Bob Alan Bricks’ “Inventions” at the Bundy Museum
For artist Bob Alan Bricks, art is about energy flow. With little or no plotting or pondering over composition and meaning in advance, he likes to create works spontaneously and quickly, responding as much to the work and where it is taking him as the work is responding to what he is doing to it. Like conception and birth in the life process itself, the creation of a work of art, for Bricks, is a flow of energy that results in a new entity which takes its place in the world without, necessarily, ever being fully knowable.
Fellow artist Robert Hoover once praised Bricks, saying that he was finding his way. “Robert, I don’t want to find my way,” Bricks responds. “I don’t want to find, like, a signature technique. I want it to be that every time I finish a piece and hang it… it’s been an experience and an experiment.” When asked what a painting means, Bricks responds, “It doesn’t matter what it means to me. In fact, a lot of times I don’t even know what it means to me. What matters is what it means to you. I’ve had people come and say, ‘I don’t know why that touches me,’ or ‘I like it and I don’t know why.’” Bricks loves such expressions of unconditional connection.
The 59-year-old is well-known locally both as an artist - who has had about 14 showings in the past couple of years - and as a drummer with local bands V.A.P.E. and, currently, the Chain Gang. “I’ve been an artist all my life,” says the New York City native. “I grew up drawing cartoons with my dad. Always drew, always played music,” as he did with a Staten Island band called Tundra in his youth. In October 2017, he retired from 30 years as a letter carrier for the U.S. Post Office.
When Bob reached college age, his father helped him finance a commercial art education at the Albert Pels School of Art in Manhattan, on the premise that a commercial art career could provide a living. In New York, Bricks engaged in a three-year career in advertising. He describes himself as having been “a committed Christian for 25 years,” with five children and a desire to home-school them away from the city. So, the family decided that post office work was a practical alternative, which led to a move to Endwell in the late 1980s.
Even as a letter carrier, Bricks was fueled by artistic propensities, often finding objects in the streets – a stone, a feather, a piece of metal or plastic – that he would gather because they seemed to hold some elusive artistic inspiration.
It was about four years ago when Bob reemerged as an artist and musician, no longer as a devout Christian but always “an inward, spiritual, mystical type of thinker person.” He was propelled by the question: “Could I do it?” after the 30-year absence.
Music resurfaced first. He started drumming with four bands. He created “soundscapes”: combinations of digital and analog sound sources that result in experimental musical abstractions. Then, after reconnecting with music, he reinstated himself in the art world.
On a visit to his home/studio, a work that was the centerpiece of a recent exhibition in Gallery Forty-One in Owego titled “Sexpeditions” greets the visitor. The painting covers a large section of the living room wall. “This is from when we made love in color,” offers Bricks, explaining that the work was created by a series of lovemaking sessions between him and his fiancée/muse Jemma, during which their bodies interacted with the canvas. They used a different color paint for each session. Breasts and the penis are recurring motifs for Bricks, though they are often not an obvious presence in much of his work, lovemaking painting included. “They tend to be Hanna Barbera breasts and Walt Disney dicks,” he jibes with his easy smile. While interpretation of his work is always wide open, a talk with Bricks leaves no doubt that a celebration of sexuality is a driving force. “That deepness is a sense of home,” he says.
Some of Brick’s greatest influences are Van Gogh (being intensely prolific), Rauschenberg (noted for non-traditional materials), and Jon Sarkin (unique in his abrupt transition to art after brain-altering surgery and a subsequent stroke). “Actually,” Bricks says, “I tend to be drawn to an artist by looking at his studio.” A glimpse on Bricks’ cell phone into the studio of contemporary artist Francis Bacon reveals a densely cluttered chaos which was fathomable probably only to Bacon himself.
Even after a work has shown, no unsold artwork of Bob Alan Bricks is necessarily considered by the artist to be immutable. He sometimes looks at an older piece that has already shown and decides to make changes - tweaking it, or morphing it into a new work altogether. “It’s like jamming with the band,” says the drummer in Bricks. “You’re still playing the song, but I may be able to change the complexity of the song with the rhythms.”
His upcoming solo show at the Bundy Museum of History and Art, which Bricks has titled “Inventions,” consists primarily of recently created works. “I want to do more 3D, sculptural pieces,” he says, so some found objects have made their way into these works - a little lacy thong discovered at the back of an empty bureau drawer, the ossified corpse of a toad incorporated into in a painting titled “Red Dream.”
“If I have a message, it’s do what you love and make the most out of your life,” the artist/musician says. Whatever “Inventions” holds, the exhibit is sure to reflect - as does all of Brick’s work - his loving assertion that, “We are all a beautiful mess.”
“Inventions,” new artworks by Bob Alan Bricks, opens on January 5 in the 3rd floor gallery of the Bundy Museum of History and Art, 129 Main Street in Binghamton, as part of the First Friday at Bundy series for new, upcoming artists. Opening reception is 6-9pm. The show runs through January 30. For more information visit bundymuseum.org or call (607) 772-9179.
