Home on the range: Kansas sabbatical inspires artist

LAWRENCE — Barry Fitzgerald calls the upcoming exhibition of his art “House Plants” because that’s what’s in the 14 paintings that will be shown May 3 through July 19 at the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery at Bethany College in Lindsborg.

Houses, plants and human forms have lately been inspiring the professor of illustration and animation in the School of Architecture & Design at the University of Kansas.

And people seem to respond to the works, as Fitzgerald has continued a streak of honors, awards and commissions with paintings made in this style in recent years. That includes the monthlong residency (March 1-28) at the Red Barn Studio Museum in Lindsborg, during which Fitzgerald made the work that will appear in the show.

A former graphic artist for The Detroit News, Fitzgerald said he was grateful to receive the first artist residency he’d ever had. It was a chance, during a sabbatical semester, to spend concentrated — even isolated — time on his work.

“I just started drawing in my sketchbook, which is where everything starts,” he said. “And then I need to pare it down. So I went through my sketches and saw some repetition of things that I’ve played with before — architectural structures and plant structures. And it’s like: OK, that’s it. That’s what I’m going to focus on.“

He got to work and spent the rest of the month (and actually more time once back home), turning his 14 favorite sketches into paintings using acrylics and ink.

“There is still the exploration of, 'What do you do with the composition?’ I had the composition,” he said, “but what’s going to be shape? What’s going to be line? What color palette and all that. So it’s still not a done deal. And then when I’m working on a series, I like to tag-team them so that I’m not working on one, and then it’s done. I kind of bring them all up to the same level at the same time.”

While his work can and has functioned as both fine art and illustration, Fitzgerald said he finds discussion of any distinction between the two simply “tiresome.”

“You can see ... boats and houses and plants, and ... that’s kind of what I like,” he said. “But part of the reason that I like it is not what they mean representationally, but just in terms of design principles. Architecture is geometry, and plants and trees and everything else is organic. So you’ve got curves on some stuff, and then you’ve got right angles and corners, and they play off of each other nicely.”