Gerald DeLoach is a native of Coahoma County, Mississippi, and still lives and paints there. He earned a B.Ed. and an M.A. in art education from Delta State University and attended Henry Hensche’s Cape School of Art during the summers of 1971 and 1972. After a few exhibitions at local festivals, he withdrew and for almost a decade explored and solidified his technique.
“I used paint in as many ways as I could think of---I splattered, glazed, stippled, scumbled, burned, stripped, and sanded. I destroyed much of what I did during this period, but I acquired a new sense of freedom and control.”
DeLoach’s control is in his palette. “Color is much more effective for expressing the illusion of three dimensions than value or line,” he has said. Central to that knowledge is the ability to express light in different atmospheric conditions. He works in the Mississippi Delta, and misty, foliage-rich landscapes with no people present characterize his work….
He wrote, “I feel that the act of painting outdoors is a form of meditation and study, or which the painting is a by-product. In painting directly from nature, phenomena that would normally go unnoticed come to my consciousness and are recorded. The ordinary landscape becomes extraordinary and can no longer be taken for granted. In painting, I attempt to share my experience of the infinite qualities of the visual world.”
- From Art In Mississippi by Patti Carr Black, 1998
To tell you the specifics of Gerald’s life in painting---where he studied, who he studied with and for how long, the number of successful shows he has had or paintings sold---would not really tell you much about the honesty and courage Gerald possesses, qualities which seem absent in so many paintings today.
There is a great deal of dishonesty in painting today.
I believe it comes from artists who, lacking courage and honesty, produce paintings in which tricks and gimmicks have been substituted for the honesty and courage it takes to produce paintings of substance. You cannot see the honesty and courage in their work because there is very little on a technical level and practically none at all on an emotional level.
Any painter can practice and create a fairly accurate depiction of a place.
But no artist, regardless of technical ability, is capable of investing a work with an emotional sense of place unless he has the honesty and courage to open himself emotionally to that place.
For most painters, this sacrifice is too demanding and painful.
It is like the difference between having bacon and eggs for breakfast: The chicken makes a contribution; the pig, however, is totally committed.
A place or person or thing may be remembered for its beauty, but that memory will endure only in an emotional sense, not in a literal one: over time, we forget the details of the light across the leaf; we rarely forget the joy or sadness the light evoked within us.
The best painters possess the honesty and courage to reach ahead of us, to record the emotional memory we may not have even reached yet, and to bring some part of it to us to recognize in the present.
Gerald DeLoach’s paintings do this for us.
It is not possible for me the stand before them and not feel the emotional honesty and courage he has invested them with, the searching of the soul he has gone through to bring them to us.
I will remember the emotions evoked by them long after I have forgotten all of their actual details.
With all paintings of true importance, it is this way.
- Chesley Pearman
The Mississippi Delta
August, 2007
Questions from the curator...Clive Pates
What place can you see for landscape painting in a contemporary art environment where painting seems to be increasingly marginalized?
I strongly believe that works of art, regardless of their genre or medium, are marginalized because of their lack of true quality. They appeal to the common taste for prettiness, sentimentality, shock or novelty. Paintings that are of “quality” will always find a audience, just as the human spirit will seek that which is spiritually good. I am referring to transcendence and its universal availability to inspire the spirit in man.
Which artists or individuals have had the greatest impact on the development of your own work?
The greatest impact has been serendipitous. I was first drawn into making artistic attempts by Stan Topol, an abstract expressionist college professor, who told me that I had a "sense of design". Sammy Britt encouraged me in painting and introduced me to Henry Hensche, my most notable influence.
Although Hensche’s teachings shaped my original color sensibilities, other exposures and contacts haunt and continue to affect me.
A few years back, I picked up Russell Chatham’s book, One Hundred Paintings, and discovered beautiful and alien color keys with a somber nuance that were painted with sophisticated restraint. It was an epitome! I realized that I had been painting with a bias toward pushing the color contrast. To a large degree, the colors I thought I saw were my imprinted expectations rather than the actuality of the motif. If I hadn’t picked up Mr. Chatham’s Book, I might not have discovered this. But I did, and it changed my direction and expanded my vision.
I believe that if one wishes to have a true visual experience, he must free himself from expectations and become "present minded". He must stand before nature with a blank slate and experience the actuality of seeing.
We may be inseparable from that which has shaped us, but our influences could be likened to the metaphor of the raft used to cross a river. Once one reaches the other shore, the raft is of no further use. To continue carrying the raft is a foolish and unnecessary burden.
How would you describe your painting technique, and what are you trying to achieve through this approach?
I hope to achieve the laying on of paint by a variety of processes with an end result of meaningful unity. I strive to escape from the routine of a planned process. My painting usually begins with a generalization of drawing, design and color. That is followed by a playful progression moving toward a specific stylization of drawing and a perfection of color nuance and harmony. The development of the composition, color, and drawing are pursued simultaneously. The transitions of color along the edges of the shapes are painted last.
This approach facilitates a particular way of developing the relationship of the colors. As others have said, there is a color change for every angle change, for every depth change, for every weather change, for every time change, etc.
The depiction of a motif of myriad colors which are continually changing requires a poetic solution to capture the essence of a particular time of day. I strive for the particular without using the convention of a rigid order.
The landscape can be infused by a magical grace. How would you describe that numinous quality within the landscape?
I believe that if and when we are able to see past or see through the "utilitarian gloss" of a motif, a true resonance of our very core existence can be felt in a landscape. We (Nature and Humans) are evolved or created to exist under the same conditions. We humans share a commonality with that which is referred to as "out there", i.e. anything that is not "I". From The TRUE center of consciousness, "out there" is really "in here". The landscape (and anything else that is not just the "I"), is an inextricable part of the whole self. At our core, we search for stability and the nearest stability available is in the pure landscape.
The point between abstraction and realism can be subtle within the painted landscape. How would you describe this relationship?
One point of interest I have in the landscape concerns painting concealed forms. It is amazing how little information is needed to suggest a form in our minds.
For myself, landscape painting involves translating that which is myriad in nature into a few abstract shapes. These shapes, when seen at a distance, describe the essence of a specific motif.
Expressing a unity that is bigger than its parts requires a careful ordering of abstract elements. I think that in its purist form, an abstraction is organization directed by the sub-conscious mind. It precludes definition on a conscious level. It could be described as activity before thought.
