by Allyson Lipkin

"It sounds kind of profound and silly... but if I didn't sell anything I wouldn't stop painting because the enjoyment I get from creating is wonderful," says Austin's original Orange Mother, Ethan Azarian. Ethan has fronted his band the Orange Mothers for many years in Austin. These days his paintings are taking the spotlight. Gallery Lombardi's current show features emerging artists Ethan Azarian, Phil Dempsey, Eugene J. Kubelka, Ron Prince, and Owen Towles, up May 13-June 6.

He continues: "It sounds profound and kind of silly but so be it...I am thirty-six but I get to be like seven years old. I get to use my imagination. Get to use color. I always remember as a kid creating and using my imagination -- we all do. I just never really lost touch with that imaginative side."

Ethan's paintings' bright images are often child-like. With building-block shapes and colors, he plays with images alreading existing in the art world -- an Ethan-imitation of Van Gogh's bedroom, or Dali's time-honored melting clocks, or Warhol's soup cans. But he also creates his own city-world, one that includes floating coffee cups, spillage, and lost city-cows. Does this make any sense? It will when you view Ethan's works. Somehow he blends bright, flat color, big shapes, and skewed perspective in his paintings and they read with depth.

"I'm a little intimidatied by the art world; I'm intimidated by art history," Ethan explains. "You know I never studied, I'm totally untrained. So there are things like that in my work that make me hesitant...But when you want to be moving along in your career, one of the tools available is discipline. I taught myself to paint a little bit every day. Now I paint five or six hours a day. In the beginning it was hard to be disciplined. I had to come up with ideas, work on my technique. The more diligent you are, the more you work on being disciplined, the easier it becomes. I paint thirty hours a week. I sell paintings out of my home. I am by no means sucessful. I'm only succesful insofar as I work every week.

"I never know if I am going to sell a piece. It's so wierd. I'll do a show and a year later someone will call up out of the blue and say 'I saw your show at Texas French Bread -- do you still have the piece with the cow in it?' I may or may not have the piece but they'll come by the house and actually buy a piece because they saw the show. It's great. I sold a bunch of work from that show at Texas French Bread. Didn't sell a piece while it was up. I always juggle like four or five people who may or may not buy something. And eventually they will buy something. But you have to wait a year. People want to know a little history about a painting. And what inspired it. It's like selling cars or anything. People want to know that it is going to look good, that I like it. I don't like the selling part of it but I think I'm good at it. You know it is difficult for me to talk about my work. It's not a steady income."

The nature of his work, Ethan claims, is not about anything. "It's just me using my imagination. They are not political. They are not about my dreams."

"They could be perceived as such," I protested.

"They could be perceived as anything," he insisted.

"But it's your juxtaposition of images that could be perceived as political. The cows in the city scenes, for example. They do look a bit preturbed," I insisted. "No, it's true," Ethan continues, "But that wasn't intentional. A lot of times people look at art and they will come up with something that the artist wasn't thinking about...Of course that's OK. Anything is OK. All the paintings are just about me and if people like it that's great. But it's just me being creative and going through this process. I don't think I'm a great painter. I don't think I'm a great person. I just think it's great that I can paint and make a living from it. It allows me to do what I really like to do, which is paint. If I wanted to be the world's greatest painter I would have killed myself by now. There are so many -- I mean, forget it. Locally. I'm not even talking about the Picassos, and Van Goghs. The untouchables. For me it's a real personal thing, almost selfish. But I'm not selfish about my painting. I'm just selfish about my time. I feel happy when I work."

"Landings" is up from May 13-June 6. Gallery Lombardi is located at 920 W. 3rd Street.