Eliot Greenwald

Eliot Greenwald and his art

Lots of artists dread being asked about the meaning of their work. For some, it’s too personal; for others, it’s too hard to put into words (which is why they put it into pictures instead). And for artists like Eliot Greenwald, it’s because he’s not really sure.

“So, a lot of people ask me, ‘What’s going on with this piece?’” Greenwald says. “And no one likes to hear me say I don’t know. Because I know where they came from, but there’s no specific ideology behind any of them…. If I can’t give them a specific answer, I’ll just start rambling. But what I like is that we’re talking and it brings up ideas for me of what it could possibly be. So, I’ve been working on my artist statement, and this is how far I’ve gotten.”

Greenwald walks into his small bedroom studio and finds a piece of paper with a few sentences scrawled in pencil.

“I want to show you my work and, by doing so, inspire unity among us all who feel uncertain,” he reads. “We have no idea, only ideas.”

Greenwald (eliotgreenwald.com), whose piece “View of the Alley” graces this week’s cover of CityBeat, best describes his pieces by bringing up a book he remembers from elementary school. It was filled with bizarre pencil illustrations, and it started at the end and asked the kids to fill in the narrative.

“That’s how I feel about my paintings,” he says. “Because of all the faces in it, anyone can take their own personal experiences and kind of create the story that could possibly lead up to this. Or they can just take one piece of it and say, ‘I relate to the crazed face of this one person or the calm face of that one.’”

The faces are the starting point for Greenwald. Recently, his source material has been his collection of pre-1960s Life magazines. He flips through, finds photos of people he likes and uses pencil on wood to bring them to life.

“There’s just tons of great black and white photos,” he says, thumbing through one of the vintage magazines. “I mean, come on—that’s gold.”

For the bigger pieces that will go in his upcoming solo show opening at Planet Rooth Design Haus from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, Nov. 5, Greenwald’s been using grids and carefully copying the faces onto his wood panels. But when he pulls out his older work, he points out faces he’s drawn freehand; stylistically, they’re more interesting and unusual.

He digs those pieces and will go back to freehand when he’s not worrying about getting ready for a big solo show. These days, he can’t wait to make new work because he finally feels like he’s coming into his own.

“I still have a ways to go,” he says, “but my style is starting to emerge.”