Greg Slick (born 1961 in Jersey City, NJ) is a visual artist and independent curator based in Beacon, NY. Time, history, archaeology, and anthropology play major thematic roles in his work. Most recently his work was featured in the group exhibitions One Thing Leads to Another at The Lockwood Gallery, Kingston, NY, and Collective Expeditions, at both BSB Gallery, Trenton, NJ and SUNY Ulster, Stone Ridge, NY. Other group exhibitions include Take Back the Walls at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Rochester, NY; Painting in the 21st Century, at Site:Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY; and Time Travelers at The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include Old Bones and Broken Stones at No. 3 Reading Room & Photo Book Works, Beacon, NY and Opened Ground at the Seligmann Center, Sugar Loaf, NY. Slick is the founder and co-curator of the artists’ collective The International Society of Antiquaries.
Slick’s paintings investigate ideas of monumentality through the geometries of prehistoric archaeological sites. Using color, texture, patterns of entoptic phenomena, and occasional references to archaeological drawing, his work examines how megalithic shapes can occupy space in different and compelling ways within an abstract language. Hardedge forms reinterpret tumbles of stones at Neolithic sites as a composition of texture/color upon a vibrant ground. Color schemes allude to changing light in rural areas where these stones are found. The intended challenge to the viewer is to read deeply and consider the meaning and politics of monument building along the human journey. Specific Neolithic and Iron Age sites that are referenced in his paintings are located in Ireland, the UK, and Spain. Visits to Los Toros de Guisando and the dolmens of Antequera in Spain, for example, galvanized an interest in the prehistory of Spain. As his practice developed around this theme, he became more invested in how traditional cultural forms, such as abstract patterns and building techniques, have persisted across millennia. The long shadow of prehistoric cultures can still be seen today in Spain in such things as rural structures (eg, shepherds’ huts) and folk designs on clay and ceramic wares.
Books mentioned in this interview include Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and The Neolithic of Britain and Ireland by Vicki Cummings.
