Everyday life becomes work of Paul Emory
The most striking painting in Paul Emory’s new collection, on view in the Sharon Weiss Gallery in the Short North, is “Old Town Toaster,” a huge picture of a metal toaster with a slice of bread popping out the top and buildings of downtown Zanesville, the artist’s home, reflected in the appliance’s shiny surface.
In addition to being fun and whimsical, the painting encapsulates the style of the 62-year-old artist who has been making art since he was a boy. Emory enjoys taking figures and scenes from real life and bending them to fit his expressionistic vision. In his artist statement, he writes that he “paints places he has never been and people he has never met.”
The dozen paintings in the new show reflect everyday life — especially moments from Emory’s days on his Zanesville-area farm — with vivid colors, gentle brush strokes and an affable perspective that make them comfortable and appealing.
The centerpiece of “Breakfast” is a cast-iron skillet holding two fried eggs looked upon with curiosity by a cat and a dog.
“Pick and Save,” a scene from the local supermarket, captures several ladies pulling cans and boxes of food from shelves as a long aisle between the shelves gives the picture depth and perspective.
“Banquet Room Dance,” in which the room’s ceiling is almost claustrophobically low, shows dancing couples in close embraces, forcing intimacy on the scene.
And “The Drive In” is a tribute to drive-in movie theaters, possibly enjoying a renaissance in these COVID-19 times. But Emory’s scene is a flashback: the movie on the screen is a Clint Eastwood-style western and the cars parked in front of it are of the sort of candy colors not seen in automobiles since the 1970s.
Emory, who was born and grew up in White Cottage, Ohio — close to Zanesville — studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, and Ohio University, where he obtained his master of fine arts degree.
Early in his career, he was making non-objective art. In graduate school, he met artists who were making figurative, expressionist paintings and he was hooked.
Emory often begins a painting with a thumbnail sketch or just a germ of an idea.
The process, he said, can be a struggle but his paintings also come as a surprise to him.
“Sometimes it takes a big shift and I didn’t know I was going to paint that,” he said.
Gallery owner Sharon Weiss, who has represented Emory for more than 30 years, met the artist after she had bought one of his paintings at an auction.
“I love the humanness in his work,” Weiss said. “Paul has a way of capturing the human and the animal scene that is just so wonderful.”
This brings to mind an event that happens almost every fall on Emory’s farm. He and his family host a potluck picnic for artists and their families. Up to 100 guests compete to bring the best food and as children and animals roam the grounds, the artists capture the scene on their canvases.
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