Artist Statement
Since the late 70’s, I’ve been working in a painted construction mode. As a painter, I realized. the rectangular canvas was somewhat an artificial format and decided to build shaped objects and painting them. Though sculptural, they are usually wall mounted and thus retain that aspect of painting.
For many years the constructions have used an x, xy, or triangular structure and color as a major format., These abstracted elements, often with enigmatic meanings, could vary in reference from mathematical, religious, gender, or historic, to concepts such as convergence, expansion, compartmentalizing and balance. Alhough mainly abstract they often use or are infused with elements that derive from the real world. References used include botany, geology, science, Roman Catholicism, environmental and political concerns, and sexual imagery.
Works on paper, watercolor and drawing, have always been a vital adjunct to the constructions using many of the same symbolic shapes and imagery mentioned above . I tend to think about these much as I do about painting, using successive layers of color building up to a density of color, often retaining a translucency. In recent years inkjet imagery has become a major component.
In both the painted wood structures and the works on paper, I often include other materials, ranging from metal, glass, found objects, natural objecys, plastic, inkjet transfers, that might relate to the image and concept I’m concerned with.
A minimal aspect of some earlier pieces derives from a desire to achieve a meditative response to the chaotic, stressed lives many people are living in these tumultuous times. I find solace in color, shape, pattern, and their variation. Other recent work is more emotional in character, reflects on the vagaries of nature and the state of the environment, and ideas of nature vs. man, or just the grandeur of nature.
A recent series deals with the combined elements of science with art, delving into the periodic table of elements.. There are approximately 90 natural elements that make up all animate beings and inanimate objects and materials in the world. The fact that so few substances can create such diversity is phenomenal. Exploration and research into the elements lead into other areas of geography, geology, and the historical, ecological, and politcal/geopolitical use or misuse of them.
Other recent work features the use of botannical imagery.. It’ harkens back to some themes in my very early work. They relate both to my interests in science, and my interests as a gardener. Like the abstracted works that can provide a respite from the age we live in, thus do the botannical works offer a means of escape. While different in format from the geometric works, the concerns, the craft, and the interest in the outside world is the similar.
Environmental and societal concerns have cropped up in recent pieces as man continues to destroy the planet he lives on.