Psychic Archive

Psychic Archive (2016) 18 x 18″ acrylic on wood panel

Architecture filtered through a prism of memory and science fiction, this painting conjures a technological framework, yet explores the depths of composition and structure, while still expanding beyond the boundaries of logic.

It’s always a voyage of discovery to work through a color palette and then narrow it down or choose to refine those choices until completion, there’s a certain sense of containment and poetic minimalism, integrated with an explosive and intriguing puzzle.

Dramatis Personae

Dramatis Personae (2016) 24 x 18″ acrylic on wood panel

Challenges abound, this piece I built up with multiple layers in a painterly expressionistic expansion that became really beautiful, and the imposition of geometry necessarily transformed the composition, yet it became something more, a literary metaphor, or as the title suggests, an exploration of subconscious facets of personality;

sometimes these pieces reveal the personalities concealed or integrated within our psyche, and as a painter you are not only an individual, you are also tuned in to a collective psychology, there is a theatrical quality to the drama of everyday life, and it comes alive through paintings like this one.

Seismic Splashdown

Seismic Splashdown (2016) 20 x 16″ acrylic on wood panel

Another involved architectural painting with compositional focus way off center, some labyrinthine constructivist central elements floating above an intricate, organic underpainting

I feel there is a strong dualistic poetry there, and the intersubjective transference characteristic of our current times and emergence into spring, chaotic world news, urban dynamics, so many powerful social forces of upheaval

Perhaps being immersed in journalism also plays a role, as Arts & Culture Editor for What Weekly, I’ve been meeting a dozen or more new artists and writers each month since last October, assigning, writing and photographing new developments in Baltimore theatre, literature, architecture, visual art and other areas, so coming off of a hiatus from painting after the Aquasphere series, I have a lot to express through these new paintings.

 

new exhibition at Joe Squared

Aquasphere:Evolution at Joe Squared, North Avenue, Baltimore

Today I installed this new exhibition at Joe Squared restaurant and bar (North Avenue, Baltimore, where I have been going since they opened ten years ago across the street from my old studio building, this show has been a long time in development and I am super excited about it.

Twenty-two paintings from three different series of these aquatic art works spanning the past year and a half, a lot of brand-new work exhibited here for the first time, and all for sale at prices from $100 to $300  …  see more posts below for details

More pix coming soon, please stop by and check it out, reception date to be announced …

 

Streets Of San Francisco

Streets Of San Francisco [2014] – 16 x 20″ – spraypaint on wood panel

Intersubjective transference combines image memory with patterned abstraction to yield a dream image of fish in flight, I can paint something I see only after painting it.

Democracy Now

Democracy Now [2014] – 20 x 30″ – spraypaint on wood panel

This intricate machinery underlying civilization demonstrates interconnectedness, granularity and the inherent conflict resulting from a wrench in the works, another street art-inspired howl from the denizens of the deep, even as they/we harness the frustration of containment and continue in pursuit of learning.

Salsa Night

Salsa Night [2014] – 18 x 24″ – spray paint on wood panel

I look for patterns of movement within the painted surface, to bring out the silhouettes of fish I can see there as if they were already swimming in that space, and use color to enhance those patterns and establish a sense of natural movement, in this process of composition is the wabi-sabi of technical inclinations and gestural intuition, and it makes me want to swim with the fish.

Off The Grid

Off The Grid [2014] – 20 x 30″ – spraypaint on wood panel

An intimate look at an imaginary aquatic world, fish drifting over the manufactured reef of industrial artifacts, their altered habitat for the foreseeable future, unnatural yet beautiful in its own disconcerting way.

Project Runway

Project Runway [2014] – 24 x 36″ – spraypaint on wood panel

Playing with scale, saturated colors and some street-art inspired techniques, I created this vision of the aquasphere where the fish camouflage themselves to blend in with the accumulation of industrial machinery discarded to meld with the coral reef, it is surrealistic yet plausible in today’s world.

Bermuda Triangle

Bermuda Triangle [2014] – 24 x 36″ – spray paint on wood panel

Here is a large intense piece completed in late 2014, recently included in my solo exhibition Aquasphere: Immersion at the Waldorf School of Baltimore.

A dark environment, visually and metaphorically, these creatures are lost and encapsulated in the turmoil resulting from centuries of assault by human industry, yet there is still a beautiful optimism and clarity in the undersea world.

I can almost feel the indifference of nature, the fish will adapt to any environmental invasion no matter how bizarre, they will evolve, mutate and thrive without passing value judgements, but we know there are alternatives, conservation efforts no matter how inadequate will continue to grow in order to try and mitigate the damage.

Meanwhile the fish keep swimming through their altered state, bright colors and high contrast provide connotations of radioactivity and electromagnetic fields, an underwater urban environment neutralized by rising sea levels, giant fish thriving in the post-apocalyptic Atlantis that represents one possible future.