ARTIST STATEMENT
For me, the act of artistic creation is a whole-hearted affirmation of life. I make no separation between the many meanings of art and the many meanings of life. Whatever goes on in my paintings is simply an extension of whatever else I do or think from day to day, and year to year. Each painting is a summation and consolidation of innermost feelings toward a particular experience at a given time. I am very much driven by a vague, abstract notion and ideal of beauty.
I try to get some of this in my work. At the moment, I am concerned with images which reflect my interest in the random and evocative marks and detritus of our civilization. Such phenomena, sometimes man-made and sometimes not, and often figured or disfigured by man, time, or the passing elements, holds for me a strong fascination. The power of its graphic imagery, often times calligraphic, suggests the haunting and hypnotic allure of magic signs which have no literal translation.
BIOGRAPHY
Alabama native Dick Jemison grew up in Birmingham. Jemison went to college at the University of North Carolina and then to art school, eventually earning his master’s degree from the University of Georgia. He credits his interest in art and his artistic eye to his mother (who was an avid art collector). Jemison moved to Santa Fe, N.M., in the 1970s and then in the late ‘90s moved back to Birmingham where he currently has a gallery and studio. He works in both sculpture and painting. He is represented in many corporate and some museum collections.