Know the Rules Before You Break Them

In this special episode, artist Paul Verdell talks about his path from a kid who continuously drew to becoming an artist who now works almost entirely in abstraction. He started off working in figuration, drawn to capturing people as they sat for him, something close to holding a moment still, like a photograph made by hand, and that same instinct carries into his larger work, which he builds spontaneously, led by shape and material rather than a fixed plan. We get into the foundation his formal training gave him, how he’s built on it in his own direction, the influences that keep pulling at him, from Beauford Delaney to Joe Bradley, and the confidence that came with fully claiming abstraction as his own.

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