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Archive for the ‘Painting’ Category

And All Is Clear

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on November 16, 2008| Leave a Comment »

And All Is Clear

It’s always hard to describe what I am trying to accomplish with my painting.  The words I use sometimes feel vague and a bit clouded, words like feeling and rhythm and rightness.  All describing a quality that can’t be quantified.  The term “rightness” for me is just being able to look at something and visually weigh it, trying to see if there is an organic sense to it.  Does it make sense?  Does anything, a wrong or weak line or a flaw in the balance of the  composition, betray the reality of the piece?  By that I mean, does the piece create its own sense of believable reality?  In my work there may be red trees, houses without doors or windows, unnaturally colored fields and strangely shaped outcroppings of terrain, and skies that may never be seen on this earth but to me, they translate as being completely natural and logical.

And I suppose that is what I’m trying to do- make a world that sometimes appears totally illogical and in chaos seem to make a bit of sense.  To be in some form of harmony.

The piece shown here is And All Is Clear which is an 18″ by 18″ canvas. I think this is a piece that very much typifies the rightness and logic I was describing.  This painting is carried by its simplicity and the harmony of its colors, giving it a real sense of peacefulness.

It also is part of my show at the Haen Gallery in Asheville, NC which opens next Saturday, November 22.  If you’re in the area please stop in and say hello.  I’ll be giving a short talk, which always has a Q&A session, just before the opening at 5 PM. 

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Follow Your Path

Posted in Influences, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on November 13, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Follow Your PathI use the path or trail often in my pieces as a metaphor for the paths we follow in our own lives.  Sometimes the trail winds through wide open plains and sometimes it leads to a break in the forest.  This symbolizes, to me at least, the breakthrough moment that is there for anyone awake enough to see.  An epiphany perhaps.  A moment of grace.  I think we all have these moments where our paths ahead become clearer, more evident, and we realize that maybe we do have missions to accomplish here on Earth.  Some may be smaller than others but all are important.  

The trees in the piece shown here, Follow Your Path, always remind me of an ancient Hittite belief that trees grow from the center of the Earth and grow out and support the sky.  I see them that way in my works, as structural supports.

Follow Your Path is an 8″ by 16″ canvas and is also part of my upcoming show, Now…, at the Haen Gallery in Asheville, NC, opening November 22.

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Archaeology

Posted in Influences, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on November 12, 2008| Leave a Comment »

 

Under the Same Sun

 

This is a piece titled Archaeology: Under the Same Sun which is part of my Archaeology series of paintings that was new for this year.  It came about early in January when I was struggling to find the direction in which my work was headed.  By that I mean, I am always trying to find ways to expand the scope of my work, to create something new in the work that will excite me in the studio and, by extension, viewers in the galleries.

 I really felt lost this year though and every day was a battle to create anything that seemed alive.  I reverted to a exercise that my 5th grade art teacher in Chemung, NY taught me back in what must be 1969.  His name was John Baglini and he was pretty cool, especially to a 5th grader.  He drove a late 50’s Porsche, drew comic books and always had really neat projects for the class.  It was the year of the moon landing and we made a huge papier-mache lunar landscape.  He would sometimes give us a sheet of paper and would have us start at the bottom and fill the paper.  He told us to draw a junkyard, to fill the sheet with items that we knew, to stack them from bottom to top.  It was a great exercise that made me think of how one item related to the next and how small detail contributed to the whole image.  It has been something I have used for nearly forty years so when I felt blocked this time I pulled out some large sheets of paper and started doodling at the bottom.

 I did this for several days and eventually the pieces went from masses of objects to a smaller group of objects that grew upward into a landscape.  It was at this point that I began to wonder why I hadn’t painted in this fashion before.  It made such sense.  It allowed me paint my trademark landscapes but to add a new dimension.  From a distance one can tell its my work but upon closer inspection one finds a new level of detail that reveals something new with each subsequent look.  It also allowed me to paint detail in a very free flowing manner, one object leading to the next.

There was also the opportunity to create a new vocabulary with the repetition of objects within the context of my paintings.  There are a number of objects that make appearances in all or most of the paintings of this series.  Peace symbols, shoes, bottles, the letter “G”, etc.  

The response to this work has been wonderful and its been interesting to see how people study the work.  The piece above will be part of my show at the Haen Gallery in Asheville, opening November 22.

