Interview with an Artist: John Vistaunet
by Gayle Picken
The first time I had the pleasure of working with John Vistaunet was at one of the early UNCLAD art shows on Camano Island. Another artist told me about John … apparently his realistic pastels were getting great receptions in local shows in Everett, WA. He suggested that John would be a good addition to the show.
The three Vistaunet paintings we hung that year (2004) were straightforward female nudes. One, a backside view of a female figure kneeling on a soft brown couch, with wonderful patterns of light gently filtering in through a window. The two other paintings featured a single female figure posing on a stark white background, as if in a portrait photography studio. EVERYONE assumed these paintings were photographs until they read the tags … then they stepped forward for a closer look. The light on the figure’s skin was the focus. John had mastered subtle nuances for a convincing effect.
The next year, John brought a selection of new paintings with a female figure lying on the grass … you could feel the warmth of the gentle breeze hitting the beautiful model’s skin and hair. Each blade of grass was painstakingly rendered and the light coming through the branches of the trees cast beautiful shadows over the woman and her blanket. In this series, John played with the edges of the painting … he extended the blanket outside the picture onto the matting. At this point his work was evolving as he started to play with three dimensional space.
In 2006, John’s freshly painted “Stepping In” became a centerpiece of UNCLAD … a wonderful painting of a figure looking down as she literally steps out of the picture. The mesmerizing image, which, by the way, was selected as a finalist in The Artist Magazine’s Portrait & Figure competition, was bright, fresh and was quickly snapped up by a collector in Portland.
On his web site, John Vistaunet speaks of creating an illusion of three dimensional space in his paintings. In his most recent work, the background and foreground often trade places. This is especially evident in his recent oil “The Mirror in Mondrian’s Garden”.
The effect is subtle, and many viewers don’t notice it at first. But that’s part of the fun of John’s work. As John says, “A convincing illusion is created of a world which invites the viewer to enter, spend some time, look around, discover things not seen at first glance.” I recently had a chance to sit down and chat with John and his wife Coylinda at the gallery:
John, when did you first become interested in art? “When I was a kid. Took two years of art class in high school and got my first oil paints about the same time. Was briefly (two quarters, junior year) an art major in college, before dropping out.”
Your focus is clearly Nudes. What draws you to this subject? “In the (distant) past I’ve done landscapes, abstracts, portraits, as well as sculpture. I’ve always been drawn to the figure. Humans, like all species, respond most to their own kind. Two dogs immediately recognize each other as “Dog” even if one’s a poodle and the other a St. Bernard. Horses get excited at seeing other horses, cats recognize cats. Images of the
nude human figure in particular evoke a response that is at once primal and complex. They can be beautiful, they can be sexy, they can be poignant, strong, even grotesque, but they can’t be easily ignored. The closer to life size they are, whether painting or sculpture, the more confrontive and interactive they are. In some respects, the figures in my paintings are just a means to an end. I could do a similar treatment with
a tree or a vase, but the female nudes are more interesting, sensual and delightful, and human skin is a study all in itself.”
You seem to use the same model in most of your recent paintings. Can you tell us about this? “I met her at the first life drawing session I went to after a long hiatus from art. I did several photo sessions with her over a period of two years. She is beautiful, with enough “quirks” to be interesting, has a knack for making the most ordinary poses look graceful and natural, and is very creative, professional and easy to work with. She has left the area, alas.”
How much influence does your model have on the final painting? ”The photo sessions with the model were very much a collaboration at that point, but were done with no particular paintings in mind, just getting interesting poses with particular lighting. All my paintings start with a strong and evocative pose or poses and move forward from there; composition is all important But without a good model, I might have been painting landscapes after all.”
Where were you born? What brought you to the Pacific Northwest? “In California. My dad grew up in Bellingham, I had lots of family and relatives up here, and always liked this area on our yearly vacation trips north to home.”
How do you see your work fitting into the contemporary art scene?
“Good question. Though there’s been a resurgence of what’s loosely referred to as contemporary realism, I’m not really a photorealist, a surrealist or a classical realist, I’m not sure I’m even a “realist” at all, there are too many unreal elements in my work. I’m more of an illusionist. I just do what I do without much regard for where it fits or how it’s labeled.”
Where do you see your art going in the next few years? “I’ll probably continue to push the envelope of both pastels and oils, with more complex images. I also want to resume my wrinkled canvas works, but with illusional painting included.”
