Jim Davis Art Exhibition in Indianapolis
Caius Marcius
Ran across this item in last week's Indianapolis Star-News, and I
thought it might be of interest to some.
In your face!
By S.L. Berry, Star/News Staff Writer
2/27/98
Garfield: In Your Face
Artist:Jim Davis
Location:Editions Limited Gallery of Fine Art, 4040 E. 82nd St.,
Indianapolis
Phone:(317) 842-1414
When:Opening reception 5 to 8 p.m., Friday, Feb. 27
5 to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday; 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday through
March 28
Admission:Free
Garfield - that ubiquitous cartoon cat with the lasagna craving - is
leaping from comics page to art gallery. And, as always, he's doing it
with a flair. Or, rather, his creator Jim Davis is.
At a reception today at Editions Limited Gallery of Fine Art, Davis
will debut In Your Face, an exhibition of original paintings of
Garfield and friends, which runs through March 28.
The exhibition is part of Garfield's 20th anniversary year. Davis'
strip made its first newspaper appearance in 1978. It's also the
Indiana cartoonist's first foray into fine arts.
"For years, we've been doing artwork for mass production," said Davis
during a recent interview at PAWS, Inc., the Muncie-based company he
founded several years ago to create Garfield products and oversee the
licensing of the Garfield characters. "Everything we did was for a
printing process or a screening process. We wanted to pick up a brush
an throw some paint on a canvas."
In fact, that's close to how the paintings were actually created. From
an "artbank" of some 3,000 Garfield images stored in the PAWS computer
system, Davis chose ones that fit the theme he had in mind: close-ups
of Garfield, his dog pal Odie, and others.
"Garfield has always worked really well as a big full face anyway,"
said Davis, "so we decided to o a big 'in your face' approach to try to
communicate his attitude through graphics."
Working with staff artists Dave Kuhn and Lori Barker, Davis
experimented with an array of paints, pencils, brushes and canvas to
figure out how best to create the bright, large-format images they
wanted.
"We just tried different line treatments and different ways of laying
paint on canvas," said Davis. "We did a lot of paintings that will
never be for sale."
But about 50 of the ones they did will be: That's what Editions Limited
director Marta Blades has in hand for the exhibition, although not all
of them will be hanging at once. Anticipating significant buying
interest, Blades wanted to have spares to hang in place of those that
sell.
With prices ranging from $1,200 for 24-by-24-inch paintings to $2,000
for 36-by-48-inch works, the paintings are designed to appeal to a wide
range of people interested in owning original Garfield art. An Davis
has added an extra incentive: Each painting comes with a leather binder
in which there are photos of the painting in various stages of
completion, including one of Davis signing the finished piece.
"With the binders, the idea was to give a collector something more
personal than a certificate of authenticity," said Davis.
That's in keeping with Davis' desire to maintain a personal element in
the entire Garfield enterprise, something he does by signing the
Garfield prints that are sent out in reply to fan mail. But he won't be
signing prints made from the paintings: Each one is - and will remain -
a singular image, with no prints to dilute its value.
Not that Davis has any pretensions about the future market value of the
paintings. That's something only time and demand will determine, he
said. His intention was simply to create bold graphic images that
communicate an attitude. "They're reminders not to take ourselves too
seriously."
After 20 years of drawing the syndicated Garfield strip, Davis said he
stays motivated in part by getting involved in a variety of projects.
The painting project was a chance to do something new and different.
It certainly wasn't because he needed something more to do. He and his
staff are constantly busy creating books (the latest, 20 Years & Still
Kicking! Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection, will hit the
bookstores in March), animation (a direct-to-video Garfield movie is in
the planning stages), and licensed merchandise galore.
Every project demands a piece of Davis' time - and reminds him that
Garfield has become a big international business. That's why the
52-year-old Davis grew a ponytail.
"I grew it to remind myself that I'm an artist, not a businessman," he
said with a laugh. "I try to stay confined to the creative side of the
business.
"This was an opportunity to pick up a brush and have some fun," he
said. "It was actually nothing more complicated than that."