JOHN PACOVSKY
“Opportunity Favors the Prepared Mind” By Anju Gattani The true painter must be able, with the most usual things to have the most unusual ideas. - Salvador Dali For John Pacovsky, “art is being able to express yourself so someone else can understand.” It’s a delicate balance, especially in light of the fact that Pacovsky has a penchant for finding the surreal in the real, or as he puts it, “portraying the wonder of reality.” In noticing how extraordinary ordinary things really are, the resultant paintings are a logical progression of an artist looking a little more closely at life. Pacovsky loves to stop thought and time with every painting, and considers his work a pure meeting of stillness and action. When his brush hits the canvas, when he is totally connected to the moment, when time ebbs and flows not, the act of painting becomes a meditation. “I am inspired by the words of Abraham Hicks who said, ‘I am seeking joy first and foremost, seeking reasons to laugh, seeking beauty in nature, beasts and other humans, seeking reasons to love. In every segment of every day, looking for something that brings forth within me a feeling of love, realizing that your value can only be measured in terms of joy.’” Pacovsky lives this and you can see it in his work. His fascination for fantasy and a whimsical approach to surrealism tempers his more serious messages, and this is probably what seals his connection to the connoisseur and marketing genius Michel Roux, so that when it is time to prepare imagery for an advertising campaign (be it Absolut fifteen years ago or Grand Absente today) Pacovsky is chosen to create posters to convey the brand’s image. One of the ads he did for Absolut found it’s way into the permanent collection of the Smithsonian The two met when Roux was in Eastern Pennsylvania on holiday. “I was delighted by his paintings,” commented Michel, who found Pacovsky somewhat akin to a naif Magritte. “I was surprised to find an artist with such an interesting style so far off the beaten track. Maybe amidst the sophisticates of New York, but not Wilkes-Barre. Here I expected to find a landscape artist.” Landscape of the mind is more like it. A philosopher who paints, Pacovsky deems himself a Fusionist, a self-coined term defined as “fourth dimensional concepts transcended into three dimensional realities rendered onto a two dimensional plane.” In this sense, everything for John Pacovsky is art; from the mundane to the invisible to the future he imagines. “It’s almost like a life force flows through regardless of the subject matter. Whatever the creative process is, if I’m in tune with it, it’s all magical.” This magic has blossomed into a very active thirty-year career. John’s niche at Art YOUniverse — a building where artists share work space — and his home-studio in Wilkes Barre, PA accommodate in total, a mere seven pieces of art: because, as he says, “they’re selling well.” Collectors relate to this artist who is always on the look-out for something other than what he’s done before. He likes to experiment, fuse the traditional with modern technology, break new ground and create new paradigms. As did many artists, Pacovsky started as an architecture major. He stopped mid-way when an art appreciation course diverged his interests. “Life is so short and with few freedoms. Artistic direction is one area where I can fly untethered.” He didn’t want to be restricted by art professors who weren’t making it as painters or building codes. He didn’t want to learn what he didn’t want to learn. “Hard edged painting was in vogue back then, artists were taping canvases and it was more like construction than art. That never appealed to me.” Determined to be true to himself, he dropped out of school, worked ’round the clock and taught himself how to paint. He studied the techniques of the Renaissance Masters to sharpen his need to paint “very realistic, regardless of subject matter.” What he didn’t get from Da Vinci or Raphael, he picked up from Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec and Modigiliani. “Those were my favorites, to name a few, They were like stepping stones — you see somebody do something and realize ‘I can do that too.’” John became his own instructor and continued to experiment. He quit jamming with rock bands that almost made it and stopped fighting the inner drive to paint. He took control of his own destiny and creativity by making peace with himself. continued on page 12
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Surreal Estate, painted mannequin with timepiece
Leonardo Discovers Helium
A Victim of Their Own Intelligence
“Everything turned around when I turned It floats in the tongue-in-cheek answer to the question: “If Leonardo discovered helium, around. As soon as I stopped painting for what would happen?” It is the illusion behind a perceived market, and started to paint for ‘Wishful Thinking’ and ‘Dreams Caught In me, that’s when things really picked up. The Net Of Reality. It is without label, defiDoors just started opening. Paintings began nition or justification in ‘Simple Solutions’; selling, I met Michel and I have a career.” a simple answer to a fleeting fascination for In his work, John leaves nothing to chess. There’s always a little magic in John’s chance. He has a deep comprehension of works. And how can there not be when he still physics; light, color, vibration in color, and an follows the gurus and admits “I am my favorunderstanding of the human eye and mind. ite artist”? Or perhaps that’s another tongue“Identify with the lights and darks, the blacks in-cheek reply to chew on. Ask him about his and whites. If the values are right, you are favorite masterpiece and it is a modest “always right.” He sketches each piece before the fithe next painting” Ask him what he regrets and nal work begins. “Rarely do I start something he responds, “I didn’t get a chance to live their before I know what it’s going to end like.” His (masters’) lives. But I’m getting a chance to live energy, in its continual search for a new tomine.” His inspiration is the “live and let-live” morrow, reigns in creativity from everywhere. philosophy, his perception of life, “painting “When I was fascinated by the sea that’s all I with a sense of joy. painted but there is fulfillment in every piece.” He recently invented a corner canvas, A Still-life stirs the details, holding all of life’s had it patented and sold. He has a mural due intricacies in its balance. Landscapes capture for Sears and more Absente ads to finish up. moments of awareness and place in the world. Then there’s a book, the ‘History of Absente Seascapes have long aroused his fascination, Dreams Caught in the Nets of Reality Art’ which will showcase 87 of his paintings while ‘Murals’ extend his sense of fun and in collaboration with Michel Roux. His goal wonder as he works on scales shifting between is to one day exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and micro and macro levels simultaneously. “In taking thought beyond lead an art movement. And why not, because, as he says, “Be true to where it’s been and making your imagination real is where fantasy yourself and follow your inner drive. In art anything is possible.” and realism collide. 12 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2008