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Paintings Photography Artist's Statement My Process
Water Dragons (Ornate)
Water Dragons (Ornate)
This is a photograph. I had put down an expanse of blue paint on a large canvas but then thought to scrape some water into the paint. Once poured I noticed the reflection from a window on the pooled water and liking the juxtaposition, I grabbed my camera and took several shots. The image is a 13x20" print from that series.
To the matte, I added silver, white, black, and blue strokes to harmonize with the blue field and its shadow.
The camera was set to daylight balance. Only a little software editing to improve the focus and expand the contrast.
The Graduate
The Graduate
This started with a "PVC guitar pickguard panel" (barely legible in this photo), used to protect the body from repeated scraping. The panel itself is a mix of colors but suggest a watery depth of a few centimeters.
Over this, I added lines of similar colors to create the figure and fourth-wall depth.
Additionally, on the framing matte I added brushstrokes of black, which revealed a white substrate when it dried. On these, I drew additional lines with a carbon pencil, only seen when close and a light is reflected from the opposite of the viewer.
The overall effect is to draw the viewer in and as they get closer the image's three dimensional depth is revealed.
There is a silver frame around the internal image made from aluminum tape. I added it here as it concentrates, repeats, and highlights the reflective nature of the pickguard and inks, but it also reflects light from the viewer's/audience's space, an attempt to include them in the work's dynamics.
Ultimately, the image is difficult to photograph because an isolated moment denies the painting's ability to blend a viewer's changing perspective with the lights that shine on it and around the audience.
I call this The Graduate, as the figure seems to be emerging from the elements that surround them. A graduate transitions from one state to a more informed one. This figure here seems emerging.
this is not a box
this is not a box
A play on Magritte's The Treachery of Images, this painting uses a similar dynamic to point to the human capacity to engage abstractions. The image is an illusion of a three-dimensional object, yet a viewer sees an object that "holds" space, illustrating the framework of abstractions, creating a symbol without a sign.
clarity
clarity
At first glance, the strokes and colors seem chaotic, but they are exploding from the center. Reflecting the speed of life, itself chaotic and only manageable by calm engagement and processing. This painting is about establishing stillness, to secure balance and strength. The circle in the center is a metal semi-reflective mirror meant to draw and fix the eye. Achieving this, the view of the fragments of color and line are then relegated as external and observed from the platform of the framework of catwalks created by the X and circumnavigating frame.
Not visible in this photo is the reflective tape that catches light from a distance and only visible in darken rooms.
inside outside
inside outside
Day and night. Conscious and Subconscious. Inside and out. Our days are a constant recursive path where we navigate perceptions and phenomena.
American Mandala
American Mandala
“Mandala” is a Hindu/Buddhist illustration that maps the universe according to their spiritual symbolism . As America’s culture is changing dramatically, I tried to envision what a mandala without cultural iconography would look like. This painting is a description of that experience.
I started with the shape at the center, a tesseract, a mathematical model which illustrates the progression of time. It is two cubes, one smaller and inside the larger. The smaller pushes through one wall with the larger constricting to become the smaller. This pattern continually repeats. Alternatively, the smaller continuously expands to encompass the larger cube through all six walls. This dynamic intrigues me in that it mimics the sense of my own growth. I remain the same but encompass new awareness and perspectives.
At the extreme center are two opposingly colored triangles. Though a static painting, I envision these as wrestling to control the cube by alternately touching three of the six internal sides of the cube, forever contorting and dancing, wrestling for position.
All these forms are within multiple cubes and planar fields of various sizes. These frame and form the head above the shoulders of a person.
Ultimately then, the painting is a map of my internal experience—reflecting, growing, observing, confronting, assimilating. A mandala. A mandala without symbols. A symbol without sign. A formula without terms.
Note at the top center is a square mirror. Comparatively, it is the only stable and evenly crafted element, meant to reflect the capacity of humans to know of perfection but never able to reify it completely.
Constellation of Days
Constellation of Days
In Moby Dick, there is a passage where the ship is caught in doldrums and the crew takes advantage of the down time to repair the ship's mats. The narrator compares the weft and warp of the repairs to the routines of the ship, as though the ship were the needle and the seas, nights, and days were the materials. The nights are eternally dark with stars only visible from the open sea, all mirrored by the the ocean creating a massive orb around the ship. And, the days' skies are heavenly blue with dark seas below.
Note that the painting can be inverted as the title appears on both the top and bottom.
signal to noise
signal to noise
In communication, noise is a constant challenge that distorts and obfuscates messages. Every message can be warped, lost. or misunderstood.
This painting reminds that noise, in its infinite forms, can hinder communication.
Note the mirror fragments.
Dweller on the Threshold
Dweller on the Threshold
A few years ago, as I was falling asleep I "dreamt" of seeing a dragon but my field of vision was like the snow/static on a television. I could just make out the dragon by the waves it created from its movement.
This perception has influenced my process ever since.
If you'd like to see more, here is a link to Google Drive with more paintings
northern california, artist, paintings, contemporary art, sacramento,
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