"I hate talking about being an artist, being flaky, sensitive."

This is a encouraging start to what will be a fragmented discussion about being an artist and believing in something so much that you are ready to crash and burn for what you believe.

The monitor goes from black and reflective, to being filled with a sense of emptiness. Boxes sit where couches were and the linoleum flooring that I never new existed has now made a conclusive appearance. In the background a final load of laundry bumps and whirls, completing the sense of rumbling chaos that surrounds the situation.

Shuffling into shot Tyson appears bleary eyed and distracted. Scratching at his head with a large screwdriver, his eyes scanning for things to be boxed, dismantled.Tyson is moving to New York, it will be a thirteen hour drive into the unknown. He recently lost his job as associate director of a university gallery in Indiana. It is in the middle of nowhere, in a part of the country full of fields and quarries. Not an ideal place for a young budding artist to flower into someone established. He is not out for fame and fortune but the chance to make a living doing something that he lives for.

New York is a teaming metropolis, a world away from where he is leaving. An artist is keenly linked to their surroundings, whether you accept it or not. I ask him how important this change will be for him.

"One thing that will change is the landscape and energy, which will naturally connect to your work but the more important thing is the need to push the boundaries of my work" "A place like New York will make you up your game."

It is a simple statement but an important one. Living comfortably can create an atmosphere of mediocrity. While I would not say that he has been living comfortably for the last few years,sitting out in the pastures of the midwest does not generally engage your senses and connect you to communities that can encourage creativity within oneself.

The decision to move does not come lightly. Uprooting everything, dismantling his studio or what is in a way to him his mind-space. A place where everything is connected, setup to function as seamlessly as possible in order to execute motion with fluidity and precision. Here energy is not lost to distraction, physical or mental but harnessed for pure thought and creativity.

"Setting up a new studio is disruptive, stressful. You loose on a physical level, even down to your hand eye co-ordination from brush to canvas."

"It's nerve wracking but we have no choice."

You can consider studying someones artwork as if it is an exploration, the more fascinating experience is not seeing the artist within the work but using the piece as a platform for connecting with the incommunicable existence that surrounds our cognitive understanding of the world we live in.

Tyson is a painter that navigates this intangible field for us, laying out fragments or clues that build an atmosphere for us to dwell within. A landscape to step into, structures that implicate the positive and negative space, withdrawing certain elements and leaving you with a intense familiarity that captivates you and does not distract oneself with overtly representational objects.

"A big part of art is beyond communication and could fail miserably, that's why you take risks.” “Personal gain is pushing the envelope and not worrying about the consequences."

In a world where Tyson dedicates himself to trying to create something intangible,he could fail miserably but……

"You take the risks, it's what makes life worth living".

At this moment in time, lost without a studio,his creative shell. He sets out on the road unprotected, raw, senses peaked by a new adventure. He is engaged in the gradual evolution of his work, not believing in instant transformation.

"It's not sincere, when people know something or think their on to something, they're not."

This is frustrating to watch from the outside. Some of his work connecting with you, others lost to experimentation or patience. This is not the the first time Tyson has moved cross country. For one reason or another there has been a need to move, each time slowly establishing himself in the art community. He has the notion that this is the final move but will this one provide the catalyst for some kind of metamorphosis into a explosion of artistic marvel or will he reach beyond his grasp?

He hits the road tomorrow, Tyson and his wife have sold everything that they don't hold near and dear to them. His materials are packed and the cats still have know clue what they are in for.

An artists journey will never be complete.

Playing Fields features the work of Patrick Berran, Melissa Oresky, Ryan Schneider, Olivia Schreiner and Jered Sprecher. These five painters’ work and careers represent a spectrum of approaches to the practice of contemporary painting. Through their work and lives each one of them is playing a role in developing the current ethos of their field.

Each of these artists demonstrates a distinct method of working within the medium of painting. There is a sense of play in the way they approach their work and a sense of excitement in exploring the boundaries of painting. Each artist expresses a clear knowledge of the medium and an ability to create work that is visually stimulating and represents a unique expression. This exhibition features paintings that tug at the intangible and speak to the importance of art in life.

Tyson Skross, Associate Director of the SoFA Gallery and curator of Playing Fields, notes: “The idea for playing fields was to put together a mini-survey of painting by artists working today. We wanted to have the opportunity to present current work that we believe is exciting and engaging without an elaborate curatorial theme. The overarching idea is that each of the artists is working in a unique way that is relevant in the larger field of contemporary painting. The artists are living and working in a variety of cities in the U.S. and their work has never been previously exhibited together. We feel it is important for the SoFA gallery to be able to bring this work to Bloomington to provide a glimpse of the current state of contemporary painting for our audience and our students.”

Patrick Berran lives in Brooklyn, NY and has exhibited his work at numerous venues across the nation. He is also the lead vocalist in an internationally touring punk band. Melissa Oresky’s work has been shown at numerous venues including the MCA in Chicago, OQBO in Berlin and Soloway in NY. She currently teaches painting at Illinois State University. Ryan Schneider has exhibited his work extensively with numerous international venues; he recently curated the group show Big Picture at Priska C. Juschka and maintains the website Cedar Tavern, featuring studio visits with his peers. After receiving her BFA Olivia Schreiner was awarded an apprenticeship at the renowned Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. She is active in the Chicago art scene and shows her work nationally. Jered Sprecher is the recent recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, he teaches painting at the University of Tennessee and shows his work in New York, Boston and L.A.