Artist Statement

“A painting does not have to be understood to be enjoyed, it needs to be received”

- Matisse

 

My work is formal. It shelters and plays in that space between the literal and the abstract. There are obvious thematic schemes and attendant iconic engagements (Pianos, Cows, still life's...); if one element collectively might encompass the ‘selection’...it would simply be ‘Landscape' or as I have taken to referring to many of them,'’LANDSCRAPES.' 

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While having studied formally and invested in the tradition of Scottish Expressionists, I have personally never accepted to settle nor repeat the mechanical obedience of the ‘illusion’ in paint … despite the magic and majesty that true masters of realism have gifted us. 

 

In essence my works are painterly attempts to revisit and recontextualize well known icons, images and experiences. I strive to be interpretive and immediate with the paint and brushwork; deliberately utilizing the power of summary and unpredictability (the element of accident) and exploit visual surprises. 

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The ‘Landscrapes’ are an attempt at personal signature ‘handwriting’ of moments and glimpses drawn from experiences in editorialized flashes of the object

(piano /typewriter or animal horse, moose, fish...)

as we take on our visual journeys. 

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The paintings are clearly modernist; as much as I freely enjoy and support many post-modern, contemporary/conceptual artists (Antoni Tapies, Cy Twombly, Pat Steir, Joan Mitchell, Kara Walker, etc). I personally make no attempt to engage a wider array of materials or processes; paint and canvas. They are simple paintings. I ask that the viewer suspend their own viewpoint and preferences in the temporary acceptance of someone else’s. 

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“We can write about art, we can fight about art, but at the end of the day if we are not communicating, we have failed.”

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