"My quest
for fictional abstract purity is derailed by the human elements of inaccuracy,
humor and random thoughts."
Sweet Spot, 2013, oil on shaped canvas, 30 x 33 inches
About the Work
I have
lived and worked as a painter in New York City for over thirty years. My early
paintings were influenced by art, symbols and signage found on the streets of
New York. That early visual language emerged into a reductive formal language
with roots in modernist aesthetics and ideology.
My current
abstract oil paintings combine gesture and geometry. The scale and proportions
relating directly to my body proportions and my own arms reach. As the scale of
the paintings increases the basic qualities of color, line and shape became
amplified. The physical force of the painting now relates to both the personal
and surrounding architectural space.
The
consistent lines in my painting are made with a process similar to commercial
silk-screening. I cut and mask out areas with tape before applying successive
layers of oil paint. This controlled approach to mark making contrasts and
accentuates, the painterly effects of the canvas and the doodle like character
of the lines. The stylistic combination of the commercial, and the hand made,
recalls the teachings of the Bauhaus and the merging of art and design. My
quest for fictional abstract purity is derailed by the human elements of
inaccuracy, humor and random thoughts.
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White (c), 2012, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 inches
Half Moon, 2014, oil on canvas, 30 inches diameter
Reflecting on Cape Cod
I started
spending summers on the Cape with my family when I was around five years old.
We rented the same cottage in a large group of cottages every summer in West
Yarmouth. I grew up over those summers with many of the same families returning
year after year. My family later bought a house in West Yarmouth, and my
daughter has grown up swimming and playing on the very same streets and beaches
that I first experienced as a child.
I now live and work as an artist in New York City, but I still spend summers on Cape Cod and still think of returning to the Cape as "going home". I partially credit those idyllic childhood summers with my choice of becoming an artist. The flow of days created a sense of freedom and discovery that I later sought to recreate in my studio practice. The state of mind that comes from unscheduled time and play.
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White (a), 2012, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 inches
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White (d), 2012, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 inches
