ART IMITATING LIFE (IF LIFE INVOLVED
CONCENTRIC CIRCLES SPROUTING FROM
BEHIND OUR HEADS). John Houseman poses
with a self-portrait. His work will be
featured at Tangled Up in Hue throughout
November.

According to John Houseman, some things you just know how to do. And Houseman knows how to depict reality (and the surreal) with gouache – an opaque paint that can be thinned to the consistency of watercolor or made thick like heavy cream.

Houseman has been painting ever since his “revelation,” when he hurried home from kindergarten to see if he could draw a robot and found that he could.

“I was doing surreal stuff in high school after I developed a technique,” he said. “My favorite was making things look real – like something that could exist, but doesn’t.”

Continually inspired by the airbrush work of H.R. Giger (designer of Alien sets) and an unabashedly male fascination with cars, Houseman’s body of work is broad in style and content. There are portraits of his sons and portraits of acquaintances he’s caught on camera wearing quirky expressions. There are paintings of faces that don’t exist (an added challenge, he said) and people whose bodies have fused with machinery. He’s especially fond of the human/tank combination. “[Tanks] have ellipses. … I really like that configuration,” he says.

 

"Jim"

Sometimes Houseman depicts landscapes or houses that are familiar to Eau Claire residents. One of them (which drew 50 comments on his “Paintings I Love” website) is a west-facing view of the Barstow Street bridge. The Eau Claire River is full of yellow light, and the tops of churches are black against a wintry sky.

The era in which he painted cars had much to do with his immediate market. Modeling his business after a display kiosk he saw at O’Hare that allowed people to buy drawings of classic airplanes through an order form, Houseman started building up a portfolio of classic car paintings, which he then schlepped to one of the biggest, fanciest car shows in the nation, Chicago’s Concours d’Elegance.

“I had so many commissions afterward I didn’t have time to work anymore,” said Houseman, who quickly quit his meatpacking job and painted commissions from 1984 to 1990.

 

Houseman in his house, man.

Even those indifferent to specific makes, models, and years will find the cars striking; the reflections within the metal exteriors are impossibly precise and liquid-looking.

 “The reflection can take away from or complement the car,” said Houseman. “So I do a little circle dance around the car and look for those aesthetics. I zoom in on the grill and look for shapes, etc. These guys know them stern to stern.”

When he moved here in 1990, he says there was no market for car portraiture. “I went to a few car shows in Milwaukee, but nothing happened. So I thought, ‘If I’m going to paint, I’m going to paint what I want.’ ”

My favorite was making things look real –  like something that could exist, but doesn’t.

In fact, it was a few years before Houseman started painting what he wanted. From 1992 to 2003, he traded his paintbrush for a guitar pick. Eventually, when he sensed his girlfriend “measuring” him for being a 59-year old pizza delivery guy in a band, he started painting again. Now, music and art aren’t mutually exclusive. “Everything is together,” he says. “It’s about time management.”

Possibilities for new paintings continue to fill Houseman with excitement and industriousness. “Have you heard of the Law of Attraction?” he asks, proceeding to describe the theory in which you get what you think about. “I have a really positive attitude about painting.”

These days, though he likes his job at Jim’s Pizza, he knows he belongs in front of that blank illustration board. “I start drawing and erasing – erasing as much as I’m putting down. It just happens. It’s not like I’m doing it.”

Check out Houseman’s paintings at Tangled Up in Hue from Nov. 5 to Dec. 3 with a reception Nov. 5 from 6-9pm. For your viewing pleasure, visit paintingsilove.com/artist/johnhouseman.