New visions inhabit the mind of Dr. Forrest Greenslade. His organic sculptures and paintings, derived from a life-long love of nature and mythology, have a new look and feel. Greenslade’s work is highly stylized, bounding on cartoonish. His paintings are sculptural, built up with inches of thick acrylics and modeling paste to the point that they nearly jump off the canvas. His sculptures are enhanced with innovative coatings and patinas producing color, texture and an illusion of movement.
“I want people to experience motion and emotion in my art,” Greenslade asserts, “so my faces are seldom symmetrical and my figures just can’t stand still.” Greenslade’s use of materials is eclectic. “Because of my scientific training, I tend to be experimental in my choice of media,” he explains. “I use metal, concrete, clay, acrylics, wood, found-objects – whatever tells the best story.”
Best known for his whimsical animal sculptures and paintings, his new series presents an excursion into the mind of a much more serious artist. Greenslade’s highly stylized, sculptural treescapes are created in modeling paste and tarnished metals on canvas. They depict remembrances of special woodland places. Forrest Greenslade, educated as a molecular biologist, spent his working life as a scientist and organizational executive. Serious business has now been replaced by ventures into creative, playful expression. He creates art that feels to many as rather naïve, even childlike. Playing, it seems, is what Forrest does best. Whether his creativity leads to whimsical sculptures, or takes him on a journey to a “Petrified Forrest”, his work shares common threads. It displays the delight and playfulness of creating art, his unique scientific experimentation of materials and Greenslade’s life-long love of nature.
Leslie Palmer, Friends of the Pittsboro Memorial Library
Forrest’s paintings using modeling paste and tarnished metal coatings are a little reminiscent of Van Gogh in their sculptural surfaces and use of light.”
Philip Ashe, Director of the Central Carolina Community College Sculpture Program
Greenslade the scientist, in his dotage, has discovered his creative self. He doesn’t over intellectualize about his work, “Sometimes a duck is just a duck.”
“After a lifetime of serious business, it’s nice to let the little boy out,” he smiles.
“It’s more fun that any old guy deserves.
Forrest Greenslade is a member of the Chatham Artists Guild, and opens his studio and garden the first two weekends each December during the Chatham Studio Tour.
At the heart of a flourishing community of artist studios, galleries and eateries, The PAF Gallery, at the NC Arts Incubator, is centrally located at 223 N. Chatham Avenue in the Historic Downtown District of Siler City, a short drive from the Triangle or Triad.
Caption: Petrified Forrest Autumn's Glow, a relief painting by Forrest C. Greenslade, PhD
