Jason Fairchild
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Apr 26
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Jason Fairchild doesn’t wait around before getting started. If something catches him—a flash of color, a memory, a feeling—he picks up the brush. There’s no sketch, no fixed idea. He works straight onto the surface, one move leading to the next. His process is fast and physical. Layers go on, get scraped off, shifted, repainted. You can see where things changed direction. Every decision leaves a visible mark. He doesn’t pause to correct or overthink—he keeps going, keeps reacting. Nothing’s too precious in his work. If a part doesn’t feel right, it goes. The image keeps changing until something clicks and he moves on to the next one.
Q: You talk about painting as a kind of visual dialogue. What do you hope gets said in that exchange?
A: I want the viewer to feel like they’ve stepped into a conversation already in progress, one that doesn’t need words. These paintings are emotional artifacts; they speak in rhythms, tension, and release. I hope what gets said is whatever the viewer needs to hear at that moment—grief, wonder, defiance, clarity. I’m not prescribing meaning. I’m inviting presence. If someone walks away with a flicker of recognition or a question they didn’t expect to ask themselves, then the dialogue has done its work.
Q: Your process seems rooted in impulse and intuition. What usually sets a painting in motion for you?
A: It’s almost always a feeling first. Something unresolved, restless, or even joyful, but it comes as energy, not image. I rarely know what the finished piece will look like. It might be a sonic memory, a dream I didn’t fully remember, or just an urge to disrupt silence with color. I begin with movement—my body’s gesture is the first mark—and then I respond. Every layer is a reaction to the last. Sometimes the painting leads, sometimes I wrestle it back. That friction is part of the process.
Q: In works like "Fragments of a Distant Fire" or "Whispers in Metal and Sky", movement is a constant. What keeps you chasing that sense of motion?
A: Movement is the only truth I trust. Everything is in flux—our thoughts, our identities, the world itself. My work is an attempt to freeze motion, not in a static way, but like a photograph of something already shifting. When I paint, I’m chasing that pulse beneath the surface—the heartbeat of becoming. Stillness has its place, but it’s the turbulence that feels alive to me.
Q: Color hits hard in your work. How do you know when a palette is doing what it needs to?
A: Color is visceral. It’s not an intellectual decision, it’s a gut one. I know it’s working when it makes me stop and feel—sometimes with awe, sometimes discomfort. I want my colors to collide, to burn, to blur. When a palette starts vibrating on the canvas like a live wire, that’s when I know it’s saying something true. I trust that electricity. If it’s too quiet, too polite, I keep going.
Q: There’s a tension between control and chaos in your pieces. Where do you draw the line between the two?
A: That line is constantly shifting. Control gives me the structure to create, but chaos is what breathes life into it. I let chaos into the room first, then ask it to stay long enough to leave a fingerprint. Some days the work demands order, a deliberate restraint; other times it’s a storm, and I’m just trying to hold on long enough to capture it.
The line isn’t where I draw it, it’s where I feel it. And when the balance is just right, you can feel the piece vibrating between the two poles.
Q: You’ve said each piece is its own territory. What have you learned from the ones that fought back?
A: The pieces that resist the most are the ones that change me. They don’t care about my plan or my control. They force me to listen, to let go, to surrender. Sometimes they break the rules I didn’t know I was following. I’ve learned that surrender doesn’t mean failure—it’s often where the most honest work happens. The ones that fight back teach me that I’m not just painting a canvas, I’m painting my own blind spots. And when I finally get through, they become the most powerful pieces in the room.
