Monday, January 23, 2006
Rocky Ferris (a/k/a Walter Rockford Ferris II), Tropical Surrealist painter of the Florida Keys
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
South Forida’s Keys , the nerset thing to the tropics we have, attract dreamers, lovers, sailors, divers, fishermen and artists. The latter succumb to the romance of it, and painters portray soft beach houses, ibises and herons, and terns gliding on the wet sand. It is that kind of poetry that you encounter in the many art show, at least eight of them per season, that the Keys communities sponsor, Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Key Weat, dreamworlds on their own.
There is no question, the environment is seductive to the sentimental and the enthusiastic amateur. Nevertheless, there are also serious artists’ communes that work on extensions of the local themes. We met a member of one, Rocky Ferris, a native who grew up at Indian Rocks beach between Clearwater and St Petesburgh, and caught the bug early, both sailing and painting. He was in the naval intelligence, where his talents were recognized, and went to a commercial art school to hone up on commercial techniques. But his main interest is photorealism as a fine arts technique, watercolor and oil. He paints realistic objects of the tropics in surreal juxtapositions, bright fish and pineapples and mangoes cascading through vaulted doorways in walls, bamboos growing through tiles, beach houses with verandas surrounded by modern intrusions. You think of Dali and Max Ernst, realistic portrayers of comfortable objects of the past distorted by disturbing events.
Rocky Ferris – his full name is Walter Rockford Ferris II – has named his panting style Tropical Surrealism, and has web sites under both titles. His art form, slow and carefully structured large watercolors that are not forgiving of mistakes, get turned over to a giclee master who prints them in this expensive reproduction technique in limited editions, numbered and signed by the artist. It is so expensive that Rocky Ferris has turned to painting and selling smaller originals, non-reproduced, as more economical for an artist of immediate needs.
Ferris’s own life is a combination of the comfortable old and the modern. Mostly interested in sailing, he has been a water person since early youth, having built his first boat at eight – without a center board, hence sailable only downwind. His most recently homebuilt boat overcomes that obstacle.
The talent of Ferris, who himself could easily pose for an Indian chief, has been recognized in a number of shows, having won Best of Show and First prizes at the Atlanta, Miami Beach, South Miami, Coconut Grove Arts Festivals, also at Pigeon Key and Gasparilla events. He was selected to show at the Southeastern Watercolor Exhibition, Deland Museum, and commissioned by the Academy Arts and Arthur A. Kaplin to paint watercolors and illustrations. His art hangs in a number of public collections, lobbies of banks, public buildings and business firms, not to forget restaurants and bars, and he is affiliated with The Florida Watercolor Society as well as the Keys Watercolor and Art Guild. The Bougainvillea House Gallery in Marathon represents him, although the artist himself follows the time honored path of appearing at the Keys and South Florida outdoor weekend art fairs that add to the charm of the islands and the welcome of the Paradise of American South.
South Forida’s Keys , the nerset thing to the tropics we have, attract dreamers, lovers, sailors, divers, fishermen and artists. The latter succumb to the romance of it, and painters portray soft beach houses, ibises and herons, and terns gliding on the wet sand. It is that kind of poetry that you encounter in the many art show, at least eight of them per season, that the Keys communities sponsor, Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Key Weat, dreamworlds on their own.
There is no question, the environment is seductive to the sentimental and the enthusiastic amateur. Nevertheless, there are also serious artists’ communes that work on extensions of the local themes. We met a member of one, Rocky Ferris, a native who grew up at Indian Rocks beach between Clearwater and St Petesburgh, and caught the bug early, both sailing and painting. He was in the naval intelligence, where his talents were recognized, and went to a commercial art school to hone up on commercial techniques. But his main interest is photorealism as a fine arts technique, watercolor and oil. He paints realistic objects of the tropics in surreal juxtapositions, bright fish and pineapples and mangoes cascading through vaulted doorways in walls, bamboos growing through tiles, beach houses with verandas surrounded by modern intrusions. You think of Dali and Max Ernst, realistic portrayers of comfortable objects of the past distorted by disturbing events.
Rocky Ferris – his full name is Walter Rockford Ferris II – has named his panting style Tropical Surrealism, and has web sites under both titles. His art form, slow and carefully structured large watercolors that are not forgiving of mistakes, get turned over to a giclee master who prints them in this expensive reproduction technique in limited editions, numbered and signed by the artist. It is so expensive that Rocky Ferris has turned to painting and selling smaller originals, non-reproduced, as more economical for an artist of immediate needs.
Ferris’s own life is a combination of the comfortable old and the modern. Mostly interested in sailing, he has been a water person since early youth, having built his first boat at eight – without a center board, hence sailable only downwind. His most recently homebuilt boat overcomes that obstacle.
The talent of Ferris, who himself could easily pose for an Indian chief, has been recognized in a number of shows, having won Best of Show and First prizes at the Atlanta, Miami Beach, South Miami, Coconut Grove Arts Festivals, also at Pigeon Key and Gasparilla events. He was selected to show at the Southeastern Watercolor Exhibition, Deland Museum, and commissioned by the Academy Arts and Arthur A. Kaplin to paint watercolors and illustrations. His art hangs in a number of public collections, lobbies of banks, public buildings and business firms, not to forget restaurants and bars, and he is affiliated with The Florida Watercolor Society as well as the Keys Watercolor and Art Guild. The Bougainvillea House Gallery in Marathon represents him, although the artist himself follows the time honored path of appearing at the Keys and South Florida outdoor weekend art fairs that add to the charm of the islands and the welcome of the Paradise of American South.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 6:26 AM 
