Many Rooms (2016), oil on canvas, 36 by 36 inches
“For me, art was always about color before I was good enough ever to attempt a drawing or painting,” says A.J. Dungan. “When I went to the hardware store with my dad, I was mesmerized by the paint samples.”
Dungan has served a long apprenticeship with color, beginning in his teens, when he began studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upper New York State, where he took courses in painting, printmaking, and photography. “I had a very old-school art education, a Pratt kind of education,” he recalls. “The courses were in two- and three-dimensional design, creative thinking, painting, and drawing.”
Jezebel (2015), acrylic on canvas, 44 by 36 inches
After graduation, Dungan embarked on a more practical calling, accepting what was called a “color apprenticeship” with a printing shop in Rochester (this was in the late ’80s, well before computers took over so many of the technical aspects of bringing photography to the page). “Everything was done by hand,” he says. Trained as a color separator, the artist became adept at the technical aspects of getting a photograph to look the way an art director wanted it to look. “A photographer would come up from the city with 40 or 50 images, and we would have to decide what would give us the best results.”
He was always painting on the side, and discovered that “looking at hundreds of images a week taught me how to read an image, how to analyze paintings.” For decades Dungan’s work was largely abstract, influenced by artists as diverse as Duchamp and Albers. “I started with abstraction because it was harder, and I wanted to understand what makes a great painting.” Now, he says thinks there’s “too much of it out there.”
Metronome (2015), acrylic on canvas, 36 by 36 inches
Eight years ago he began pursuing the figure “to have a dialogue with people who didn’t understand art, but could appreciate it. Working with gestures, poses, expressions on a face opens up another conversation.” His latest canvases are smash-ups of the nude, often in conventional studio poses, realized through vigorous line and patches of flat, often off-key color—industrial grays, rusty reds, and sour yellow ocher. When I ask if a certain level of violence is intended, he answers, “I call it energy.”
As in works of de Kooning or Diebenkorn, it’s obvious that Dungan has a solid grounding in figurative art and he still goes to a life-drawing class one night a week. “But I work so fast and overpaint so much,” he says. “I get the basic feeling from the model and then take a photo with my phone.”
The Birth of Awareness (2015), 40 by 52 inches
His latest series is what he calls a “story board” sequence, paintings that are individual yet interconnected with one another. “The common narrative will be a person or persons holding an abstract object and responding emotionally and physically to that object. The initial rough sketches tie each work to the next using graphics, composition, and color. In one painting the figure might be hiding the object; in another, destroying it.”
Dungan shows with four or five galleries, mainly in Rochester. One of the best established is the Oxford Gallery, which has been around for four decades and focuses primarily on realist artists from the 18th century to the present.
The artist still holds down a nine-to-five job working at Excelsus Solutions in Rochester, which specializes in large-format printing, and after hours paints in a basement studio in his house. “While dinner’s cooking, I’ll change my clothes and then head downstairs. In the morning, I have a cup of coffee and then find time to paint before work. If I get up in the middle of the night, I go downstairs and work some more.” When asked if he doesn’t find that sort of schedule grueling, he says that one activity feeds the other. “My job in imaging, photography, retouching, and design in the commercial realm blends well with the fine-art pursuits. I find it relaxing to come home and resume work on my own canvases while doing the creative problem solving I do during the day. It’s a nice way to wind down or warm up.
I quite agree that there has become “too much abstract art” and was captivated by the unique quality of strong gestural strokes of paint with references to figures when I first saw A.J. Dungan’s art!
Adrienne Adler
Adrienne,
Thank you for reading Under The Radar. It’s great to hear from other people and your comments help inspire me in the studio!
AJ
I admire the way AJ delivers color with such energy and the abstraction of his subjects. The stories you can read within his work are compelling.
Andrea,
Thank you for your insightful feedback.
I appreciate your ability to read and understand my paintings. Your input motivates and inspires me!
I’ve been a fan of AJ’s for years and I admire the evolution of his style. Thank you for highlighting one of Rochester’s best!
Vicki,
Thank you for being a fan and for following my art. You have a good eye for quality, color and composition. It’s great to see the finished art presented and displayed with the same enthusiasm as I had when I did the painting.
