“Bad Painting” Workshop for Teens with Jamian Juliano-Villani

Artist Jamian Juliano-Villani shows off her work to students in the gallery.

On March 11, New York City teens joined artist Jamian Juliano-Villani for a “bad painting” workshop. Juliano-Villani’s work is on view in Flatlands, an exhibition that brings together paintings by five emerging artists. In the morning, Juliano-Villani met with teens from our partnership school, Gotham Professional Arts Academy, and in the afternoon, teens from all over the city were invited to participate in our Open Studio for Teens program, which takes place on Friday afternoons.

Teens had the opportunity to see Juliano-Villani’s work in the galleries and ask questions about the intent and meaning of her work. The artist explained that she wanted to combine objects that inspire her. In one painting, she deployed traffic cones in a surreal landscape. In another work, a seahorse co-exists with a jukebox and pine cones in an interior domestic setting; these disparate objects are connected by a skewer.

Teens then worked in small groups to make large-scale paintings. Using the term “bad painting” Juliano-Villani challenged the idea that there is such a thing as a good or a bad painting, and that anyone can paint. Juliano-Villani asked the teens to think of anything that might be the subject of a “bad painting” and make a list of their words. She assigned four words from the list to each group and asked them to create a composition based on those words, and by juxtaposing the objects so that they made sense together. Teens could use a projector to trace images onto the canvas. They also learned how to use an airbrush that Juliano-Villani employs to make things look more realistic.

Dyeemah Simmons, Assistant to Teen Programs commented: “The teens in both groups were so excited! They loved the project and enjoyed painting on a large scale. They were delighted with the results. Jamian Juliano-Villani was impressed with their paintings, which made them even happier! For Open Studio, it was really great to see teens (who didn’t know each other) make friends, collaborate, experiment with new techniques, and have so much fun with painting.”

Check out more of the teens’ work below. All photographs by Andrew Kist