Q&A
with artist Patrick Kluga

Patrick Kluga attended the Maryland Institute College of Art and graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting in 2001. His work reflects his interest and fascination with his surroundings and the visual experiences which provide the material for his cityscapes. He lives and works in the Hampden area of Baltimore.

What drew you to paint landscapes of Baltimore? Are you a native of the city?

Baltimore has a variety of historic architecture and diverse scenery, from Mount Vernon to Fells Point, which has provided me with many subjects that I thought would translate into paintings. I suppose just being aware of my everyday surroundings and their potential as subject matter has prompted me to paint cityscapes. I am also a Baltimore native, so I certainly feel a connection with the city in that respect.

There aren’t many figures in your paintings, what is the significance of this decision?

I have consciously left figures out of the paintings because I felt that it would ultimately detract from being able to appreciate the entirety of the painting, figures become a focal point. I feel also that the exclusion of the figure adds a bit of timelessness to the work, in the sense that there is a limited representation of movement in the work, which creates stillness and somehow elevates the scene beyond the everyday.

Do you create your own weather and shadows in your paintings? And if so, is it difficult to create something that is not really visible?

I’ve never felt the need to create my own weather conditions in my paintings, I think the weather is interesting enough without having to improvise it! The visual world continues to provide me with enough interesting subjects to paint.

How important is the subject matter in your work?

Sometimes I make a conscious decision that I would like to paint a certain recognizable subject, such as the Washington Monument, because it just seems to be something that would make a good painting.  I might have an idea about what subject I’m going to paint, but I still have to go out there and find the right view and get it done.  With all that being said, subject matter isn’t as important to me as making a good painting.  I would say the majority of my work isn’t about painting subjects, but painting things that are visually interesting to paint. 

What do you think is your role as an artist in society? How is this expressed through your paintings?

I can only speak of my role as someone who takes an interest in the visual world and sets out to translate that interest into the form of a painting, in a fairly pragmatic manner.  I don’t necessarily concern myself with questions about my role as an artist, I just believe in the necessity for me to do the work.  Hopefully an individual, artist or not, can involve themselves with work that is personally gratifying and somehow relevant to the time and the society they are living in.

In your landscape paintings, some viewpoints appear higher than others. How do you generally work? From photographs, life, imagination, or from a combination of things?

I work from a combination of photography and life, although some paintings have required more dependence upon photography than others, due to the transitory conditions of the scene. My process is a back and forth between the two methods, I will revise the paintings based off of information gathered from photography, and I‘ll take a painting that‘s been in the studio awhile and go paint from life again. I used to paint strictly from life, and in doing so, I learned how quickly the elements of a scene can change when you are working on them, such as the light shifting, parked cars driving away, etc. These are situations that you grow accustomed to when painting from life, and when you are doing smaller work, typically you just change the painting or adjust the painting in accordance. But I wanted to do larger paintings, more ‘monumental’ works which combined the observation of painting from life with almost a more classical, formal result. I felt I needed a constant in the process with which I could work from (photography), so I wouldn’t necessarily have to change the painting as elements in the scene may change. That provided me with a comfort level. But regardless of what methods I use, the work always has to operate as a painting--which means being able to look at the surface of the work and see the marks and shapes that construct the image.

We hope you enjoyed Q&A, a regular addition to MAP's online newsletter. To let us know your thoughts, or to submit your own work for consideration, please contact Esther Kim at: ekim@mdartplace.org

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Altered Bingo Card 8, 2009
Mixed Media on Vintage Bingo Card
3.5" x 5.75"

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