Jeff Fouch
Boss Pours, Chief of Color
I began my artistic career as a dancer, training in many styles of dance for over 30 years. Performing onstage at the World's Fair in Seville, Spain; the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; in Chicago, NYC, and LA; and as far away as the Netherlands with Kristina Isabelle Dance Company, I settled in Columbus where I founded and performed with Columbus Moving Company (2012-18), and performing this Fall in my eleventh season with Short North Stage at the historic Garden Theater.
In 2019, a friend let me join her in pouring paint into cups and flipping them over onto canvases. I loved that all I had to do was pick the ingredients - the colors - and the painting essentially painted itself. I have always been deterred by fine art (hence my career in dance) because of my struggle with not knowing when to stop correcting, stop editing, stop overworking - stop trying to make it perfect. Paint pouring invited me to release control, “go with the flow”, to trust my instinct for color and to find perfection in the imperfect.
From a young age I was drawn to the vibrant colors and epic scope of comic books. I related to the heroism of the X-Men above all others - the uncanny band of outcasts and misfits, with genetic mutations that were at the same time a gift and a curse, resonated deeply within me, and their bravery gave me hope as a queer adolescent whose favorite color was secretly purple (not blue). Comics, as well as astrology, Tarot & Mother Nature have been the core inspiration for my chosen palettes and color combinations.
After many hours of stirring and literally watching paint dry, I’ve found this art form to be incredibly therapeutic and centering. I am frequently mesmerized by the patterns and gradients manifested through this work, and, like picking out shapes in clouds, it is always fascinating finding organic mirages within the layers of paint that stretch to form archipelagos, reptilian skin, galactic nebulae, sub-marine depths, and cellular dreamscapes.
What do you see?