There has always been something deeply immersive about the paintings of Wisconsin-based artist Guzzo Pinc. Whether that stimulating space is a psychedelic swirl of pattern and shape or something more earthy and grounded, he’s always inviting the viewer in, pulling one closer with rich color and tactile surfaces. Regardless of how the pictorial elements are structured this artist invites access—figuratively and visually—and makes it a profound and delightful aspect of his work.
In the past few years, Pinc has developed a particularly euphoric visual language deeply rooted in the patterns and motifs he’s shaped from decades as a painter and deft artist on paper. The swirls mentioned earlier might suggest waves of stylized wheat fields or the rhythmic tracks one might make with a hand in sand. The movement is what’s important. That sway and swing is the dynamic energy that feels driven by sound, a beat or repetitive pulses. Those patterns, whether interpreted visually or aurally, have been the foundational basis for so much of Pinc’s work. How those hypnotic characters are woven into the main subjects of each piece brings the complexity of his subjects forward. They’re also essential to the complex apparatus that pulls one deeper into the zone.
Often a sense of immersion is activated via psychological mechanisms. Driven by the energy produced through rhythm, pattern, contrast, and color, one can’t help but be mesmerized and sucked in by these ecstatic fields of wonder. Always a pleasurable trip, the paintings nevertheless allow the viewer to delight in the space they created from an imagination triggered by intricately woven paintings. Sometimes hovering around and through figures, or laid out more like an intricate tapestry, the patterning is always both a part of the subject and something separate. Like some otherworldly camouflage that works as both a field and a form, it’s a device that always keeps the field unsteady yet thoroughly engrossing.
Recently there’s been a slight shift in Pinc’s notion of space; we can see it clearly in some of the new paintings featured in Winnetka. These new pictorial structures are in fact well-understood and familiar systems for the history and tradition of painting. Scale, perspective, and color intensity are all now fully deployed as devices to activate the image of the suburban landscape. Here we have recognizable—although highly stylized—vistas. Having grown up in Oak Park, Illinois, the bucolic features of quiet tree-lined streets trigger a new sense of contentment. Peaceful and serene, these canvases bring in Paul Bonnard or André Derain as influences. Without sacrificing any of his inherent unruliness, the work fully utilizes picture systems to take us deeper into panoramic locales rich with narrative inference.
Guzzo Pinc is an artist who never rests. His work shifts and feints so regularly and resolutely that one could amass several different but fully connected exhibitions. Winnetka looks at a particular vein of interest in this artist’s practice. Whether this passion will sustain remains to be seen. Regardless, the audience is offered an opportunity here to enter—literally—an exciting new vista with potential to carry him and us to even more exciting places.
Guzzo Pinc (b. 1972) received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Richmond in 1994 and his Master of Fine Arts from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2020. Recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include Mash Up at the Roberta Avonn Fiskum Gallery, Whitewater, WI; Fantasia at Devening Projects, Chicago, IL. Other recent projects include Farfalla at Tory Folliard Gallery, Milwaukee, WI; Creamy Huevos En Cielito Lindo at Var Gallery in Milwaukee, WI; and Select Paintings at Diane Endres Ballweg Gallery in Madison, WI. His work has been curated into group shows at Galerie DYS, Brussels, BE; Commonwealth Gallery, Madison, WI; Arts + Literature Laboratory, Madison, WI; and the Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL. He is the founder and lead curator of the Madison Experimental Arts Exhibition series in Madison, WI. Guzzo Pinc currently lives and creates in Fort Atkinson, WI, and teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
