about the newest series of paintings:
Below I've written a little about the newest series of paintings I've posted to PaintedMatter.
I offer the words as a starting "push" in experiencing the work. One possible approach to considering the images.
In general, I'm interested in creating works that present a visual world, an organic whole - not an illustration of an idea. I feel if a work is successful it will have many entry points. Other interpretations are expected and, in fact, welcome.
Amazon and Explorations2 were added to PaintedMatter on 12/5/02.
Amazon is a series about the mystery of living things - the fertile ground of existence. Energy and freedom as the source of all things.
Explorations2 is series of paintings about dreams and dreaming - about the percolating human subtext of our noisy, distracting, exciting, horrifying age.
Interior Landscape and After the Flood, two series of mixed media paintings on canvas, were added to PaintedMatter 11/19/01.
I wanted a feeling of sinking into and "under" the surface, the "field" of the painting.
These images are submerged in the juicy paint that creates them – as if the imagery were undersea (which metaphorically often represents the unconscious).
This was not just a formal desire to see the figure and ground merge, but, as it must for me, satisfied a metaphorical truth, in this case, about consciousness, particularly the mental-emotional-spiritual water in which we swim but is often hard for us to "see".
Our environment impinges on us more than it ever has before. We live in a culture that tries to mold our perceptions in all sorts of ways. We like the passivity - it's comfortable to sit back and have the popular culture "fill us up". At the same time we have an inner life - our most private enclave - that is seldom addressed. That's what art is for.
On some level I can't completely explain, these images satisfied my sense of the way we currently live our lives, of the times we live in, where inner imagery is intermingled with the incessant din of modern life.
This series is also a reaction to current expressions of popular culture. All creative acts have an aspect of criticism inherent - but criticism stated affirmatively. The assumption of the popular culture is that if you can't explain it in two sentences it isn't going to hold the audience's attention. Perversely perhaps, I wanted to force the viewer to really look at the painting if the image was going to be "seen" at all.
This may remind you of Barnett Newman's desire to do paintings that can't be photographed; he felt you had to see the original to grasp the subtle color gradations. Newman was interested in "color space" - not my principal concern. It's an example of how similar sounding concepts can widely diverge in the final execution of the image; my images bear no resemblance to Newman's austere investigations.
Finally, I've always liked "mysterious" images and this group of work had that ambiguous quality for me - where the subject and meanings have to be mulled over later - because the experience of the work itself is demanding, eccentric, surprising - in other words, something not open to easy scrutiny. So finally: Interior Landscape is meant as a map of consciousness - postcards from an interior journey.
The sizes: from 16x16" to 52x41"
The medium: mixed media and acrylic paint on canvas/linen.
After the Flood
A series inspired by scientific imagery – specifically, scanning electron micrographs of the cell structure of a mosquito's wing.
I’m a fan of Scientific American's illustrations - the imagery of the microscopic, in particular, interests me. It is the inner vision, the usually invisible, that compels me in this series, as it does, in a different way, in Interior Landscape.
I found the micrograph that inspired this series by surfing the web. The micrograph looked like the exterior of the Roman Coliseum. Holes inside a regularly layered structure; but not mechanical and cleanly wrought; rather, seemingly worn and irregular. Astonishing, this world; at every level of inquiry.
sizes: from 36x33" to 46x34"
The medium: mixed media and acrylic paint on canvas/linen.
Hakinou
Done relatively quickly, as a break, over the entire period I was working on the above two series. I'd paint one or two and then go back to the above series.
Maybe this series was influenced by all the birds I see on my daily run: gulls, wild geese, blackbirds, crows, sparrows, herons and a bunch of other species whose names I don't know.
The title - Hakinou - is invented; I liked the suggestive sound of Hakinou. I feel language should approach images sideways, walking like a crab, to avoid any impression that the two are the "same" or that one can be an exegesis of the other. Language is emergent from images for me, not vice versa.
Paint is such an incredibly suggestive medium and painting itself is capable of containing such disparate metaphors.
Mixed media on paper mounted on wood.
Hakinou - mixed media on paper mounted on wood - was added 12/5/01.
November, 2001 (modified 2002)