By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Josh Byers started doing masonry with his father when he was a kid.
He was drawing before then.
He’s still doing both – working in construction by day and creating art at night and on weekends.
This is not a night and day division of labor. His work life flows into his art work, which is informed by his love of pop culture and music.
“All Rip, No Drip,” an exhibit of photo realist paintings by Byers, who also goes by the name 60wattfunnel, opens Saturday, May 14, with a reception from 5 to 9 p.m. at Gallery 131, at 131 West Wooster St., Bowling Green.
One painting depicts an arc welder complete with wires dangling from the front, and in a characteristic touch Byers included the logo for the band AC/DC.
A cooler – Byers says he loves old metal coolers – sits on a tool chest. The chest is decorated with stickers from Slayer, Elvira, Beavis & Butthead, and others. The cooler has only one sticker – Mike Tyson.
Asked if he would do art full time if he could, he responds, “I don’t know if I’m so obsessed. I think I’d go crazy.”
Having “two full-time jobs .. just keeps me sane.”
Byers grew up in Akron and came to Bowling Green State University in 2000 to study art. He worked with John Balistreri and Shawn Morin and created large ceramic and steel sculptures. He got his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 3D Art and then looked down the road at graduate school. He decided that was not the route he wanted to take.
He returned to the construction work he’d done with his father. There’s the issue of money and debt. The construction work gives “me that outlet and subject matter.”
Byers switched to painting because “I just realized that I can paint wherever I’m at.”
Doing ceramics and steel constructions requires more space and equipment.
Byers is converting the garage at the home he and his wife bought in Toledo’s Old West End into a studio to give him more space.
His sculptures, he said, were “pretty much drawings in space “ and the subjects of his paintings are sculptural. “It’s kind of a ying-yang thing,” Byers said.
Even when he was making ceramic and steel “I couldn’t wait to have it fabricated so I could paint it,” he said. “I just wanted to make my mark. I’m taking something blank and turning it into something.”
He relates to the functional nature of the objects. When he paints a cooler, he can feel what it’s like to reach in and grab a cold beer.
One painting is of a container of Lava heavy soap. “I used that a lot since I was a kid,” he said.
The image is also a commentary on pandemic protocols that called for “washing your hands hundreds of times, so I threw in that ‘oh shit sticker,’” he said, as a bit of humorous commentary. It’s a matter of “not taking yourself too seriously,” he said, as well as “trying to make a nice composition that’s strong, and I think it tells a story.”
He still does some 3D work – feed caps made of steel or old work shoes encased in concrete.
He also paints canvas to look like wood or drywall, and then paints on Post-it notes. One note is a list of items to pick up. It starts with Portland cement and ends with “flower for her hair.”
“It’s still a blue collar mentality,” he said. Nostalgia works its way in. He’ll paint some treasured item he had when he was young “something I’d like to have now, but it’s vintage so I can’t afford it.”
He has music playing in background as he paints. It could be Nirvana or George Jones. “I listen to everything.”
“Anything, black – Black Sabbath, the Black Keyes, Black Angels.” He particularly likes Willie Nelson and outlaw country.
Whatever it is, he said, it’ll find its way into his work.
He’s worked with some galleries, but now arranges his own shows. He has work up in the Original Sub Shop on Broadway. The owner “lets me hang a bunch of work down there to get it out of my hair.”
The exhibits are a way to help him keep in touch with his art friends and former teachers. What he sells allows him “to make more paintings.”
“It’s not my main source of making a living,” Byers said. “I’m just trying to pay my bills and have a good time and try to smile every day if I can.”
