August First Friday Opening - John Raux

Free Event | Exhibition by John Raux

Grieving has marked my work since 2019. I lost my best friend

to depression and suicide and then the pandemic began. When

the lockdown ended and society started to gather again, I lost

another close friend to cancer.

I was a disaster.

I painted black over all these paintings on paper. They became

a pile on a shelf, unaddressed until this past year.

I was still a pile.

I had to scrub and melt the black layer off with chemicals.This

process was not precise but I was able to preserve, or rather,

uncover some of the textures and colors from the time before

and repaint the forms into new compositions.

People offer lots of advice when it comes to getting over

traumatic events. They can see the heavy marks on everyday

life, smeared and layered in many subtle yet unideal ways.

What they do not know is how close grief runs to love.

I hated these paintings.

The state of my world, and the world in general, seemed to be

burning in every direction.

I was burning.

Stubborn to a fault, I refused to go numb.

I loved these paintings.

I love this world. Overworked. Destroyed. Lost. Recovered.

Reworked. I was exactly this kind of tangle and process. This

kind of shape with layers upon layers of contradictions held

together somehow. Hurry Up & Wait... Already & Not Yet