WASHINGTON DC COMMISSION/AN ARTISTIC REFLECTION
BY R. SCOTT COLGLAZIER
In November of 2022, I was approached by interior designer / architect / aesthete Mr. Felix Etienne Edouard Pfeifle to work with him on a project in Washington DC. (See www.thefelixeffect.com) Felix is utterly brilliant when it comes to all things design.
His essential vision for the project was this: He asked me to paint 15 panels that would go around the walls of a living room and dining room for a house located in the lovely Washington DC Palisades neighborhood. Each panel would go from floor to ceiling.
The paintings would consist of two parts. The first we called “atmosphere.” After my colleague Rick Fettig stretched each canvas according to Felix’s specifications, I then painted the panels in sunset colors of orange, pink, red, yellow, and lavender. The width of each panel would be different depending on the wall space where the individual panel would be hung. In some cases, the paintings are only ten or twelve inches wide, while others exceed five feet in width. All of the panels are 81 inches in height.
The second part of the paintings we called “matter.” By “matter” I mean cosmic, green, generative, organic, creative matter. “Matter” as the stuff of life. Inspired by the Peacock Room at the Smithsonian, Felix had the walls of the living room and dining room painted in a peacock/teal green. I incorporated various shades of green into the cosmic matter of each panel, employing long, willowy, dotted-stalks that ascend upward on each canvas. I wanted each painting to be a natural, creative, earth-to-sky, ecological experience. I tried to create a cross between dots/particles and waves of paint. Years ago, I read a wonderful book titled The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav. The author was advocating for a new kind of physics, arguing that matter is essentially dancing energy, both particles and waves of energy, becoming what might be called “wavicles.” That’s exactly what I was trying to capture with my use of the green paint upon the sunset colors on each canvas. I wanted the living/dining rooms to dance with cosmic energy.
I should also add that I wanted each painting to stand alone as an individual work of art; I was not creating wallpaper. At the same time, I wanted the paintings to evolve around the room in mural-like fashion, moving with the organic qualities of green textures and sunset colors.
After working for nearly a year on the panels, I delivered them to Washington DC, and I’m happy to report that Felix was pleased with the paintings and his client is “over the moon” with her new living room and dining room. A special thanks to my creative partner, Mallorey Daunhauer, who took individual photographs of the panels in my Bloomington, Indiana studio.
Felix has provided a few photographs of the paintings after installation.
If you are interested in an individual commissioned painting or a larger project of multiple paintings for a design project, please contact me at – rscolglazier@gmail.com / 817.688.1060 or Felix at felix.pfeifle@gmail.com