Below is a detail from another of the Archaeology series:

Archaeology Detail

 

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Every Voice Is Heard

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on November 11, 2008| Leave a Comment »

November 2008

This is a new painting that I’m showing today to talk a bit about the use of chaotic texture under the surface of the painting.  This piece, titled Every Voice Is Heard , is a prime example of what I’m trying to achieve with my surfaces.  I want there to be a sense of underlying randomness and chaos, as well as a feeling of foreboding, that counterbalances the order and restraint of the painting itself.  I feel that the contrast of this confusion in the background to the harmony and determination in the foreground is as important as the contrast between light and dark, which this piece has as well.  I think these multiple contrasting elements create a tension in this painting which makes this a pretty dynamic piece.

Every Voice Is Heard is an 18″ X 18″ canvas and will be in my Haen Gallery show in Asheville, NC.  The opening is on Saturday, November 22 from 5:30 to 8:30.

I will also be giving a short gallery talk prior to the opening, at  5 PM.   Gallery talks give me an opportunity to give an overview of the show and point out some things that may be overlooked during the opening.  It also gives those who attend a chance to ask specific questions and learn a bit more about the work.

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One Destiny

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on November 10, 2008| Leave a Comment »

One Destiny This is a piece titled One Destiny which is a new painting that is 8″ wide x 24″ high and is on canvas.  It is part of my show, Now…, which opens November 22 at the Haen Gallery in downtown Asheville, NC.

The use of intertwined trees growing together into what seems a single crown of leaves is a recurring icon in my work.  The way trees sometimes grow and adapt to one another has always intrigued me.  There is a grace and natural rightness in the way they move upward, almost a dance.  The symbolism of the two trees coming together as a marriage or partnership of sorts is also unavoidable.

For me this piece comes back to the natural grace of the tree form.  This is something I’m searching for in each piece.  To me, this is more important than the reality of the representation because if it’s there the painting makes sense, even though though some details may seem illogical when you take the time to consider them.  I think this piece is a prime example of this.  The fact that there is a strange red tree (or trees) perilously perched on this strange little peak should seem odd and out of place in most cases but for me, and in my mind, the flow and rightness of the elements makes me see the scene as perfectly logical and natural.  

I don’t know if this fully explains what I mean.  I do know that One Destiny  meets my criteria for this definition and translates beyond logic.

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Carried By a New Wind

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on November 6, 2008| 2 Comments »

November 5, 2008

  This is a piece that I finished yesterday, while the events of November 4th settled in a bit.  It’s an 18″ high by 36″ wide canvas and has a really neat quality that I can’t quite put my finger on.  There’s a real dynamism that I think comes from the motion in the tree’s leaves along with the roll and rise of the ground behind it.  Gives it a sense of urgency.

As with much of my work, I think the underlying texture really pushes the piece forward and creates the feeling of a harmony above chaos that I want.  I think it has a real rhythm and strength.  A life of its own, which is how I determine how well I’ve done my job.

I’m still mulling a title here but the title of this post seems to fit both this piece and the time which I like a lot.  When I look at my work I am often reminded of the time in which it was created, a feeling that goes beyond the scene in the painting.  I can only hope that that feeling translates to others as well.

This piece will also be heading to Asheville, NC  for my November 22 opening at the Haen Gallery.

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Foundation: Update

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on November 3, 2008| 1 Comment »

 

 

    A while back I had a post titled “Foundation” (October 13, 2008) that showed a prepared canvas and briefly explained how I prepared the surface for painting.  I promised to show the piece when it was finished and here it is:

 

 

 

This is a 24″ high by 48″ wide canvas.  You can see the texture I talked about earlier in the sky, even on this small image.  This piece doesn’t have a title yet.  Sometimes it takes a while to arrive at a title and other times it pops out.  This is a pretty large painting and I’m holding off on naming it as I think it deserves something special, something fitting the time in which it was created.

I have a method for naming work that requires that I pretend that the work is not mine and I’ve stumbled across the painting at garage sale, maybe fifty years in the future.  I look quickly at it and try to assess it and determine if it has something of value in it, something that separates it and gives it some type of life of its own.  Then I try to grab a first impression of what feeling it conveys and go from there with a title.  It sounds kind of goofy but I find it works for me.

