Two for the Show
Friday, August 17, 2007
Terry Maxwell is a well-known artist with an amazing sense of color. Josh Finley is an up-and-coming artist with an amazing sense of detail.
Put the two together and the result is, well, amazing.
“It’s rare,” said art professor Roberta Eichenberg, director of the Eppink Gallery at Emporia State University. “Not many artists are able to collaborate — it’s just not in their nature.”
But for Maxwell and Finley, it’s becoming business as usual. The two first joined forces in 2005 for a JavaCat-5 exhibit where Maxwell would begin a painting and Finley would finish it. They liked it enough to hold another small show last year. Now the twin bill is back with a new exhibit at the Eppink that features both their collaborative work and their individual pieces, allowing a viewer to see what makes each style unique and how they fit together.
What makes the creative partnership work is a sense of trust. Neither artist insists on being the boss or forcing the other one into the background, something that has often infected other “collaborations.”
“We had no rules,” Maxwell said. “Neither of us has an ego that has to be stroked all the time, I guess.”
“When you’re working with Terry, it’s easy,” Finley said. “You know that your work’s going to be taken care of. I’m a little more nervous when Terry gives me something and I’m supposed to scribble all over his painting. But it’s always worked well.”
This time out, the partnership has a slightly different twist. Before, each of them would start a piece and leave some space for the other to take it in a new direction. This time, Finley got to fill the canvas with one of his insanely detailed black-and-white pictures, which Maxwell then went back to and added a universe of color. Now dragon scales shine, oceans glow and even insects have their own touch of watercolor brilliance.
“I gave him a blueprint for a painting and basically, he went nuts,” Finley said with a grin.
It’s a different kind of work for Maxwell, a master of landscapes and abstract pieces. And it’s not something that gets knocked off in an afternoon.
“It’s very tedious work because his drawings can be very detailed,” Maxwell said. “But it can be a lot of fun. I have done works that had a lot of detail, but while I’m not exactly a minimalist, I don’t have the amount of detail Josh does. I had never done bugs before, or turtles, or frogs.
Finley’s not complaining. A long-time fan of Maxwell’s work, it bowled him over when his hero actually agreed to work with him in 2005. He remains blown away by Maxwell’s command of shade and color, and the understated power of his watercolors.
“They’re so simple,” Finley said, shaking his head in amazement. “One of his trees can kick one of my entire picture’s ass.”
The two have also shown their individual works together as part of larger artists’ gatherings in Plumb Place or Toad Hollow. Outside of those shows and the occasional collaborative effort, the two don’t see each other a whole lot. Maxwell always has something new to work on and Finley is often on the road with the band Loco Macheen or its bluegrass incarnation The DeWayn Brothers. A number of his drawings, in fact, were created either on the bus or backstage.
But the two remain a good team. And they’re each looking forward to seeing how the show is received at ESU.
“I don’t think they’ve ever had one quite like this,” Maxwell said. “I think it’ll be quite a lot of fun.”
The Eppink Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday in King Hall. The exhibit will be on display through Sept. 25. There is no charge.