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.
There’s a collaborative quality to the schizophrenia of creativity, and the synthesis of elements, political, visual, social or whatever stripe, as powerful as the fundamental experience of attachment and loss is the experience of synthesis, bringing together disparate forces into some kind of new and innovative arrangement that satisfies and imperative.
In this case, I feel an expression of the flow of social and political commentary, local and national, an immersion in journalism and advocacy, yet within the collaborative community there is still an electrifying intensity and tension, this piece conveys some of those implications while also achieving synthesis, however fleeting, momentarily getting us immersed in the flow.
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.
This has been an intense experience, a very involved piece of work synthesizing the energy and pressure of a variety of personal and professional challenges
From a technical point of view, this painting includes the same kind of compositional intrigue that is becoming characteristic of this series, perhaps even more dramatic in the juxtaposition of the geometric and organic layers and the powerful color contrasts
Yet it still feels liberating and forward-looking, maybe coming from a darker corner while finding yet another path to emergence.
The title of this piece comes from an Italian phrase, “Nella boca dell’ lupo” (this is a poetic corruption that I prefer to the exact translation)
“In the mouth of the wolf” is a saying familiar to theatre performers and musicians, it’s roughly equivalent to when people say “break a leg!” to wish someone success on stage
And it speaks to the intensity of pressure we all feel in trying to “perform” some kind of emergent transformation
So I see this piece as a very concentrated, focused and intentional yet spontaneous act of creation, one of the most successful expressions of this concept and one that visually conveys the intensity of trying to be centered and grounded while simultaneously liberating oneself to fly to freedom.
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.
In this process I’ve been working on 21 paintings over the past two months, I narrowed it down and set ten of them aside to focus on completing new pieces for an upcoming exhibition here at
Motor House
This piece is typical of this series in that it consists of about seven or eight layers of paint on wood panel, I’ve worked in square format geometric abstractions for 18 years so I always enjoy pushing the boundaries in terms of color, composition and contrast as well as subtle painterly surface texture
Compositionally this piece kind of throws down the gauntlet, pushing the eye down to the lower right corner even as there are a few points of escape to keep our point of view circulating into the “background” and revolving through echoes and passages of dark shadows, a powerful tension of attachment and loss.