This piece (with a title!) will be at the Haen Gallery show in Asheville.

Quick Update:  I am leaning toward a title –  ” Toward Possibility”.  I’ll live with this piece for a few weeks in the studio and make a final determination.  If anyone has any feelings on this, let me know.  I think this is a really dynamic piece and deserves a fitting name.

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Coming to Asheville- II

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on November 3, 2008| Leave a Comment »

This painting is “Archaeology: Man’s Footprint”  and is part of my upcoming show at the Haen Gallery in Asheville,NC.  It is a 24″ X 30″ canvas done primarily with acrylic paints. 

I always consider paintings like this , that have a strong central figure, as iconic pieces.  By that I mean, though the red tree can simply be a tree and nothing more, in the context of the painting it becomes a symbol with possible meanings beyond the obvious.

This piece has a very striking appearance, probably more than one can ascertain from the photo shown here, that is really heightened by the mottled texture in the sky. The finger-like layers of exposed earth and stone have a real rhythm, something I’ve talked about a bit in earlier posts.  All in all, I think this is a very strong piece.

Now, when I say that this is a very strong piece I mean that is how I see the piece.  It does not mean that anyone else will see it that way.  There are often paintings that I feel strongly about that take the longest time to find new homes.  It may be, in some pieces, that my eye is a bit biased because I am remembering the process of creating the work instead of focusing on the picture itself.  Cheri has a painting hanging in our home that is a favorite of mine but could never find a new home at any gallery in which it hung.  When I look at it, I see the struggle of taking a piece that was about to be discarded, early in the process,  as a failure and sticking with it for a long time to make it ultimately work.  I have a great sense of satisfaction when I look at that piece.

The show is titled “Now…” and opens November 22, 2008.

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Coming to Asheville

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on November 2, 2008| 2 Comments »

 

I am currently working (when I can pull myself from the presidential race) on my next show which is a solo exhibition of new work titled “Now…” which opens November 22, 2008 at the Haen Gallery in downtown Asheville, NC.  The Haen is a beautiful gallery space  that has expanded in the past year, nearly doubling its size.  It’s always exciting to see the work hanging in the Haen as it really shows off the work well.

The piece above is titled “HeartLand” and is 16″ wide by 18″ high.  It is a mixed media piece done with primarily acrylics and acrylic inks on paper.  The style and simplicity in this piece really appeals to me.  Much of the feeling is carried by the color and texture in the sky as well as the contrast at the horizon between the light in the sky and the dark of the ground.

To me, there is a great sense of security in this painting, a safe haven from the turbulence of the outside world.  It’s a theme that seems to come up often in my work.

This is just one of the new pieces for this show.  I’ve started posted new work on my website for those interested and for those of you in the Asheville area, please stop in and see the show and if possible, come to the opening on the 22nd and say hello.

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Foundation

Posted in Painting, Technique/History, tagged , , on October 13, 2008| 2 Comments »

My head’s been swirling lately with things I thought I would never have to know, things that I never could imagine would impact my life-  derivatives, Credit Default Swaps, leveraging and deleveraging, etc.  There seems to be a huge disconnect between how the media generally portrays what this financial crisis really entails and how the people who are embroiled in it lay it out.  The story from the guys who know is much scarier than what the media or politicos feed us.  We’ve been living in a house of cards for much too long and there will be a change coming.  A return to building and living on a real foundation…

That being said, I thought I would talk briefly how I prepare my surfaces for paint, how I build my foundation.  Whether I am using paper, masonite or canvas ( the canvas above is 24″ X 48″), I start in the same way by laying down layers of gesso.  I splatter, trowel, brush, knife and push with my fingers, anything to create a deep and interesting texture.  The whole idea behind this is to create a surface that has an interesting and abstractly sculptural feel.  Basically, it has visual interest before I even lay down my first brush of paint.  I find that this forms a textural depth in the painting, one that may not register immediately but ultimately gives the piece life .

I also find that this textured surface works best when completely chaotic and undirected.  Trying to create a pattern underneath that drives the piece above more often than not comes off as contrived and clumsy.  It becomes too much a product of thought, losing all sense of natural grace, which is what I think the surface prep adds to a painting.

I will show how the canvas shown turns out in the next month or so…

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