Joe DeCamillis

My favorite book in college was On the Road by Kerouac, my favorite in high school, Travels With Charlie by Steinbeck. In junior high I liked The Odyssey best, and in grade school I reread Daniel Boone many times. My favorite heroes have always been travelers with lives of wandering and seeking. In September of 1984, I set off on my own journey the month before I turned 21. I moved solo from Boulder, Colorado to Southern California to study creative writing at UCLA. Five years later, I put my frustrated attempts at writing behind me and ended up back in Boulder. There I learned the basics of drawing and painting. I also took a self-taught crash course in auto mechanics by restoring a vintage motorhome called an UltraVan. I named her Lucy, sold most of my possessions, and set off on a three year odyssey with the RV as my home. From 1991 to 1994, Lucy took me through the heart of America from coast to coast and border to border. Along the way, I sold hundreds of paintings at outdoor art fairs, further developing my skills as a painter by the sheer volume necessary to survive living on the art fair circuit. I also challenged myself by scrutinizing the work of the Old Masters–Rembrandt, Vermeer, Breughel, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Sargeant, Whistler, Adam Elsheimer, George Innes–in major museums across the country. Then I practiced emulating their strengths in my own paintings. In May of ‘95, I settled in Birmingham, AL but continued the relentless travel to art fairs to the present time–now in a minivan instead of the UltraVan. My journeys have never inspired me so directly as in my latest series began in fall of 2002. Called A Drive-Thru America, it explores our contemporary culture built up around severe dependence on the automobile. I focus on action and narrative, seeking out storylines from the American Road. I capture the America we drive by on a daily basis, whether commuting through cities or cruising long miles on vacations: the freeways, billboards, fast food restaurants, truck stops, sunsets, and phone lines; the car wrecks, traffic jams, break-downs, pull-overs, and truck spills. From the driver’s seat, I digitally photograph these scenes. When I sit down at my studio–whether back at home or still on the road in my “portable mobile studio”–I envision narratives emerging from the snapshot fragments which have captured our fast-paced culture and brought it to a pause. Then I begin to paint. My process constantly evolves and the last year and a half challenged me to explore new media and means of presentation. February 2004 found me pushing the extremes of scale by creating paintings smaller than postage stamps that retained the precise detail and intense illumination that have become my trademark. A more dramatic shift began in May 2004, when I built my first frames from old books to emphasize the storytelling nature of my work. It also began the merger of my passions: art, writing, and collecting. The books, altered through various means, no longer serve as just the frame for the paintings, but rather encourage a dialogue to unfold between the collaged elements of text, imagery, and personal writings. These developments have led my work to become more sculptural and mixed with media. Recently I began painting on round pieces of steel and building custom pedestals, boxes, or shelves for the books. Also, my plethora of travel snapshots has inspired me to experiment with a digital process using the pages of old books. Finally, my own writing and poetic sense continue to creep into the work more deeply as I keep experimenting and executing my backlog of creative ideas.