 |
|
|
 |
|
|
| |
The search for an essential form is a thread that has run through my work for several years, whether the subject was figures, flowers or ancestors. I look for a schema that is revealed by, but exists beyond, shifting conditions of light and space. I seek to determine how little information is enough, even as I experience an opposing desire to throw in every nuance I can get my hands on. It is the tension between those conflicting impulses that fuels my efforts in the studio.
Two genres have been central to my work: still life and portraiture. The portraits share a scale that places the subject at some distance from the viewer, yet invites an intimate relationship between viewer and painting. In the still life paintings, I depict a world within arm’s reach, within my grasp and control. In each of those genres, I explore extremes of simplicity and complexity, as well as oppositions of pictorial space that range from flat to deep.
A recent ancestor series, Direct Descent, opened possibilities of subject matter I hadn't considered before. The paintings were derived from jpeg images I received via e-mail, of long-dead relatives I had never met. At first, I sought to flesh out the people I could know only through poor digital images. Over time, the paucity of information in the source material led to an increasing economy of paint handling, as well as an opportunity to invent and combine imagery from different sources.
All of these efforts are united by the fact that they serve my intention, intuition and need to speak in a visual language of my own design.
My work is about the way I look and the way I see. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
