Most of 2009 was spent with girls in pink dresses, brick structures, sacrifice to love, and a landscape of uncertainty. Themes of perceptual stability still occupy me and in this work I believe I succeeded in addressing that not only in symbolic forms but in visual phenomena as well. Illustrated illusions of a figure running through space, glancing in our direction as she continues forward, head down and occupied with her own thoughts.
"Running and Looking", watercolor and pencil on paper, 9.5"x12"
Optical instability contributes to an unease in this work. Small bits of paint creating an impression of a scene. The photo of the little girls I originally started working from contained within it the ambiguity of whether the girls were running toward or away from something. A grandness to the dark forest triggered a curiosity in me. I am often fascinated by wilderness and images of our relationship to it.
"Two Girls Running", oil on canvas, 25.5"x28.5"
"Stability", watercolor and pencil on paper, 12.5"x9.5"
"Anticipation" watercolor and pencil on paper, 11"x 14.5"
Layering of paint can bring with it a layering of meaning, My process of collecting photos and referencing their forms, or some visual effect, was pushed further this year as I worked on a composition from Van Eyck's "Adoration of the Lamb".
It began with a curiosity. What would I, a skeptic of religion, do with such an image of devotion? What is it about the order of this beautiful meadow that draws me in? How is the foreground united in such a way with the middleground that creates a tilted plane of disorientation? It reminds me of Lucian Freud's or Cezanne's tilted floor planes but unlike their dynamic compositions this one stays symmetrical. Symmetry and movement is something I continually find myself interested in. When both are present their is a cupped energy.
"Adoration", oil on canvas, 38"x23"
"Forgive Me", oil on canvas, 80"x48"
