Greg Slick
My paintings investigate ideas of monumentality through the geometries of prehistoric and early historic archaeological sites. They also attempt to expand temporal boundaries by linking both deep time human-made forms and mythic narratives with contemporary painting. Through texture, patterns of entoptic phenomena, and references to stratigraphic drawing employed in archaeological documentation, my work examines how lithic and biological shapes can occupy pictorial space in compelling ways within a semi-abstract language. In addition to shape, color plays a major role in creating structure and organizing space within my paintings. Where the built environment meets the natural world in the context of a wonder discourse is also central to my work; thus, I use defined forms to reinterpret tumbles of stones and organic matter at archaeological sites as a composition of texture/color upon a luminous ground, while color schemes allude to changing light in rural areas where these sites are located. Ultimately, the work invites the viewer to read deeply and consider the meaning and politics of our self image within the world, of nature versus culture, and of ancestor veneration along the human journey.
ARTIST STATEMENT
BIOGRAPHY
Greg Slick is a visual artist, independent curator, and museum educator based in Beacon and Newburgh, NY. Time, history, archaeology, and anthropology play major thematic roles in his work. Solo exhibitions include Depth Perception at the Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY; Old Bones and Broken Stones at No. 3 Reading Room & Photo Book Works, Beacon, NY; and Opened Ground at the Seligmann Center, Sugar Loaf, NY. His work was featured in the group exhibitions The Librarian at The Lockwood Gallery, Kingston, NY; Birds of a Feather at Ethan Cohen Gallery/ KuBe Art Center, Beacon, NY; The Longue Durée at Holland Tunnel Newburgh, Newburgh, NY; and Collective Expeditions at both BSB Gallery, Trenton, NJ and SUNY Ulster, Stone Ridge, NY. Other group exhibitions include Take Back the Walls at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Rochester, NY; Painting in the 21st Century, at Site:Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY; and Time Travelers at The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY. Slick’s work was included in UNI-VERSE Poetry-Prints-Proofs by Visionary Humans, Battery Journal Publishing, Anna Ehrsam and Katherine Jackson, editors. Slick is the founder and co-curator of the artists’ collective The International Society of Antiquaries.
The Lives of Others #4, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel, 24” x 20”
Stirred Blood, 2025. Acrylic, charcoal on wood panel, 48” x 60”