Nice essay on Tony! He’s a skilled and imaginative artist and well deserves the attention of informed reviewers.
I am moved by the intense style of his artwork.
Tony is the real thing, a true artist, someone you can emulate.
Keep up the good work Tony you deserve all the success that comes your way
Steve,
I appreciate your comments and our regular critiques. You have shared and taught me so much. Thank you for your continued friendship and support!
great work!! i’ve been following a j’s work for only a short while and i’m very moved…the edges, the color juxtapositions, the energy…all sing to me…Many Rooms is marvelous…thanks for sharing!!!
Elynn,
Thank you!
Tony’s work gets more and more interesting. Nice write-up for a deserving artist.
Dave…thank you!
Interesting article to learn about AJ Dungan’s art background and inspiration. It brings greater understanding to the beauty of his work
Tony, you are a true inspiration and allow us who are close to you and your paintings to not only enjoy the outcome of your expressions but the day-to-day evolution of your studio experiences through the chronicles of time and the living reality of being a working artist. Your journey shows us how to emulate a great artist and evolve into one’s own visual success in a professional yet pure reality, working a full-time job and growing through yourself without complaining, with joy and personal Integrity. Thank you for all that you do for our community and for your great art.
Luvon,
Your welcome. Thank you for believing in me early in my art career. Your feedback and critiques are always right on!
Aj’s art is inspiring, beautiful and moving all at once. He also takes the time to communicate with us admirers which in itself is awesome. Thank you AJ.
Really wonderful strong work- so glad to have encountered it here. I appreciate the dedication send overlap of your day job with your painting. Bravo
Millicent,
Thank you for your positive feedback!
AJ
From the moment I step in front one of Tony’s painting I am engaged. The color, dynamics, and narrative draw me into and beyond the 2-dimensional surface. Your hard work and dedication to your craft are evident in the quality of your art and we are the beneficiaries of the beauty you create. I am so happy to see you getting the credit and recognition that you deserve.
Rob,
Thank you for your positive comments, for your support and your friendship! It’s always a pleasure to talk art and the creative process with you!
Tony,
This is a beautiful story about the evolution of an artist. I knew bits and pieces of your past but now I see the big picture. Someone once told me that when a doctoral candidate writes her dissertation she is really writing the story of her life, once again. How else could it be? So it is true of any creative endeavor; the artifacts that we create at any point in time cannot be anything more or less than an expression of our lived experiences.
I have always loved your work, but there is one piece shown here that resonates with me. You see, for as far back as I can remember I have had a recurring dream where I am in a house of many wonderful rooms. Each room must represent a part of me. What else could they be other than me? I. love these rooms, each is familiar yet novel, exciting yet soothing. I spend my days moving from room to room but I also want to be present in all of the rooms at once and somehow in my dream it is possble to do exactly that. When I first saw “Many Rooms”, I felt it. For a brief moment I was in the many rooms of my dreams.
Thank You Tony,
Lucia
Lucia,
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on my art with such details! It’s always great to sit with you and talk art, photography and Fineart printing!
AJ
In many ways our human history as witnessed by our human capacity for feeling through the experience of time and place has been most effectively documented by paintiers painting. Conceptual art is the love child of our technological age, it does not feel its way through as it beckons us to believe in hyperlinks and immaterial relativism(s), to see depth somehow in what amounts to nothing more than cleverness. My heart demands the hands are sullied with paint and the guy flooded with torment and wine. Dungan’s gut is overflowing with this drunkenness of the spirit, he is a painter’s painter, he eats paint, he cuts off parts of himself and paints these painful partings with fearless searching into every canvas. I have watched him grow now for a decade and never was their more clarity to his voice than today. Organic growth of vision speaks volumes about his intentions, which are vehemently real goals to take painting farther and by doing so to bring us along with him. There are ghosts of painters past in here and his voice speaks eloquently to them, and his steps in the work walk peacefully among them and that for me is a sign of growing greatness. I am always excited to see the next leap of faith from Dungan and that’s what they are leaps of intuitive faith moving the project forward. There is both life and death energy here, this place of his work is rare and wonderful and meaningful and true to his journey in our time and place. Bravo, dear brother! Do not go quietly into that dark night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.