Wednesday, January 8, 2014

a crowd of small metamorphoses



Little flashes of sun on the surface of a cold, dark sea, oil on canvas, 20" x 20" 

              I recently had an invitational solo exhibition 464 Gallery in Buffalo, NY.   I see this work as a turning point for me.  It reaches into the interior -- not just in subject matter, but in concept and in my technique.  Moving beyond the concrete building facades, I am really looking to find the painting as opposed to recording the objects.  This body of work is all about the shifting nature of time, place, and painting.  It is an exploration of instants and history.    I have engaged the painting process, influenced by Degas, Diebenkorn, Uglow, Saville, and Kanevsky, to conduct a visual examination of Jean Paul Sartre’s reflections on existence in the novel Nausea – the instants annihilated, the inability to hold anything as solid.  Oil allows for erasures, pentimenti, revealing transparencies, and covering impastos.  I paint an entire image, scrape or turp away, and then repeat the process.  There are always remnants in the layers.  A piece comes into being, looks complete, and then is destroyed to make way for another story.  Upon stopping a painting, each new viewing and viewer brings forth a combination of shifting past, present, and future reflections.  This body of work is ongoing.    I hope you enjoy the first installation of work from "A Crowd of Small Metamorphoses"  --- more to come mid-April at Starlight Studios and Gallery in Buffalo, NY.

a crowd of small metamorphoses, oil on canvas, 36" x 36"


It slides by interminably, yellow as mud, oil on canvas, 20" x 20"

into the lure of the mirror, oil on canvas, 20" x 20"
on the surface of solitude, oil on canvas 24" x 36"

the irreversibility of time, oil on canvas, 22" x 48"



Something is beginning, oil on canvas, 90" x 60"



Friday, January 3, 2014

It's been awhile

So I can't even begin to capture the last two years of my artistic ventures in a blog post.  So instead I will share the process shots of one of my new paintings.  It is much like the last two years... a work laid in, and repeatedly tweaked.  Building a career as an artist is a very fluid thing; every decision opens some doors and closes other. I am really excited to be returning to my roots as an oil painter, but also to be venturing into uncharted territory!  This painting is called "a crowd of small" metamorphoses,"  title from Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea.  He writes, "a crowd of small metamorphoses accumulate in me without my noticing it, and then, one fine day, a veritable revolution takes place."  This is how I feel every day, especially when I paint.