"An invigorating show from a talented up-and-comer on the Northwest scene..."

A Review by Richard Speer, art critic, curator, and author

Earlier this week, Richard Speer, an art critic, curator, and author who frequently publishes in The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Post, and The Oregonian, was kind enough to write a review of my work. 

I can’t add anything to this except to say I’m excited for the future. 

Richard Speer Review: 

Two Saturdays ago, Garrick Arnold popped over to our al-fresco art sale and left with Dorothy’s painting, “Blood Flower,” from the “Sharpie Looks for God” series.  

This past Saturday, we popped over to his pop-up to see his take on a different kind of flower, cherry blossoms, at the Willamette Valley Vineyards tasting room in Lake Oswego.  

Damien Hirst got people talking (he has a knack for that) when he painted (by hand, he swears) 107 cherry trees for Gagosian.  Whatever you think of Hirst’s provocations, it is clear that this subject matter lends itself to a pointillist approach, one that is unabashedly beautiful in its pure opticality.  Such extravagance axiomatically swats away pesky vestigial handwringing about decorativity and just goes for broke.  

Garrick’s iterations came about from a commission—which he enjoys and welcomes—for a client paying homage to trips he’d made to Japan during “sakura” with his beloved late wife.  The poignancy of that comes across in the paintings.  In one, we see the tree as if we’re lying beneath it, gazing up.  Anyone who loves Georgia O’Keeffe will immediately think of her “Lawrence Tree,” painted at D.H. and Frieda’s rustic Kiowa Ranch north of Taos.  

Originally from the Midwest, Garrick has a background in graphic design, which may be why these paintings have such agreeably muscular lines, informed by his interests in Japanese woodblock prints and drip/spatter painting.  The background contours, billowing, restless, concentric, recall raked gravel in Japanese rock gardens.  

I also enjoyed the dynamism of his purely abstract work, which finesses broad gesture and delicately atomized paint.  An invigorating show from a talented up-and-comer on the Northwest scene… 

Check out more of Garrick Arnold’s work at @garrickpaints or at artbygarrick.com

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Cheers!

Garrick