My images often spring from a process of automatic drawing, much in the way a writer would jot down thoughts, expressions, random overheard snippets of language that may one day turn into dialog; I draw impressions, fleeting images, briefly imagined figures, or deeply imbedded figures that have lingered long in the depths of my imagination. I dwell on the fantastic, as in “something nature never created”. I am intrigued by pareidolia, the finding of images out of seemingly random visual phenomena. An example might be the image of faces on Mars, or a face peering out of the whorl of a dead tree stump. These phenomena of the irrational or the paradoxical often erupt into the seemingly normal and banal world to create a jarring juxtaposition of the alien with the mundane; presenting themselves in a numinous supernatural or mystical way. The juxtaposition of these impressions to make the incompatible artificially compatible; creating a synthesis of the uneasy, strange, or alien is what inspires my imagery. The mixing of incongruous picture elements, reassembled to invent novel forms; the fascination with otherness, in antagonism to a presumption of usualness, interests me.

Pre-Columbian and Pacific tribal art has also been an inspiration to me and an influence to my art, I am captivated by the direct primal appeal to the spirit world embodied in the image. Something was requested through the image, and then received, or not received; either way, the image had done its work. Also, the outsider artist, whose means to communicate may not be available or forthcoming in the usual ways that we have come to expect, can often create fancifully and imaginatively, unencumbered by societal expectations. I want to look at the world in that way.

The reinterpretation of the classic artist and model themes, with a slight nod to the ironic, has been done by Pablo Picasso, Jose Luis Cuevas, and Georg Grosz, among others.  I am no less intrigued than they. The absorbed artist, engaged in the ostensibly studious task of observing and drawing the human form, supposedly detached; is he just a student, or a rumpled voyeur?

 

Uniting of dissimilar painting styles like expressionism or classicism, perhaps using fauve colors in a classically inspired style has been one of the ways that I like to paint. I like to play with distortion; as in elongation, compression, or size enlargement and miniaturization, to evoke an uneasiness or a sense of surprise or wonder.

For a long time I have been fascinated and challenged with the myriad graphic approaches to painting, i.e. the use of line with color to make painting more like drawing and conversely, to make drawing more like painting. In that spirit of exploration I have been attracted to the use of some archaic media. I like to use bird quills and bamboo pens with ink. I also use metal point stylus made of silver, lead and tin instead of graphite. Most of the time, I paint on heavy watercolor paper or gessoed panels with tempera. Tempera is any type of glue like binder mixed with color pigments and water. The three I use are egg yolks, casein and gum arabic. In this age of digital everything, I am aware that my explorations are anachronistic, but I continue to be intrigued by the puzzles and problems of defining space and volume with color and line.

Lastly, I seek to imbue into my pictures a narrative previously unseen or unintended, growing organically from the viewers own imagination.

Selected Exhibitions and Publications