Rock Art Brings the Beauty of Nature Indoors at the Utica Office

Our resident artist, James Udovidchik, was commissioned to create a unique painting for the new office expansion at our Utica headquarters. James works in Accounts Payable with Tidal Basin (our sister company) and Vanguard Inspection Services, but in his free time, he’s a hobby-geologist-turned-abstract-painter.

His geometric designs are created with rocks from around the world, and we’re lucky enough to have one of his newest pieces hanging in our corporate office. After the new painting was installed, James walked us through the name and origin of some of the rocks he included, mentioning that many of these specimens developed millennia ago deep within the Earth. (If you’ve never had the chance to learn about how rocks and minerals are formed, browsing through the Geology page on the National Park Service website could prove to be quite illuminating!)

We asked James to share a bit more about how he started doing his geologic, geometric paintings, as well as some photos of his newly commissioned piece. Here’s what he had to say:

“As a child, I was always intrigued with chemistry and rocks. From an early age, I played in the creek and collected rocks to bring home. I would practice memorizing the entire periodic table because I was amazed by how many different elements existed in this wonderful world and I wanted to know the names of all of them. As time went on, I started studying chemistry in college, further enhancing my understanding of this fascinating subject. I ended up working in a hospital as a pharmacy technician where I learned how to compound different medications. I would crush tablets into powder and mix them with different elixirs and medications.

“One day, I decided to buy a paint set, but it only came with limited colors of acrylic paint. As I was sitting at my desk trying to paint, I couldn’t find the right color to use until I glanced at a rock next to me. An explosive idea came to mind: what if I create my own colors by compounding rocks like I used to compound medications? So, that’s what I did – and, wow, the outcome was perfect! Eventually, I moved into a new place that had a big, empty wall. I wanted a painting to fill up the blank space that stared back at me. I went online to look for paintings and searched and searched with no luck. Since I had just recently moved, I had boxes everywhere, and that’s when I noticed a box of rocks nearby. The memory of compounding rocks to make my own paint came back to me, and I decided to make my own painting composed entirely of rocks. From there, my paintings and painting style was born.

“I crushed rocks into dust and started compounding them with clear acrylic paint until the mixture reached the right viscosity. I would then spread the rocky paint on the canvas and create different geometric shapes. I loved how everything intertwined. However, when my mother saw my work, she wasn’t as impressed and suggested I add fragments to my paintings. That way, it would actually look like rocks coming out of the canvas and not just some paint. What a great idea that was because I followed her advice for my next project, and I was speechless about how good it looked. My love for painting started to grow more and more with each new piece. I began experimenting with different rock types to produce eye-catching results and I was not disappointed. I hope you have a chance to see all my paintings. To me they are truly wonderful pieces of natural art.”

James shares his current projects on Instagram at @udov2007. Be sure to follow along for work-in-progress shots and send him a message if you’d like your very own custom piece! Below are some photos of the painting he created for our Utica office space, along with a guide to every rock – nearly 100 different types – included in it.