Artist StatementTaken as a whole, my work is meant to provide an opportunity for reflection, suggesting that no thought or thing presents itself as utterly passive or inert, but is charged with content and a sentient presence. We construct meaning from many different perceptual and intellectual fields involving reason, intuition, memory, senses, and spirit. In these paintings, curious sometimes random information that measures, analyses, and scientifically observes phenomena is juxtaposed with the quiet presence of familiar objects. The combination suggests that the quantifiable and measured lies alongside the ineffable and infinite, that the world is simultaneously cognizable, mysterious, and generous.In my recent work, I’ve been experimenting more with the interplay of image and word. Images dissolve into words, and words into image. The making of meaning from image and language is an intimate ongoing dialog. Some text can be read: an excerpt of poetry that has influenced my thinking, or scientific observation relevant to the work. Some script is deliberately illegible inviting speculation and offering only fragments as clues. And some is scrawl, scribbling into gestural mark. In many of my paintings simple imperfect vessels act as principal characters; their quiet presence is a counterpoint to the layered details and colors of the background. The vessel is employed as a metaphor and archetype possessing a full range of associations, numinous and commonplace, conscious and unconscious. Jungian archetypes suggest that the vessel represents the inexplicable contents of the complex unconscious mind. They are also simply the familiar comfortable objects of everyday domestic life. The body is a vessel that transports the physical-self through the various actions of the day, and also the soulish-self that finds meaning in those same experiences. My use of the image might suggest all of these notions. It first appeared in my work after travels to Tibet. The begging bowls of monks and the offertory vessels on monastery altars powerfully reminded me that giving and receiving can be seen as a singular fluid act. The image of the vessel has principally come to mean for me the cycle of generous exchange. A note about the media: Most of my work is painted on panel prepared with a handmade gesso. I begin by incising the unpainted surface with etched marks, text fragments, mathematical formulas, and diagrammatic drawings. In the finished work, some of these are barely visible unless closely inspected. These embedded figures represent the constant stream of enigmatic data that surround all experience, the buzz of information exchange, cause and effect reactions, particle collisions, and all those intriguing occurrences that happen behind the screen of easy observation. Surfaces and images are developed by adding and subtracting layers of watercolor and oil paint. Strata of transparent pigments develop a patina that suggests time, wear, and weather. In the final stages, the painting is rubbed with many layers of wax and polished to a satin finish. |