Today, I am thrilled to bring you a conversation with one of my favorite oil painters, Gregory Thielker. I find his work entirely transportive- and a bit selfishly, I find his treatment of the rainy streets just absolutely captivating. We spoke about his craft, his process, and his upcoming exhibition at Guy Hepner Gallery, 'The Liquid Night.' Let's dive in.

Gregory, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. Can you start by introducing yourself to our community? Where you are from, based, and the mediums and styles you work in?

My name is Gregory Thielker and I’m an American artist based in Paris. I grew up outside of New York but I’ve been fortunate to travel and live in different parts of the world. Painting has always been there for me, giving me a way to see the world, and because its a slow process, I’m forced to slow down too.

I am a painter, but I use photography in work, and I also do drawing and watercolor. For the past several years, I have been focusing on the views you see from inside of the car while driving, and the rain hitting the windshield creates a fluid lens for seeing the world outside.

To me its infinitely challenging because the view is changing from one second to another.

Beautifully said. I’m obviously a huge fan of the scenes you create, and I love the rain for many of the reasons you describe. Can you tell us a bit about the process? The paintings you make are so realistic, they almost look photographic, it is so satisfying to zoom in and see the smallest strokes coming together to create something so seamless. How do you make these paintings?

Appreciate that- I was so taken by your photography. I really sense the feeling of being there on the street looking out in your work, and i think that sense of being held in that moment is what I am always trying to achieve. To start, I do a lot of driving in the rain, I try to go out in the early or late hours of the day to capture the softer colors and sense of light.

I take a lot of photographs, playing with the windshield wipers to see whether the rain will be a light screen through which you see the road, or if it becomes fully abstracted with sheets of water. I often drive in loop, searching for a combination of the place, and the water's interaction with the view. Then I go through them on the computer and cut, edit, and reassemble them til i have the image I want.

I paint with oils on linen, and usually about 4-6 layers before the painting is done. I appreciate the idea that from far away they look like the real view or photograph, but up close, they break down into brushstrokes.

Love to hear about this thoughtful, meticulous yet mediative process. And your last line reminds me- when I zoom into my own photos, far enough, it eventually breaks down into pixelated color blocks, much like each pixel is one spot of paint.

Cool to approach similar subjects from entirely different mediums
What was your introduction to a creative life? Carving a path as an artist is no easy task- what originally motivated you to pursue this journey?

That’s very true, the images let us get lost inside them
and I think is a thoughtful experience, that going back and forth.

You're right, its not an easy path. When I was young , I loved painting, and felt such a connection to artists i would see in museums- but i had never met a living artist, nor considered that you could do this as your career or lifestyle. When I was in college, I went to see a show at MoMA with the German artist Gerhard Richter, and for the first time I saw big, beautiful, luscious paintings (realistic and abstract) being done by a living artist. I guess you could say that impression has never left me.

After that I tried to go back to school for art, but tastes were very different, and performance and concept art kind of dominated. So trying to be an artist, and a representational artist, this was a big no-no. Now things are different, it feels like any and all styles have acceptance, but one positive piece of this pushback I got was to ask myself, 'why?' And now even though I still have questions, I feel that art is one of the few places where the answers can be complex; emotional and physical, intuitive and explicit.

Incredible. Just love the way you worded that. What are your hopes and expectations for your upcoming solo show at Guy Hepner gallery?

The new show is made up of night paintings- views primarily in New York when it's dark, and the rain is beating down. I started by doing paintings of the bridges and tunnels going in and out of the city, and there is a pretty remarkable view of the entrance to the Lincoln tunnel as cars crowd and merge to get in (called 'Holding Sway'). You feel like something is about to happen any second, and we know traffic moves this way, going from an absolute standstill to shooting through the tunnel.

And there is also a flow to driving at night, because it feels like you can fly around the city without anything to stop you. I noticed that the lights - the streetlights overhead, red taillights in front, and reflections of storefronts, all seem to be amplified against a dark sky. At one point, I was driving down an avenue, and it was mobbed with fire trucks on both sides. I had to slow down and pull through the middle, but the image I got ended up looking like this astral vision of stars and galaxies (that one is 'Constellation'). Each view is more feeling than story.

As I finish all of the paintings, I am reminded that 'desire' is built upon distance, and the absence of what you want. So for me, much of this exhibit is a bittersweet ode to the nights in the city I left. And hopefully, it reminds other people of these moments too.

Beautifully said man. I absolutely love your work and I'm excited to see your show in person. Keep making beautiful things and inspiring us all with the worlds you create. To the reader, connect with Greg via his Instagram account.

A few thoughts of my own about the impact and power of The Liquid Night:

As a photographer who wanders through the watery worlds of New York City, I know that nothing transforms the night like a veil of rain. Absent of its bright sun, the city holds a muted air that is punctuated by the glows of artificial light. Headlights sweep over slick pavement, incandescent street lamps flicker through the gloom, and windows illuminate the walls of concrete canyons, each glimmer in the darkness another unknown story.

When a storm sweeps through these scenes, this beauty is scattered and amplified, and the oil on linen works of Gregory Thielker hold these moments in time. Art gives us a way to study things that time usually whisks away- the complex beauty of rain on a windshield, its droplets pushed by the wind into long rivulets that wander to the edges of our vision. What is usually gone in an instant is instead held in suspense, and the viewer can luxuriate in these details.

To immortalize something that is usually fleeting, and oft overlooked, is a difficult but worthy pursuit. With “Holding Sway,” for example, our perspective is placed behind a layer of glass, our gaze on the arch of a tunnel, darker still than the surrounding scene, punctuated by the brake lights of hesitant commuters. What could be a moment overlooked by any driver is now at a scale that speaks to the beauty of our in between moments, the places between here and there, where most of life ends up unfolding anyway. “Indefinite Escape” pushed even further into the abstract beauty where water and light collide.

This scene is twisted by the collision of elements, nature bends the artificial light into organic shapes and swirls, an almost fractal maze of light and color, with the warped steel of a bridge suspended between two worlds. In contrast, “Constellation” gives us a more clear view of a classic New York avenue, broken into the smooth unfocused circles of distant city lights that illuminate the darkness of the island at the center of the world.