I had a dream a month or so ago that has had me working on fields of painted shapes, trying to recapture the forms that captivated me in that dream. It’s an elusive thing and I am still trying to figure out where this fits in my work.
I have used many of these attempts as the background texture under a few pieces featuring some of my normal imagery– the Red Tree in a landscape for example, like the painting shown here on the right. I like the added depth that this background gives the work and could easily see it becoming a regular part of my process.
But part of me sees the painted group of shapes as an entity in and of itself, something that could and should stand alone. Even though I feel my normal work is built primarily on abstract forms, showing a piece like the one shown here at the top of the page feels different in many ways, some of which raise fears in me.
First of all, it is based less on emotion than most of my work. I think my work comes often across because it speaks of and to emotions common to us all. This work feels more purely meditative, like I am looking at the building blocks of thought and matter. They simply exist. No emotion, no judgments, no narrative to fulfill.
And that scares me a bit. Takes me out of my comfort zone and leaves me feeling more exposed even though I might actually be showing fewer aspects of myself in the work. Maybe it’s a case of standing naked without the protection of any sort of cover, asking viewers to accept me as I am without trying to influence them with my choice of what I wear over my true being.
That’s a hard thing to do when you’ve been standing in front of people in one guise for so long. So I struggle tying to determine if this new work can stand naked and alone. There is much more to explore in it and over the next few months I hope to find the answers I am seeking.
As with all things, we shall see…
Redtree Times 