Photo by Andrea Perkins, Courtesy of Tim Bavington
Tim Bavington
Courtesy of Tim Bavington
Tim Bavington in his studio
The Las Vegas-based painter, 42, looks back at some of his professional
turning points on the occasion of his solo show at the Jack Shainman
Gallery, in New York. His latest works — vibrantly hued, striped
paintings composed according to the chord structures of songs — can be
seen there from September 10 through October 10.
Vegas, Baby:
"The first time I set foot in Vegas was in 1980, when I was 14. My mom and
dad had divorced, and I flew over from England to visit my dad, who lived there. It was mind-blowing.
He picked me up from the airport in a Cadillac, a car I’d never seen before. I think Vegas has
had more of an attitudinal effect on my art than an aesthetic one. It’s the permissive
atmosphere, and the way the city takes history lightly and is prepared to tear it down."
Man of Influence:
"Dave Hickey [an art critic and professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas] has been a
friend and mentor for 15 years. I met him after I settled in Vegas, in 1995. He talked me into going
to grad school. I was pursuing painting, but I had a career as a graphic designer and illustrator,
mostly for The Simpsons television show. I thought that’s pretty much the way it would always
be."
Sold!:
"While I was in grad school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Bill and Debby
Richards — of L.A.’s Fellows of Contemporary Art, which has supported young artists for
over 30 years — came by my studio and bought Driving Nowhere, 1998. It’s
composed of vertical lines of color, similar to my work now. I titled it after a song by the British
rocker Paul Weller, but there isn’t a direct compositional correlation to music."
Before the Fall:
"I had my first solo exhibition in New York at Feigen Contemporary. It opened
the weekend before 9/11. I flew back to Vegas on Monday the 10th and woke up the next morning to the
news. Only a few works were in the show, and all of them eventually sold, but the market was
definitely frozen for a bit."
The Breakthrough:
"In 2002, I took a guitar solo by
Hendrix and translated the notes and note lengths and the keys into colors and made a painting out of
it called Voodoo Child (Slight Return), after the song. It was the first time I used music as an
underlying structure to compose a painting. The Portland Museum of Art purchased it.
Hitting the Stratosphere:
"My debut exhibition with Jack Shainman Gallery was in 2005, and it was
from that show that the Museum of Modern Art acquired one of my works: Physical S.E.X. The
painting was based on a guitar solo by a British band called the Darkness. They were a Spinal Tap sort
of band, but their guitar solos were really good. The curator Joaquim Pissarro picked it out.
That’s big for an artist, isn’t it?"
"My Brilliant Career: Tim Bavington" originally appeared in the September 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2009 Table of Contents.
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