Repetition and obsessions.
Meditations on color and form.
The brush moves, the mind clears, the colors melt into each other.
The urge to make a mark: ancient, primordial, archaic imperatives pulsing deep in my DNA. Circles. Triangles. Squares. We find these etched since time ancient upon rocks choice rock faces the world over. We see them on the relics from the past the world over, in stone and gold and woven in silk and wool. These basic shapes which form everything else, the micro becoming the macro. This urge to mark something, anything and announce I was here and I did this and here is the proof for you to see.
My abstract works are about everything by saying nothing. I have no intention when I create them, I just let it happen, let the paint and colors and shapes unfold and see where the brush takes me, see where the journey ends. Lines and blocks of color appear, random at first, but in time as I keep adding layers of information rhythms appear.
Inevitably I find the most basic shapes - triangles, squares and circles - and I let this happen of it’s own accord. I focus only on creating perfect lines and perfect blocks of color, moving all over the canvas adding paint here or there based on what speaks to me and gathers my attention. This process continues over and over and over - each time approximating closer that perfection in form which I will never attain but will always strive towards.
I build these works up over days, weeks, months, sometimes years. They have my life etched into them and a thousand emotions from the different moments I painted them. Together they are everything and nothing all at once.
With the passing of time and accumulation of age I’ve come to realize how complicated and ultimately messy living life is. Gone now is the clear cut idealism of youth replaced with shades of truth and mythology. We are all flawed perfect beings trying to do the best we are able in any given moment but inevitably coming up short of that perfection held in our mind realizing only that which is the moment, who we are right now, who we’ve been and who we will become.
I cannot tell you what exactly any of my abstract works are about but I can tell you that they constantly direct me to learn from myself and find deeper truths within my being. They afford a glimpse into the shared depths of our souls so we might understand better that core which is beautiful and pure and essential to one’s being. We hide this from ourselves, often, always, intentionally and unknowingly. These painting are an attempt to bare my own soul and find that which is fundamental, shared and universal to our human experience and then share these archetypes.
Much of my work is full of ideas, explicit and figurative; stories and words put into stone. This other work strives to put certain ideas and impressions out into the world, explicitly. My abstract works on the other hand are a journey inward to explore our shared human psyche, that which exists outside the realm of thoughts and ideas. These abstract shapes are the most honest paintings I create.