This new painting, another from the Principle Gallery show, reminds me in many ways of the piece shown in yesterday’s post. This 10″ by 20″ painting, titled Empowered, feels like a core example of my work over the past decade or so.
While yesterday’s painting, Night of Wonder, had the elements that were staples of my early work, this piece shows the evolution of the last several years. It still has the icon of the Red Tree as well as the addition of the Red Roofs that began appearing around 2002. The clouds in the sky have started making sporadic appearances over the past years as well. Night of Wonder was also painted in the more liquid reductive method, one where paint is liberally applied then pulled off to reach the desired color and tone, that marked almost all of my early work whereas Empowered is an additive piece with layers of paint building up to the final surface.
But I think this piece also speaks well to the core of what I hope to say with my work, or at least what I think I want to say with it. I sometimes think that what I am trying to express is still beyond me and my conscious intellect. But what I do see in the work and wish to build upon is the idea of empowerment and self-reliance. The idea of the individual making full use of whatever capabilities they possess and finding their own place in this world is probably the main expression in much of my work that I hope comes across to the viewer.
I know from personal experience how it is to feel out of place and uncertain of my own abilities, how it feels to be living a life that doesn’t feel intended for you. To feel as a sailor lost and rudderless in a hostile sea, with no idea where safe landfall may be. I want my work to counter that feeling, to create a safe haven in sight so that those of us still afloat see that there is possibility in themselves.
I don’t know. That may be asking too much from paint smeared on paper or canvas. But I can try and that effort is the important thing.
Redtree Times 