Art  And  Poetry

Wade paints self-portraits on a variety of surfaces including canvas, paper, plywood, and other people’s finished paintings (the “WADE the destroyer of other people’s art” sub-series). 

 

Long a fixture at Southern California poetry readings, Wade published a book of poems entitled Madcap: Spontaneous Western Haiku by a Guy Named Wade.  One of his first art pieces involved a doll’s head impaled on a skimmer pole, titled “Baby Wade’s Head on a Stick.”  Pounded on the ground for emphasis during poetry readings, this piece helped him realize that art exists even in the most mundane objects and led to his self-portrait series.  Just as the rose and the weed are an image of God, everything that Wade creates is an image of himself, often an image that he’s never seen, doesn’t want to see or could ever imagine having seen.  Also, all that time spent in biology class doodling in the margins of his notebook wasn’t time wasted at all; it was the genesis of abstract minimalist self-portrait masterpieces. 

 

His techniques have evolved since he first started painting twenty years ago.  When he puts brush to canvas, he strives to have control over the tools, but he wanted to tap into something less in conscious control.  So he started dripping and tapping the canvas as a way of making the images less predictable and more energetic.  He has also been known to bake his paintings to create unexpected bubbling and cracking effects. 

 

In other words, he likes to knock his paintings on the ground and stick them in the oven simply to see what happens. 

 

His work has been exhibited at the Ontario Museum and at dA Center for the Arts in Pomona.  He has also shown in New York at Charming Wall Gallery.  Several pieces are currently hanging at the Soho Gallery in Montclair.