Will Pittman thrives in the interstices of poetry, music, and painting. A longtime lover of the arts and dweller of the city, he is finally revealing his first art show at State of the Art in Cayce next month.
Pittman was born in Arkansas, but his family moved to Cayce when he was only 2, and he has long considered South Carolina his home. Even after leaving for college, travel, and experience, he came back to Cayce, where he resides now.
Pittman, now 32, recalls his first encounter with art being comic books, joking that he used to fill his head with stories and images of Wolverine and Spiderman during class. While he took drawing classes in high school, it would be several years until Pittman began dedicating himself to this craft.
While working in the distribution center of an Amazon factory, Pittman made a deal with himself: on his off days, he would dedicate 10 hours to painting, which he started by imitating the artists he admired most like expressionists Kokoschka, post-impressionist Van Gogh, and founder of impressionism Monet.
“My work is categorically original—it's still, in my opinion, similar of the beauty of perception in nature,” Pittman reflects, “You know, the thing about the expression of nature is that it can't be totally objective—documentation can't be totally separated from the artist's own mark inside of that.”
In this interweaving of old and new, Pittman expresses with oil paints and portraiture. He roots part of his style in his relationship with John D Monteith, a local painter who Pittman worked with as an “informal protégé” before building a friendship. As for inspiration, it comes from all over, Pittman never quite placing where it might strike.
“I'll put it like an author—it's whatever turns a phrase. When I write poetry, sometimes I'll take out books and just flip through and look for words, and then it's like an engine for creativity,” Pittman explains, “That's what portraiture is like for me; it wasn't something that I consciously saw out. And at the same time, it's a reason to load your brush, get that viscosity, and put it on a canvas.
These ruminations follow Pittman across a number of disciplines, specifically writing and singing. He remembers first reading the American transcendentalist poets and feeling like a “tornado blew his windows out.” He started writing and performing soon after, opening for artists like Justin Townes Earle, Shovels and Rope, and Dex Romweber.
“My love for literature feeds into songwriting, and those two are like sister arts, and then the painting and drawing, speak to each other, I think, in their craftiness, their intelligence,” Pittman relates, “When I approach a canvas, it's like being a carpenter's apprentice again.”
Upon desiring forming these experiences into a show, Pittman walked directly into State of the Art and made conversation with gallery owner, Levi Wright, saying it was a form of “American neighborly friendliness.” Pittman showed Wright his art, and Wright knew it was the kind of stories he wanted to help tell.
“Sometimes you see someone’s work and know they have something special,” Wright says. “And I believe Will is one of those people—he has that something.”
Pittman is the gallery’s featured July artist. Around 12 canvases of various sizes and prices will be featured, including the two photographed above and a painting of the Hunley, a Confederate submarine Pittman just happened to stumble across last year and knew he had to record. The show is titled “Intervening Time: Facsimile and Ragbag.”
“I decided to go all out and call it ragbag because the whole main kernel of painting and visual art is that it imitates life. You know, if I were to paint your portrait I would consider elements of art, like line and value and sort of render that with tools,” Pittman details, “But it's really like illusions—your face really doesn't have lines, your face has forms. And I have to make these sort of falsehoods on the canvas, and then that produces the image.”
The show runs from the 1st to the 31st, and the Opening Reception is Thursday, July 8th from 3:00pm – 6:30pm. During this time, there will be pop-up vendors with food, vintage clothes, and jewelry outside, and Pittman will play his music.
As the show turns towards its opening, Pittman has eyes set forward even beyond: painting more, playing his music, writing, and reminiscing on the overlaps—and—he’s currently in school to become an art teacher.
“Art is life and life is art, and it's like closure to have these materials and put in the time and the execution of the vision of what you're trying to,” Pittman effuses, “Maybe having a show will be like a form of emphasizing a period of my life and then putting it away to move onto other material.”
To support Pittman, follow him on social media (like his YouTube where he shares music, readings, and ruminations) and stop by State of the Art in the month of July to see his intimate reflections of the world around us, a world you might come to learn you didn’t know quite as well as you once thought.
—Christina Xan
