Adam Eron Welch, Artist

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Recent article in the San Luis Obispo County Visitors Guide

San Luis Obispo County Visitors Guide - Summer 2014 Issue

Recent paintings now on display at Cypher Winery.

Blood Moon

La Muneca and the Mockingbird

The Origin of Easter ("Ishtar")

Summoning the Rains

Vernal Equinox

Grenache with Thistles and Almond Blossoms

Justin Vineyard Old Vine Cabernet Sauvignon

Kwan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, drinking Zinfandel

Mad Cow Disease

Matt Brynildson as King Leonidas of Sparta

Mount Tallac from Zephyr Heights

Cathedral in Green (After Rodin)

Chateau d'Yquem Sauternes

Chef Kobayashi as a Samurai

Dante Dusi Vineyard, Old Vine Zinfandel

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

ARTIST BIO

Adam Eron Welch (b. November 13, 1977 in Concord, NH) has no formal education or instruction in studio art, holds no degrees or awards, has received no acclaim or press coverage, is not affiliated with any organizations or clubs, has not participated in any festivals or competitions, has never been juried or had his portfolio reviewed by a panel of experts, and has never seriously exhibited anywhere. Adam use to spray paint on subway cars on the Red Line at South Station in Boston and run from the police.

Adam dislikes standing in line, being on hold, fluorescent lights, grapefruit, clichés, people who complain about weather, cilantro, speed bumps, bad manners, germs, public toilettes, domestic flights, advertising, interruptions, large crowds, repetitive noises, loss of control and unsolicited advice. Adam loves Spanish guitar, stinky cheese, Port, November, any form of feasting, hot coffee, cold beer, big fires, dive pubs, bocce, old books, grand obsessional walks, dinner guests, hot peppers, splitting wood, witty humor, waterfalls, charcuterie, live orchestral music, fresh seafood, thunderstorms, big mountains, road trips, happy hour, swimming naked, Chopin, trains, al pastor tacos, farmers markets, bacon, and drive-thru liquor stores.

Adam refuses to consider his creative process a transcendental act of cultural divinity whereby “the poetry of the dancing light inspires the muses to stir my longing soul into the radiant energy of the universe” or any such foolish prattle. Adam makes pictures to keep himself from going crazy. Sometimes people use them to decorate architecture.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Artist Statement

Visitors to a wine tasting room are often divorced from the source of the wine they are consuming. They experience the final product in their glass, but might know little about the practices that went into creating it. Though “great wine is made in the vineyard,” to the average tasting room visitor the vineyard can seem very foreign.

By using a portrait painter’s approach to vineyard painting, depicting isolated vines, life-sized, against a flat background, like a figurative painter poses a model in the studio, the anatomy of the individual vines becomes more pictorially accessible, bridging that gap between the vineyard and the audience. By capturing, in the simplest terms possible, the unique varietals, clones, blocks and trellising systems within the Paso Robles AVA, one vine at a time, the intention is to “map out” the individual identity of the vines, like the unique finger prints that make each of us different.

Instead of vineyards of abundance and fertility, here we see the vines stripped bare of all foliage and fruit, in the nude interim between harvest and pruning. Instead of elegant vineyard rows bending over the curvature of the hills into the hazy distance, here we see one stark solitary vine against a flat void. Instead of a bright spectrum of neon green foliage, warm yellow sun and juicy purple clusters, the pallet has been reduced to 3 inhospitable colors – Ivory Black, Titanium White and a frozen Indigo that is cold as gunmetal. Color is largely rejected in favor of form, line and rhythm, as the emphasis is drawn towards the artist’s three narratives of primary concern: identity, polarity and transformation. The intended aesthetic quality of this particular series of work has its foundation in three primary concepts:

Krummholz :(German) krumm, "crooked, bent, twisted" and Holz, "wood", also "knee timber" — is a particular feature of subarctic and subalpine tree line landscapes. Continual exposure to the elements causes vegetation to become stunted and deformed into bent, twisted, knotted limbs. This feature can be commonly found in the alpine environments of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, my native soil.

Wabi-sabi: (Japanese) represents a comprehensive Japanese aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience, of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent and incomplete." Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, asperity (roughness or irregularity), simplicity, economy, austerity, and modesty. If an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy, then that object could be said to be “wabi-sabi.” It nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

Terroir: (French) comes from the word terre "land," a French term in wine, coffee and tea used to denote the special characteristics that the geography, geology and climate of a certain place bestowed upon particular varieties. It can be very loosely translated as "a sense of place," which is embodied in certain characteristic qualities, the sum of the effects that the local environment has had on the production of the wine. At its core it is the assumption that the land from which the grapes are grown imparts a unique quality that is specific to that region.