ARTIST STATEMENTS

LANDSCAPES AND PORTRAITS:
There are two apparently opposing drives behind my work. On the one hand, I seek escape from my own ego in the cold obliviousness of nature. By undertaking deep observation of nature, one begins to feel a reverence at the wonder of the observed, and a relief from the concerns of self and of man at large. At the same time, painting is always a self portrait, a record of the artists interior life and emotional state. The artist chooses to engage in observation of a subject out of a sense of connectivity. The viseral reaction to visual impulse, mimicing what the artist is feeling, and the choices made when prodcuing the image further convey that feeling. Landscape is ideally suited to this enterprise as it does not insist on the creation of a narrative, allowing us to engage more closely with the artist. Such is the path abstract artists continued to follow further with the dropping of external subjects all together. I chose not to pursue that path to its conclusion because the wonder of the observed restrains me, and because work that encourages reverence for nature today, seems to be more crucial to our well being, on many levels, than ever before.

The Ephemera series attempts to find ways for the viewer to engage the portrait with some of the freedom from narrative and the specificity of the individual, that is found in my landscape work. The series is a loving homage to my family as much as it is a momento mori.These paintings are not the “Frozen Pastoral” of the Keats poem. They do not attempt to stop time. They attempt rather, to portray its passing. They are fixed objects that our minds try to “pin down” , painted in a way that tries to deny that. They mimic the transience of image and ourselves and they reference the slipperyness and imperfection of memory.

"ABSTRACTS":
While apparently without physical subject, all of my work is in fact, painted representationally. The work is derived from photographs of the surface of local water bodies, from both above and below that surface, or from the close examination of some other natural subject such as the surface of ice, tree bark, or falling snow. I seek to portray, quite, stillness and the insistent but welcomed emptiness that I feel when in deep connection to my surroundings. I cherish the absence of the self-absorbed human ego. I seek a spiritual connection to that which is beyond me through the reverent observation and mimesis of nature with a focus on color and light.

High modernism rejects meaning, subject and psychological inquiry. While some of my work approaches high modernism in appearance, the means for achieving the work and my goals for it, are far from that empty enterprise. My work employs the seductive treatment of a smooth, transparent glossiness, and a succulence of color that demands a visceral response, similar to the correlate emotional “subject” of the painting. The thick transparent wax, simultaneously produces an insistent “objectness” while also suggesting a delicately balanced illussionistic space.


THE BLACK WORK:
Traditionally, chaos is viewed negatively, but I have always connected creativity and growth, with the chaotic aspects of the universe. In truth, the universe is a play between order and chaos. Physics describes the development of order in systems and also, the devolvement of order back into chaos. My work is a formal aesthetic exploration into the play between order and chaos, between Euclidean and fractal geometry. It is also an exploration of and a confrontation with, the dark aspects of life, from experiencing the life threatening illness of a child, to the inexplicable images that rule the mind at night, and hide in the subconscious during the day. It is about fear, the urge to find meaning and purpose where there is none, and the human need to create order and meaning in that vacuum. Although much of the work may seem disturbing, I feel there is also humor released during the process of naming fears and dressing them in images. They somehow lose some of their power when brought into the light. Sometimes an image does nothing to negate our fear of it, but even the statement of a terrible truth, or the acceptance of our impotence in a given situation, can allow us to continue living, to keep growing, to see the beauty elsewhere in the Sisyphision struggle to live.