An Artists Path

It can be a challenge to identify a work by Neill Slaughter because of the diverse nature of his work. The world-renowned artist, who lives in an 1890 Victorian house in Southampton Village, has drawn and painted a wide range of subject matter — from plein-air landscapes/seascapes to scenes of social commentary based on his travels in third world countries throughout his four-decade career.

Throughout his life, beginning with his childhood in Annapolis, Maryland as well as time spent in such nautical places as Galveston, Hilton Head Island and the Virgin Islands, he has maintained a fascination with the sea. Early on he spent a summer in an historic English harbor village “drawing the ebb and flow of tidal life.”

Slaughter not only paints his seascapes where he lives, though Southampton has been a primary inspiration, he also takes his easel to such favorite locations as the beaches of Maine. Because of the changing nature of plein-air painting, he aims to quickly capture the essence of what is being portrayed to achieve “a sense of urgency and spontaneity in the brushwork.”

During four decades of teaching art at the university level, Slaughter has traveled throughout the world to teach, conduct research and create art. His extensive forays have influenced his works, which often reflect the social conditions of his surroundings. His many fellowships include a Scottish Arts Council Grant, an LMU Research Grant to Africa and a Fulbright Fellowship to India.

In his social commentary pieces the artist often contrasts like with unlike to dramatically make a point. In his Africa America Amalgamation series he compared urban American culture to rural African societies. In his 1980s diptych Dance Fever he portrayed a bacchanalian revelry at Studio 54 alongside Zulus performing a fertility dance. “I was essentially upsetting the stereotypical notion that whatever is equated with the term “civilized” is generally thought of as better or more progressive than that labeled “uncivilized.”

His Civilization Sinking is a metaphor for his encounters in India. “I found the country a study in contrasts that assault one’s senses at nearly every turn,” he says. “I was perplexed as to why the country would not save the crumbling ruins of this historically significant temple that was slowly sinking into the Ganges, the holy river where literally millions make a pilgrimage to cleanse their soul in some of the most polluted water on Earth.”

In a self-portrait called Looking Back, which he created for a mid-career retrospective in 2008, “the title both literally and symbolically refers to my looking back on three decades of my art career.”

In his most recent work the artist is once again juxtaposing scenes of pure nature that have not been manipulated by man with cityscapes of Manhattan, such as the Queensborough Bridge painting seen here.

Slaughter has had more than 30 solo exhibits of his drawings and paintings and participated in more than 80 national and international group exhibitions. His art has been reviewed by leading periodicals and is in numerous public and private collections throughout the world, including Joan Irvine Fine Arts collection in Irvine, California and New York Academy of Medicine, NYC.