Artist Statement
Over time, things evolve, certainly mutate: Life forms, social orders, religious institutions, scientific realizations and presumably individual human understandings, thoughts and attitudes. Yet within the universe's roiling, astounding complexity (found scarcely less in one yard of garden soil than in the magnitudes of neighborhood, countryside, oceans and galaxies) is the irrepressible will in this world to simply communicate, to communicate need, awareness, aspiration, to signal and mark one's passage.
As in musical performance, a painting initially communicates a visceral, non-verbal feeling, a captivating (or possibly irritating) first impression; other formal or technical details can become clearer upon further reflection. My recent work may seem to convey a story or message -- a psychological narrative -- yet it is likely the unintended result of trusting the improvisatory process itself, the spontaneity arising from creating variations upon structural graphic foundations, akin to performing jazz upon a given compositional framework, whether it be a Tin Pan Alley tune or something perhaps more operatic.
I trust this evolutionary and intuitive process as the avenue toward a resonant "truth", as something that attempts to explore a variety of personal/universal issues. In any event, it wholly engages me in the doing of it and gives voice to a nonverbal interior world that seeks its own particular venue. The viewer similarly brings his/her story and interpretations to the experience and may find a touchstone for reflection and yet another personal/universal resonance and journey. We assume this is salutary.
The representation vs. non-representation dichotomy is of no matter to me: I respond fully to both approaches. Non-rep art still represents something, if perhaps only the story of the artist's specific formal constraints, obsessions or emotional states at the time of the work's creation. And representative, illusionist art is still fundamentally abstract. The eye/mind always automatically engages in the game of optical illusion as well as the story, however obscure, being perceived.
Outside my window is a big tree upon which a large field of lichen has grown. It is a compelling abstraction in pale grayish green upon a dark bark ground in which I also "see", or project, a figurative form. Perhaps I am the only one that sees this. I could photograph it. I could, employing more patience/skill than usual, meticulously paint it. Somehow this notion, at least for me right now, quells the whole tempest.