Staff Profile
Interview with Darril Tighe
Lara Miller
Q: Tell me about something about your work, and about how you started painting.
I am an abstract painter, and I use watercolor on paper to make my images. I started on my own several years before I went to art school. I was an English major as an undergraduate and 10 years after graduating with a degree in English I returned to Claremont California, and studied art at Claremont Graduate School. It was the best two and a half years of my life. We were involved with art twenty-four hours a day and school expanded my vision and my talent. I love painting more than anything else in my life. It makes me feel completely alive when I am painting. I use color to create my compositions, so I probably would consider myself a colorist. I consider my paintings to be about color and light. I grew up in Hawaii and the colors of the tropics play a big role in my work.*
Q: Who are some of your influences?
I had a mentor in art school, a brilliant sound sculptor—he was my most immediate influence, Michael Brewster, probably the smartest person I know. He challenged and encouraged me. The hardest thing about graduating was to leave him behind. Other than him as an influence, my favorite painter is Mark Rothko. I love his work and he has inspired me. I saw a retrospective in Los Angeles and it knocked my socks off. Other than him I love Jackson Pollock, William Turner, Helen Frankenthaller --- all the modern abstract painters. Also Matisse and the German Expressionists. I like a lot of different types of artwork. I wait for a piece to grab me. I go to museums and galleries all the time. Besides the influence of other artists, my work is inspired by nature, light, color, the environment, whatever is happening at the time---friends, good conversation, etc.
Q: Your website shows some pieces from a series of autobiographical paintings. Can you tell me something about this series?
I conceived of an idea to create watercolor paintings as an abstraction of each year of my life--- it was like creating a problem to solve. I would muse about the year, bring in memories, diaries, letters, etc. and then would paint with that year in mind. I created 38 of those paintings before I ran out of steam. Some of them are my most successful paintings-very expressive. My modernist mentor would not have approved.
Q:When do you paint?
Whenever I can. I am always on as an artist. I see colors and shapes all the time. I have honed my eyes to see colors and compositions constantly. That being said, I paint in the evenings when I get home from work, and sometimes in the morning before work, and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night after a dream and paint. And, of course, I have the weekends to devote to work where I am not interrupted. Some of my best work comes when I go to an art colony and paint all day and into the night. There is a consistency in time. It is hard to do this with a full time job.
Q: Does your job in the history department ever have any influence on your work in the studio?
Everything influences my work. All my interactions with people, the politics of the world, my relationships--- I feel like I paint from intuition and emotion. When I start to work, I clear my mind, and then make a mark and go from there. My best work happens when I leave my ego behind and transcend the experience and let what happens take over.
* The painting shown above is Pele (41/2' x 6', watercolor on paper.) In Hawaiian mythology, Pele is the goddess of volcanoes.
