The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/15/09 Section: Variety

Media Credit: JIM DIFFLY Second year graduate printmaking student Tate Foley poses with his work in Lamar Dodd. Foley credits text for playing a crucial part in his artwork, which is largely a reaction to other artists' work. [Click to enlarge]

Editor's note: Every Wednesday, variety writer Katie Andrew will profile a different local artist. This is the seventh installment in the series.

All work and no hyperactive attention deficit disorder makes Tate Foley a very dull boy. The painter gone printmaker gone photographer keeps impulse at his fingers as he shatters the English language all over his page.

"I like to take words and change them, flip the letters to make new letters, paint out certain letters to make new words altogether," said Foley, a second year graduate printmaking student. The practice he describes is evident in one of his drawings, which features the text "Oh holy, how divide," the last word having plainly been altered from its original, "divine."

Foley said he doesn't consider himself very literary, but maintains a constant enthusiasm for text.

"Whenever I look at anything in the world, text is the first thing I see," he said. "It is the constant truth in my art. Text comes out in a lot of my pieces as the only image, the only object."

When it comes to capturing the spark that motivates his hand, Foley's instincts are his greatest stimuli. Drawing ideas from blogs and other "Web 2.0" outlets, Foley enjoys applying inspiration directly to his work.

"A lot of [my art] is immediate reaction to art that I see," he said. "I try to take that and flip it into something I can use. The barn, for instance."

On a recent road trip to Chicago, Foley encountered the Midwestern alternative to billboards.

"Barn advertising is huge in that part of the country."

With some editing, of course, the artist recreated the wryly comical image of rural advertising.

Though somewhat bashful about his multi-medium mastership, Foley admits to being galvanized by his own photography.

Continued...

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