A painting begins for me as an act of will. I start with intention, a plan to enter into a new work and find my way through. I know exactly what I want to do, yet have no specific image in mind. I know which steps to take, but have no idea where they will lead. In the beginning I just have the will to start. The beginning can be one the most exhilarating parts of the process. Will is a very powerful human quality, and one that has been central to some or our greatest achievements and most horrific catastrophes. When will is connected to imagination and poetic sensitivity, it can be an amazing force which leads to truly great things. But for me, will alone cannot finish a painting. At some point, something else must take over. I need to be motivated enough and have the will to pursue the work, but at the same time passive enough to allow myself to open up to other sensibilities. At that point, I am following more than leading, responding rather than directing. Its a delicate and curious balance. In some ways as a creator one needs to be naive, and be willing to surrender to something outside what your mind might be telling you to do. In this way it might be said that my paintings are created out of a combination of intention, intuition and improvisation. Here are some medium sized canvases in various stages of evaluation/completion. While I've refined my approach and motif for this particular series of paintings, I regard each one individually as it develops. When I look at a painting in progress, I hold out for a certain moment of insight/feeling to lead me to the next step. Sometimes that might take awhile to reveal itself in a particular painting. That is one of the reasons why I usually have several paintings coming along at the same time. I am open to being surprised at what might come up; the size and position of a shape, the creation of a unique color, its relationship to the other colors. I'm looking for a certain harmony, resonance, and mystery to emerge. A painting will not be done until it does. In this way, even though there is a similar horizontal motif across the series, in the end each painting develops its own unique look and atmospheric mood. Back in the studio after a short trip to New York to attend a friends opening at a gallery in Chelsea. I go often, to see what other artists are doing or have done, as I find it really important to see what is being said. Once back to work, I purposefully forget about all of it, preferring to draw entirely from my own sensibilities, intuition and experience in creating a painting. Pictured here are six panels in progress and set aside to dry. It often takes days before they are dry enough to work on them again and add more layers of oil paint. Some of these already have dozens of layers of paint, and seem to be nearing completion. We'll see. I'm starting to incorporate some delicate horizontal lines into the paintings, along with the fabric and bands of color. These are paintings in various stages of completion. As I build up the layers of color, I'll be in a dialogue with the painting, coaxing the color this way and that, feeling my way for harmonies and interest. Sometimes there may be as many as 30 layers of paint before the finished painting finally "arrives". I'm not looking for resolution so much, as a sense of mystery and wonder.
For much of the time throughout the development of a painting I apply oil paint by hand. Having a direct and tactile relationship with the painting as it emerges is of critical importance to me. While I also use rags, brushes, palette knives and various other implements to create a painting, hand rubbing the paint into the canvas is central to my process. Before they are a painting, the artwork in my current series must work as sculpture. After laying in fabric onto the canvas, I use multiple coats of black gesso to give the work a uniform matte finish. I'll live with the paintings in this form for some time, looking at how they work as relief sculpture first, before beginning to explore how color might best bring them more deeply to life. |
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