Walking the Path
While not trying to sound too cliché here is an attempt to talk about making art ... making my art.
I mark on paper with a pencil and pastel chalk. I smear, spatter and scratch oil paint on canvas or board with knife, brush and fingers. The story of my growth and maturation is told with images. A small group of paintings and drawings serve as a visual testimony of my journey.
The places, events and ideas personal to me are found in my paintings. My attempts to grow as an artist and a person are revealed through subtle cues in brush strokes, knife scratches and spattered paint. As other artists have done in the past and will no doubt continue to do in the future, I am trying to develop within me new visual language. Form and color, light and shadow can be manipulated to express imagery that represents actual physical places or strongly held ideas and beliefs. I try to symbolize ideas to speak my beliefs and perceptions. Headless figures and grated boundaries are found in my more recent works. Light pouring from the sky symbolizes a strongly held belief of intervention from somewhere or something. Real or not it is powerful for those who give it power.
My work can be somewhat representational. There is familiar imagery within my compositions. How that imagery is represented has gone through transitions as I’ve matured as an artist. I used to feel the need to paint more literally with greater detail to realism. This struggle consumed me for a while until I realized that I don’t need to be a camera. I don’t need to reproduce the likeness of an object. I need to interpret objects, events and ideas. I deconstruct a scene as I paint. My sketches have become very minimal simply because excessive planning usually dominates spontaneous motion to the point of killing it off. A painting with a heavy hand and even heavier mind looks way too planned and intentional. I still like to use tedious brush and knife work if the effect is creating a pleasant result. I don’t mind laboring over textures created with knife tips if the result adds to a spontaneous finished piece.
Ideas and strongly held beliefs that were once unchallenged in my own mind have loosened and some have slipped away. The steadfast viewer and long-suffering eye will notice small shifts in my beliefs through symbols and narratives that have strengthened or crumbled away. Certainties in nature act as evidence and fact for our belief systems. Rain and sun make plants grow. Storms display power and sometimes bring destruction. Eco systems heal themselves and flourish again after devastation. The sun, moon and planets appear and disappear in our skies above our heads as we watch. Biological creatures of all shapes and sizes recreate themselves, live and die in their time frames as we witness it with our own eyes. These things we can know and trust with pretty good certainty. Man made ideas, myths, superstitions and personal beliefs are far less reliable. A mind that breaks free from long held superstitions is a victory. A mind held fast in a prison of myth and ancient beliefs that offer no proof is a tragedy. These are the themes that I am currently interested in exploring in my paintings and drawings.
As I grow and expand as a rational person my hope is that my ability to make art will keep pace and expand me as an artist. I see a difference in my work from twenty to thirty years ago. That makes me happy because I take it as visual proof that I am maturing. The walk I take on my own path is highly personal yet open for examination.
Color, line, form, light and shadow are the tools an artist uses to express his/her ideas and beliefs. It is my hope that others will like the work I produce and feel a connection to it and perhaps see a small reflection of their own lives or strongly held beliefs. When others enjoy my colors and compositions, my use of line and textures then I've won as an artist. If the story I'm attempting to tell breaks through and speaks to someone, even better.
I mark on paper with a pencil and pastel chalk. I smear, spatter and scratch oil paint on canvas or board with knife, brush and fingers. The story of my growth and maturation is told with images. A small group of paintings and drawings serve as a visual testimony of my journey.
The places, events and ideas personal to me are found in my paintings. My attempts to grow as an artist and a person are revealed through subtle cues in brush strokes, knife scratches and spattered paint. As other artists have done in the past and will no doubt continue to do in the future, I am trying to develop within me new visual language. Form and color, light and shadow can be manipulated to express imagery that represents actual physical places or strongly held ideas and beliefs. I try to symbolize ideas to speak my beliefs and perceptions. Headless figures and grated boundaries are found in my more recent works. Light pouring from the sky symbolizes a strongly held belief of intervention from somewhere or something. Real or not it is powerful for those who give it power.
My work can be somewhat representational. There is familiar imagery within my compositions. How that imagery is represented has gone through transitions as I’ve matured as an artist. I used to feel the need to paint more literally with greater detail to realism. This struggle consumed me for a while until I realized that I don’t need to be a camera. I don’t need to reproduce the likeness of an object. I need to interpret objects, events and ideas. I deconstruct a scene as I paint. My sketches have become very minimal simply because excessive planning usually dominates spontaneous motion to the point of killing it off. A painting with a heavy hand and even heavier mind looks way too planned and intentional. I still like to use tedious brush and knife work if the effect is creating a pleasant result. I don’t mind laboring over textures created with knife tips if the result adds to a spontaneous finished piece.
Ideas and strongly held beliefs that were once unchallenged in my own mind have loosened and some have slipped away. The steadfast viewer and long-suffering eye will notice small shifts in my beliefs through symbols and narratives that have strengthened or crumbled away. Certainties in nature act as evidence and fact for our belief systems. Rain and sun make plants grow. Storms display power and sometimes bring destruction. Eco systems heal themselves and flourish again after devastation. The sun, moon and planets appear and disappear in our skies above our heads as we watch. Biological creatures of all shapes and sizes recreate themselves, live and die in their time frames as we witness it with our own eyes. These things we can know and trust with pretty good certainty. Man made ideas, myths, superstitions and personal beliefs are far less reliable. A mind that breaks free from long held superstitions is a victory. A mind held fast in a prison of myth and ancient beliefs that offer no proof is a tragedy. These are the themes that I am currently interested in exploring in my paintings and drawings.
As I grow and expand as a rational person my hope is that my ability to make art will keep pace and expand me as an artist. I see a difference in my work from twenty to thirty years ago. That makes me happy because I take it as visual proof that I am maturing. The walk I take on my own path is highly personal yet open for examination.
Color, line, form, light and shadow are the tools an artist uses to express his/her ideas and beliefs. It is my hope that others will like the work I produce and feel a connection to it and perhaps see a small reflection of their own lives or strongly held beliefs. When others enjoy my colors and compositions, my use of line and textures then I've won as an artist. If the story I'm attempting to tell breaks through and speaks to someone, even better.