100 Watts: jim watt Presents 100 watercolors for spring
may 20 - june 20
Spring has always been about new beginnings, the smell of magnolias and lilacs, migrating birds, optimism, love, hope, youth and, of course, baseball. This spring, however, as the lilacs and magnolias gloriously bloom and the beautiful birds migrate north, we seem to desperately cling to love and hope and optimism, fearful of the unknown while socially distanced and isolated. And, there is no baseball.
The artist Jim Watt has taken his own optimism and is creating a visual record of our present time replete with love, hope and possibilities. This Spring, throughout the quarantine, as a kind of ritualistic exercise he is painting 100 dreamy, meditative watercolors as his contribution to our new collective psyche. Let these be a small but rich addition to the slow, steady return of our lives. The final painting will be completed on June 19th, the last official day of spring.
As Watt fills his studio walls with his 9 x 12" paintings, they will become available for sale. Each painting is $350 framed.
"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night." –Rainer Maria Rilke
jim watt
Jim Watt (b. 1968) is an American artist and architect based in New Jersey. Watt's paintings and drawings are an obsessive exploration of space, form, and material, a context that marries his work as a practicing architect. At Princeton University, where Watt earned his M.A. in Architecture, teachers Michael Graves and Enrique Miralles espoused the Renaissance notion that architects must paint, draw, and sculpt to fully realize their ideas. Form, space, material, texture, color, and light are shared languages that transcend medium. Watt's work as an artist is the opportunity to work without a structured, planned intention, instead playing on the tension between thought and instinct: discovery through the process of making. Watt has a body of built buildings spanning North America, and his art is in private collections across North America and Europe. His architectural work has been featured in Dwell Magazine and The New York Times.