Today we’d like to introduce you to Avery Cordray.
Avery, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
So I started painting at Glassell Art School in the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas when I was around eight or so. I fell in love with the range of things I was allowed and able to create. There were no guidelines or real, specific answers to any questions, just freedom. I was always a hyperactive child, needing to move around constantly which art let me do with my hands. I was the same in high-school, when I met one of the most influential people in my life to date. Sharon Wilcutts was my high-school art teacher who inspired me to paint without hesitation or over-analyzing. I bloomed and started creating at a crazy speed. The amount of freedom and peace I experienced was starting to show me where I could take this “Art thing” I had encountered. I then went on to college at the University of Mississippi, where I honestly was going to enter the pre-med program. Ha Ha Ha. I went to a couple biology classes and soon realized that was not going to work out. I took a color theory class for one of my elective classes. This blew my mind. The harmonious relationships that coexisted with the juxtaposing color clashes opened my eyes to a whole new world. I then received a BFA in studio art, which was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I immediately knew I wanted a career in art. After college I moved to Los Angeles. I had never seen anything like it… Houston was massive, but here you are never bored. The inspiration is all around you no matter where you go… Its invigorating. I am in Los Angeles now where I am never bored and constantly exposed to inspiration and beautiful things. Through the self-doubt, excitement, struggles, and criticism I am now here doing what I love: painting.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Smooth road… No not quite. I have struggled with depression and anxiety my whole life. These cause me to constantly criticize and double think my motives, outcomes, and positivity. I have always had this idea that I need to be doing something that can be physically used, the literal meaning of utilitarian. Creating art helps people and gives the world something other things cant and I see that. Sometimes I forget these things and get down on myself as some people do. I try to create images and views that give the audience an escape from the anxiety of this world and the situations that cause us to hurt. I am finally at a point where I can sort out my feelings and emotions through the oil paint being applied to a canvas. Creating constantly is also tough. I get worn out almost as if I feel like there is nothing left in my brain to expel. Those are funks that I often go through. As quick as I get in a funk I find myself inspired by something here in the city of Los Angeles and I’m creating freely again.
Please tell us about Oils by Avery.
I am a freelance artist. I sell my paintings on my website or on of instagram. I am most known for my odd shapes, contrasts in colors, and layered atmospheric areas in my oil paintings. My pieces are a mixture of a surrealist vibe with the world of color from the expressionist movement. I specialize in oil paintings and love venturing out into watercolor, sculpture, and drawing. I experiment every time I paint which gives me so much to keep painting.
I explore connected shape and color to spotlight the situational illusions and allowances that muddle our perceived realities. Atmospheric interplay of layered shapes in space clot and coagulate to a respiratory like effect. My oil paintings revel in the bliss of an unorthodox marriage between the subjective and the projective. I let the work free itself of the technical and guided ways the world expects from it. My work sorts through the dilemmas concerning color choices as the relief from constant overthinking and anxieties. My work is influenced and driven by these anxieties that cause doubt. I work with blind contouring to relieve doubt, therefore incorporating it to coexist with the confidently defined linework. These differences between confident action and the unclear, undefined reflect the search for a middle ground I strives to define. Movement is my process with no checkpoint, no destination, only itinerary and the sole act there of. A map of how I seeks to act in my daily life is translated into my pieces whether or not those daily decisions yield tangible ends is simultaneously superfluous although essential. The works are oil paint on canvas working with intense linework and shapes that float in and out of atmospheric layers. The layering of shapes and lines depict the curiosity and the need to fill a void in knowledge fuels my pieces. My paintings strive to emit a new perspective on life and personal mindset, keeping the viewer’s expectations evolving toward change in an old new body.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would not do a think differently. Maybe to believe in myself a bit more, but I am now to a point where I know what will happen will happen. I am so grateful for all the experiences I have had. The ups the downs everything has culminated into the bliss I am now living which is doing what I love.
Contact Info:
- Website: averycordray.co
- Email: [email protected]
Image Credit:
Tyler D Hoskins
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