A portrait of his nephew carrying milk buckets through a picturesque dairy farm nestled in the Adirondack Mountains won a KSU professor the Award of Excellence from the 2019 Portrait Society of America’s International Competition.
Professor of Art Joe Remillard’s painting, “Next Generation,” features his nephew Josh, who is in the process of taking over the family dairy farm. The Portrait Society International Competition received more than 3,000 submissions, and Remillard was among 27 painters who received the prestigious award.
Remillard grew up on that dairy farm in the Adirondack Mountains of northeastern New York, as one of 14 children. He said his childhood home is one of his favorite places to paint. KSU even gave him a leave of absence in spring and fall 2018 to go practice his art in the Adirondacks.
The traditional realist has set his heart on teaching in addition to painting. Having taught at KSU for 20 years, Remillard’s love of teaching comes from learning from his students and being around others who have a similar passion for art.
Remillard took art classes after work at night while he practiced as an attorney in New York, but after just three years, he discovered his passion for art and moved south to get a master’s degree in painting from the University of Georgia.
Italy and Atlanta are reoccurring locations in his paintings. Remillard says Italy reminds him of the genuineness of people and the simplicity of living in the Adirondacks. He says he misses painting in the Adirondacks and Italy, but he is content that Atlanta is his home.
Remillard’s paintings of the Cabbagetown neighborhood in Atlanta are being exhibited at Mason Fine Arts. He says he was attracted to the Cabbagetown scenes by the same honesty he felt in the imagery he sees from the Adirondacks and from Italy.
“It represents a little chunk of history in time I want to remember,” Remillard said. “All of these paintings are washed over by a real appreciation for how light plays on color at certain times of the day and that’s definitely what’s going on in the Cabbagetown paintings.”
Remillard says he paints to remember people and places. He always visits a location a second time to see if the inspiration is still present before his brush touches the canvas.
“I’ll sit myself down in a location for a couple of hours and see how the lighting changes and the weather changes and things that I wasn’t expecting to see come into the scene,” Remillard said. “That’s where some of the beauty of being a painter comes about — waiting around to see what happens.”
In the future, Remillard hopes to exhibit all of his Adirondack paintings in one show. He said he also wants to go back to his family’s farm and create more paintings.
For more on his art, visit joeremillard.com.
