Ian Felice
The artist discusses his return to painting after 15 years as the lead singer and songwriter of the Felice Brothers
Ian Felice is a painter and musician whose work ranges over a variety of topics and themes, including isolation, the world of dreams and delusions, and the inward and outward chaos of modern life. He is the lead singer and songwriter of The Felice Brothers and the author of two poetry collections. He lives and works in Harlemville, NY.
Mepaintsme: You moved to NYC when you were 18 to study painting, and pursue this professionally, but a career in music took hold. Was creating music something that you were also interested in pursuing professionally, or was that an unexpected path?
Ian Felice: It was unexpected. I started a band with my brothers in 2006, right after I got out of school. We didn’t know much about music, we were more drawn to the lyrical, storytelling traditions of folk music. I remember telling myself that I’d spend 1 year focusing on music and then return to painting but it turned out to be more like 15.
MPM: That’s a long break. Was there a particular moment or experience that brought you back into painting?
IF: It was always on my mind but I didn’t really get into it again until 2017, the year my son was born. I had to take a break from touring to focus on being a parent. That’s when I started to paint again, and remembered how much I love it. When the world went into lockdown, and I couldn’t tour for a couple of years, it started to become more serious for me. I realized I could make money without having to be on the road.
MPM: I love the story-telling quality within your work - it’s almost like each painting is a vignette from a larger narrative. Are you stringing stories in your mind's eye? Are they connected?
IF: They are connected but not in a way that constitutes an actual narrative. I would relate it to hearing a story told when you’re on the brink of sleep. There’s background music that is interfering with the details, little white mice are scurrying in the walls and something smells like nail polish. There’s no linear narrative, but an atmosphere is evoked that can be a bridge into your own dreams.
MPM: I feel like it’s also through your use of a delicate symbolism that you create this bridge. How do you arrive at these types of images?
Most of the time I’m lost and have no clue what I’m doing. It’s frustrating but I think it’s a good place to be. If I knew what I was doing I would likely become bored and the work would likely become bored too. I have a short attention span and so I rarely do preparatory drawings because I know the idea will most likely not sustain my interest. I need something to emerge very quickly, surprisingly and almost effortlessly. I destroy a lot of paintings once I’ve looked at them too long. Sometimes afterwards, the painting can feel more alive and I realize that the most important part was retained. Then I can build on new suggestions that the act of wiping or scraping out have brought to the painting. So yes, a lot is arrived at through the process of painting but the symbolism can correspond with what I'm writing at the time and words can be the genesis of imagery.
MPM: Time is also a presence in your work -- many of the settings and figures feel as if they're from an earlier time in history. Can you talk about this?
I’m probably disenchanted with the present day and use art as a way to teleport. Also, a lot of the literature and source material I draw inspiration from comes from an earlier time.
MPM: Your titles give this beautiful layer of meaning to the works. Are titles essential for you? Do they emerge before you begin a work, during the painting process, or is this something you think about after a work is completed?
Thank you. I think of titles as a last chance to impart a quality to the painting and they usually correspond with something I’m writing or have written recently so there’s an interaction between the two. I want the titles to prompt the viewer’s imagination, like a clue into the story. I usually think of them after the painting is done. I’m interested in how a caption can alter the way an image is perceived.
MPM: I find your work brings to mind Chagall in the way that figures find themselves floating above the landscape or interacting joyfully with animals. What artists are favorites of yours?
IF: I’ve always loved Chagall. I think we share an equal disrespect for gravity. Skies just seem like the perfect place to put objects or people so it’s hard to resist when there’s no laws governing. I grew up in a tiny town called Palenville NY, which claims to be “America’s first art colony,” because of its association with painters of the Hudson River school and so I grew up admiring the works of Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand and many others. When I was 18 I found a book called Beyond Reason: Art and Psychosis, Works from the Prinzhorn Collection, which was my first glimpse into outsider art, and created a lifelong fascination with those artists and many others. The artists I love most are the ones who invent worlds I’d like to inhabit. I want to live in the terrifying beauty of Joseph Cornell’s weird universe or at least be a visitor for a while. I could live in James Ensor’s attic in Ostend, same with Frank Walter, Darger and so many others. William Blake created a haunted world of almost divine beauty, which is enriched by the genius of his poetry. The raving heaven that he imagined to dangle above us is exposed for all to see. I’ve always been drawn to early American modernist painters, specifically Marsden Hartley, Milton Avery and Albert Pinkham Ryder. There’s a strange quality to American painters of that era, artists that were aware of European developments in art but were filtering it in their own detached, uniquely American way. They created a strain of modernism that for me feels more contemporary in its isolation and esoteric meaning.
MPM: How exactly do you divide your painting practice with music and writing and family?
IF: Unfortunately I don’t have a constant routine because life is just too hectic. I have two children and I have to go on the road intermittently. When I’m home, I try as hard as I can to work 9-5, 5 days a week in my studio but I almost always have responsibilities during the day. I usually just work on whatever project is most pressing. If I have a deadline for a painting show for example, I’ll just paint for however long it takes. And then if I want to focus on music or writing, I devote my time in the studio to that. I’ve tried to find a schedule to do both throughout a single workday but it hasn’t clicked for me yet.
MPM: Lastly, If you had to ask one writer (living or dead) to write about your work, who would it be?
IF: John Ashbery
MPM: Thanks so much for talking! Do you have any shows or projects on the horizon that you'd like to mention?
IF: I am excited to have a solo show with Half Gallery in their New York space this coming November. I will also have a piece included in the Armory and a piece in a group show in Newport, RI at Gangway Newport, also through Half Gallery, this September.