BILL MASSEY

STATEMENT

From Haddonfield NJ, Bill attended The Lawrenceville School, and graduated with Bachelors from NYU. Becoming a teaching assistant, and lab assistant for both the photography darkroom, and the sculpture studio at NYU, he provided hands-on instruction in a wide range of skills and techniques, to graduate and undergraduate students. He then became a full time artist's assistant, acquiring high level arts professions knowledge, while also helping client's and friend's careers in many different ways. Various teaching stints included the St David's School in NYC, NYU,  Rutgers Camden, and others. Preferring one to one engagement, Bill still helps many clients and friends almost daily, and many from The Clemente. "I'm very happy to have acquired the skills I possess -to be helping such a wide range of artists, from museum level, to underrepresented, and beginners, with anything they might need." Exhibitions include Photorealist venues, Japan, Rhode Island, Maine, and other small venues, the Salmagundi Club, and The Clemente.

Traditional painting captures a moment in time, and presents a narrative content.  Though aesthetics, and beauty are subject to cultural change, and debate, the attraction of beauty is ingrained, and hard wired within us. The lingering moment of time spent in front of an oil painting containing beauty can challenge preconceptions. To set them aside for that moment, is the difficult request, since we bring all our knowledge, ideas, training, politics, prejudice, and how we've been conditioned, to everything we view. And of course, there’s the knowledge that beauty is relative. One contention is that vision, and visual perception is so profound, that it is a contributor to our very procreative existence. The Mother, the Goddess, the female, at the top as the progenitors evoke reverence and respect for their power, and yes, beauty. Neither asserting puerile gaze, or a cynical antithesis showing deference to propriety, the viewer hopefully assigns potential narratives that inform on some level. Any content deemed as erotic raises the challenge. But, the power of femininity and allure amidst a wistful, perhaps ethereal contemplation, presents content well beyond immediate identifications. 

ROOM 401

http://www.masseyart.com/