VNA exclusive! Here’s a sneak peek at Brooklyn-based artist Beau Stanton’s studio ahead of his latest show with Logan Hicks in New York, ‘Calm Before The Storm’, curated by Lori Zimmer and Natalie Kates. In his own words, Beau tells us a little bit about each image…
1) The large glass palette where I mix up a specific range of colors for each painting. This streamlines my painting process while also allowing me to strategize the overall color key that the painting will take on in the end. I buy a lot of my paint from a colorist in Brooklyn named Robert Doak who works with rare pigments that you can’t find anywhere else.
2) Detail of the finished “Crown” painting that measures 18×18 inches. I referenced an ancient Greek marble portrait of the co-emperor Lucius Verus and a bunch of Victorian and Neo Gothic architecture to make up the crown or headdress. I was thinking about the idea of a triumphant past while facing an uncertain future.
3) Pile of photo reference and painting mockups including images of Andromeda and the Sea Monster by Domenico Guidi, a Roman sculpture of Alexander the Great as Helios, and Apollo Attended by the Nymphs of Thetis by Francois Giradon.
4) The brush shelf. I mainly use synthetic and sable brushes for the minutia of oil painting but will use just about any kind of junk brushes for murals.
5) Studio view from the entrance, I’m laying in the initial underpainting on the largest piece that will appear in the show which depicts an iconic bronze head of Zeus topped with a Cathedral/tall ship mashup.
6) Curiosities shelf where I store all the old junk I collect including skeleton keys, tools, WWI medals, and clock parts. I’m always on the look out for these kinds of little artifacts when I travel. Sometimes I’ll reference these objects in the work.
7) Cabinet where I organize all of my paint and other materials by color, size, and type.
8) Screen printing inks and mediums. I do a lot of four color process screen printing in the studio for small editions on paper as well as painting/printed hybrid works on wood.
9) Photo reference tac board of some images I took while exploring abandoned corners of the NYC area that have appeared in past paintings.
10) This mural is located on the side of an old metal shop recently converted into a house on Wolcott St. Between Van Brundt and Conover in The Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. The intention of the mural was to reference the local history of the area when Red Hook was an important port for shipping and ship building and the lightship depicted symbolizes the end of that era when it sunk only a decade or so ago. Although the neighborhood had changed a lot since then, you can still see a lot of tugboats and barges pass by from the end of the street in view of the mural coming from the few remaining docks nearby.