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PHRASISM and THE PHRASIST MOVEMENT
Originated In the Work of Randy Pijoan
Recently Randy Pijoan has originated a way to convey the social interaction of people at this turn of the hectic 21st Century. Randy's new term Phrasism evolved from his conversations with Poet Jonathan Allen. Jonathon said that the paintings reminded him of visual Haiku Poetry, and that they serve as phrases, as from poems, or ‘distilled snap-shots of poetic phrasing,’ because they capture moments in the lives of hurried, nameless people going about their lives.
These ideas, plus correspondence with other artists, such as playwrights, photographers and sculptors soon resulted in a completely new body of work described in The Phrasist Manifesto. The movement was officially launched in the first national traveling show of Phrasism in 2001, and included invitations to other national artists, poets and writers selected for their cutting-edge work in and around the Phrasist design concepts.
Phrasist concepts in the manifesto include the following artistic components: eliminating the horizon line in all works, to better represent the other half of our lives that interacts with those views. Also, showing aspects of realism as a complete abstract reality that is without non-representational expressionistic overtones, as well as embracing the majority of our lives that continues to be un-posed, random and ever moving; always oriented toward the destination yet never relaxing into one place for very long.
Seven years after its conception in Randy Pijoan’s visual art, Phrasism has appeared in plays, movies and in the work of many other artists throughout the country. Now Pijoan’s work has once again pushed the envelope of what exactly defines Phrasism, with his most recent show at the Peterson Gallery in Santa Fe. He has currently been experimenting with new ways of pushing all the elements of Phrasist design and composition, in some of the largest and smallest paintings of his career. Pijoan explains, “Phrasism has always been about a portrait of an event, and never about the person; gambling on the fact that even within this ‘snap-shot world’ we can indeed find the beauty and paradox of a true realism yet unnoticed by the masses or the casual viewer.
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