it was not possible to find models or photograph anyone as a reference. Through happenstance, I decided to peruse a database of images accessible at the Library of Congress web site and discovered the image of a nurse loading a syringe. I’m guessing the photograph itself was a part of the Works Progress Administration during the 1940s yet, to me, it resonated with what politicians at the time were arguing about as far as the Covid vaccine, its efficacy, and opinions on mandates.

When I realized there are possibly more photographs that could serve as visual connections to matters that continue to exist in present day America, it led to more research and time spent learning about photography, in particular, its technological discovery and use in its infancy in the 19th century. That led to learning more about the process behind daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes using the wet plate collodion process.

My wife and I took a private workshop on that process in Rochester, NY, this past July, 2023, under the instruction with two of the most well-known practitioners in the country: Mark Osterman and France Scully Osterman. Currently, I am working on a body of work that is focused on using that process to capture contemporary representations of everyday life while I continue to create paintings based on tintype images that I have acquired through secondary markets. The tintypes I have collected are all original sources from the mid to late 1800s and entail compositions I believe have visual connections to contemporary views or issues I find fascinating in American life.

As far getting to where I am today professionally, I would say it has all been based on constant experimentation and consistent practice in the studio as frequently as possible while balancing time with my position as an art teacher. I’m always trying to discover new artists whose work achieves styles of interest and make attempts at learning different techniques by trying them out in work studies. I’m also constantly recording ideas into my cell phone so I can refer to the notes later when I feel ready to explore a new idea or direction.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
In my opinion, no trip to South Florida would be complete without a trip to the Everglades. So, it would be a lot of fun to take a friend out on an air boat ride then drive over to the Flamingo Visitor Center. I’d probably mimic the places my brother-in-law took me to when I first visited the area which included a meal at Versailles and a casual stroll by Máximo Gómez Park in Little Havana.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I would not be where I am today as an artist without the dedication and guidance received by all my professors at Murray State University. One person that helped me navigate through some internal roadblocks and compositional barriers was former department chair Dick Doughtery, who has since retired, but continues to inspire me through his work.

Without a doubt, I am blessed to say that my family has always given me moral support and, fortunately, my father was able to help cover some of my living expenses when I no longer qualified for food stamps during the Great Recession. I will never be able to thank him enough.

Lastly, a shout out to my wife, Donna, who is also a working artist and a pillar of support that understands motivation and problem-solving can happen in the wee hours of the morning when most people are fast asleep.

Website: https://degraafstudio.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/degraafstudio/