Comments on: Artist: Greg Frux

By: D. Dina Friedman

D. Dina Friedman — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:24:19 +0000

I live in the beautiful farmlands of western Massachusetts, and the first time I saw a C5A flying over the small mountain behind my house, I had a visceral feeling of violation. This painting has the same effect; the fighter plane is dominating a landscape it has no business being in. The message is powerful and compelling: war intrudes on our lives even in serene and remote Death Valley.

By: Gregory Frux

Gregory Frux — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:31:57 +0000

The painting sits on my wall and I gaze at it with satisfaction and wonder. How amazing to be able to translate a sublime (as in beautiful and terrible) experience into paint? The artwork was the result of an idea, an oil sketch and photographs on site in remote Saline Valley. Then larger studies in my studio, research of jet types, purchase of an plastic F-16 model and lots of painting and thinking for about six months.

So, I can see that this canvas connects with people and I am very pleased. Here is a question– what is the best and highest use for this work of art? Where should it end up?

By: Matt Burd

Matt Burd — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 03:17:05 +0000

The image works. The Valley is beautiful and austere, the machine intrudes and is even hatefule. As i am predisposed to hostility to all military power, but find flying macines beautiful, predisposed to suspician of technology but also devoted to collective and individual human material accomplishments including technology this jusxtaposition could be more ambivalent for me, but soem what of the painters response transfers instead; i am horrified to see the jet and even a little frighted for the landscape that would otherwise seem so eternal and larger than human life. Thanks…

By: Janet Morgan

Janet Morgan — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:30:34 +0000

Great painting, Greg, you did an amazing job. This vision is just what it felt like to see those fighters fly out of the canyon. The Saline Valley is an astoundingly huge place, and somehow the ferocity of those jets, coming and going so fast, just punctuate the vastness and then are gone.

By: David Imbert

David Imbert — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:16:39 +0000

I once took a photo of Marine helicopters flying in protective formation for the President over Central Park’s Sheep’s Meadow. This painting has the same feeling: a fantastic, engrossing and terrifying image of modernity. A presage of a post-apocalyptic world? Maybe not, but I believe that jet aircraft are an excellent artistic device for highlighting the contrast between the fast, mechanized world and the snail’s pace of natural life. Indeed, that differential—or analogs of it—defines so many global issues, political, spiritual, environmental. Time has passed at different speeds in different places, and jets are a shocking and powerful expression of this truth. In a second, they can wipe clean all the work of a lifetime. Lucky we have artists like Greg continuing to create.

By: mark Robinson

mark Robinson — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:59:40 +0000

I have had just such experiances while climbing the cliffs at papoose flat in the inyo mountains. The planes seem to come in at impossible angles, as we see in the painting, and take whole gigantic landforms in maneuvers which take only a few seconds.

By: nanda wilson

nanda wilson — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:57:08 +0000

I am enjoying watching the development of Greg’s painting. It has this combination of amazing precision with surreal surprise.

By: rich rosenblatt

rich rosenblatt — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 04:36:01 +0000

great image greg! one wishes that no one was in the jet, and that it might crash into the valley……never to be heard from again…keep up the thought provoking work,
RR