Timothy David Lang was poring over equations in a microeconomics class at Salisbury University in Maryland a decade or so ago when something snapped.
“I thought there’s no way I can do this to myself,” he recalls. “I switched my major the next day from business to art.”
The results will be on display throughout September at Gallery Egan in Morristown. The show, called Specifics, features 10 acrylic-on-canvas works ranging up to three-by-five feet in size, priced from $1,800 to $3,200.
Tim’s early creations were in the contemporary realism style, based on photographs with exaggerated colors. He liked to juxtapose urban scenes and landscapes, for a tension/release contrast.
Specifics strives for the same contrast effect–in an abstract way. Each piece in the series is a diptych with a calm hue on one side and an explosion of colors on the other that suggests his fascination with graffiti as a student at Morristown High School.
“I only did legal walls,” he insists, clarifying his graffiti days.
Tim returned to Morristown this year, after six years in North Carolina, to be closer to the New York art scene. His transition to abstract expressionism was partly practical–photorealism pieces were averaging about four months each to complete. Yet he finds his minimalistic new medium liberating on an artistic level, too.
“Producing this work is a little more enjoyable,” says Tim, 31. “There, you stick to an image. Here, I can use my arm and wrist and hand and explore color relationships that you wouldn’t see in real life.”
That exploration relies on palette knives, scrapers, markers, pens and graphite more than paint brushes, he says.
Real or abstract, Tim is a man of inherent contrasts.
“I can be very calm and philosophical, and at other times, really intense,” he says. “I’m a very intense person, very passionate. There’s a push and pull between who I am.”
His passions include surfing, jazz and classic hip hop music; he is doing an album with his group, Systematic.
To pay the bills, he works at Rod’s Steak & Seafood Grille in Madison. He shares an apartment on Morristown’s Speedwell Avenue with Rick Bedkowski, an artist who recently had his own show at Gallery Egan. They rent from another artist, Robert Richardson.
Although this will be Tim’s 10th show, it’s his first solo exhibition. A small army of family and friends–including his mentor and former professor Jinchul Kim— has promised to attend a reception on Friday.
“He’s very hard core and very passionate about what he’s doing,” says the professor, who has exhibited at galleries from New York to Florida, and in South Korea. “Tim has an incredible amount of energy. I’m really optimistic about his future.”
Tim views Specifics as an important milestone, as he prepares to start pitching New York galleries next year. It’s a process, a journey, and he is patiently following a carefully crafted road map.
“I’ve worked 10 years to be standing here talking to you about this show,” Tim says, showing his calm, reflective side.
