Featured Artist of the Month : Greg Sinibaldi Jul. 2024 | TheArtList - Art & Photo Calls for Visual Artists and Photographers.

Greg Sinibaldi

Brooklyn, NY, USA

Greg Sinibaldi is a versatile artist, primarily known as an award-winning musician but also increasingly being noticed for his mixed media visual work. His unique style involves painting and collaging on found objects, particularly cardboard, using a mix of acrylic paint, images from discarded books, oil stick, pastel, and pencils/crayons. Many pieces serve as self-portraits, reflecting his innermost feelings.

With a background as a saxophonist and composer, including a master's degree in jazz performance, Greg intertwines his musical and visual practices. The process of painting serves as a reminder of the freedom he seeks in his musical expression.

How and when did you start creating art?

I started making visual work around 2010. I dabbled before that but started more consistently around that time. I was lucky to have enough space to do visual work and make music. Originally, I made visual work as part of my musical process. I liked the freedom I felt making visual pieces and I wanted to remind myself of that feeling when I created music. It's still a big part of my musical process and I’ve only very recently begun sharing my visual work.

What media and genres do you work in?

My first medium is music. I played saxophone since I was a kid, went to music school and have worked as a professional musician (with many day gigs!) my whole life. Visually I work with acrylics, markers, oil stick and collage. I often work on discarded cardboard I find in the street. New York is awash in cardboard! There’s so much cardboard I can be picky about what I bring home. My favorites are large TV boxes. My collage materials are usually books I take apart from the goodwill and papers I make.

I like to work on cardboard because I know some day it will turn to dust. Its very much like an improvisation... of its time and place.

Who or what are your influences?

I have too many to list. I admire so many musicians and artists that have influenced the way I think and see the world. I find inspiration from so many different places. John Coltrane, Radiohead, Bach, Basquiat, Rothko, Andrew Wyeth, Jasper Johns. I have so, so much to learn.

What was your inspiration for
Tell Them You Love Them
?

Tell Them You Love Them started as most of my pieces do, with improvising. I started with reds and yellows, made a bunch of papers with variations on those colors and kept going. Once I put the skulls down the idea of the piece became clearer to me. It made me think of my ancestors, the cycle of life, wondering what happens when we die. Do we become compost? Will I see the people I want to see? Do we become ghosts? Will I meet new people?

You know that show Henry Louis Gates does on PBS where they do the genealogy of celebrities? I think about my ancestors a lot. I want to know who they were as people. How did I come to be me? This piece tries to address that a bit.

Describe your creative process?

I am an improviser at heart. I know this comes from my training as a jazz musician, but I also think it's part of my personality. My visual work stems from this ethos. I start by putting color down, then collage, then more paint, then collage, etc. I keep going until an idea presents itself. Then I work toward the idea. I have made music with an idea in mind before starting the piece but it's exceedingly rare. I've never made a visual piece as “here’s my idea and now I’ll make something that encompasses that idea.”

I usually have many pieces in progress at once, some of the ideas are noticeably clear and others haven't revealed themselves to me yet. Some never will. I just keep working on them till I'm ready to abandon them.

What are you working on currently?

I’m working on finishing the many pieces I have started. They are mostly self-portraits, but in idea only, they don't actually look like me. I don't have that skill! As I worked on them, I began to see faces looking out on the world and the more I work on them the more they feel like an aspect of various parts of me.

What are your near/long term goals as an artist?

Near term musically, I’d like to make a record and go on the road with Radiohead. Ha! Seriously, my band, Room 31, just put out a record and I’m working on promotion and a fall tour.

Visually speaking, I’m very new to the art world. Not in looking at art of course but trying to get my work seen by people. I'd like to have my work seen by some more folks.

Long term, I want to explore ways to combine my visual and musical practices. I've made videos for a record I made but it doesn't quite fit. I have this dream of writing a musical drama. Or an opera with no singing, more like a theater piece where I make the sets and they relate to the music I've composed.