Jean-Pierre Roy’s slam dunk

“Feast of the Bullgod” stands out visually and psychologically at RARE’s group show “Stranger than Fiction.”

By Shane McAdams

When I was a kid I was a big fan of a robotically consistent point guard named John Stockton. He played basketball like I thought it should be played: with a straight face, short shorts, and, most of all, an unwavering resolve to win each contest at all costs. There was no art in his game, no happy accidents, no mystery — just the cold, clinical precision of a person who would sooner chew his own leg off than register in the losing column. He made up for his lack of athleticism with a relentlessness and determination that ultimately made him the best player his position has ever seen.

I considered these admirable qualities until I was wise enough to imagine how the same traits would translate into non-athletic based situations. It occurred to me, for instance, that Mr. Stockton would be a nightmare at playing Surrealist free-association games over a bottle of Absinthe. Being relentless is a great quality in the zero-sum game of professional sports, but in the abstract and nuanced contests of art and life, I think one is better off letting ideas circulate, drift, and occasionally coalesce into something wonderful. Fragmented thinkers may not make the best sports champions or Five-Star Generals, but they usually make good artists, students of life, and crucibles for interesting ideas.

Jean-Pierre Roy functions on the fragmented side of things. The Brooklyn artist’s interests are widespread and various, although interrelated, as his imagined panoramas take cues from optical studies as well as film and television. Although in his early 30s, Roy’s respect for and knowledge of art history is broad, deep, and flavors all of the work that he makes. An exquisite example of his cinematic sensibility can be seen at a wonderful group show at RARE entitled “Stranger than Fiction.” The show also features work by Andy Cross and Johnston Foster, but Roy’s enormous painting “Feast of the Bullgod” stands out visually and psychologically.

Roy’s panoramic bird’s-eye landscapes are simultaneously awesome and subdued. They convey the sense of quietude and serenity one feels when peering out of an airplane window, watching the earth beneath you roll by slowly. Occasional ground fires and other environmental disturbances erupt along the terrain in his work. His treatment of these striking vistas demonstrates his grasp of how cinematography can influence narrative and, in turn, dramatic effect. These ecologically-charged paintings have an almost misleading drama, almost like a satellite image of a hurricane: it looks calm and beautiful from space, even while the chaos beneath is palpable.

Roy may not be cut out to be the best point guard the National Basketball Association has ever seen, but he’s a brilliant painter, and, as you’ll see, the kind of guy you’d like to sit down and have a long conversation with.

I asked him what was on his mind these days, what he’s been looking at and listening to, and here’s what he had to say:

Battlestar Galactica

You’ve heard it before, but it’s true: “Battlestar Galactica” is the best show on television. My work is all about sorting through the way my mind intermingles my high and low art influences, and Galactica is a shining example of how well that model can work. It’s one of the best-written explorations of our 21st century political, cultural and social anxieties ever made on television — and they still manage to blow the crap out of robots and star cruisers. Solid.

Joe Frank

The best voice on radio. I’ve been listening to this master of the spoken word since I first found him on Public Radio when I was 12 years old. He has single-handedly done more to open up my imagination through radio waves than anyone since Nikola Tesla. Download his podcast for free on iTunes.

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles

If you are like me and New York’s skyline is both a constant source of inspiration and the ever-present lineman that blocks you from the quarterback of the horizon, then you will be spiritually recharged by this museum’s perched perspective of L.A.’s long, low-lying basin. The galleries at this architectural behemoth are often filled with the heavy hitters of sculpture and painting, but it’s Southern California’s ever-changing skyline of blues and oranges that makes this museum a must-see when visiting my birthplace.

Fra’ Filippo Lippi

Chelsea is loaded with voices struggling to be heard in the cacophonous argument over what it means to be “handmade.” If you want to see a guy quietly come to the table and silence the crowd, it’s this man. Pre-dating any type of sophisticated optics, Lippi took the “hand-eye” dance to a level of visual poetry not often revisited in any day. If you are going to the Venice Biennale, swing through Florence and spend a whole afternoon with him at the Uffizi.

Bike riding the boroughs

Spending upwards of 60 to 80 hours a week in the studio, how I spend my outside time is crucial to my mental and physical health. When the weather is willing, my roommate and I log in as many hours cruising the streets as possible. Going out in L.E.S on Saturday night? Forget the train, bring the two-wheeler over the Brooklyn or Williamsburg Bridge, or be like us and try to hit both in the same night. (Be sure to stop for to-go margaritas for the ride home! I recommend a shirt with a big pocket as a cup-holder.) I also highly recommend the coveted “Warriors” ride where you retrace the footsteps of Walter Hill’s anti-heroes from Van Cortlandt Park to Coney Island from his 1979 film of the same name.

Krzysztof Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima”

I always associate my paintings with a handful of ambient sounds or soundtracks that I find myself playing over and over again over the course of building the image. Sometimes it’s just a white noise track off a Sleep Sounds CD. I played Penderecki’s “Threnody,” which he wrote in 1960, only once during the three months that I worked on my newest painting, but the tone-clusters and dissonance that marks the emotional power of this piece stayed rooted deep in my imagination and influenced everything that came out of me. Turn off the lights and be swept away.

“The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne

It will change your life! Actually, I haven’t read it... Sorry kids, the only secret is to believe in your ideas and work your ass off.

Andy Collins

His show at Mary Boone is down, but I visited this one three times. Rarely does the way an artist handle the alchemy involved in painting make me come back for seconds based on transitions alone. Quiet but fractured, Collins’ images really came to life for me as I became obsessed with his near-mechanical tonal shifts. The treatment he gives edges and gradations will make the most jaded brush-nerd kneel down in prayer.

Toshiro Mifune

If this legendary Japanese actor were still alive, his 87th birthday would be next month. Often playing anti-heroes and tragic anti-establishment martyrs, Mifune was capable of broad, brutish, strength and violence between great passages of quiet and poetic economy. Does he sound like a good painting? He should: The director Akira Kurosawa, who was responsible for developing Mifune’s early career and delivering him to American audiences in “Seven Samurai,” “Hidden Fortress” and “Yojimbo,” was a painter himself before turning to film to support his family. Check Mifune out in Masaki Kobayashi’s “Samurai Rebellion” — an underappreciated masterpiece.

“Stranger than Fiction” runs through March 31 at RARE, 521 W. 26th St., 212-268-1520, www.rare-gallery.com. Email Shane McAdams at mcadamsshane@hotmail.com.