| |
|
| |
2012 |
| |
In 2008, I hit a creative wall. Painting was a harsh cynic during my early journey for formulaic certainty. I was painting representational landscapes and starting to dabble with the figure. There was a growing frustration that was incomprehensible. It went beyond feeling like I was wearing the wrong size clothing; it felt like I was bathing in a hair-shirt.
My epiphany came when I realized I didn't have the wrong answer, I was asking the wrong question. Rather than the same question “How can I better represent the water against a cliffs edge”; I asked instead, “How can I describe the experience of standing on a cliff's edge and looking out over a body of water?” The former question leaving me uninspired regarding a choice of Burnt Sienna or Raw Sienna, the latter getting me wildly inquisitive by the possibilities of depicting feelings of vertigo and self consciousness and expanse.
Thereafter, the mission of my work grew from my interest to more accurately express the human experience and dynamic. It has required me to search for a language that goes beyond a strictly representational manner of painting that, for me, limited me to a strict physical world.
My focus is on two bodies of work that explore this mission. I've struggled with a moniker to best describe the first. These paintings are narrative in nature, describing my thoughts and emotions through representation, abstraction, symbolism, color, and expressive marks.
I cannot plan these paintings - they become boorish and stiff. Instead, my paintings are a visual language evolving from an intense personal journey. I start with a general concept I want to discuss; sometimes, just expressive impulses. I can't articulate how I feel, I need to find it, searching and digging by working with the materials. My impulses translate into mark making - scribbles, soft blobs, harsh gunks of material goo. It is playtime for my subconscious. The better paintings are those that suspend my consciousness numerous sessions. A resonating moment – a facial expression, a gesture, emerges from the chaos launching the conscious construction of the piece. Analytical and technical questions interplay interjecting fuller meaning to develop the marks into imagery. The results are emotional, psychological, and social concepts realized as I truly see and feel them.
The second body of work is portraiture where I experienced the same frustration as I did with landscapes. There is an insight the artist gains through proximity with the sitter that goes beyond a physical representation. Neglecting this insight would be like leaving out the nose. Eventually I abandoned a traditional approach and launched an exploration of developing from the inside out. Through mark making, the early session with the sitter look “hyper” - extreme, violent resemblances that would push the boundaries of any caricature. I depart from the sitter, working from memory. The final works describe both the individual sitter and something more broadly, an archetype, that the random viewer can recognize as existing in someone they know or possibly themselves. |
| |
|
| |
|
 |
2004 |
| |
It has been almost two decades since I sat in a classroom staring at my first canvas. This turned out to be my only class in this discipline, and I left college to start a corporate career. Each day for 15 years, I thought about painting. In no deliberate way, my stream of consciousness would arrive back to it. I was not able to shake the desire. I could not stop my preoccupation. I traveled a long personal journey and eventually allowed my life as a painter to begin.
In 2001, I visited Italy and spent ten days painting at the Todi School of Art. Since this was one of the first times painting since college and a huge departure from my hectic corporate day, I was uncertain how wise an investment of time and money I was making. As far as the actual painting was concerned, those initial images were far from a visual triumph. The more significant milestone, the connection to the painting experience, returned and returned with extreme clarity.
Back home in Philadelphia, I sought out classrooms where I could continue to learn. I attended some of the city’s outstanding schools for continuing art education, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art (PAFA) and the Fleischer Art Memorial.
My educational experiences have been especially rewarding under the guidance of teachers who promoted a more exploratory, less technical atmosphere. I was fortunate to have teachers who allowed me to find my own path - Piero Cancellario at the Todi School and Margaretta Gilboy at PAFA. Their unfounded certainty in the success of my trial gave me courage while staring down a white canvas. Whether their heads shook up and down or sideways at my approach, I left their classrooms believing in their most important advice – “Keep painting!”.
In the early part of 2004, my work began to gain some recognition and reinforcement from outside my immediate circle. The connection I had to painting and the subject matter was shared by others. By mid 2004, I made the decision to make painting a more integral part of my life.
In my case, it has ‘taken a village’ to nurture my aspirations. My gratitude extends to Bernie Fernandez, my earliest inspiration, the individual who guided my child’s hands from coloring in the lines to creating dimension and form. Nellie Stone, I think of her gift often. And finally, the friends and family who spent countless hours supporting my dream.
Please enjoy the beginning works of an emerging artist. Stay tuned. |
| |
|
| |
 |
|
|
