IMAGES FROM THE EDGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Fundamentally and ultimately, I am concerned with the nature of color fields and color notations - their weight, size, placement and association

Although obviously influenced by observations based on the natural environment, my concern is in getting beyond the immediate visual associations and observations. Rather than creating a literal transcription of the world, the paintings are “about” observations of the environment - not “of” it in the literal sense.

Drawn and abstracted from observation of the environment, the works are comprised of fields of color glazes that are punctuated by marks or notations. The end product is simply the combination of the color field and the notational elements, not a literal translation or depiction.

This is a visual language of intuition and spontaneous color notations intended to become images that sit on the edge of consciousness. As such, they do not reveal themselves immediately, but require active participation on the part of the observer. Visual realism is not the objective, a camera could do a far better job. Rather, the paintings are about colors and marks to be perceived by the viewer – either consciously or subconsciously. Clues may be provided by references to a horizon line and, perhaps, some literal visual references or symbols. Beyond that, and with particular reference to the Palikū series, the paintings are simply veils of color transparency that create the physical object of the work independent of its original motivation.

My work is rendered in oils on canvas or small birch panels referred to as icon paintings. Although they vary in intensity of literal visual reference to observed phenomena, they are ultimately simply compositions of color blended in overlapping layers of opaque and transparent glazes as well as spontaneous marks or notations.