About Frank X. Tolbert
Since his last how at William Campbell Gallery in 2017 Frank X. Tolbert 2 has continued working on the Texas Bird Project although it began in 2014. This new body of work is called Live Wire, an homage to the underdog of birds, the Grackle. Among many they are not a well respected bird, but a friend from Europe, who also has a home her said when she comes back to Texas and sees a Grackle, it makes her feel like she’s really back.
Frank X. Tolbert was attracted to grackles because of their strong silhouette, their intelligence, their iridescence, and their odd vocalizations. Seeing a barren tree full of grackles brings his attention to the background – the sky which is pure abstraction with lines and marks running through it.
He works on canvas in oil sticks, oil paints, and pencils, his technique has been referred to as Tosco, which in Spanish means rough and Katherine Brimberry of Flatbed Press described his technique as scumbling which she observed while he was working on prints at her press in Austin.
Frank X. Tolbert agrees with a quote by Pamela York, a jazz pianist who said about her own work “I have one foot in tradition, and one foot in the future.”