Redbud Arts Center is honored to present Artist Paul Manes with his exhibition titled “Paintings and Drawings, 2024” in our West Gallery.
Paul Manes has long explored compositional structures that verge on the “all-over,” achieving a unique blend of dynamism and classicism in his work. His art places familiar, recognizable images within a conceptualized framework, creating a harmonious yet thought-provoking experience for the viewer. One of the most notable elements in his paintings is the recurring use of a bowl or half-spherical shape, which has become his signature image. Manes’ palette is often restricted, focusing on natural hues that interact with rich off-white tones of kaolin pigment and deep red-brown-black earth colors, enhancing the depth and texture of his work.
Manes reflects on his process with a sense of playful experimentation, particularly in his exploration of the bowl form. “I’ve painted bowls for a long time. An orb is fun to paint. Then you cut it in half and make them hollow, and it’s ten times more fun to paint. You can stack them up and make designs in any way you want to. It fulfills my need to paint,” he says. This approach reflects his willingness to continually evolve his aesthetic, even as he remains rooted in certain thematic elements.
He describes his creative force as a natural progression rather than a deliberate intellectual exercise. “The brain just gets in the way. When I work, thinking just gets in the way. Working interferes with thinking and vice versa,” He allows ideas to emerge organically during moments of rest or routine activities, like driving or reading. This separation of thought and action enables him to be prolific, layering his canvases with textures and depth that reflect both his immediate reality and subconscious influences. The result is a body of work that is richly textured, visually compelling, and deeply personal.
Bio:
Paul Manes was born in Austin, Texas. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas in 1983 and went on to study at Hunter College in New York City. His works have been exhibited in one-person exhibitions across Texas, California, and New York, as well as internationally throughout Italy, France, Monaco, and Germany. His work was included in the 2016 exhibition Painting After Postmodernism in Brussels, Belgium. Manes’ work can be found in the permanent collections of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Tucson Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts Houston; the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont; and in the private collections of Yoko Ono and Emeril Lagasse. The artist currently lives and works in Carbondale, Colorado.