William Pavelsek

Living in Wisconsin his entire life, William, (Bill) Pavelsek was born in 1951 in Columbus, grew up in Portage and now lives in Madison.  Painting has always been natural to Bill, he has been painting since childhood.  In 1976 he received a B.S. in Art from the UW-Madison.  For 16 years he worked as a photo retoucher/restorer.  The work went hand-in-hand with painting.  It included such things as reproducing photographs and negatives as well as restoration of existing photographs, matting and framing .

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“I have consistently painted and drawn since high school.  I am inclined to follow an Impressionist idiom.  Ideally this means one session of painting, sometimes a couple.  Drawing and painting at the same time drawing not with a pencil but with the brush, with the color.  It’s a fast execution, rapid.”“I always work plein-aire which offers a good challenge and reward. The challenge is in actually excepting the work; transporting your equipment, having the right equipment with you, being in the elements, dealing with the wind, the cold, the bugs. The reward is when you capture it. You feel as if you’ve done something. You’re tired, but it’s a good kin of tired. Its nice to work outside, things can happen around you. You can take it in through your skin. You commune a little bit with nature. There’s a communal aspect to it.”       

“I paint what’s around me, the vernacular, the everyday.  working outdoors keeps my painting genuine.  I feel committed to a sort of realism, if abstracted a bit.  I aim to produce something authentic, I try for that.  Because if you’re looking hard enough and trying hard enough you’re getting truth.  I’m interested in that moment of truth, that moment of time.”