Rick Briggs is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn and upstate NY.  His process-oriented paintings poetically refer to his lived experience and personal painting history.  Briggs has received a Guggenheim Foundation grant, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, and a Purchase Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  He also writes and curates.

QUESTION:

Because your work is direct, vital, frank and bold, I Love Painting + Painting Loves Me, 2020, has inspired me to ask a bold and direct question: How do you love painting? How does painting love you? When do you love painting? When does painting love you? (Note I did not ask the why version of this question)  

ANSWER:

As a child, I was fascinated with the slogan printed on the 7-UP bottle: “You like it, it likes you.”  It was funny because it posited a subjectivity to an inanimate object and proclaimed a rapport, a relationship of sorts, with me, as child consumer.  The pleasing symmetry of that sentiment seemed to ensconce us in a sweet (pun intended), endless loop. 

When I curated a show called “Let’s Get Physical” in 2013, I came across this quote from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s “The Phenomenology of Perception”: “A novel, a poem, a painting, and a piece of music are individuals (my italics), that is, beings in which expression cannot be distinguished from the expressed, whose sense is only accessible through direct contact…”.  I like this idea that paintings are individuals, which, like the 7-UP slogan, confers subjectivity to an inanimate object. And I’m interested in the relationship between abstract painting and the body, and in particular, how a body interacts with a painting in all of its manifestations: the quality of the touch, the arc of an arm’s sweep, the muscle memory of a repetitive action, and the inspired gesture, all of which reflect the body’s inherent intelligence.   

But also, your question prompts me to reflect on what I think Love and Painting share in common. I humbly submit these commonalities to the Grave… 

1) Painting and Love choose us, we don’t choose them. 

2) As such, it works best when it comes as a complete surprise.  

3) Recognize and appreciate the mystery in this process. 

4) Have an open heart and an open mind. 

5) Trust yourself. 

6) Take the appropriate leap of faith. 

7) Open all avenues of communication.  Telepathy and intuition can work fine but it’s important to remember your language. 

8) Be honest with yourself, cast out all illusions, and see things as they really are. 

9) Be vulnerable. 

10) Have courage and take risks. (see #9) 

11) Be generous. 

12) Spice things up and keep it fresh. 

13) Make hard choices. Commit. 

14) The true test of both Painting and Love is the test of time. 

15) Saying “I love you” makes everything better.