Alan Prazniak Makes You Wonder If God is Real, Or Just a Fluke in Our DNA

Alan Prazniak traveled a lot during the pandemic as a painting assistant to Odili Odita, a Nigerian artist whose work continued to be installed even when nothing else was open. At night Prazniak returned to wherever he was staying, and painted gouache studies on the floor. He began with memories or thoughts of a place — the “soft drama” of clouds rolling in over a mountain in Blacksburg, Virginia, for example — and then let his mood guide his hand. “I trust my mood more than my ideas,” he says.

Alan Prazniak traveled a lot during the pandemic as a painting assistant to Odili Odita, a Nigerian artist whose work continued to be installed even when nothing else was open. At night Prazniak returned to wherever he was staying, and painted gouache studies on the floor. He began with memories or thoughts of a place — the “soft drama” of clouds rolling in over a mountain in Blacksburg, Virginia, for example — and then let his mood guide his hand. “I trust my mood more than my ideas,” he says.

“The paintings are landscapes until they are not,” says Prazniak. “They can kind of arrive at a different quality, a more confusing kind of space, and I’m fine with that.”

The paintings represent a breakthrough in Prazniak’s practice that was driven by a freak accident that temporarily disabled his right (and working) hand. After the accident, Prazniak was determined not to stop painting — daily labor was a practice that was drilled into him at the Tyler School of Art, where he received his BA. So, he began painting with his left hand, and found that what he describes as a “weird experiment” forced him to slow down and simplify the elements of his compositions. “I realize that the palette has its own speed,” he says.