Fred Stonehouse

The Comedy of Oblivion

2019

Fred Stonehouse was born in 1960 in Milwaukee, WI. He received his BFA from UW Milwaukee in 1982. He had his first solo show in Chicago in 1983 and shows regularly in New York at Howard Scott Gallery and in Los Angeles with Koplin/DelRio. He has exhibited in Mexico, Amsterdam, Rome and Berlin. He has been the recipient of an NEA Arts Midwest Grant and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Individual Artists Grant. He is currently an Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin tradition of tall tales came out of a practice of storytelling around campfires and in the bunk houses of logging camps. The exaggeration of these stories had to be tempered with elements of humor, adventure, and an understanding of the human condition in order for them to be of lasting interest and persistence in the oral culture. A native of Wisconsin, Fred Stonehouse is widely known for his depictions of a cast of invented characters which heartily nod to his local folkloric predecessors. His subjects, like those of the old tall tales, are hybrids created for their narrative value, often humorous in their imaginative absurdity. Stonehouse presents fragments of personalities, conflicts, fables, and surreal settings, always giving the sense that a fantastic story lies just beyond what can be gleaned from the image alone.