Jack Stratton
Jack Stratton spoke to Edie Carpenter about the works he is preparing for his 2021 retrospective at GreenHill. The two met at The Artery in front of new paintings on display in the beautiful group exhibition, “Staying At Home", curated by fellow Greensboro artist Beatrice Schall. One of Stratton’s contributions is entitled Hypnopompic Cavalcade and depicts a figure stretched out on a wide, rolled arm couch.
Stratton notes that the prefix “hypno” stems from the Greek "hypnos" or "sleep.” Classical and literary references abound in his works. Paolo and Francesca in Hell, also on view at The Artery, is based on the story of adulterous lovers from the first book of the Divine Comedy, The Inferno, by Danté. Stratton has just begun a new series based on Aesop’s Fables and inspired by Fred Chappell’s new collection of poems: As If It Were.
A smaller painting, whose composition relates closely to Hypnopompic Cavalcade, offers a key to Stratton’s poetic approach. Here a blue sleeping man is lifted in a white cloud rising above a reclining female figure and mirrors her position. Like a glowing breath, the cloud cradles the man and connects the two dreamers in time and thought.
Books as objects figure frequently in Stratton’s paintings and are depicted next to people daydreaming, reading, or in the case of Paolo and Francesca, making love. Books become symbols for the flame of the imagination in Stratton’s cosmogony, and he reminds us of his early interest in book-binding.
In Hypnopompic Cavalcade, cross-hatching used to paint the couch in glowing orange and green, is also employed to paint the sleeping figure. This enveloping net of brushstrokes emphasizes the stasis of the dreamer, as do the abandoned slippers next to the couch. Most of the activity in the painting takes place above, in the stream of multicolored bubbles rising from the sleeper’s head. In the crowd of shapes, one can barely discern a bird, a skull, or what could be the moon and planets inviting our own imagination to wander.
The “thought bubble” motif is used frequently by Stratton as a narrative vehicle. In an early work entitled, Dark Globe, a young person resting their head in their palm with a book open before them sits next to another child searching for co-ordinates on a blue celestial globe of the stars as horses pulling a chariot (a reference to Apollo) appear to emerge from their cheek. In the self-portrait, My Noisy Year, the artist holds a book in his lap as he appears to broadcast a stream of thought emanating from his ear. In Stratton’s lyrical vision of the world, books become a vector for moments when ”something happens” -- fireflies rise from the grass and even the most humble experience is attuned to time and deeply felt.
Stratton’s tender paintings are developed with a wonderful sensibility for color and light and like time machines, have the power to transport us. The spontaneity of his approach to visual storytelling and his many depictions of reading and daydreaming evoke the writings of Gaston Bachelard on the poetics of daydreaming:
I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the words begin to move around … The words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young.
Stratton shares that writing, perhaps more than reading, inspires him to paint. This poem is from a collection of the artist's poetry he plans the publish in a chapbook.
Jack Stratton on his artistic approach
Jack Stratton received his BFA in Painting at UNCG in 1977. He joined the UNCG library staff full-time as a bookbinder. From the library, Stratton moved to the Weatherspoon Art Museum where he worked for 20 years as a preparator. He currently paints in his Greensboro studio and teaches drawing and watercolor painting at the Art Alliance, an organization sponsored by the City of Greensboro. He also works as a freelance preparator, curator, art handler and lighting consultant.