Artist Statement:
For many years my painting has used the car as its basic subject matter - the politics of the internal combustion engine as well as its aesthetic pleasures; the anthropomorphic qualities of the car, as mask, or second skin; the intrinsic landscape of the automobile, literally reflected in its sheet metal folds. YUGO, 1998, depicted that maligned little import struggling heroically up a ridge, enveloped by a vast landscape cribbed from Thomas Cole. The explicit narrative presented in that painting has led me to more narratives, this time with an emphasis on the car's interaction with the natural world. The car is clearly a stand-in for the human id and ego, sometimes vain and prancing, sometimes cringing, as if near death. Landrover, 1999, features a late-model British 4 x 4 sinking through murky green ocean depths, surrounded by sparkling jellyfish. I wish to catch the viewer's attention with these narratives, to make the stories both inexplicable and compelling. I want their artificiality to suggest metaphor, and their realism to induce reverie. I want an emphasis on "special effects" in my paintings: the tricks of realism which add drama, so popular among the Hudson River painters, like hugely massing clouds, glowing sunsets, deep shadows, buttery highlights. This kind of painting, often dubbed "illustrational" and profoundly out of vogue since the 1930s, was generally evoked ironically in the 1980s, (with a few interesting exceptions including the work of Richard Bosman and Robert Yarber) but seems to creeping back into the vocabularies of many younger artists. I'd like my paintings to reemphasize the idea of painting as window into deep space, and as story-telling device.



Resume:
ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS
May, 2000
Postmasters, New York, NY

1999
Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York, NY

1997
Tricia Collins o Grand Salon, New York, NY



SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2000
Angstrom Gallery, Dallas, TX, Nonfiction
Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art at Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY, The Figure: Another Side of Modernism, Curated by Lilly Wei
Postmasters, New York, NY, "no rhyme or..."

1999
Angstrom Gallery, Dallas, TX, Group Show
Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI, The Art of Collecting, Group Show
Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, Distilled Life, Curated by Medrie MacPhee
Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York, NY, Mod
Cristinerose Gallery, New York, NY, Cruise Control



AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS
1999
ART/OMI Summer Residency, Omi, NY
1993
MFA Fine Arts Scholarship, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
1987
Fifth Year Traveling Scholarship, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA



Education
1994
School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, MFA in Fine Arts

1987
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Fifth Year Program
Participant and Teaching Assistant to Freidel Dzubas

1986
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Diploma



Bibliography

Artnet.com, May 31, 2000, Wild Kingdom by Charlie Finch
The New Yorker, June 5, 2000, Goings on About Town, Short Review
Time Out New York, June 22 - 29, 2000, Review by Robert Mahoney
Reviewny.com, June 1, 2000, Review by Joel Silverstein
Flash Art, Italian Edition, October, November, 1999, Pittura A New York by Michael Cohen
L'Automobile, June, 1999, Quando l'Auto Ispira l'Arte by Diamante D'Alassio
The New York Times, March 19, 1999, Short Review by Ken Johnson
Review Magazine, March 15, 1999, Two Critical Comments by Kit White and Dominique Nahas


Contact:
241 East 14 Street, Apt. 5A
New York, N.Y. 10003
(212) 533-3126
(212) 677-4474 (studio)