francis livingston - american art collector - october 2006
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Heroic perspectives of the clty.ainting in his signarure.expressionist stvle. FrancisLivingston completes large.
close-up images ol br-rildings. sroretionrs.fire escapes and roofiops found amongstthe vernacular architecrure oi \es- \orkCiry's SoHo.
"People reallr- har-e been enior-ingmy largc rrork. and rhc imrg.rr is rcontinuarion of rhe SoHo Series I har-e
been doing. Bur ri-irh the paintinqs
in mY upcoming exhibition I'mconce nrrating on rhings more up close,"
sats Livingston. "Facades of buiidings,rooftc.p shors-up hieh, Iooking down-sma11 qroupinqs of buildings, maybe justa tbcus on nr'o specif-ic buildings next toeach other insread oi a ri'ho1e street. Thatsort oi rhinq."
And, u'hile Liringston has alrvays
shied ar,var. fiom including figures in his
rvork, he is still someu'har inf'luenced bv
key figurative painters."I've always been interested in Bav
Are a Expressionism like RichardDiebenkorn," says Livingston. "I love the
way he put together shapes and colors-it's like here 's a rectangle, here's a
triangle, here's a shadow. And, rvharI like about these city scenes is that it'sendless, you move ten feet, look theother way and you have an entirelr.different painting."
"l lived for a long time in San
Francisco and Marin county in thecit1,." says Livingston. 'And when I was
there, I couldnt care 1ess. I didnt wanr ropaint buildings but did beach andboardwalk scenes. It wasnt until I movedaway that I really started to concenrrareon these ciry scenes."
But ever since, it has been almost theonly thing he has been able to think about.
"My interest gets renewed ail thetime, everyday," says Livingston. "You
have a whoie different thing going ondepending on the time of day, the effects
of that and the light, the weatherconditions. It's all about shapes andwhen you stand back you want thepainting to retain its solidity."
" Buildings have a massiveness ro
them," says Livingston. "They are nortotally flat so you get many angles,shapes and that lends perfectly to m,v
way of painting. I'm not a detail painter.instead, I choose to lay on color, andthen another color until I get it right."
Besides the color, the buildings also
allow Livingston to experiment rvithanother, equally important aspect of his
paintings."Balance, to me it's all about
balance," says Livingston. "If I have a
MonNrNc Lrcnr, orr- oN reNrr, ,18 x 48"
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water tower on the left, I need to klorvhow you balance that with one in the
center. Does it feel right in terms ofcolor and feeling? Some images are also
more expansive, more focused and I'11 do
more of a spotlight effect on several
buildings and have them in focus withintense color and light and more texture
so you have the feeling of an almost
sculptural effect."Livingston has seen texture become
increasingly important in these new
paintings as well."The brushstrokes are get ting
progressivelr'thicker and thicker and the
paint itself is becoming more and more
important," savs Livingston. "It's notrealiy that different, just expanding."
Besides these elements of the works,
Livingston's collectors have always been
drawn to his use of color."It's really interesting across the
board," says Livingston. "People refer to
the work as colorful but I use color more
as an accent. I enjoy using muted colors
Iike grays and less pure color. There is a lot
of color but it's not really bright as I'mtrying to capture a specific mood." o
For a direct linb to theexhibiting gallery go to
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