Thursday, April 22, 2010

Moving Towards Abstraction





It may be said that you can find the abstract in my artworks, but forms are dually readable as tree, rock, etc. My interests as a painter rely heavily on basic ideas of rich surface and color, engaging composition, and tangible idea or source. Sometimes my hand moves away from the subject to make playful and gestural marks but I do come back to the form. When preparing to create my works for the Cerulean's current show "Unpinned: The Abstract Response", I found myself continuously making works that felt too contrived... and I had to leave a couple of paintings out on the way. Even with the deadline quickly approaching I found myself willing to start over, and so I did. In one manic evening I ripped apart some silkscreen prints I did a number of years ago out at Haystack and used them as a beginning to create these four little paintings on paper. Using gouache, watercolor, caran dache crayons and india ink I set to work and had a marvelous time. Here are the four images that resumed.

What are they? Mental landscape, physical landscape, kandiskism? Until this evening I did not
know. Now I am playing with the idea that they represent layers - possibly the complex and busy-ness I live on a day-to-day. Perhaps if I create some more at the end of May, they'll feel a little quieter.

Anyhow, I encourage you to come on down to Cerulean to see this show. Its really lovely and I am very pleased with all of the work we have done to improve and jazzy up our spaces. Show runs until May 8.

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