Todd Bienvenu

Region: Northeast

I work in a free kind of way, drawing from lots of different sources, so there wasn’t an overarching “concept” initially, but more of an autobiographical feeling. These are some of the things I’ve been thinking about over the last ten months or so. Brooklyn, summertime, music, drinking beers alone or with my friends, growing up in the South, shadows, grids, the color blue . . .

The color and compositional structural decisions happen before the subject has been decided. I paint instinctively, and eventually the subjects come out of the paint. I think that keeps it from falling into an illustrative kind of place. My paintings begin as pure abstractions. The narrative is a bonus. My particular narrative happens to be predominantly playful, but tempered with melancholy or an edge.