Benefiting from all the good that life has to offer in Southern
California, Nathan Frizzell had a good dose of exposure to a wide array of art from
early on. Trying his hand at different styles, he soon realized that he “was a lot better at the more
traditional side of art, like figures and still lifes,” than in creating street art. And yet, graffiti
and illustration in his friends’ magazines still left a mark on the way his artwork looks today. “I
think what I loved most were the big shapes and bright colors. I try to mix that in with the work I
do today,” says Frizzell, who, after graduating from the Otis College of Art and Design, decided to
pursue a career in painting. He now lives and works in Los Angeles.
The
cotton-candy color scheme in a lot of Frizzell’s paintings cannot betray the underlying melancholic,
even claustrophobic, atmosphere. “There's actually a lot of ‘me’ in my paintings,” says Frizzell, who
employs a number of recurring symbols and images that relate to his experiences in his work. “The birds
are sometimes symbols of freedom to me. But they can also be reminders of all my worries, constantly
floating around me. The butterflies are symbols of change and growing to be something bigger and better,”
explains Frizzell. Putting masks on his characters’ faces gives the onlooker the chance to create their
own story within the paintings; to see themselves.
“Sing”
is a kind of self-portrait that he painted in a stretch of his life when he was trying to figure out
what his place in the world was. “So there is me; faceless and stuck. The tree is pretty and whimsical
because that's the world I want to live in. It reminds me of what the world would look like in Neverland
where you would have no worries or obligations. The birds with the skull heads are kind of a symbol
of all your worries, constantly floating around you. So in this instance, my worries are staring me
in the face, singing out to me and forcing me to confront them. I'm eventually going to have to grow
up, find a way to get down from the tree and face my life.”
Link:
www.natefrizzell.com
