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| Friday, September 28, 2007 | |
You Could Have Told Me Sooner
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The Bedroom was Pink Like That
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Brian lull is a vintage car buff.
In fact, the 32-year-old Nashville artist still drives the first car he ever owned: a black 1970 Chevelle Super Sport.
"My dad restored it in 1990, and I drove it all through high school. I met my wife the summer after our freshman year and we were high school sweethearts. I drove it the entire time we dated and after we went to college together I held on to it," Tull said. "It sat under a tree at my parents' house once we got married but now I am in the process of restoring it. My kids will be driving it, I guess."
To Tull, his automobile affinity is more than memory-based affection. He sees vintage cars with then-plump curves, sparkling chrome and unmistakable forms as objects of beauty, and reminiscent of a time he seeks to capture on canvas when he paints.
Tull is a photorealist, and vintage cars have a way of making it into almost all of his life-like paintings. If it doesn't have four wheels, it is some other mid-century relic such as an oven, a toaster, and a juicer, identifiable by its industrial design. His larger-than-life-sized works often feature the female as the protagonist and portray ordinary moments with vivid color.
For example, in "The Bedroom Was Pink Like That," a woman with her back turned cuts a slice of cake covered in creamy, baby pink frosting. She wears a black polka dotted, gauzy dress that falls to mid calf and a cherry-printed apron is tied around her waist. All that is visible of her figure is from chest down, as if it's the view of a child from knee level.
"Somewhere Tonight," suggests the wishful expectation of a night out as a woman in black panties adorned with white polka dots and lace irons an outfit
In both paintings there's an amusing attention to detail. It sets a time period and gives insight into the characters' lives. The woman in the first painting wears a strand of pearls around her wrist harkening back to the days of June Cleaver and the idea of housework as glamorous and to be done in a dress and fine jewelry. The woman pressing her clothes is using an iron with a handle and base cut like ones from a half-century ago.
These works and others are on display at Gallery One through Oct. 13.
Though he didn't live through the era he likes to paint, Tull said he feels a nostalgia for the imagery and feel of the 1930s through the 1960s.
"Every innovative design today was spawned by something from that era, which was the high point of design. By contrast, so much today seems cookie cutter," Tull said.
As a photorealist, Tull creates his paintings from photographs he stages using models — often his wife — and period props.
"I don't fake anything. I work straight off the photograph. I need everything to be authentic. I track down the real pieces, the real cars, everything. That's really tough sometimes, to get everything rounded up," Tull said. "I have it in my mind, and I know exactly what I want it to look like, especially when you are using chrome. You have to have everything authentic when it's chrome, because if I am painting a chrome toaster in a kitchen, that entire kitchen has to be authentic because the chrome will be reflecting everything into it."