ARTIST'S STATEMENTS
2011-2012
After a year of deep focus on expressing music visually, I returned to oil on canvas. In 2010 while working with music, I had discovered a way for me to pull up imagery, motion and pattern. Now I am exploring minimal compositional fragments of these complex musical drawings. The process has taken on a life of its own and feels to me as if I am now exploring an inner world of shapes, lights and space. I am also focusing and discovering new ways to apply paint to achieve glowing surfaces and depths of color.
2010
2009
In mid-2009 the paintings took a big shift. I wanted to explore the paintings I found within the earlier paintings and so series began to emerge from a 'mother' painting. In these series I sought to explore inner ideas such as the quality of gentleness, making peace with loss and regret (Flowers for the Dead), the passage of time (Dry Leaves), the experience of forest nature in sun ((Woodsprites) and in shade (Indigo Road). Using images that spoke to me from previous work, I focused my attention on simplicity of space and line, and the voice and purity of color. I feel color much as I feel music and the paintings can be also be experienced as poems.
These new works are much more minimal than the paintings of my previous era. They are loosely sketched in and the shapes are defined slowly as the color areas are methodically built from layer upon layer of altering color until I arrive at a point where I want to go no further. In many cases the surface color has been adjusted 10 times and so a depth of color occurs and a jewel like quality to the paint.
2007 - 2009
The paintings that I create come from an intuitive part of myself and are not premeditated. I am always surprised at what emerges. The part I play in the work is that of the listener and transmitter. What appears as I build these paintings are fragments of thought forms; fetish animals, calligraphy, gestures, and unnamable yet somehow relevant abstractions. The paintings begin as an energetic explosion of color and movement and are then meticulously crafted until they achieve a harmonious definition, unique surface, and a cloissone-like appearance.
The intention behind my work is to energize the environment and enliven the viewer thus provoking an emotional state of happiness. The paintings lend themselves toward exploration and contemplation.
Although at first glance my work appears abstract and complex, I consider the 'style' of my painting to be neo-minimalist in keeping with the musical style called 'New Minimal' by such composers as Philip Glass and Steve Reich. The colors are limited and the brush work is restrained and there is a lyrical asymmetrical repetition.